Why to read literature?

[blazeofglory]

Today we are equipped with varieties of entertainment or knowledge providers. Few turn to domains of literature, for there are many entertainers the radio, the television, the Internet and the like. Why people should narrow down their ranges of interests just to dry and tiresome pages of books when there are things live or alive. wallowing in things dead is kind of reading books mostly of dead writers with obsolete ideas.

Notwithstanding they are dry and not quick - entertainers the way the rest of others do, literature has a domain of its own, and in fact the way it sensitizes our minds and mirror life not in fragments but in whole. The rest of other mediums of art can never displace literature at all.

All that literature does and in fact that distinguishes it from the rest of other disciplines is through literature you can fathom the depth of life and measure the innermost core or the kernel of our minds.

Literatutre transforms us in the degree the rest of other mediums never can do so. I remember when I read resurrection and the way it transformed me an shaped my patterns of thinking.

Share your views.

[NikolaiI]

I agree, Stephen R. Donaldson can go far deeper than any movie. The reason to read literature is both because it is enjoyable, and to increase your knowledge and reading ability. You read to increase your involvement in literature, and to get into the world of literature, or just the book you're reading. If you want to write, say, then you'll need to read as well. Another good thing literature does is help your language skills- I never had any problems spelling, not because I ever practiced but because I read books. Above all is enjoyment, and instead of draining your energy and creative juices like TV, well, literature doesn't do those things. Also learning, like books on religion or something.

[blazeofglory]

I agree, Stephen R. Donaldson can go far deeper than any movie. The reason to read literature is both because it is enjoyable, and to increase your knowledge and reading ability. You read to increase your involvement in literature, and to get into the world of literature, or just the book you're reading. If you want to write, say, then you'll need to read as well. Another good thing literature does is help your language skills- I never had any problems spelling, not because I ever practiced but because I read books. Above all is enjoyment, and instead of draining your energy and creative juices like TV, well, literature doesn't do those things. Also learning, like books on religion or something.

To add to this, in fact books are like streams that are bigger sources of ideas, imaginations, mysteries and explorations above all. Compared with what we can we get from books the rest of other sources of knowledge and entertainment are simply stream-lets they are not complete compared with books.

Books are what call oceanic sources of knowledge and inspirations and they are full of mysteries, creativeness and inventiveness.

Literature takes us by flight of imagination to a domain where no others mediums can take and today we are so much rich in ideas and are exploring into so many spheres of wisedom and all the rest of stuff.

Ideas are condensed into books in many forms and the rest are superficial and shallow. For instance, poetry. No other disciplines can plumb the depth of truth and sensbilities and the subconscious the way poetry can.

Through books we can unlock vast resoirvoirs of posibilites and potentials we are innately rich in. See the profundity of Homer, the Mahabharata, the Bible, the Upanishads. You never can explore so deeply and profoundly the way you can do with books.

[JBI]

I like how literature can take you into the subjunctive, and expose you to not just appearance and events, but emotion, thought, and questioning. The mainstream literature I find is generally what makes a movie, something that is plot driven, with very little into characterization. However, the literary literature, the good stuff, is what really pulls you into the mind of the character, really makes you feel what he feels, relate to him, sympathize with him, scorn him (or her in all these cases). Other forms of entertainment (I speak here generally of movies and television) are less likely to express on this level. Art, music, and literature are the only real forms that can express this sort of idea, this sort of expression.

[Mortis Anarchy]

I read because, well...I feel that I can picture things better. It allows for more mental freedom, if that makes sense...I'm having difficulty getting my thoughts out, so sorry if it doesn't sound right. With movies and TV, you can come up with basically the same thing though...its just like seeing it in person...and I totally admire filmmakers etc.

But doesn't it just seem like when you read something...doesn't it just feel better? I get so much more pleasure and a feeling of accomplishment when I read. I can't describe it. Its a feeling that I've had since I begun to read. I love watching movies...but its not the same. I enjoy them...and sometimes I really get INTO it, but its not the same.

