Dante
Why Should Catholics Study Literature?
PART 2
One cannot understand the proper role of literature without understanding, more broadly, the purpose of art itself. The term “art” does not only refer to paintings or sculptures; it also is used to refer to the larger body of created expressions such as music and literature. Thus, art is really a large and diverse category.
Art has always existed as a manifestation of the human spirit. As Catholics, however, we also know that art has also served as an extension of the glories of the Faith. I insist on reminding you that those beautiful creations that we know as the glories of Western art grow out of the Mass. This is as true of the architecture of the great cathedrals as it is of the great paintings. When Western art dawns after the classical age, it dawns with magnificent paintings. Music takes on a life of its own after it begins to grow out of Gregorian Chant. Even drama itself, after the Greeks, grows largely out of the liturgy.
The Catholic Church is, then, in some way the source of art. The reason is because art is one of the ways in which man is allowed to worship his Creator and to imitate His glory by also being, in a smaller way, a creator. Obviously, we are here on earth to save our souls and be humble servants, created beings, creatures of God. But we have been given certain blessings. One of these blessings is the ability to create things ourselves.
The greatest gift that our Creator gave us is the ability to propagate or extend this creation. Think of the command to “go forth and multiply.” Adam and Eve were told to create new human life. This is the most important act of creation that mankind participates in.
At the same time, there are other ways in which mankind has always created. Consider here the craftsman. Tables and chairs and dishes and clothes are all designed by someone and made by someone. All of these crafts have certain rules: if someone tried to make a chair with one leg or a cup with a hole in the bottom or a shirt with one arm, it would not be able to fulfill its purpose. Thus, there are rules of crafting, and craftsmen need to know these rules so that they can build correctly so that the object is useful.
But beyond a normal sturdy chair, there are occasionally artists who do something special with a craft. Thomas Chippendale, for instance, was known for making exceptionally beautiful chairs, usually now named for him, “Chippendale chairs.” They are worth a lot of money, even if they fulfill the same function. The chair’s value comes from its exceptional beauty, not merely its utility. This is when craft is transcended and becomes art. Thus, we can move beyond craftsmanship to artistry.
Artistry always has, at its core, the reflection of a high beauty, something higher than us. It is reflected in the created object. This is true in all art, literature, and music. Any artist giving expression to this is, on one level, a maker, and another level, a craftsman. But the higher the level of craftsmanship, the greater the inspiration (a word that comes from the Latin term meaning “to breath into”), and thus we can say that the greater the artist, the more we can say the divine has been breathed into that artist.
There is a certain connection between the great artist and the divine vision, reflecting that which is good, true, and beautiful. The greatest art, in reflecting divinity, is reflecting these attributes of the Godhead. Thus, created objects which manifest and reflect these qualities draw souls to God like a kind of magnet. Great art can do this in many different ways.
Yet art is not religion. Art is that which artists make; a painter paints and a musician composes. They are concerned with their craft. But if they do it to the top of their form, they are given another dimension, something often timeless, which speaks across boundaries, to all people. Thus, there is something of universality in great art. As a result, there are certain attributes which transcend this mundane world.
Here we are concerned with literature. Literature is unique; it is different from the other arts. In fact, every kind of art is a separate thing. I have a book written in 1928 on this topic by Brother Leo, a Christian Brother. It provides a good introduction to this question. I will briefly summarize a section called “Why We Read Literature.”
His first argument: “To vitalize our knowledge.” This means to infuse life into what we know. If we go all the way back to the Greeks, to the Romans, through the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and even the best modern writers (such as Evelyn Waugh), you find artists saying similar things. There are two basic things that all this literature does. First, it educates. Literature exists to tell us something. Educare, in Latin, means “to lead.” Every piece of literature leads us, takes us somewhere we have not been before. The second thing literature does is delight. There is an enjoyment factor here. We enjoy the process of the story and the act of story-telling.
Thus, these two separate functions of literature are always present: in fact, you could say that one of the reasons that literature is such a powerful tool for education is because it is so delightful. A good story interests us; further, it is easier to remember what a story tells us if it is a delightful story. Literature is conducive to memory.
There are those who consider literature to be less than serious, or unnecessary. I give to you the thirteenth chapter of the Gospel of St. Matthew. This is the Parable of the Sower and the Seed. Christ here teaches us about the seed which falls on different kinds of ground. It is here that the disciples ask our Lord: “Why speakest thou in parables?” It is a genuine question and a fair question, one which we still ask today in various ways. “Why do I need to read all these books? What’s the point of writing stories?” In the Gospel, our Lord responds: “Because to you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. But to them, it is not given.” Most people cannot know or understand things directly. Our Lord continues:
For he that hath, to him shall be given, and he shall abound: but he that hath not, from him shall be taken away that also which he hath. Therefore do I speak to them in parables: because seeing they see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. And the prophecy of Isaias is fulfilled in them, who saith: By hearing you shall hear, and shall not understand: and seeing you shall see, and shall not perceive. For the heart of this people is grown gross, and with their ears they have been dull of hearing, and their eyes they have shut: lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them. But blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear. For, amen, I say to you, many prophets and just men have desired to see the things that you see, and have not seen them, and to hear the things that you hear and have not heard them.
