Has it ever occured to you how incredibly amazing words are? Consider: a series of symbols and sounds that allows humanity to express itself- not only its physical self, but its emotional self- its soul. Literature is equally a part of and seperate from humanity. Without the human voice, the human hand, and the human imagination, language would never exist. On the other hand, the written word can outlive its writer by thousands of years.
Language is an entity unique to humanity. Sure, animals can communicate- if you call a limited range of signals communication. But only humans posess the capacity to express their own uniqueness through words. Only humans can have a vocabulary. It is our distinctiveness.
This distinctiveness is the foundation of civilization. Before any cooperation between men can exist, there has to be communication of a sort greater than the instinctive physical signals made by animals. A house cannot be built without detailed instructions to the workers. Pantomime will not cut it. If even one structure cannot be formed without language, how much more impossible is it for a community to be formed without it. Government cannot exist without a way to express directives. Progress cannot exist without a way to record learning.
For an example, consider the change in Britain between the Dark Ages and the Tudor era. In the Dark Ages, literacy and knowledge are restricted to monasteries, and the inhabitants of the Isles are merely focused on surviving from one invasion to the other. For more than five hundred years, the history of England is merely the story of warring regions and their struggling rulers. Progress is nonexistant. The whole of England's knowledge would have been wiped out were is not for the church. The population was, as they put it, in the dark- ages that is.
Skip past 1485- the beginning of the Tudor era- into the reign of Elizabeth I. These are the days of Shakespeare and Marlowe- the apex of the English language. Oxford has been founded, more and more people are educated, can read, and can afford books- thanks to Johannes Gutenberg's printing press in 1440. Not only is this the apex of the language, it is the first apex of the society- what would be its highest point for the next three hundred years. In Elizabeth's reign, England defeated the infamous Spanish armada, its economy boomed, quality of life was improved, and more and more people became actively involved in their religion. This was all due, in large part, to the rise of the written word.
Literature allows us to see beyond the presumptions of our day. Every era has its own set of assumptions, which shape the way its offspring view the world. It is only by stepping out of our time and examining other cultural presumptions that we can identify and challenge our own. In this way, words not only further the progress of invention and ideas, but they also provide a safeguard against dangerous philosophical extremes that an isolated era would lean towards.
I have heard literature referred to as "The Great Conversation." The concept is thus: that, merely by opening a book, a critical reader may discuss life and truth with the greatest minds on earth at their leisure. This is the amazing quality of the written word: that it outlasts its author and, oftentimes, its object. It crystalizes a long past day, or a long abandoned idea in such a way that, a hundred years later, a person can use the truth enclosed there to inform their own existence and worldview. That is why this blog exists: to illuminate the unchanging truth in today with the thoughts of the great minds of yesterday.
In closing, I would make only one comment. Christ Himself is called the Word (John 1). It is by This Word that all other writings must be judged. It is only possible to discern the truth in the Great Conversation by the truth within God's Word.
"For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart."
-Hebrews 4:12
Don't come unarmed.
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