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Literature is timeless, bridging the gap between reality and dreams. It germinates new seeds of dreams and ideas in the minds of curious readers and fills them up with abundant hope for the future.
Reading literature is considered a lonely act but in retrospect, reading is not a solitary act since we as readers are always in touch with the characters whether real or fictional that the author has brought to life through his imaginative creation.
"That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal, that you're not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong."
― F. Scott Fitzgerald
Reading books is an adventure people embark upon, and enter a dreamland of sorts. Be it fiction, non-fiction, humour, romance, or detective murder mystery, we enter a realm much different from our present reality.
The Literary Figures
Famous literary figures such as William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, George Elliot, Sir Arthur Canon Doyle, Agatha Christie, PG Wodehouse, Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Franz Kafka, Charles Dickens, Geoffrey Chaucer, John Milton, and Oscar Wilde are among the most renowned personalities who earned a name in the world of literature.
One of the positive qualities of literature is that it helps in developing a creative mindset. Creativity refers to any new idea or innovation which is unusual and unique. Many thinkers and innovators are high on the level of creativity and emotional intelligence which is an essential part of the literary discourse.
Perks of Literature
Literature also aims at creating a collective society of imaginative people who are bound not by any restrictions per se, but only by their mutual interests and liking for the genres of literature. We tend to share empathy with the characters we read about. Their story seems as important as ours in real life.
Literature allows the readers to travel back in time and learn about life on Earth from the ones who walked before us. We can develop a better understanding of diverse cultures and thus develop a greater appreciation of them. We learn through the different ways our history is recorded, in the forms of manuscripts and through the speech itself.
We as hopeless optimists, always are on the lookout for something more romantic and symbolic. Attaining immortality has always been an agenda that has existed in the history of the human race but that can be achieved through the characters in literature. Even when the characters die in a novel, we will always have a segment of them in the book. The writer never truly dies since his creation, a literary creation immortalizes him or her for posterity.
Expanding Thought Process
Literature helps us in unlocking our minds and alters our perception of the world and allows us to see what is out of the box. With time, we begin to reflect, ask questions, and understand better. Since reading literature exposes us to the amalgamation of themes and topics, ranging from science and discovery to history and culture, we start developing a holistic perspective on the world and view the world with an open mind.
Developing Critical Thinking Skills
Critical thinking is a skill that is essential for understanding and learning things thoroughly and in great detail. When we read, we learn to grasp the meaning that is lying between the lines. Through literature, we become trained to find different symbolic meanings and search out the themes and connections between diametrically opposite ideas. This way, we learn to understand and realize the hidden messages and make our unique opinion out of them.
Understanding Other Cultures and Beliefs
Reading literature provides us with immeasurable knowledge about history, religion, customs, and traditions; and gives us the opportunity of understanding customs and beliefs other than our own. Literature helps us to understand other systems of mankind around the world. A book written by a German writer will prove to be very knowledgeable for a reader who is from a different country or a different continent altogether.
Conclusion
Literature forces us to know more about ourselves and dig deeper into our interests and capabilities. By studying literature, we naturally collate our lives with those we find in literature. We deepen our feelings of human reactions and our self-responses, as we equate and contrast, not only the views of multiple authors but also our own devised and thought-out views. By studying literature, we become more self-conscious and emotionally intelligent beings.
Written by Chitra Gangwani
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