Literature always anticipates life. It doesn’t copy it but moulds it to its purpose. – Oscar Wilde
Literature is life reflected in its various colors and hues. It mirrors life in a way nothing else can. Literature’s value in our daily life is immense and immeasurable. Literature teaches us about the different aspects of life in a very pragmatic way. In fact, we have come to believe that literature is not only a subject but a whole way of understanding and living life.
It has a way of inspiring and influencing us, so much so that one starts reading and teaching it as a subject, but it gets such a solid grip on you and your way of conducting your life that you suddenly realize that it has made a positive turn-around in your life!
Every step of the way you get a guidance that nothing else can give you. You are struck by the universal truths spread all over the different genres of literature, be it the German proverb by George Frederick Watts instructing you about the practical aspect of love and life when he very truthfully states that – When poverty comes in at the door, love flies out of the window.
2 Shakespeare also enriches our thoughts with the most true and time-tested advice about the great value of adverse or unfortunate times in our life. He very aptly discloses that adverse or unfortunate times in our life are just like the toad which comes wearing the diadem that is studded with precious stones. Meaning thereby that adverse times in our lives are as welcome as the dirty and ugly toad but when they inevitably come, they teach us the most precious lessons of our life just like a diadem which is studded with the most precious stones.
These treasures of practical wisdom direct our life to more positive goals and destinations, ennobling us in ways we had never thought possible. In this context it is very relevant to quote William Shakespeare in the play As You Like It writes through one of his very important characters named Rosalind – A traveller! By my faith, you have great reason to be sad. I fear you have sold your own lands to see other men’s; then to have seen much and to have nothing is to have rich eyes and poor hands.
3 The above mentioned text depicts that at such terrible times we become almost disabled with ‘Rich eyes and poor hands’, our past happy, fulfilled and fortunate life has imparted very beautiful and wonderful experience to our life but the present moment of adversity cannot be matched with our past experience and our present misfortunes and limited means. The romantic and nature poets like Wordsworth and Keats have taught us how to live life in the most simple and humble manner which becomes very relevant to today’s troubled kind of life where we have moved away from the lap of nature to the trap of the materialistic and consumeristic life. Instead of letting the nature be our best teacher, we sometimes with all our modern day craftiness and cunning ways have taken charge of our life and see where we have landed – face down on the grass instead of having a down to earth, happy, healthy and content life.
We are running after mirages in our life and definitely we are like that ‘Musk deer’ who all his life was moving in circles to locate the source of that smell which is so delightful that he never realizes it is coming right from inside him.
This is the kind of misguided generation that we are! If only we would listen to Wordsworth who very aptly said in the poem The Tables Turned– Come forth into the light of things, let nature be your teacher 4 and let the nature guide us in all its vastness, serenity and wisdom.
In today’s life, after materialism, it’s the over-hype about love and so-called beauty mantras for which people are going crazy and spending all their energy and earnings. The eternal search for the truth of love and beauty is driving our present generation bonkers. They are searching for milestones that do not exist, as mentioned by Margaret Wolfe Hungerford in her novel Molly Bawn, published in 1878, that “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Accordingly, John Keats sums up the relationship between truth and beauty in his famous poem Ode on a Grecian Urn, in which he very beautifully depicts the truth of humankind and that of life by aptly stating that- “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” – Also, John Keats in his poem Endymion which was first published in 1818 by Taylor and Hessey of Fleet Street in London, mentions that – “A thing of beauty is a joy forever.”
So, truth and beauty are two facets of the same coin. They complement each other, they are not rivals of each other. If in today’s selfish and self-centered generation this one virtue is ingrained, then it can do wonders for our society and this world as a whole!
We should just truly understand that when we love truly, we automatically become a beautiful person and spread the warmth of that true love and beauty all around ourselves and we see the joy it brings to us and to our dear and loved ones. Let this joy spread and see the positive change it heralds into every life that we touch!
The biggest drawback of today’s hassled life is that we seem to have forgotten the virtue of leisure in our life. That is solely the reason for such a stressful, tension-filled, and strife-ridden life. As a result of this negative way of life, we are suffering from many different and new kinds of diseases which were unknown earlier and that too at very young age.
Shockingly, a first-year undergraduate student had a fatal heart attack! He was all of eighteen years! The young have lots of negative pressures in their life and one cannot overlook these tragic consequences. That is when the famous poet W.H. Davies’s statement about leisure rings the warning bells for today’s generation – “A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.” ‘Standing and staring’ or just taking a break from our routine is very necessary if we have to breathe in new life filled with enthusiasm and zeal for living. Tagore also echoes the same sentiments when he applauds the uses of leisure in his poem Stray Birds–
LEISURE in its activity is work.
The stillness of the sea stirs in waves.
We recharge and rejuvenate our bored, stressed, oppressed, and depressed life by our hobbies and leisure activities and face life’s challenges with a refreshed mind, body, and soul.
The last but not the least problem of today’s times is that in our over-burdened and over-worked life, we have lost our liberty and freedom somewhere on the way to so-called success and progress in our life.
Although this freedom is nothing but increasing bondage and slavery in our personal, professional, and social life. That is why Joseph Addison very wisely and precisely writes in his play Cato, a tragedy- “When liberty is gone,
Life grows insipid and has lost its relish.”
Therefore, a life without the virtue of liberty is truly not worth living. Now the time has come for all of us to re-think a few important issues in our life and learn a positive lesson from literature because literature not only entertains but instructs and inspires us to reach the pinnacles of success and progress. That is why in our everyday mundane life the value of literature should not be underestimated.
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Dr. Meenu Sodhi Sharma |
Ms. Shachi Sharma |