Importance of literature

By | March 13, 2018

Literature and its significance

Literature is an art form. It can be in the form of a poem, a prose, a story, a novel or a drama. It is the platform for an individual to express his thoughts or ideas through language. The written form of literature is as old as our civilization. In the history, writers used literature as a medium of communication to share their ideologies and opinions with the people.

importance of literature

We have a large number of renowned authors among which include William Shakespeare, William Wordsworth, Robert Frost, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen and so on. Literature is not all about creating an imaginary realm with words. It gives emphasis on all topics between life and death. It could be about a catastrophe, fortune, war, relationships, technology, politics or anything and everything that has happened or might happen in a society.

For an Empathetic Society

Literature is an inevitable medium to carve out an empathetic society. Through a written work or theatre art or drama, the society gets to witness the mishaps that have happened in the past to any society or a group of people. This enables them to understand the emotions felt by the character played in the work as if they themselves were a part of it. The difference between good and evil easily reach the audience or the readers through literature.

To Have a Better Understanding of Our History

We would have never learned about our predecessors if we did not have access to the ancient literary works. It has given us a wide knowledge about all the deeds that our ancestors have performed and experienced in their lives. Live our entire life striving to attain success and not know about our history definitely would have been a shame. We have only the literary works to thank for all the information provided to us.

To Know Our World & Society Better

Other than about you and your family, do you have any idea about even the lives of your neighbors? Even if not entirely about your neighbors, there are works created by great authors about both the good and bad things happening in our society. It could be about anything prevalent in our current world. Political satires, religious customs, and rituals, technological advancement, etc., are some of them. The right use of language encourages a person to work for or against such ideologies.

To Enhance Our Thinking Ability

Literary works, may it be an oral or a written work, often help to extend our thinking abilities. This is the main reason for which children are given storybooks to read. The plot and the pictures shown in the book help to develop the curiosity within them and try to think beyond what is written in the book. This enhances their ability to solve complex problems and extend their imaginations and ideas to a wider realm.

To Have a Deeper Knowledge Of Our Culture

There are a number of authors with the culture of a society as their main domain. To know more about our culture and the reason for practicing various rituals, literature helps us to a great extent. If there were no written evidence of our age-old cultures and beliefs, we would have had to blindly follow others who boast about their wide knowledge without any evidence.

To Have Better Writing Skills

Reading is the only option for you to improve your writing skills if you have the desire to be a writer. Through reading, you get to visualize the different styles of writing used by various writers. It helps you to think about how a literary piece of work should be written without ruining its authenticity.

Literature is thus an important link in maintaining empathy and harmony among human beings. It opens before us the door to an entirely different territory which didn’t even seem to exist before. Though it is physically impossible for us to live someone else’s life, literature helps us to develop our own perspective about the life experiences faced by a stranger. We understand the hardships, achievements and the pain inflicted on a person as if we ourselves have been experiencing them.

Though there are many libraries with a large collection of literary works of famous authors, our generation fails to give them proper acknowledgment. Rather than spending our time in reading a book, we find more relaxation in playing video games. By neglecting the literature, we are actually ruining any possibility of having a better understanding of human relationships. To be precise, there is no other power in the world capable of uniting people other than the power of language or Literature.

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