In Which Rhinos, Papists, and Saintly Lumberjacks Illustrate Why Literature Matters
Introduction
This project is devoted to reading literature, which begs an answer to why literature matters in the first place. Any attempt to answer this question is ambitious—any attempt to answer it completely in all its facets is probably futile. Nevertheless the difficulty should in no way dissuade an attempt to understand and present at least a brief argument for why literature is more than simply entertainment for the few people who are “into that kind of thing,” or why literature is not only for the self-styled “experts” of highly specialized and mostly irrelevant fields. And so, I am convinced literature matters because all literature presents aspects of both reality and the author’s worldview by means of human experience. We the reader should respond to literature’s presentation of reality and worldview by recognizing the glory every book gives to God, and cultivating in ourselves a gratitude to Him. Here is the roadmap of my argument: first, several papists will shed light on how literature brings reality to us. Twain, Picasso and Tolkien will follow, revealing the authorial and human element of literature. Finally, Lewis and Chesterton will describe the potency of literature, and Boniface will illustrate for us what sanctifying story means and why literature matters.
Section 1: Literature is Truer than Science
G. K. Chesterton once wondered why novels are the most popular form of literature, and more popular than books of science or metaphysics. His answer was very simple; it is merely that the novel is more true than they are (Orthodoxy, The Ethics of Elfland). Fictional novels are more true than science textbooks because novels ask, and then answer bigger questions: Peter Kreeft (our second Papist theologian) affirms the science text book asks how, but the novel asks why (Making Sense Out of Suffering, n.p.). Both Kreeft and Chesterton are getting at the fundamental components of literature. An Illinois professor by the name of Leland Ryken clarifies what these statements are aiming at by writing “[literature’s] aim is to embody the very quality of life as we actually experience it. Literature is an incarnation of ideas or meanings, just as in Christian belief Jesus was [sic] the incarnation (enfleshment) of the invisible God in bodily human form” (Windows to the World, p. 23). In other words, literature does not simply tell us about human experience; it tries to be human experience. When Macbeth stabs Duncan, the reader is brought into Macbeth’s experience of confusion, darkness, and horror at the unnatural deed. When Rohan watches the corsair's black ships sailing to seal their destruction, only for the ships to reveal instead Gondor's lost king returned from the dead to reclaim his city, the reader participates in the unexpected joy. Aristotle famously mentions part of Tragedy’s purpose is catharsis, to evoke in the audience fear and pity for the hero by the fearful and pitiable story, and for the audience to leave feeling renewed or cleansed by the experience. Literature also can convey sense perception, emotion, morality, virtue and vice, the supernatural, and human relationships. In a word, literature conveys humanity’s experience of living in the world. This habit of literature’s to embody aspects of human life makes it a kind of window to look through the book onto the real world. Lewis says it best: “each of us by nature sees the whole world from one point of view with a perspective and a selectiveness peculiar to himself...we demand windows...this so far as I can see, is the specific value or good of literature” (An Experiment in Criticism, p. 137). By looking into the Adventures of Tom Sawyer, you look into a specific corner of reality: the natural world of the Mississippi in the 1840s, the range of human emotion (especially humor), the moral world of good and evil, and the characters’ interaction with these categories. Literature essentially presents reality to the reader, repackaged in paper and ink.
Section 2: Literature Gets More Complicated
However, it is very difficult to read Adventures of Tom Sawyer without noticing how present the author is in the story, the narration, and the characteristic Twain humor that all his characters participate in. While literature is a window into reality by means of human experience, that window is colored, shaped, and molded according to the author's loves, hates, values, and perspective. Literature gets at the reality we currently populate, but that reality is perceived through and arranged entirely by the author’s worldview. While the Adventures of Tom Sawyer might appear to inhabit the Mississippi, and Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings an entirely fictional world, both stories are equally creations of fiction: the Mississippi Tom Sawyer lives in is not our Mississippi. Rather, it is our Mississippi reordered according to Mark Twain’s wishes, just as middle earth is arranged according to Tolkien’s wishes. Our Mississippi and Twain’s are unmistakably similar, enough for Twain’s Mississippi to genuinely reflect aspects of the American river and the culture living around it. Yet Twain’s Mississippi is also unmistakably other: neither Tom Sawyer nor St. Petersburg ever graced our world with their existence. Twain and Tolkien then demonstrate the paradox of literature: literature uses whimsical imagination, a particular author's individual worldview and often fake stories to show us clear elements of reality. Picasso sums up this paradox best: “art is the lie that makes us realize the truth.” Earlier I mentioned Chesterton and Kreeft’s assertion that fiction is truer than science. With art, imagination, and explicit human interpretation, literature has the necessary tools for subject matter beyond the material world, where science is exclusively confined. Any literature is essentially a handheld window that reveals an aspect of reality. But that window is nevertheless colored, shaped and tainted according to the author’s worldview.
