What are the greatest human questions and why are they necessarily approached by literature?
My interest in literature comes from even before I was able to read. My parents would tell me stories of the most various sorts, from Gilgamesh to Asterix and so forth. Since I was little I was bewitched by the moving power of literature. Better than movies, which force us to see, literature can, in my opinion, always offer us the menace of meaning- which, as stated by Garry Kasparov compels me to agree that: ‘the threat is stronger than the execution’.
From this point on, I always read books which brought forth the most varied questions about the human condition; until I got to the point when I was forced to think about the question of the necessity of literature itself and what is it to be subject to and of literature.
My purpose in this argument is to prove that being a reader and a writer changes the true quality of life as a means of attaining purpose in life. To proceed to so I’ll use both specific literature and literature as art.
To start with I’d like to say that literature can be acessed almost universally in the sense that it makes available to the reader and writer the virtually unchangeable values of humanity. That meaning that if one reads a Sumerian text about love, death and friendship from circa 2,000 AC, one may be able to understand it and feel it. In the words of Pintos: “A vida humana é uma realidade dinâmica, vale dizer, em movimento, em permanente mudança. Mas se desenvolve em um horizonte de valores que se manifestam como realidades permanentes e estáveis, eternas.”
In this sense, being a reader provides us with information from immemorial times which still can be (un)commonly relatable. But, as a writer, one must gather this same information and make it immemorial. That is what being a writer means, ultimately. As Aristotle suggested in the term discovery, which is a stylistic and rythmic resource, so is necessary to a writer’s life to be uncovered, discovered by literature in the sense that one must find in it a purpose and so literature finds as well a purpose in one’s fate. In his words: “A Discovery is, as the very word implies, a change from ignorance to knowledge, and thus to either love or hate, in the personages marked for good or evil fortune.”
It may be a strenuous task as Poe depicts in his first published shortstory: ‘It is true that I may not find an opportunity of transmitting it to the world, but I will not fail to make the endeavor. At the last moment I will enclose the MS. in a bottle, and cast it within the sea.’ But it seems to be the only one worth living for.
It is also an adventurous task as depicted by Sydney William Porter (aka O’Henry): ‘The true adventurer goes forth aimless and uncalculating to meet and greet unknown fate.’
But it is love for life, for literature as oneself and alterity that carries on the burdens of existence. That is how life provided me and many others with meaning. And as for meaning and love:
Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of its personality. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him. By his love he is enabled to see the essential traits and features in the beloved person; and even more, he sees that which is potential in him, which is not yet actualized but yet ought to be actualized.
That is why literature is a powerful art. Loving it is loving oneself and, therefore, realizing one’s potential.
