Literature today: important or impotent?

By Lionel WIJESIRI

This century has seen the development of literature specifically for children, catering to their wants and needs. Development in this area is continuing as educational theories evolve and specific requirements of individual learners are identified. Books in general have become more accessible, with a greater number of purchasing points, lower costs and greater emphasis in responding to reflect the contemporary recreational requirements of children raised in an era of electronic entertainment.

Joseph Hilaire Pierre Reno Belloc (1870-1953) was a French-born writer who became a naturalized British subject in 1902. He was one of the most prolific writers in England during the early twentieth century. Belloc wrote on myriad subjects, from warfare to poetry and many topics current in his day. He was closely associated with G. K. Chesterton and George Bernard Shaw. Belloc’s dying wish was unique. “When I am dead, I hope it is said, `His sins were scarlet, but his books were read.”

If Belloc is living today, he would be a disappointed man. Sadly, literature does not hold the power it used to have in his lifetime. I attribute two main reasons for this tragedy. First, television and movies have helped the decay of books with the high-tech creativity they deliver. It could also be partially blamed on inertia as most people today would rather be told a story than have to labour to read one.

This situation reminds me of a short story called “The shell and the book”. I have read somewhere during my schooldays. A child and a man were one day walking on the seashore when the child found a little shell and held it to his ear. Suddenly he heard sounds, strange, low, melodious sounds, as if the shell were remembering and repeating to itself the murmurs of its ocean home. The child’s face filled with wonder as he listened.

Here in the little shell, apparently, was a voice from another world, and he listened with delight to its mystery and music. Then the man spoke. He explained to the child that nothing strange has happened; the pearly curves of the shell simply caught a multitude of sounds too faint for human ears and filled the glimmering hollows with the murmur of innumerable echoes. It was not a new world, but only the unnoticed harmony of the old that had aroused the child’s wonder.

Such experience, or the pleasure the child relished, always awaits us when we begin the study of literature with its two aspects of simple enjoyment and appreciation.

Literature in education

Literature should be significant to the lives of young men and women because it has been such an important part of education and of civilisation for thousands of years. For example, if you look at Aristotle’s Politics, he says that nothing is more important than that young people learn to love what’s noble and to turn away from what’s base and what’s bad. The theme (that literature educates people to love what’s good and to aspire to nobility) is something that you just see over and over again in people who are talking about why it’s important to read literature. Sir Philip Sidney says essentially the same thing - in the Renaissance, he says,” literature, poetry, civilizes.” “The philosopher,” he adds, “can give you a bare and thorny argument, but the poet let’s you see virtue in her natural beauty.”

So, it’s important that people learn facts, it’s important that people learn principles, but human beings also have to decide what people they want to be. And literature gives people pictures and stories that attracts them to what’s really good and that inspire them to be heroes.

Educated people have studied literature for centuries. But, today we see it is studied much less. If you ask me why, I say so ,the answer is complicated. I think there was a kind of an intellectual revolution, beginning in the ‘60s and going through the ‘80s in the Educational Authorities, not only in Sri Lanka but throughout the world. They questioned the whole project of literary education, of literary study. “Why should we be teaching what’s called the canon - the traditional great works of literature? They are not job oriented. Besides, students consider them boring”. The accusation was made that canon, had been selected in order to prop up the privileges of learned men and women. I don’t think that charge was really ever proven - but on the basis of that assumption, the works that were taught began to be selected differently, and the purpose of literary education was changed.

I personally tend to think highly of the really old-fashioned, the Aristotelian, the Sir Philip Sidney sort of moral reasons for studying literature. But also, aesthetic and philosophy-based reasons for studying literature that said work of literature is great because it’s true to human experience.

Literature and young minds

Coming back again to the Aristotelian theory of targeting young minds, we may say that literature is important for the students as it is one of the language components. We may even include it in the study curriculum. But until the students see clearly the impact of literature on their future, the exercise will fail. The question is; how do we make them see the importance of it? And whose responsibility is it?

First of all, I think it is important that we explain to the students what literature is. We must tell them that literature is not only learning classic texts but it is a fine art and a part of our lives. We must explain to them how important literature is, by telling them how literature will help them in their lives.This is where the role of the Education Ministry comes into play. First of all, the Ministry itself should realize that literature is important in providing students with a sense of identity, insight into our diverse culture, historical contexts and our unique place in the world. Once convinced, the educational administrators must explore ways to improve the presence of literature in the school curriculum from the primary stages. They must have a plan to ensure every student studies more books, poems and plays.

Examples of how this could be achieved include: (a) regular guided reading, shared reading and independent reading of our books, (b) extended studies of novels and poetry, (c) close study, as a whole class or in groups, of novels and poetry, (d) detailed study of literature as a link across several key learning areas in a unit of work.

To ensure students in Years 7-8 and Years 9-10 have a solid experience of our literature, I suggest the syllabus be changed to make it compulsory for students to study at least two pieces of literature from different forms including fiction, nonfiction, poetry and drama.

Questions concerning the role literature in primary school children’s lives have been raised by parents.

Preparing our children for ethnically and culturally diverse experiences has become an important concern today. Every day the news media report misunderstandings, intolerance, or outright aggression between people from different races and cultures. Children can absorb these stereotypes or misinformation to spur on continuing intolerance. Thus it is important to teach children about other cultures at a very young age and this can be easily done through children’s’ literature. It is important that children have the ability to identify with, empathize, and critique real-life people or fictional characters to help better understand the world around them and their own identity.

This century has seen the development of literature specifically for children, catering to their wants and needs. Development in this area is continuing as educational theories evolve and specific requirements of individual learners are identified. Books in general have become more accessible, with a greater number of purchasing points, lower costs and greater emphasis in responding to reflect the contemporary recreational requirements of children raised in an era of electronic entertainment.

Literature and the new world

Let us guide the minds of our young men into the right track. Let us explain to them the reality of life that man’s journey in this world is not merely a sum of his material needs. He has a conscience that always asks for and is in need of upward movement. He yearns for fulfilment, he longs for love, he wishes to conquer, he craves to become immortal, he desires admiration and he needs emotional succour in times of distress and failure.

He also needs refinement in living. Such non material aspirations are taken care of by literature.

Literature introduces us to new worlds of experience. We enjoy the comedies and the tragedies of poems, stories, and plays; and we may even grow and evolve through our literary journey with books. Ultimately, we may discover meaning in literature by looking at what the author says and how he says it. In academic circles, this decoding of the text is often carried out through the use of literary theory, using a mythological, sociological, psychological, historical, or other approach.

Literature is important to us because it speaks to us, it is universal, and it affects us. Even when it is ugly, literature is beautiful. Let us convey this piece of advice to our young generation.