Can Literature Change The World?

[holdencaulfield]

can literature change the world?if it can, what kind of literature should it be?

[Zippy]

It can definately change the world. You only have to look at the Bible, Koran, Torah, the Communist Manifesto and a dozen more books.

I don't think a work that's regarded as fiction could change the world. It may change an individual's perception of the world, but probably wouldn't have the power of books which are considered fact or from a devine source.

[beer good]

Depends on how much things have to change before you consider the world changed. A lot of fiction books - say, "1984", "The Satanic Verses", or even "The da Vinci Code" just off the top of my head - have obviously had an impact, whether from the thoughts they contained or from the controversies they caused. Whether that qualifies as CHANGING the world... how many indvidual's perceptions can be changed before the world at large has been changed?

If you really want to split hairs, literature is part of the world. Publish a new book and that world has been changed.

[mousemouse]

Oh yes. I think that books can change the world. Just think pornography. A lot of books have been banned on that account, but now we would consider that to be an onslaught on freedom of speech. I think that literary fiction is the best way to convey knowledge and viewpoints, because it is easier to remember facts if they are placed within a composition. Therefore books have changed the world. There is a lot of knowledge in literature, and this has definetly changed the world.

[genghiskhan]

Literature, including fiction, can certainly have a profound impact. Uncle Tom's Cabin would be an example. The Jungle. Cannery Row. There are probably a lot more examples.

[Virgil]

Uncle Tom's Cabin may have led to world change. I'm skeptical the others had any real impact. Literature and art in general in my opinion reflects the world, not change it. Even if Uncle Tom's Cabin had not been written, the United States was headed for Civil War over slavery. The Bible may be regarded as literature, but that is not its primary function.

[genghiskhan]

Uncle Tom's Cabin may have led to world change. I'm skeptical the others had any real impact. Literature and art in general in my opinion reflects the world, not change it.

But it's that reflection that sometimes leads to change.

Here (http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/sinclair.htm) is a snipet describing Upton Sinclair's The Jungle:


Among Sinclair's most famous books is THE JUNGLE (1906). It launched a government investigation of the meatpacking plants of Chicago, and changed the food laws of America.

[MikeK]

Charles Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby. This from the introduction to the Penguin Classics edition:

'The American writer and traveller Francis Parkman, Jr. author of "The Oregon Trail" (1849) visited Yorkshire in May 1843 and noted in his diary: "We passed the veritable Dotheboys Hall of Dickens, exactly answering to his description in appearance, in situation, in all things. It is deserted utterly - 'Nicholas Nickleby' ruined not this establishment alone, but many other schools with which the vicinity abounds,..."'

Later in the same introduction:

'In an 1852 lecture, Thackeray alludes to a letter to the newspapers from a Yorkshire schoolmaster complaining that "Mr. Dickens' ill-advised publication has passed like a whirlwind over the schools of the North."'

Dickens is of course credited with being the catalyst for much change, and due to many other books besides "Nicholas Nickleby".

[Cormeister37]

Is that a joke? Literature is one of the most important mediums for changing the world. For example, Uncle Tom's Cabin was said to have caused the Civil War, and with Joyce's Ulysses Dublin would not have the appeal it does. Furthermore, books like Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights spoke out for women when they could not, while The Jungle made the public aware of the disgusting state of factories during the Progressive era. These are just to name a few.

[Castorp]

I think an author who changes the life of a single reader changes the world. The great writer can create with his art a permanent change in another person's inner life. A short list of authors who changed my world: Hemingway (The Sun Also Rises); Thomas Mann (Death in Venice); Marcel Proust (In Search of Lost Time).

A great author is defined by personal experience.

[Anna G. Appel]

Obviously litrature is extremely important. When you say world changing it reminds me of "Farenhiet 451" by Ray Bradbury, with the book people(the people who live in their own colony memorizing books to preserve human history). I don't know if any of you have read it before but it is a book about books being life changing. It is not exactly a documentary either.

But yes great book...
Read it.

[Scheherazade]

Reading works of literature has changed my world by giving me new perspectives and enabling me to get to know other cultures and people. If everyone who has ever read literary works changes a little, then, surely, the world will have changed through literature as well.

