What Has Literature Got To Do With It?
‘The arts are not the poor relation of the economic world. On the contrary, they are at the very source of its vitality.’
More than any other discipline, literature is too often criticised as a minor field of study. Dismissed as the outcast, whimsical child of the disciplines, overshadowed by its illustrious scientific and technological siblings, the need and significance of literature is disregarded by many. However, despite its criticisms literature endures as a substantial study that continues to elucidate our understanding of the human experience.
In his pivotal essay, What Has Literature Got To Do With It?, Chinua Achebe argues that literature plays an integral and fundamental role in the process of modernisation. Literature not only gives us a second handle on reality but ‘offers the kinetic energy necessary for social transition and change.’ Modernisation and true progress, according to Achebe, cannot be achieved by nations, especially decolonised nations, until its literature is restored and revived.
Man is stories and civilisations are literature. Achebe claims that humans and civilisations have been bound together with stories throughout history, arguing that both are produced from the other, ‘stories create people create stories.’ Literature has always been central to the human experience as we have always relied on stories for understanding our condition, experiences, beliefs, and visions. We will always need to turn to our stories.
But why exactly is literature so central and fundamental to the process of modernisation. Primarily, it is the paradoxical nature of literature that makes it a key component in modernisation. Literature, with its ambiguities, questions, and perspectives, places us at an eclectic threshold that allows us to examine and understand the complexities around us through multiple and diverse perspectives. Humanity is taught by stories and stories have taught us humanity.
Within the safe confines of storytelling, we can also begin to examine silenced, traumatic, and unspeakable narratives. For many decolonised nations, modernity has meant the eradication of a troubling history. It has come at the expense of native culture, language, and literature. Achebe argues that as nations race towards modernisation, they must also journey back to rediscover and ‘regain a threatened past and selfhood.’
For Achebe, ‘development or modernisation is in a critical sense a question of the mind and the will.’ Progress can only be achieved through the improvement of mindsets. Literature becomes problematic for the binary mind as it eradicates the rigid dichotomies of a single narrative. It reveals to us a collective and expansive reality, helping us to reconnect and understand each other as well as ourselves.
So what has literature got to do with it? Whilst science and technology may build the foundations and structures of a modern nation, literature is what breathes life into it. To put it simply, literature has everything to do with it.