With art...of topic, but I go in depth with it. I want to feel everything that the artist felt when he/she created it. Understand it...its got to do with that feeling again. With the arts in general, but reading...well its more fulfilling...doesn't it just seem right?

[Gadget Girl]

I read because it is fun. I am reading because I can be in the characters' feelings and emotions, which is really great. You can relate to them, y'know. Usually if I'm reading literature, I feel like I'm the director of that plot; I'm the one who determines the events, I'm the one who pictures them in my mind, I am the one who is imagining the characters and the places, I am the actor. I am all; the director, actor, producer, screenplay. It's just perfect.

One of my favorites besides reading is watching movies. I love movies as I love books, but they are very different from each other, aren't they? In movies, you aren't the one who imagines anymore. You see what the other people's perspectives, you can see other people's ideas on how they do the scenes, scripts, etc.

There are all sorts of entertainment and some people don't want to read anymore because look at the technology today! Everything is high-tech and I wonder what will be in the next generation after ours will be. Can you imagine it? There are internet, movies, television, Wii, PSP, computers... what more do you want? Those are the things why most of the people in the world prefer to do something else fun in their opinion, than engulf themselves in a book reading all day long. People will say, 'what's the fun in reading anyways?' and stuffs like that.

[blazeofglory]

I read because it is fun. I am reading because I can be in the characters' feelings and emotions, which is really great. You can relate to them, y'know. Usually if I'm reading literature, I feel like I'm the director of that plot; I'm the one who determines the events, I'm the one who pictures them in my mind, I am the one who is imagining the characters and the places, I am the actor. I am all; the director, actor, producer, screenplay. It's just perfect.

One of my favorites besides reading is watching movies. I love movies as I love books, but they are very different from each other, aren't they? In movies, you aren't the one who imagines anymore. You see what the other people's perspectives, you can see other people's ideas on how they do the scenes, scripts, etc.

There are all sorts of entertainment and some people don't want to read anymore because look at the technology today! Everything is high-tech and I wonder what will be in the next generation after ours will be. Can you imagine it? There are internet, movies, television, Wii, PSP, computers... what more do you want? Those are the things why most of the people in the world prefer to do something else fun in their opinion, than engulf themselves in a book reading all day long. People will say, 'what's the fun in reading anyways?' and stuffs like that.

Indeed, there are different means of entertainment and reading habits or less seen yet I personally feel rather differnt, for it gives a different feeling, and our imaginative faculties will intensify with books.

[amalia1985]

Literature hands you the chance to delve deep into life, it can teach you how to change your life, how to view the world from different angles, not just your own...

[blazeofglory]

Literature hands you the chance to delve deep into life, it can teach you how to change your life, how to view the world from different angles, not just your own...

That is the purpose pf literature, and in fact what it does it is widen our horizon of experiences immensely for we share ourselves pr our ideas with one another. For instance reading Dostoevsky gives me totally a new experiences indeed. When I read some of the characters in his stories and novels all I feel is I feel my pains lessened considerably. That when people sees somebody suffering the pangs of pains of him will lessen.

Therefore, all that literature does is widens our horizon of understanding indeed and help us see life through a bigger spectrum ordinarily not possible, and therefore, all that literature does is it kinds of fuels our sensibilities and sensitivity towards others,

In fact many writers revolutionized the course of history, and we know it was through the writings of Rousseau and Voltaire French had a great revolution.

All that literature does is uncover truths, and truths remain covered, human beings remain under a veil of darkness and it is always literature that helps him realize or understand facts.

Today we idealize literature and idolize the creators of them. We have followers of Tolstoy's ideas.

[amalia1985]

I really couldn't agree more with you. I am very happy and very moved by your comments.:)

[blazeofglory]

I really couldn't agree more with you. I am very happy and very moved by your comments.:)

Today we want something to involve us engrossingly; or else today's man is vulnerable to a variety of aliments and may be depression also. What a piece of literature does in effect it widens our horizon to look at life from different perspectives.

