Probably the most articulate essay on the power of literature. In one piece, you’ve succeeded in giving literature its surgical and psychological due. A well-named endeavour.
This is excellent. Almost thirty years ago, I chose to double major in Literature and History. I remember wondering at the time why anyone would bother studying one without the other.
All you're really saying in this article is that literature enables learning. Sure, literature enables us to name new psychological types, emotional states, and sensations. But other forms of learning do the same thing: neurology enables you to give the names polarized and depolarized to chemical states of a neuron. Literature inspires our imagination, but so can science or history. Nothing you say here describes the value of literature specifically. You're just basically saying that learning is good, which I already knew. You won't begin to formulate a theory of the value of literature until you describe the specific type of learning that literature enables and make a case why this type of learning is a valuable use of people's time when there are so many learning options available to us.
I'm not saying that you learn the same things from Shakespeare as you do from history, although it's possible that you do. I'm asking you to label and explain the specific type of learning that literature causes and why it's better than any other type of learning.
Well said, although I can’t say I agree on all of it. It’s good to see someone quoting Hazlitt.
tell me what you disagree with!
Probably the most articulate essay on the power of literature. In one piece, you’ve succeeded in giving literature its surgical and psychological due. A well-named endeavour.
well thank you!
The point about the power of naming reminds me of the rectification of names in Chinese thought https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rectification_of_names
Wonderful article - of course you owe “distant mirror” to Barbara Tuchman!
I’m also very fond of the idea of literature as inoculation in the best sense
This is excellent. Almost thirty years ago, I chose to double major in Literature and History. I remember wondering at the time why anyone would bother studying one without the other.
thanks!
This is just superb - and so good to see Coriolanus in there, what a play!
Oh thank you :) I’m reading it at the moment but so slowly because it is just wonderful on every page.
The mulberry!
I just love what you write about it, thank you.
surely one of his finest images, she's a first rate character all round
:)
This was great, thank you a lot to unpack but your views on literature are always insightful.
Glad you like it!
All you're really saying in this article is that literature enables learning. Sure, literature enables us to name new psychological types, emotional states, and sensations. But other forms of learning do the same thing: neurology enables you to give the names polarized and depolarized to chemical states of a neuron. Literature inspires our imagination, but so can science or history. Nothing you say here describes the value of literature specifically. You're just basically saying that learning is good, which I already knew. You won't begin to formulate a theory of the value of literature until you describe the specific type of learning that literature enables and make a case why this type of learning is a valuable use of people's time when there are so many learning options available to us.
If you think that the Shakespeare examples are the same as learning from history you didn’t understand what I was saying.
I'm not saying that you learn the same things from Shakespeare as you do from history, although it's possible that you do. I'm asking you to label and explain the specific type of learning that literature causes and why it's better than any other type of learning.
I didn’t say better!
So then why read literature?
You can’t get this mode of thought or this range/type of perspective any other way.
What mode of thought exactly? What perspective?