Impact Factor + Review of Education Pedagogy and Cultural Studies
For many folks, the discussion "literature" conjures up memories of high schoolhouse English form reading lists. While the Western literary canon is expanding to include, and elevate, stories outside of what white, Western readers have dubbed "the classics," there are still some works that ingather upward in every pupil'south career, from Frankenstein and the Epic of Gilgamesh to Dear and The Great Gatsby. So, why is literature important — and why practise we report it?
Merriam-Webster defines literature as verse or prose that has "excellence of course or expression and expressing ideas of permanent or universal interest." While it may sound trite to say, the world's greatest works of literature have changed minds, sparked rebellions, and helped to alter the course of history. While it would exist impossible to contain all of literature's contributions and multitudes hither, we're going to have a look at some of the landmark moments in this fine art form's history.
Literature Transports Us To the Past
Like other recovered fine art objects, literature has the power to tell the states about ancient civilizations. Non only can we empathize their customs, values and lives, but we tin can get a better idea of what their amusement looked like. The offset-known examples of literature tin can be traced back to ancient Mesopotamia. Around 3400 BCE, the Sumerians developed a arrangement of writing called cuneiform, which allowed scribes to record myths, hymns and poetry. Some of these earliest-known transcriptions include the "Kesh Temple Hymn" and the "Instructions of Shuruppak," both of which were written around 2500 BCE.
The Epic of Gilgamesh, a long-form Mesopotamian poem, was originally written effectually 2100 BCE. Even today, Gilgamesh is considered the first great masterpiece of globe literature. In fact, much of the Bible parallels this aboriginal piece of work, furthering emphasizing just how universal and influential Gilgamesh was — and continues to exist today.
In 375 BCE, Plato, the Athenian philosopher, authored The Commonwealth, a dialogue betwixt Socrates and his swain Greek thinkers, which explores idea-provoking questions near justice, order and the only man. And, around the 8th century BCE, the landmark epics attributed to the poet Homer, The Odyssey and The Iliad, helped preserve Greek mythology and history in writing.
Literature Helps Us Reevaluate Our Worlds
Early, literature was contained within poetry and dramatic works — after all, performing plays was some other great source of entertainment. During the 11th century, or the Heian period, Japanese noblewoman and lady-in-waiting Murasaki Shikibu penned The Tale of Genji, which is considered the first modern novel by many scholars.
Years later, in Europe, things started to shift in a meaningful way in the wake of Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, a collection of 24 stories written in Middle English between 1387 and 1400. Picking up the prose torch around 1485, Thomas Malory published Le Morte d'Arthur, ane of the commencement novels in the Western canon. During the Renaissance, writers similar Molière began satirizing everything from the church and government to society at big, showing that written works had the propensity to shift the balance of power and brand people rethink their world views.
During the 16th century, likewise known equally the Ming dynasty, the Chinese novel Journeying to the West was published. Attributed to Wu Cheng'en, this satire- and allegory-filled work is considered i of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature. Around the same fourth dimension, William Shakespeare was helping to lay the foundations of mod English language and craft the literary tropes and story formats nosotros still enjoy today. And, of class, in 1615 Miguel de Cervantes penned Don Quixote, a romantic, archetypal novel that'due south considered one of the most influential works of all time.
Literature Gives Folks a Vocalism and Platform — and Let's Readers See Themselves Reflected
Again, it's incommunicable to fully encapsulate the breadth of literary history hither. Moreover, this article focuses on written works, but it's important to annotation that many cultures and groups of people record stories through imagery instead — or pass their stories downwardly in oral traditions. All of this to say, our view of literature is a narrow 1, and, in many ways, limited by the way educational institutions accept shaped our agreement of what works are important.
James Simpson, head of Harvard University's English language Department, spoke about these limitations directly in an open letter to the Wall Street Journal entitled "Great Literature Magnifies Repressed Voices, Always." For Simpson, the ages-former Western literary canon, which highlights the literary contributions of white (and oftentimes straight) men, "beguile[s] the fundamental role of literature and other art forms, which is to hear the voices repressed past official forms of a given civilization."
Of class, the literary canon has been refreshed in past, which proves that it'southward important to reshape and rethink the stories we deem essential. For instance, at the time of its writing Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter was kind of the scandalous (easily consumable) HBO-like story of the day. But, now, it's largely considered a probing, essential work — not just entertainment. In the wake of World War I, authors like Virginia Woolf and F. Scott Fitzgerald penned novels, like Mrs. Dalloway and The Not bad Gatsby respectively, that captured their disillusionment first and foremost. Nonetheless, these go along to be must-read works due to the way they exemplify arts and crafts and storytelling elements. (At least in role.)
More mod literature also ushered in the more formal notion of literary sub-genres, ranging from science fiction — a genre created past Frankenstein writer Mary Shelley — to romance, fantasy, and realism. By retracing certain tropes, conventions and character types, genre helps us understand the mode detail stories are shaped by categorizing them.
Without a doubt, literature helps the states uncover — be it an uncovering of the past, a present cocky, or a possible future. The virtually distinguished literary greats, similar Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Margaret Atwood, James Baldwin, Kazuo Ishiguro, Chinua Achebe, Jhumpa Lahiri, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Zadie Smith, and Maggie Nelson (and many, many more than folks we don't have the space to name!), capture all of these facets. In short, by climbing into the minds of other characters and worlds — in stepping exterior of ourselves — literature allows united states of america to sympathize universal truths; change minds; stir empathy; and express our identities and values in lasting, far-reaching ways.
Source: https://www.reference.com/world-view/importance-literature-society-1a66a3cd21a90dd8?utm_content=params%3Ao%3D740005%26ad%3DdirN%26qo%3DserpIndex