Section 3: Literature’s Potency
Literature’s presentation of reality and its authorial interpretation of reality through human experience is why story has always been potent. Few readers can probably remember much of their own wedding homily or what they did on their 15th birthday, but anyone can happily quote lines from books or movies they haven't read or seen in years: literature shapes and holds our memory like little else. Literature also shapes our loves, desires, affections and emotions. Humans constantly base their actions on the imitation of others: which character the story tells you to emulate and which to despise will shape what kind of character you want to be in your own life. Literature also shapes our worldview: our rubric of giving sense to the world we live in is molded and cultivated by what we read, as literature is one of the main ways humans struggle with and interpret reality. According to Lewis, literature also presents us with ideas and experiences we have not had: “we want to be more than ourselves...we want to see with others eyes, to imagine with other imaginations, to feel what others feel...this so far as I can see is the specific value or good of literature….it admits us to experiences other than our own” (An Experiment in Criticism, p. 137). Finally, literature is potent because it heightens our awareness of the world. Chesterton says it best: “It is one thing to describe an interview with a gorgon or a griffin, a creature who does not exist. It is another thing to discover that the rhinoceros does exist and then take pleasure in the fact that he looks as if he didn't.” All of literature helps the reader see the rhinoceros and the cosmos—which certainly do exist—as strange, fantastic and magical as any fictional world that ever pretended to. That fantastical nature of the cosmos should instill in readers the preciousness of reality. According to Chesterton:
The trees and the planets seemed like things saved from the wreck: and when I saw the Matterhorn I was glad that it had not been overlooked in the confusion. I felt economical about the stars as if they were sapphires (they are called so in Milton’s Eden): I hoarded the hills. For the universe is a single jewel, and while it is a natural cant to talk of a jewel as peerless and priceless, of this jewel it is literally true. This cosmos is indeed without peer and without price: for there cannot be another one (Orthodoxy, The Ethics of Elfland).
All of life is saved from the wreck and is priceless, but is also freely given to humanity: the more we read literature, the more we perceive the beauty of the cosmos which we were simply born into.
Section 4: How Shall We Then Read?
The Christian’s response to literature's beautifying of the cosmos should be a response of gratitude. Theologian Doug Wilson once said that the more undeserved something is, the more beautiful it becomes. The more we read literature the more beautiful the gift of reality becomes, and the more thankful we should become to our gift giver. Of course many authors write with no intention of thankfulness to the Creator, and many write expressly against thanking their Creator. But what man means for evil God uses for good, and every book that captures human experience and reality gives glory to God and His reality, whatever the author’s intentions. As Christians our response to every book then should be that of Boniface of Crediton. To convert a Germanic tribe worshiping the thunder god Thor by means of a towering oak, Boniface felled the oak. Immediately an evergreen sprouted from the stump (Sanctifying Myth, xxiii). His followers hung candles on the evergreen, symbolizing the Tree of Life in Eden, and celebrated Christmas with the new converts. Boniface used an oak tree intended to glorify Thor to instead glorify God: Boniface, in other words, sanctified Germanic myth.
Conclusion: Become Saintly Lumberjacks
We sanctify story by recognizing how literature glorifies God: how literature explores facets of reality, gives us new experience, interprets the world through the author and reminds us of the fantastical nature of the world. We sanctify story by recognizing the glory all literature brings to God. We sanctify story by felling the false pride of oaks and from the oak’s widespread roots of experience and the solid stump of truth cultivate instead a response of gratitude to God alone. If, through the process of sanctifying story we begin considering the cosmos as a gift, and begin responding to the cosmos’ Creator with gratitude, then reading literature will certainly begin to matter.