This is my letter to the world,
That never wrote to me,--
The simple news that Nature told,
With tender majesty.
Her message is committed
To hands I cannot see;
For love of her, sweet countrymen,
Judge tenderly of me!
That never wrote to me,--
The simple news that Nature told,
With tender majesty.
Her message is committed
To hands I cannot see;
For love of her, sweet countrymen,
Judge tenderly of me!
-Emily Dickinson
Literature is everything to me. It always has been. It's a long history of a beautiful romance, so I won't have time to fill everyone in on all the details...but I'll do what I can. In the Autumn of 2008, I got really sick, so sick I almost died. When I was in the hospital, from the time I was first rushed into the E.R. through the my week long morphine haze- I talked of one thing. Literature. My parents informed me that I was non-stop quoting Shakespeare, particularly Mark Antony's "Friends, Romans, Countryman" speech from "Julius Caesar." My cousin, who is now my roommate, recently informed me that when she came to visit me during this time- I told her how I'd met Shakespeare at the Renaissance festival and how he'd kissed my hand. The most significant thing about the whole event is that my father had called up my high school English teacher, Mrs. Barber, because I wouldn't stop telling him how much I needed her to know how important she was. I guess the severity of my condition caused them to not hesitate in calling her into see me. Frances Noel Barber taught me what the definition of Literature is. According to her, Literature is "the sincere representation of a view of life expressed in appropriate and memorable terms." That is a definition I will never forget. Even on my deathbed...(luckily, I can make light of that cliché) Now, besides being a really dramatic retelling of my near death experience, this narrative does serve a purpose. That purpose is to show how significant literature is. In the face of death, we realize what is most important to us. Literature opened up every window and showed me more about life than two decades of living could. Ever since my childhood, literature has shown me the beauty and the tragedy of life. Somewhere along that path, I fell in love. (Although I can be certain that it wasn't while I was reading Sign of the Beaver in the fifth grade) By the way, I started to wonder why every book we read in elementary school was a survival story. Well, I've got a proposition. I think that all literature in a sense is a survival story. This class covered early American literature, which we saw was all about conquest and survival. Our country was based on literature of survival. People came to this country for a blank slate, and at the base of everything was survival. And we're still writing about it. Why? This is my guess: I think literature is the soul's means of survival. Literature heals. You can share the burden of a broken heart with a blank page. Maxwell Evarts Perkins, who was the literary editor for Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald said, "There could be nothing so important as a book could be." Emily Dickinson shared her solitude with her poetry. If her poetry hadn't survived, nothing would be left to mark the brilliance of her existence. Poe's work surely alleviated some of the darkness and madness that was haunting his mind. Yeah, he still died of probable alcoholism, but at least Literature was his companion. Reflecting back on all the Literature we covered in this class, I can't help, but think of the reason the stories came into existence. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Women's Indian Captivity Narratives, On Witchcraft, In the Heart of the Sea...these narratives were written to be testament's to these people's struggles. The human mind is easily overwhelmed, and these people had some pretty hefty stuff to deal with. Watching your children get murdered, dealing with the fact that Satan is possibly taking over your society, and the burden of knowing you butchered your friend and ate him. If I were these people, I would definitely be writing something. Literature is way of coping with whatever it is life throws at you. One of my favorite lyricists, Conor Oberst, has a lyric in his songs, "A Bowl of Oranges", that illustrates my point. He writes, "So, that's how I learned the lesson that everyone's alone. And your eyes must do some raining if you are ever going to grow. But when crying don't help and you can't compose yourself. It's best to compose a poem, an honest verse of longing or simple song of hope."
Studying early American Literature in this class has been a journey through the country's founding literature, but by showing me what was at the root of these pieces of literature, it showed me what was rooted in all of literature. Even in my own. This is why it's so easy to connect eighteenth century stories to modern day movies and books. We’re all alone, and we’re all trying to survive: socially, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, physically, and even academically. We write to mark our progression or regression, because by literalizing what’s on our mind, we become less alone in our attempt for survival. We become a part of something bigger. I said earlier that writing was the soul’s means of survival. Well, here’s another way of saying it. Contributing our own voice to something beyond ourselves is the soul’s ultimate way of surviving long after we’re gone. Who is Emily Dickinson? Poe? Emerson? Thoreau? They’re voices. Voices we can hear with our souls and not with our ears. Literature is the greatest power on earth. That’s why when I found myself in that hospital room, I didn’t once think of death. I didn’t feel fear. I felt a sense of urgency. Urgency, because who knows what time we have left of our brief lives. If we need to get away from the chaotic or mundane drag of our daily lives, we’ll pick up book. Dickinson was right when she said, “There is no Frigate like a book to take us lands away.” Sometimes, even, we drift too far, and we need literature to help us find our way back to ourselves. That’s what this class did for me. It helped me find my way back. I was losing sight of why I’d fallen in love with Literature. When I started college, I was excited to be talking about Literature all the time. Then, somewhere along the line it began to feel like I was reading Literature just to write analysis papers, I stopped feeling the heart and soul behind the words. I was actually starting to worry. I lost my voice. I realized that one day, and that’s when I really began to freak out. I had become a literary analytical zombie. I stopped all flow from the heart, and directed it all to the brain. You can’t do that with Literature. That’s why it’s the “sincere representation” not just a “representation.” It’s gotta be felt. This blog and this class has helped me feel that passion again. I can hear my own voice again. I bet if you choose to go back to my first blog and read all the way through to this one (or even just compare those two) you could see the transformation from zombie to lover. Zombies cry, “Brains!” but lover’s cry, “Soul!” Literature is my first love. Throughout the journey of this class's survival stories, that love was revived and equipped with new survival tactics.