I write poems, essays, stories. These are creative things and creation has always invigorated my life. It is likened to a mother birthing a baby and the very act thrills her and engages her for some great cause. Your creativity is what makes your live more livery and vital.

I have hardly bad moments for I have many books to read. I read philosophy, scriptures, literature, and even economics also appeals to me.

I am the son of a farmer. I saw the moods of my father when he saw the cornplants he planted growing on his farms. I do not cultivate plants. I cultivate ideas and when I cultivate and someone read them and comment, crtically and appreciatively I feel thrilled.

The world of creativity is really amazing.

[Clouder]

Blaze,
You could write an article on this subject. I agree most of your writings here. It inspires me a bit to further put this: Literature is one form that stands on a balancing point which is very provocative and makes all the inspiration/imagination/connection possible while at the same time, can cut so deeply into the core and cover the unknown corners. Comparing to other forms with sound/image, it leaves more spaces for the reader; it saves the limited life time from distraction. I always think words are always profound than sound/images, although I like movies, music as well.
Yeah for Blowin' in the Wind.

[jon1jt]

Today we are equipped with varieties of entertainment or knowledge providers. Few turn to domains of literature, for there are many entertainers the radio, the television, the Internet and the like. Why people should narrow down their ranges of interests just to dry and tiresome pages of books when there are things live or alive. wallowing in things dead is kind of reading books mostly of dead writers with obsolete ideas.

Notwithstanding they are dry and not quick - entertainers the way the rest of others do, literature has a domain of its own, and in fact the way it sensitizes our minds and mirror life not in fragments but in whole. The rest of other mediums of art can never displace literature at all.

All that literature does and in fact that distinguishes it from the rest of other disciplines is through literature you can fathom the depth of life and measure the innermost core or the kernel of our minds.

Literatutre transforms us in the degree the rest of other mediums never can do so. I remember when I read resurrection and the way it transformed me an shaped my patterns of thinking.

Share your views.

to read is to be fully human.

[blazeofglory]

to read is to be fully human.

Your expression is really highly relevant in today's world more than ever before and I feel totally inanimate if there are no books, and in point of fact now through literature I feel vivacious in life.

When I have bad moods I find refuge in books, and it is a book of poems that solace.

I subscribe to this adage wholeheartedly that to read is to be fully human.
I live with full energy and find life really interesting, one of the drives that animates my life is reading.

[amalia1985]

blazeofglory, although I hadn't met you, I deeply admire you. It's not a compliment, I have never ever seen such eloquence and inspiring attitude.Bravo!!!

[Circuvico]

What does Circuvico, lover of words and stories, see in them?

Words dance, sit, stare at you, talk, shade each other, clarify, darken, they carry polyassociations, they deny, they affirm, they spin your mind to set it to new frontiers, they are didactic, they are new, old, alive, dead, dull, wonderful, they rhyme, unrhyme, go in a river flow or stay still like a statue then they express more and more or less and less so whatever the case, you can be a wizard or a plain joe with words and that's the beauty of words. Loved is the letters that makes up them...

Stories? O stories, where would humanity be without them? They are life affirming, exciting, deathly serious, complex, simple, sad, happy, imaginative, factbased, life changing, trashy, crazy, sane, future, present, past and they teach you in every way imaginable.

As I without water and food so am I without stories and words.

[blazeofglory]

What does Circuvico, lover of words and stories, see in them?

Words dance, sit, stare at you, talk, shade each other, clarify, darken, they carry polyassociations, they deny, they affirm, they spin your mind to set it to new frontiers, they are didactic, they are new, old, alive, dead, dull, wonderful, they rhyme, unrhyme, go in a river flow or stay still like a statue then they express more and more or less and less so whatever the case, you can be a wizard or a plain joe with words and that's the beauty of words. Loved is the letters that makes up them...