Before you can understand, the eyes have to be opened slowly. The ears have to be opened slowly. Thus, things must be given in a way that is pleasant, that delights, that introduces us to knowledge. We cannot get it directly. How much truer is this for us today. I would actually argue that we need stories now more than ever. I would also say that God, in His wisdom, prepared this time, prepared the human race for the coming of His Son who would speak in parables, by imparting to us a desire to listen to stories. It is innate to us.
One of the things which defines man from the dawn of time is storytelling. Og the caveman, after he killed an animal and took it home to eat, probably painted it on the wall and told his family and friends about the hunt. We enjoy making up stories. Anyone who has spent time around children realizes this. “Tell me a story.” “Tell me a story you told me last night.” We need to hear the same stories over and over. This implies that the repeated story sinks deeper.
This is why our Lord uses parables. It was necessary for Him to use these to give the Good News. He told stories; story-telling then has a very honorable imprimatur. Those of us who teach literature can thus be proud of doing so, even if what we teach is not on the same level as the parables. Nevertheless, the story itself is honorable.
Back to Brother Leo. He says that we read literature “to vitalize our knowledge.” But he goes one step further; literature is not there just to give us knowledge. He says:
To know is one thing. To realize is another. Realization implies vitalized knowledge. I may know, for instance, that Assisi is a town somewhere in Italy and that St. Francis lived there and founded the Friars Minor. I may know several of the events from his life and know many of the legends about the first Franciscans. I might be able to cite the dates of St. Francis’ birth, death, and canonization. I might even be able to tell you how many Franciscans there currently are in the world. This is all knowledge. Then let us suppose that one day I find myself in Umbria and climb the hill on which Assisi is built. I walk the same streets down which the Saint used to trip, singing in the days of his youth. I kneel at his tomb in the great church raised in his honor and gaze upon his life as depicted by the artist Giotto. Then I walk down the olive-clad hill and across the fields to visit the noble basilica which encloses the tiny 700-year-old chapel of the Portiuncula. Let us finally suppose that in the moonlight I sit and ponder the spirit of love, simplicity, and holy gladness which the “little poor man” enkindled in this very place so long ago and which still burns mightily throughout the world. Thinking thus, I resolve to make the Franciscan spirit a part of my own life and to shed love and joy about me everywhere. At this point, I do not merely know; I realize the significance of Assisi and its saint. My knowledge is alive and vital. In other words, knowledge confined to the intellect is dead. It comes to life when it is realized, that is, when it arouses an emotional response and stirs the will to action.
This is why it is possible to be a walking encyclopedia, filled with facts, and still not hold real wisdom. Wisdom is knowledge vitalized that reaches the heart as well as the head and causes the will to act. This is what literature does. It gives us information, but because of the emotional power of the literary artifact, it turns that knowledge into something lived, experienced, and then reinforced in the world.
Brother Leo’s second reason for studying literature is “to live more deeply and richly.” Here is the recognition we all live our own lives, full of unique incidents and events. But we can also live in another way. I had a dear friend, a neighbor, who never slept out of her home on any night from the day she was married at eighteen years of age until her death at eighty-nine; she didn’t want to. She used to say: “I don’t need to go anywhere; God gave me the ability to read books.” She also had a capacity to memorize; she could sit and recite poetry for hours on end. Much of it was learned in school. She had a rich interior life, which is what literature provides.
When you read Hamlet, you are experiencing a range of events which you will personally never know. They will not be a part of your lived life externally in the sense of action. You will never be Prince of Denmark. Your uncle probably won’t kill your father. It’s even more unlikely your mother will marry your uncle. I hope I’ll never stab someone blindly without knowing who it is. I hope I’ll never drive my beloved mad by ill-treating her. These are all events which take place in that play, all of which you are wiser for knowing. They are things you need to know. Having experienced them through Hamlet, and living deeply and richly–the good and troubling things alike—wisdom can come to you without you having to live it personally.
This will be especially striking when we enter the pits of Hell in the Inferno. By encountering all the sinners in Hell, Dante gains necessary information without having to commit all those sins. When we read Dante, and spiral down through the Inferno, we are gaining knowledge vicariously, we are living deeply and richly, gaining insights we need to have, experiencing emotions and torments which aid us in living. Fortunately, we don’t have to go through it directly.