[The Unnamable]

“You were silly like us; your gift survived it all:
The parish of rich women, physical decay,
Yourself. Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.
Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still,
For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives
In the valley of its making where executives
Would never want to tamper, flows on south
From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,
Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,
A way of happening, a mouth.”

In Memory of WB Yeats by WH Auden

[The Unnamable]

Something I posted elsewhere:

Some of those Serbs being questioned at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia reveal some interesting pre-war occupations – one was a specialist in Shakespeare at Sarajevo University (http://www.un.org/icty/transe39/040927IT.htm). When Allied troops moved into the Death Camps, they captured commandants who had enjoyed unwinding after a long, hard day at the furnaces by reading a little Goethe or listening to a little Mozart. If Literature somehow makes us better people, why doesn’t it? Theodor Adorno argued that, “writing poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric” and Walter Benjamin said, “There is no cultural document that is not at the same time a record of barbarism.”

[Castorp]

The change produced by the experience of reading literature is inner-directed and is not necessarily positive or negative. Think of Victor Frankl, who wrote about his experiences in a concentration camp and caused positive and negative reactions in fellow survivors and other readers.

[subterranean]

Davinci Code, I think, has brought significant changes, especially to Christianity and faith/religions in particular. The numerous works that come after it, either in a form or criticism or more in-depth analysis, show how this book really shake the Christian world. I see some works from Christian writers trying to put back on the "right" track, some of the great issues written in the book, the ones that might shake Christian faith.

[Union Jack]

Yes it can, for good or bad, but only if the audience is willing or ready to accept the change.

[holdencaulfield]

sorry people for digging up and old blog.
i think the world is too big to be changed by any single thing. a book like "the da vinci code" may rock the very pedestal on which modern christianity stands, but what effect does it have on the old man who has lost one leg and lost his sone and wife as a result of the american bombing of iraq? and we, who are lazily blogging away over cucumber sandwiches and muffins, and we who are hankered after by our kids as soon as a new harry potter book comes out, don't even know how many african kids are dying of hunger every hour. we wont even look at those poor children, exclusive report from africa on cnn, with their eyes fearfully potruding, their bodies reduced to a specimen for the analysis of infantile skeletal system.no, we won't even look at them out of pity and terror!
literature is not for changing the world.it's not for everybody.it's fro people who are not hungry.

[shao]

Literature can change the world by making first a difference in the lives of the individual reader.

[grace86]

I think literature can change the world. If it changes one person's perspective on life, than that person can influence the thoughts of another. There is a likelihood of a chain reaction. Think about the whole smile idea. If you smile at someone, you can make their day and they will smile at someone else. Just a thought.

[shao]

exactly what i thought grace :)
which is why i love it, even though I think I'm no better than an amateur at it.

[Inga]

Literature can change the world, because it can change the reader and the reader is part of the world.

[superunknown]

Uncle Tom's Cabin was said to have caused the Civil War
You're joking, right? The division between North and South was already apparent about 50 years before George Washington was even born. The Civil War had been coming for a looooooong time and was pretty much inevtiable, Uncle Tom or no Uncle Tom.

[sheffield]

Literature is powerless if we merely collect it and criticize it. So doing, we become stubborn, static, useless professors. If we allow the words and thoughts, the poetry and prose to possess our beings, moving us to create, liberate, and restore...

[Turk]

No it can't.

[ghideon]

Can literature change the world? Too vague and abstract?

It is very difficult to isolate one dynamic(literature,tv,sports,war) and then argue that change in the world happened because of it. There are psychological, historical,economic,cultural,political,aspects to almost all transformations and forces. I am not saying that you can never say X causes Y I am simply noting that in this case, X being literature and Y being the world...those are huge categories.

Here are some questions that may lead to more concrete, focused discussion?

1. When looking athistory have there been examples of texts,books,literature that have had a significant impact on the individuals nations,cultures,tribes,or particular groups such as Jews, women,African-Americans? Did the work only impact those who read it? Or did it effect larger communities as well? What kind of impact did the work have? What other phenomena were at play when the impact occured?

2. We can also look at works at fiction specifically and ask the same questions as above. In this case it may be helpful to consider if the fictional aspect of the book was important? That is, in what way does the genre fiction impact readers that may be considered as different then the way other types of books affect people.

3. and here are just more ideas for more questions

-How is "the novel" different in terms of how it affects the reader? and there are many questions that can be asked about the novel specifically in terms of how it has led to different dyanmics.

[Laindessiel]

Yes it can. And it will. Too much exposure to one subject may give the reader some openness and clarity and hopefully realization. But it can only be done if the readers have the ability to conquer themselves and dare to question their current beliefs. Willingness to adhere to stigmatized conventions will finally take the haze out of the mist.

[Turk]

No it can't.

[wildfleurcotage]

Hello, I am new on this site but want to reply. Yes, literature can change the world but the world must want change. Past president Jimmy Carter has written a couple of books that would have a positive impact on the world. I think hes a wonderful author & humanitarian w/ words that heal & change.

[Laindessiel]

Everything still depends on the people. Everything.

[Fat Mike]

Everything still depends on the people. Everything.

And what do you mean by that? It sounds deep, but has no meaning. Of course everything depends on people. But people are effected by the sorrounding, the media, and by the books. And the books are written by people. Did I interpreter you right? Still makes no sense.

[Wizard272002]

can literature change the world?if it can, what kind of literature should it be?

Yes it can. And it depends on what it is. Good authors like Tolkien, Lewis are ageless literature that has shaped generations fo generations!

[Max McDaniel]

While Literature can be a tool for change, it is limited in its power. Literature works on a personal level, not a wide reaching one like politics, and therefore its effects are small and hard to see. No empires have risen or fallen on the power of their prose.

[Abdulbagi]

Litrature and hence reading can definetly change the world. you might be surperised to know that the first word from God to Prophit Mohamed in Koran is "READ". this clearly show the importance of reading and hence the importance of litrature.
a word is more powerful than millions of bulllets, as it changes the thinking of a person and lasts for ever. however in today visual life i think the net, tv, cinema, mobile phones etc are taking power over reading and are shaping our beliefs and thinking.

[FrozenDuchess]

"Can Literature change the world?"

If it wants to...yes. Literature can be vehicle for ideology and ideology is generally thats which seeks to change things.

[Bakiryu]

Yes, if it was a book NORMAL people actually READ.

[Midas]

Without doubt, it is the written word which has brought about the greatest change in the world of human history. (No I am not going to qualify it by adding IMHO)

This question should not need posing, unless it was to remind us not to take something so self evident for granted - which we are so inclined to do.

Books hold records of many things emanating from thought such as findings and ideas. From this we have been able to build on collective information and develop them to benefit mankind, or if used in a negative way, to destroy it.

Whether for the good, or the bad, it has brought change. It never ceases whether it is from those early hyroglyphics on Egyptian papyrus, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Old Testament, New Testament, Talmud, Koran, the writings of Euclid and Aristotle, Galileo, Newton (Principia Mathematica), H.G.Wells, or the social changers of the Industrial era like Dickens. Then there are what so many view as the darker side like Das Kapital, Mein Kampf.................Just a few of the most influential writings that have been behind great change both for the good, and the bad, often depending on ones point of view.

"......Now in his youth, Newton studied the work of Aristotle, Descartes, and others. And Newton spoke:

"Amicus Plato,
amicus Aristoteles,
magis amica vertas."

which means

"Plato is my friend,
Aristotle is my friend,
but my best friend is truth."


Books do not necessarily reveal to us the truth, but they can help and encourage us to seek it. It is in the inspiration, and the search that great change is made. The history of life is change, it is never ceasing.

To get away from the heavy stuff, as individuals, how many of us have had our lives changed (though we probably won't admit it too readily) by such as 'The Wind in the Willows', 'The World of Suzie Wong', 'The Master Key' (this book is said to have influenced Bill Gates) and 'How I made $2000 on the Stock Market' (Sold many thousands of copies and influenced how its readers related to the stock market). Yes, I can hear the cynical laughter. But not only have these books changed my life, but they have brought me into awareness of many others who have been moved, and lives influenced, by these books.

We all are people, and we each make up a composite part of all change - if even in only a small way.

[Mortis Anarchy]

I think they are an aiding factor in changing the world. Some writers send out messages about things going on that people take in and realize and understand....then people want to change things, or at least those that are concerned. Literature is an inspiration to many, but I think its up to the readers to act out on what they believe and what they have learned in order to truly change the world.