Stories? O stories, where would humanity be without them? They are life affirming, exciting, deathly serious, complex, simple, sad, happy, imaginative, factbased, life changing, trashy, crazy, sane, future, present, past and they teach you in every way imaginable.

As I without water and food so am I without stories and words.

Reading this post I simply got exhilarated. You have so marvelously presented your ideas in a beautiful expression that I feel animated. I wholeheartedly subscribe to your view. Your very expression is thrillingly poetic.

Despite whatever criticism is leveled against words or they have mentioned about words and their limitations I feel words are very powerful. In ancient Vedic literature- in the Vedas there is a mention word word is the Brahma .

Words have always moved me and it still does immensely.

[blazeofglory]

Literature is at the very base of it is nothing but a conglomeration of words and sentences that have been arrayed in the best possible manner. Anyone is capable of being a poet or a writer and the basic difference between a writer and non-writer is the former has words, very embellished words and the latter is devoid of it. Everyone has something some experiences to present in life, but most run short of words. In fact it is words that give form to you r feelings.

Everyone no matter what his background is as a matter of fact has some intense feelings and wants to share it, and sharing something what is within is a natural tendency and some conceal some of their feelings for a variety of reasons and some feelings and even desires are tabooed by society.

Artists are well armed with words and to construct them into sentences and they group sentences into a meaningful presentation and that is how a piece of art is created.


Summating this, literature results when a writer can present his craftsmanship, the way a sculptor whittles a beautiful idol out of stone.

A piece of literature is simply a combination of words. Words make the core of literature, and I subscribe to the idea that the more a writer is refined, the more he is stuffed with words and the more skill he acquires to amalgamate them. This is the thin line where writers and non-writers find their different and distinguished domains

[blazeofglory]

Today English literature has a bigger role than ever before and now it has definitely something to accommodate all on a common platform for it has been a global language and could link vast numbers of people.

In fact this is a good signal that all are assimilating themselves into a common ground and wherein they can have a unified spirit that will bind them closely.

Today with technology advancing dramatically we can come together virtually no matter where we live,and with the internet this has been more manifest than ever before.

Taking a case point: I am a Nepali. I have grown up in a village. And we migrated to a small city. I am highly privileged there with modern and sophisticated technology. I was poor at English in my high school. Suddenly with my college education I switched to English. In the beginning I found reading things in English a very difficult job. But with more and more exposures to things in English. Watching news in English on TV, reading things in print in English and communicating, both verbal and written in English I found my self comfortable with English.

I was good at Nepali and I wrote many articles in this beautiful language.

Now I can communicate with larger international audiences in English, and I can share ideas unremittingly across geographical borderlines.

Reading things in English is really a matter of joy. Now it is not the language many countries people speak as their first or second language. English is not just the language of Britain, America and Australia. That it has found its origin in the UK does mean it is their language.The fact that a language can originate anywhere is it has been used by people of different parts of the world. Today a great many books are writtien in English. They are not inferior in quality compared with the same written by native speakers and writers. For instance V.S. Naipaul, the greatest living legendary figure comes of a nonnative English Speaking background; Salmon Rushdie earned an international acclaim; Conrad too came of a non English speaking community.

In Nepal too a great pool of writers now find a common platform to express their articles in English. Samrat Upadyaya is really a great writer highly successful in writing in English. So is Majushree Thapa who even by residing in the country emerges as a successful writer in English.

I love all languages. Writing in English is not any disrespect for Nepali. But this is a desire of going across wider sections of people transcending limits of nationalities. In fact today we feel we are living in a small global village, and we are linked closely and this close link or connection is what enrich or add to culture.

I read world literature some in English and some in their best translations. I could read in Nepali too great literature yet not on a global scale.

All these things attribute the fact that English has better tomorrows and in the days to come it will possibly be the one and only best medium of expression.

There are indeed very beautiful languages. French is indeed a beautiful language too, and I learned it elementarily. Yet this too can not be spread to be the same as the English language now.