Part of this is the interior life which literature can provide. As Brother Leo says:
The soul, the mind, needs food and exercise just as the body does. But the food of the mind is not bread and its exercise is not games. It feeds on visions of truth and beauty as supplied by the master word artists in literature. Its exercise is to wrestle with ideas as enshrined in noble books, even as Jacob wrestled all the night with the angel. Its reward is like Jacob’s: to receive a joyful blessing at the dawn.
There it is; you have to feed the soul and the mind. St. Thomas also says the soul needs refreshment just as the body needs rest. There is a class of literature which is not serious, deep, or scholarly, and tends to the enjoyment factor: delightful pleasure in a story well told. The soul and mind need this refreshment. Other times, they need training. Indeed, if you are only giving dessert to the brain and soul, it will grow fat. As Brother Leo says:
A man, physically ill, has no appetite for beefsteak and onions, and no desire to take part in a football game or marathon race. Often a reader gets no benefit from reading a masterpiece of literature simply because he does not give himself to the work with vim, vigor, and enthusiasm. He must take an active, not a passive, attitude towards the great writer and the great book. He must read creatively. Reading is a form of living.
People often complain of literature being boring; I reply that the problem lies in us, not the book. Take Dante, for example: for 700 years, the finest minds have found him one of the greatest sources of enlightenment concerning what life is about and the overall design of the universe. Now, we think it is boring? It is clear where the problem lies–not in the book but in ourselves.
Brother Leo points out a reality which is hard: some people can’t handle good literature. If you give someone cotton candy for 18 years, and then offer them a steak, they won’t be able to chew it. This in spite of the fact that he is getting real food for the first time! If the teeth have rotted away from all the sugar, the meat cannot be eaten. The mind that encounters great literature and says “I don’t understand this” is the man with no teeth, gumming a beefsteak.
Brother Leo provides a third reason for studying literature: “to acquire culture.” Culture is a dirty word these days, especially in universities. Culture represents the past. Brother Leo tells us:
Through religion and art, music and literature, the man of culture comes into vital contact with ideas of truth, beauty, and goodness. The emotions aroused in him, because of these refining influences, are noble and elevated. It follows that his habits of thinking and feeling are formed under the influence of the best and finest ideals. Such a man has the dignity and simplicity, the ease and self-control, the poise and independence, the strength and gentility which are the external indications of inner culture.
The whole point of exposing ourselves to these great things is to be elevated. When an entire body or populace jointly decides these things are of value, focuses on them, and gets to know them, you have culture. Everything is then elevated. Consider the etymology of “culture.” Agriculture means to grow crops. A cultured society consists of a people growing, ennobling, and elevating themselves. If I simply throw rocks and pebbles into some dirt, no corn will grow. It would be my fault. Similarly, year after year of bad movies and lousy television and sappy novels will leave only a barren field: nothing will grow. Then you will be starving. Then barbarism will ensue: violence, drugs, suicide. Religion, art, music, and literature are not equivalent. Each one is different, but they are all necessary.
Brother Leo gives one final reason for studying literature: “To learn the art of self-expression.” T. S. Eliot wrote an essay called Tradition and the Individual Talent. In it, he points out that we can’t do anything on our own, cut away from a tradition, purely as an individual. Whatever you accomplish must be part of a tradition. Before building a house, this foundation is essential. This foundation is represented by all the great artists and writers before you. Eliot, wanting to be a poet, spent years profoundly studying the poetic tradition of the West. It’s much easier to ignore the past and write whatever you want, however you want to write it; the result, however, will be as shallow as your preparation has been.
If you really want to develop ideas, you must consult the giants of the past. Only in that way will you have the possibility of lifting yourself up to stand on their shoulders. And even if you don’t do that, you will certainly develop and master the art of expressing yourself with greater clarity and conviction.
We are creatures of language. We were given the gift of language with which to express, understand, and become creatures of reason. It is part of what makes us human. We need to master it. It takes work. Just like riding a bicycle, it is worth learning, but the learning process demands that we fall over, struggle back on and maybe use training wheels. Eventually the activity becomes second nature to us.
There is a basic degree of competence necessary. Human speech is part of the music we make. Poetry is human speech as music: it is where literature and music converge.
This is just a basic overview of what literature does for us. Beyond these considerations, I would say that time is limited: why waste your time reading modern spy novels or romance fiction when you could have the best? Turn to tradition. We know who the greatest books are written by: Homer, Sophocles, Dante, Chaucer, Shakespeare, etc. In this series, we will only consider Dante.
(To be continued.)
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