Acquaintance: I can understand learning about tangible things like biology and film, but what do you learn in a literature class? As far as I can tell, all you do is read about made-up stuff that never happened in real life and then talk about your feelings about it.
Your question is much like one I've gotten several times this semester now - strangely enough, from English majors as often as not: "All we talk about in this class is [insert: death, sex, God, love!] Our [insert: curriculum, professor] is a little obsessive, don't you think?" Honestly I think now. What else do you think worth talking about? What else is there? What makes Biology a worthwhile major, or Film? Isn't it the ideas behind them - the very ideas we think about in Lit classes? Without a purpose, Biology is just a lot of random chemical reactions between molecules in motion, with some innate rhythm but no inherent reason. Without a subject, Film is just a manipulation of light waves, with some aesthetic merit but no particular meaning. In fact, it doesn't really have any aesthetic meaning either, unless by aesthetic meaning you mean that it sparks chemical responses in a particular portion of our brains.
If you don't mind getting philosophical, the things you're calling "real" or "tangible" are mere "particulars" and the ideas we get from reading and thinking about literature are the "universals" that give the particulars meaning. As Schaeffer explains in "How Should We Then Live," when we attempt to function solely on the basis of particulars, we quickly discover there isn't much point. When we divorce particulars from universals, the particulars lose their meaning. If you don't mind my referring to "made-up stuff that never happened in real life," you're making the same mistake Ivan Ilych makes in Tolstoy's short novel "The Death of Ivan Ilych." He lives on the particulars of life - parties, promotions, salaries, sicknesses - refusing to think seriously about either life or death. Yet which is more real: conscience or fashion? Which is more real: love or lampshades? In willfully forgetting the serious questions of life and death, Ivan Ilych forfeits the ability to cope with either when they come crashing into his self-made world. That's one mistake I don't want to make; and one thing I can do to avoid it is study literature.
We who study literature are acting on instincts of self-preservation. We panic before the onslaught described in DeLillo's "White Noise," the onslaught of sounds, seductions, images, impressions, and we flee to literature for a little escape. however, we are interested not only in emotional self-preservation but in moral and intellectual self-preservation as well. The disconnected bits of information bombarding us represent countless contradictory, temporary fads. We want a little oxygen, a little a little foothold: something to breathe, somewhere to stand. We don't usually demand to know all the answers right away; but we would like to get a feel for what the real questions are. Literature, which deals with universal issues rather than the hot topics of popular culture, helps us refocus. When we read, we aren't necessarily looking for final satisfaction, but we are looking for a little permanence, a little substance. And in literature, we often find that.
We who study literature are something like Gatsby in Fitzgerald's novel "The Great Gatsby." We aren't content with the tangibles of life: the money the mansions - or even with the less tangible particulars: the popularity, the power. Whether muddling through Lit classes or loitering in public libraries or hiding out under our beds, we read literature to keep alive in ourselves the desire we share with Gatsby: the desire for something more. We read to sustain our great hope that though what we want eludes us in an empty confusion of flashing lights and hollow laughter, one day we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther . . . and one fine morning discover that our hope was not in vain. "If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world," C. S. Lewis suggested. Reading literature keeps us from contenting ourselves with dissatisfaction of what we find in this world. Literature feeds us ideas that keep our homeless desires and inordinate hopes alive.
We who study literature are somewhat more aware of the greatness of everything, so we are acutely more aware of our inability to express it all. Naturally, we seek out others' words to say the things we can't. As Langston Hughes observed in his boyhood, in books, "if people suffered, they suffered in beautiful language, not in monosyllables as we did in Kansas." With our without literature, we experience the suffering and the joy of life, but without literature, our suffering and joy lack form and dignity. Many of us have experienced the lostness and dread of Alfred J. Prufrock; but only one of us has written "The Love Song." And it relieves the rest of us. Reading literature, we come to understand our own experiences better and get inspiration to express them with our own voices.
Those are a few of the reasons I study literature. There's a place for studying Biology and Film, too; I'm by no means immune to those fascinations. But they aren't enough by themselves. If you understand the internal workings of a planarian or a camera, you'll only ever be able to manipulate a planarian or a camera. But if you understand the ideas we deal with in our Lit classes, and understand how people in other ages have put those ideas to work, you'll be able to manipulate your whole world.