Therefore I believe that English has a better future to be a global language and a language indeed of greater literature.

[Pensive]

Today we are equipped with varieties of entertainment or knowledge providers. Few turn to domains of literature, for there are many entertainers the radio, the television, the Internet and the like. Why people should narrow down their ranges of interests just to dry and tiresome pages of books when there are things live or alive. wallowing in things dead is kind of reading books mostly of dead writers with obsolete ideas.

Umm why to read literature? Well, usually the words on these books make up good decoration pieces... Feel them, gaze at them for long trying to obtain the degree of their beauty and let them play with us.

[blazeofglory]

Umm why to read literature? Well, usually the words on these books make up good decoration pieces... Feel them, gaze at them for long trying to obtain the degree of their beauty and let them play with us.

Indeed I subscribe to your views wholeheartedly. I am really fond of books and I am a book lover. Every word appeals to me. And I feel literature and life are inseparable. I can not live without two things, or no single day goes unspent without jotting down a few words. Life is very thrilling, because I read a lot and write at the same time recreating and reinventing and renewing myself.

I often think how dull maybe meaningless my life would have been if there was no literature. Now at all moments it is the best company I keep.

Now I am really fortunate to be together with you sharing ideas across many borders and distances.

I am a Nepali. Yet I can communicate with larger numbers of people across so many barriers and it is through my reading habits particularly books in English literature that I have acquired skills to express my ideas in the English language too.

[Ahmed_Kaid]

People often question reading literature because they consider it to be completely imaginary, without any basis in reality. But, I find literature important because it offers new, creative ways to interpret the world.

[KidTruth]

I haven't read the posts above mine (only the first) so excuse me if I'm repeating someone else's sentiment.

I think that reading as a medium engages the imagination and forces the reader to think certain thoughts - no other medium does this as directly as reading. You may make an argument that it doesn't have to be "literature" to do this, just writing. I'd agree.

All mediums have their strengths and weaknesses. Reading requires more engagement and gives more time to draw up complex scenarios in a reader's head. Our active medium are words, and since the human mind organizes its thoughts with its language, we are actually painting with thought.

[blazeofglory]

Today literature has been a matter of great obsession, indeed something this civilization has rendered us. When I am at times live under stress, as stress is indeed a very indistinguishable part of life and we can not do away with stress and all we can do with this is manage, I turn to poetry. Poetry is really a great reservoir of inspirations, in fact the very fountainhead of optimism.

I do not how the rest feel with regard to a world of literature I feel literature runs through my veins and indeed it is a vital force and it energizes me to move the way I am now.

As James Joyce said somewhere I can recreate a Dublin. Indeed literature can create or invent a new world.

Imagine what not Rousseau and Voltaire had to their credit. They have, needless to say pioneered the French Revolutions.

Behind every great revolution there are works of literature in point of fact. There are indirect contributions of some writers in every great revolution, for they represent or resonate the voice of people, for they are the ones who kindle the fire of revolutions.

Whether for peace or for revolution writers are the shakers and movers.

This truth is not realized as it should be.

[KidTruth]

I do not know that writers are necessarily political creatures or catalysts of change and revolution. It may be possible that they only reflect what happens, as all artists do.

[blazeofglory]

I do not know that writers are necessarily political creatures or catalysts of change and revolution. It may be possible that they only reflect what happens, as all artists do.

Indeed they reflect what they see and what is happening. Yet they can make things happen too. Literature is really powerful and when we read revolutionary poems or books something boils within us and of course, it heats our blood and we all fight for some cause.

Literature is really powerful. It soothes when we are sad, and indeed we know tragedies that have curative impacts.

What can literature do is a matter really unfathomable.

[Crazy_mode60]

Literature Is the experience of other people in the life , and i study it bcz to learn and have agood life with mind full of culture .......

[LuggageFan]

I read because it is fun.

Wrong answer. You are not allowed to enjoy reading here. :rage:

:biggrin5: