There is power in stories. All literature, be it essays, short stories, novels, and poems, plays a critical function in helping us comprehend our human condition and nature. Literature allows those who interact with it to have experiences that are not only personal but also communal. It gives us an understanding of human experiences; through which we explore the world. People study the world through the experiences of other humans, past and present, real or fictional. Literature puts real and fictional into context and allows us to be more conscious of the situations of people and characters, therefore broadening our perspectives on people and changing our attitudes toward different human beings.
Dante’s Inferno tells of his journey to the afterlife, to hell in particular. In hell, he meets, sees and talks to the souls of the dead. According to Dante Alighieri’s Inferno (13), hell is where the wicked of the earth get punished. The concerns of Dante are akin to those of any person in the present who is mindful and thoughtful: what does it mean to be human? How should human behavior be judged? Human behavior (our own and other people’s) has always been at the very core of our experiences as human beings in this world. Dante’s Inferno, therefore, invites us to keenly reflect on human behavior and the innumerable ways through which it may manifest. Alighieri also ponders about fate and its inevitability. “Do not be afraid; our fate cannot be taken from us; it is a gift” (9). In Machiavelli’s The Prince (19) he uses Cesare Borgia to show how fortune can bring about the downfall of human beings, although it is considered something that only uplifts. Literature provokes thought and lets us know how our experiences, are different, yet similar.
Literature involves the expression of human emotions that most people can not only recognize but also relate to despair, bewilderment, anxiety, joy, anger, fear, hate, love. Through literature, we are invited to explore these powerful feelings and think about their place in human life. By doing so, we can reflect on them and connect them not just to our encounters but also to the broader scheme of things. Keats (19) begins his Ode to Nightingale with the absurd claim that numbness causes pain. According to Kirsch (4), Goethe’s first novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther tells the story of an unhappy love affair, and upon more in-depth examination, it is seen to capture the “Sensibilities of a generation” The tough choices and decisions made by the characters in the face of death provide more insight into this. In Homer’s style Achilles finds himself in a problem with a tough choice to make- to either go to war, die and become immortalized, or stay at home, live long and not be remembered (Edwards 14).
Human beings aptitude to read and write well is without doubt one among the most valuable skills that they can have because it makes it much easier for people to communicate, participate and get involved with matters concerning society. If the acts of reading and writing have other purposes other than the immediate practical purposes, the written word is a tool for enlightenment, persuasion, emotional expression, or even for pure enjoyment. In the forms previously mentioned, the written word becomes a form of art and an excellent means to reach out to fellow humans through a uniquely personal experience between the writer and the reader. Through literature, we get to peer into the thoughts of some of the great minds in history and also associate with them. Literature remains to be an effective way of expanding oneself.
Reading about people and events of the past, be they fictional or real enables us to appreciate what the human race cannot just accomplish but also endure. Niccolo Machiavelli, in his famous letter to Francesco Vettori, reveals himself restless and unsettled man of acute sensibilities (17). After his exile, he ended up writing some of the most important works in political theory. Keats lost his brother to tuberculosis; in a bout of depression, Keats put all his energy into his work. Within one year, he ended up writing the most distinguished work of his generation, The Eve of Saint Agnes. In Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad, there are political battles, The Story of Yingying has unapproved love and unwanted pregnancies, and prejudice and A Thousand and One Nights has crime and gangs. By contextualizing issues, we learn that there is nothing new under the sun. Literature tells us what people were thinking and the circumstances that led to their predicaments. Contextualizing helps us cease the apocalyptic lamentations of how better things used to be.
We explore the world through literature because it teaches the universal human experience. It provides different lessons to different people because different people also find different meanings in different stories. Meanings can also change as people interact with the same piece of literature in various stages of their lives. The main similarity between Inferno, Iliad, and Odyssey, The Story of Yingying, The Thousand and One Nights and the works of Goethe are that they capture the universal human experience. Humans in both Iliad and Odyssey both have characteristics that are the source of the driving force behind their actions and the gods act in sync with them. The main characters in the story of Yingying offer two different moral perspectives to romantic relationships (Yuan 11). The thousand and one nights, on the other hand, has recurring themes of the oppressor and the oppressed (Mahdi 45). Regardless of what we learn from works of literature and the meanings we derive from them; literature gives the reader a connection to the rest of the world. The pages of the books as mentioned above are filled with moments, emotions and ideas people may have felt but not been able to express.
Literature allows us to capture the happenings of the present and the past, and interpret them. All the authors studied for this essay died long ago, yet we still look at their works for inspiration and knowledge. Machiavelli’s writing, for example, reveals a man who is brilliant and cunning, as he tries to find his way out of exile (17). It is part of the modern culture to document the collective thoughts and ideas of people to share them with the world. Therefore, to indeed become part of human society, it is crucial that we take part in the evolution and self-realization that is literature. The works of Keats are profound in poetic structure. The rhymes, stanzas, and lengths of lines work together to create a complex whole. His complicated structures reveal his meditations and curious thoughts on life, death, love, and poetry itself. Writing is as essential as reading because, without it, literature would not be as accessible as it currently is. It is for this reason that we should make proper use of the great chance to be part of and contribute to the society and communities in which we live through the written word. In the social sense, literature is a collective struggle to make the best out of our situations. It, therefore, serves to enrich our minds by providing ideas on how to make the world a better place through the beauty of its presence and the infinite possibilities it possesses.