Literature Reviews Are Usually Organized According to What?
For many folks, the word "literature" conjures up memories of high school English grade reading lists. While the Western literary canon is expanding to include, and drag, stories outside of what white, Western readers have dubbed "the classics," at that place are yet some works that crop up in every student'southward career, from Frankenstein and the Epic of Gilgamesh to Dearest and The Great Gatsby. Then, why is literature of import — and why exercise we study it?
Merriam-Webster defines literature as poetry or prose that has "excellence of class or expression and expressing ideas of permanent or universal interest." While it may sound trite to say, the earth's greatest works of literature have changed minds, sparked rebellions, and helped to modify the form of history. While it would be impossible to contain all of literature'southward contributions and multitudes here, we're going to take a await at some of the landmark moments in this art form'southward history.
Literature Transports Us To the Past
Like other recovered art objects, literature has the power to tell us about ancient civilizations. Not but tin nosotros understand their customs, values and lives, but we can get a improve thought of what their entertainment looked similar. The first-known examples of literature tin be traced back to ancient Mesopotamia. Around 3400 BCE, the Sumerians developed a organization of writing called cuneiform, which allowed scribes to record myths, hymns and poesy. Some of these earliest-known transcriptions include the "Kesh Temple Hymn" and the "Instructions of Shuruppak," both of which were written around 2500 BCE.
The Ballsy of Gilgamesh, a long-form Mesopotamian poem, was originally written effectually 2100 BCE. Even today, Gilgamesh is considered the first bang-up masterpiece of world literature. In fact, much of the Bible parallels this ancient work, furthering emphasizing just how universal and influential Gilgamesh was — and continues to be today.
In 375 BCE, Plato, the Athenian philosopher, authored The Republic, a dialogue betwixt Socrates and his young man Greek thinkers, which explores idea-provoking questions well-nigh justice, social club and the just homo. 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 independent inside verse and dramatic works — after all, performing plays was another great source of amusement. 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 showtime modernistic novel by 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 collection of 24 stories written in Eye English between 1387 and 1400. Picking up the prose torch around 1485, Thomas Malory published Le Morte d'Arthur, one of the first novels in the Western catechism. During the Renaissance, writers like Molière began satirizing everything from the church and regime to society at large, showing that written works had the propensity to shift the balance of power and make people rethink their globe views.
During the 16th century, too known as the Ming dynasty, the Chinese novel Journey to the W was published. Attributed to Wu Cheng'en, this satire- and apologue-filled piece of work is considered one of the Four Not bad Classical Novels of Chinese literature. Around the same fourth dimension, William Shakespeare was helping to lay the foundations of modern English language and craft the literary tropes and story formats nosotros still enjoy today. And, of course, in 1615 Miguel de Cervantes penned Don Quixote, a romantic, archetypal novel that's considered one of the well-nigh influential works of all time.
Literature Gives Folks a Voice and Platform — and Permit's Readers See Themselves Reflected
Over again, information technology's incommunicable to fully encapsulate the breadth of literary history here. Moreover, this article focuses on written works, simply information technology'due south important to notation 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 1, and, in many ways, express past the fashion educational institutions have shaped our understanding of what works are important.
James Simpson, head of Harvard University'due south English Department, spoke about these limitations directly in an open alphabetic character to the Wall Street Periodical entitled "Great Literature Magnifies Repressed Voices, Ever." For Simpson, the ages-old Western literary canon, which highlights the literary contributions of white (and oftentimes straight) men, "beguile[s] the fundamental function of literature and other fine art forms, which is to hear the voices repressed by official forms of a given culture."
Of class, the literary canon has been refreshed in past, which proves that it's important to reshape and rethink the stories we deem essential. For example, at the time of its writing Nathaniel Hawthorne'due south The Red Letter was kind of the scandalous (easily consumable) HBO-like story of the twenty-four hour period. But, now, it'due south largely considered a probing, essential work — not just amusement. 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. Still, these continue to be must-read works due to the style they exemplify craft and storytelling elements. (At to the lowest degree in function.)
More modern literature besides ushered in the more than formal notion of literary sub-genres, ranging from science fiction — a genre created past Frankenstein author Mary Shelley — to romance, fantasy, and realism. By retracing certain tropes, conventions and character types, genre helps us sympathise the way item stories are shaped past categorizing them.
Without a doubt, literature helps the states uncover — exist 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 nosotros don't have the space to proper noun!), capture all of these facets. In short, past climbing into the minds of other characters and worlds — in stepping exterior of ourselves — literature allows us to understand universal truths; change minds; stir empathy; and limited 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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