Your question is much like one I've gotten several times this semester now - strangely enough, from English majors as often as not: "All we talk about in this class is [insert: death, sex, God, love!] Our [insert: curriculum, professor] is a little obsessive, don't you think?" Honestly I think now. What else do you think worth talking about? What else is there? What makes Biology a worthwhile major, or Film? Isn't it the ideas behind them - the very ideas we think about in Lit classes? Without a purpose, Biology is just a lot of random chemical reactions between molecules in motion, with some innate rhythm but no inherent reason. Without a subject, Film is just a manipulation of light waves, with some aesthetic merit but no particular meaning. In fact, it doesn't really have any aesthetic meaning either, unless by aesthetic meaning you mean that it sparks chemical responses in a particular portion of our brains.
If you don't mind getting philosophical, the things you're calling "real" or "tangible" are mere "particulars" and the ideas we get from reading and thinking about literature are the "universals" that give the particulars meaning. As Schaeffer explains in "How Should We Then Live," when we attempt to function solely on the basis of particulars, we quickly discover there isn't much point. When we divorce particulars from universals, the particulars lose their meaning. If you don't mind my referring to "made-up stuff that never happened in real life," you're making the same mistake Ivan Ilych makes in Tolstoy's short novel "The Death of Ivan Ilych." He lives on the particulars of life - parties, promotions, salaries, sicknesses - refusing to think seriously about either life or death. Yet which is more real: conscience or fashion? Which is more real: love or lampshades? In willfully forgetting the serious questions of life and death, Ivan Ilych forfeits the ability to cope with either when they come crashing into his self-made world. That's one mistake I don't want to make; and one thing I can do to avoid it is study literature.
We who study literature are acting on instincts of self-preservation. We panic before the onslaught described in DeLillo's "White Noise," the onslaught of sounds, seductions, images, impressions, and we flee to literature for a little escape. however, we are interested not only in emotional self-preservation but in moral and intellectual self-preservation as well. The disconnected bits of information bombarding us represent countless contradictory, temporary fads. We want a little oxygen, a little a little foothold: something to breathe, somewhere to stand. We don't usually demand to know all the answers right away; but we would like to get a feel for what the real questions are. Literature, which deals with universal issues rather than the hot topics of popular culture, helps us refocus. When we read, we aren't necessarily looking for final satisfaction, but we are looking for a little permanence, a little substance. And in literature, we often find that.
We who study literature are something like Gatsby in Fitzgerald's novel "The Great Gatsby." We aren't content with the tangibles of life: the money the mansions - or even with the less tangible particulars: the popularity, the power. Whether muddling through Lit classes or loitering in public libraries or hiding out under our beds, we read literature to keep alive in ourselves the desire we share with Gatsby: the desire for something more. We read to sustain our great hope that though what we want eludes us in an empty confusion of flashing lights and hollow laughter, one day we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther . . . and one fine morning discover that our hope was not in vain. "If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world," C. S. Lewis suggested. Reading literature keeps us from contenting ourselves with dissatisfaction of what we find in this world. Literature feeds us ideas that keep our homeless desires and inordinate hopes alive.
We who study literature are somewhat more aware of the greatness of everything, so we are acutely more aware of our inability to express it all. Naturally, we seek out others' words to say the things we can't. As Langston Hughes observed in his boyhood, in books, "if people suffered, they suffered in beautiful language, not in monosyllables as we did in Kansas." With our without literature, we experience the suffering and the joy of life, but without literature, our suffering and joy lack form and dignity. Many of us have experienced the lostness and dread of Alfred J. Prufrock; but only one of us has written "The Love Song." And it relieves the rest of us. Reading literature, we come to understand our own experiences better and get inspiration to express them with our own voices.
Those are a few of the reasons I study literature. There's a place for studying Biology and Film, too; I'm by no means immune to those fascinations. But they aren't enough by themselves. If you understand the internal workings of a planarian or a camera, you'll only ever be able to manipulate a planarian or a camera. But if you understand the ideas we deal with in our Lit classes, and understand how people in other ages have put those ideas to work, you'll be able to manipulate your whole world.
