Life and Literature
life & literature
The connection between literature and life is intimate and vital. Literature is the expression of individual and social life and thought through language. While the subject matter and treatment must be such as are of general human interest, the expression must be emotive; the form must give aesthetic pleasure and satisfaction.
Literature must not be confounded with sociology, philosophy, religion or psychology, though these give substance and depth to literature. It may or may not impart knowledge or religious or moral instruction directly. Its theme may be social problem or political revolution or religious movement; but it may, with equal justification, be an individuals passion, problem or fantasy. But the object is not so much to teach as to delight.
Books are literature when they bring us into some relation with real life. Herein lies its power and universal appeal. While there are some who take perfection of form to be the chief pre-occupation of literature, many more are inclined to the view that the primary value of literature is its human significance. Literature must be woven out of the stuff of life as its mirror. Its value depends on the depth and breadth of the life that it paints.
It was used to be believed at one time that the deepest things in life are those that deal with what were called the eternal varieties of life. The ideas of God, for example, or of certain moral virtues, were supposed to be eternal. But experience and a wider knowledge of the changing conditions of social life have shaken mans faith in the unchangeableness of such concepts.
Ideas change with those condi tions, which are never static. Thus, peoples have different ideas of the Godhead. There are many who believe in a persona/ God; others worship an all-pervasive Presence in this Universe. The laws of morality, again, undergo changes from country to country and from age to age.
Hence, in modern times, our conception of the depth of literature is not related to this doctrine of eternal truths. We try rather to understand the forces behind these social changes. Therefore with regard to literature, our ideas of its value depends on the extent to which is has been able to express the changing conditions of social life. Great literature always grasps and reflects these truths of life that emerge triumphant out of the ruins of the past.
Literature is great because of its universality. It does not deal with the particular society of a particular