A problem threatens our literary world.
For this paper it seems unimportant to know when it emerged, but
merely the fact it exists and most savagely rips into the soul of our literary
world. Many people believe in this threat, and a few even rant in annoyance on
its presence; yet none, or at least very few, actually act out against the
beast: so it rages on. In this hour the reasons rise for why those who worry
about the literary future should amputate the claws of this creature before it
rips another tear in our already fraying form of art.
For years the attitudes towards
literature have stealthily morphed form one point of view to another,
drastically different yet similar enough for people to accidently make the
switch. As an example we may use the case of horror: In its dawn, writers
such as Poe would frighten readers for the purpose of unveiling things dreadful
in a subject. However, readers—who became the next generation of
writers—focused more on his scaring than his reason for scaring. Next they
imitated the style of fright, finding it a unique feature, yet forgetting what
esteemed the device in the first place. So they morphed it into a genre,
similar to the happenings of romance, fantasy, westerns, science fiction, and
so on, sinking libraries from treasuries of expression to shelves cluttered
with genre fiction: fiction which strives for a certain genre-based persona: a
story for the genre rather than a genre for the story.
So what does the future hold? Every
movement since the start of Literature has pushed a new manner of expressing
ideas; but in the contemporary movement of genre fiction, each innovation only
pushes a new manner of writing genres. Sadly this only digs the art deeper into
the ground, year by year, “innovation” by “innovation,” to where meaningful
literature only appears every so often. Literature still moves as authors experiment
with new ideas, but since the goals have changed, so has our tendency to move
in a beneficial direction.
Although why does any of this matter?
Can readers not read for the mere delight? Literature influences the time
people spend. So would we not better ourselves from spending that time enjoying
the books as we delight to do, yet at the same time benefit from them? Would
not a person rather eat a delicious food which strengthens his health rather
than an equally delicious food which turns him sick? After all, literature did emerge as a way of breaking down
complex ideas and emotions in a fashion more approachable and engrossing than
speaking of them directly; but what value holds the approachability an
engrossment without the ideas? Without its valuable attributes, literature
encourages only to seek pleasure over knowledge, and such a thing hinders deep
thinking—it teaches us we work for pleasure, not for betterment. Societies
which value all knowledge and no pleasure produce rigorous people, drained of
joy; but societies which value all pleasure and no knowledge produce idle
people, wasting moments which they could instead use for good. Yet if society
pairs knowledge with pleasure as they may with literature, it produces a
heightened culture, its people both merry and philosophical.
A problem threatens our literary world.
Instead of continuing our restrictions and muddling of literary value, the time
arises for goals to change, and change begins with the people—for works of
literature mostly reflect the minds which wrote them. Ages ago in Greece and
Rome, the children studied literature joyously, eager to learn of its deep
nature, and such eagerness over great literature resulted in even more great
literature. How has that morphed into an often grumbled-over required course?
Perhaps instead of investing so much time assigning students to studying stacks
of great works, the teachers should instead first help the students learn of
literature as a whole: assist them in understanding its grand purpose, using
the works as examples of the concepts rather than the concepts as examples of
the works. Such an education impressions a deeper meaning into the students,
producing deeper readers and more expressive writers—only for them to
impression the next generation, and so on, each generation once again
progressing in the right direction so we may finally regain our ground and
restore the literary form.
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