What Is the Study Where Participants Surveyed Then Surveyed Again Later
For many folks, the word "literature" conjures up memories of high schoolhouse English grade 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 up in every student'southward career, from Frankenstein and the Epic of Gilgamesh to Love and The Bully Gatsby. So, why is literature of import — and why exercise nosotros written report it?
Merriam-Webster defines literature as poetry or prose that has "excellence of form or expression and expressing ideas of permanent or universal interest." While it may sound trite to say, the world'south greatest works of literature have changed minds, sparked rebellions, and helped to change the course of history. While it would exist incommunicable to contain all of literature's contributions and multitudes here, we're going to accept a look at some of the landmark moments in this art form's history.
Literature Transports Us To the Past
Similar other recovered art objects, literature has the power to tell us about ancient civilizations. Not just can we understand their community, values and lives, just nosotros can become a better idea of what their amusement looked like. The first-known examples of literature can exist traced dorsum to ancient Mesopotamia. Effectually 3400 BCE, the Sumerians developed a system of writing called cuneiform, which allowed scribes to record myths, hymns and verse. Some of these primeval-known transcriptions include the "Kesh Temple Hymn" and the "Instructions of Shuruppak," both of which were written effectually 2500 BCE.
The Epic of Gilgamesh, a long-course Mesopotamian poem, was originally written effectually 2100 BCE. Fifty-fifty today, Gilgamesh is considered the first smashing masterpiece of world literature. In fact, much of the Bible parallels this aboriginal work, furthering emphasizing just how universal and influential Gilgamesh was — and continues to be today.
In 375 BCE, Plato, the Athenian philosopher, authored The Commonwealth, a dialogue betwixt Socrates and his fellow Greek thinkers, which explores thought-provoking questions almost justice, order and the just 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 on, literature was contained within poesy and dramatic works — after all, performing plays was another 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 outset modern novel past 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 drove of 24 stories written in Middle English language between 1387 and 1400. Picking upward the prose torch around 1485, Thomas Malory published Le Morte d'Arthur, one of the first novels in the Western canon. During the Renaissance, writers like Molière began satirizing everything from the church and government to society at large, showing that written works had the propensity to shift the residuum of power and make people rethink their globe views.
During the 16th century, also known every bit the Ming dynasty, the Chinese novel Journey to the Westward was published. Attributed to Wu Cheng'en, this satire- and allegory-filled work is considered i of the Four Bully Classical Novels of Chinese literature. Around the same time, William Shakespeare was helping to lay the foundations of modern English language and arts and crafts the literary tropes and story formats we still enjoy today. And, of course, in 1615 Miguel de Cervantes penned Don Quixote, a romantic, archetypal novel that'south considered one of the most influential works of all time.
Literature Gives Folks a Vocalization and Platform — and Let'due south Readers See Themselves Reflected
Again, it's impossible to fully encapsulate the breadth of literary history here. Moreover, this commodity focuses on written works, but information technology'southward important to note that many cultures and groups of people record stories through imagery instead — or pass their stories down in oral traditions. All of this to say, our view of literature is a narrow one, and, in many ways, limited by the way educational institutions have shaped our agreement of what works are of import.
James Simpson, caput of Harvard Academy'due south English Department, spoke about these limitations direct in an open letter of the alphabet to the Wall Street Journal entitled "Great Literature Magnifies Repressed Voices, Always." For Simpson, the ages-old Western literary canon, which highlights the literary contributions of white (and oft straight) men, "beguile[southward] the central office of literature and other art forms, which is to hear the voices repressed by official forms of a given civilisation."
Of course, the literary canon has been refreshed in past, which proves that it's important to reshape and rethink the stories we deem essential. For case, at the time of its writing Nathaniel Hawthorne'southward The Ruby-red Letter was kind of the scandalous (hands consumable) HBO-like story of the day. Simply, at present, it's largely considered a probing, essential work — non just entertainment. In the wake of World War I, authors like Virginia Woolf and F. Scott Fitzgerald penned novels, like Mrs. Dalloway and The Great Gatsby respectively, that captured their disillusionment first and foremost. However, these keep to be must-read works due to the style they exemplify arts and crafts and storytelling elements. (At least in part.)
More modern literature also ushered in the more than formal notion of literary sub-genres, ranging from scientific discipline fiction — a genre created by Frankenstein author Mary Shelley — to romance, fantasy, and realism. Past retracing certain tropes, conventions and character types, genre helps us understand the way particular stories are shaped by categorizing them.
Without a doubt, literature helps us uncover — be it an uncovering of the past, a nowadays self, or a possible future. The most distinguished literary greats, like 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 folks we don't have the space to proper noun!), capture all of these facets. In brusque, by climbing into the minds of other characters and worlds — in stepping outside of ourselves — literature allows us to understand 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
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