Every literature has its own characteristics and elements that are necessary to compose it. Many scholars have defined literature as “creativity in one word”, and literature in it’s general sense is “a creative intellectual product that constitutes in it’s old and modern intellectual and linguistic civilization which embraces any nation and it is a mirror reflecting its culture and society”. We do not know past ages and societies except through literature, whether it is poetry, prose, story or other art of literature, as it is a mirror for all ages and societies. The importance of literature lies in preserving these societies and their identity and heritage and making them remembered till date. Without literature we can’t know writers and poets of the ancient ages, and the life they live in those times. Literature was given great attention by society, because it has an impact on the souls, but in our era, it has met with ingratitude, denial and meager attention by the elite writers. In the beginning, it is better to point out that literature is nothing but an expression of reality in aesthetic ways that depend on language. By reality it means the society with its cultural, economic and political components, the nature with it’s mountains, rivers, plains, valleys and various geographical phenomena, and the man with mind from which he struggles with himself from desires and fears, and what goes in his fantasies and ideas, which all appear in his behavior and activities. Undoubtedly, the importance of literature is related to all these elements. Literature increases our understanding about society, its concerns and aspirations; which helps decision makers to solve its problems and plan for its future. It also informs about what previous civilizations and nations were like, for example, classical literature, which provides us lot of information about life in that era, and the information can be acquired about the social, political, economic, religious conditions of the society by reading the poetry, novels, and stories of writers. Literature has also its importance and utility in defining the nature, places and cultures which increases our knowledge of human behaviors. We can acquire goals of literature through its means which is language which helps to preserve it and the heritage and thought it carries, considering the language as the carrier of the nation’s heritage and its intellectual, literary and scientific achievements. The effect of literature appears in awakening peoples from their stagnation. Literature is an arduous and difficult task for those whom Almighty has not granted the gift of writing and the gift of perceiving the depths of things which is around them without being affected by the crusts, seeing the truth of life without embellishment, without complacency and without equivocation, its bitter or sweet truth and the reality of human beings in it, whether in their nobility or their decadence. A true writer does not search for happiness in life, but searches for the truth. Perhaps for this reason, literature appears to be one of the richest human art, because it bears all that intellectual and human heritage for a group of people called as writers and seekers of truth. Literature is mixing the details of real life with delicate and deep human feelings, departing from what is familiar to what is unfamiliar and unusual. Whether sad or happy, calm or angry. Literature is the highest level of humanity because it does not talk about quantity or how nor it does talk about material or money, also it does not seek to reap wealth or settlement.
The greatest freedom that man enjoys is to speak about himself through literature, so the true writer is master of the universe, not the master of others but the master of himself, because he knows what he wants in his life, and he advances his concepts towards this universe, he feels that there is no need for everything that is materialistic. Because literature and its creativity, its beauty, its release gives it the invisible wings to move to other worlds,beyond the world of matter and the world of traditional concepts. The true writer is the vigilant spirit, observing and remains alert for pain and suffering. The society which is moving away from literature in its inclinations, culture and vision of life is a society that is gradually sinking into the materiality and dryness of life. The grave mistake is to believe that literature is a luxury issue that we can abandon and that we can love to possess. Humans are under the umbrella of feelings, so there are only simple, dry, barren ideas that distinguish between humans according to interest and need, according to what should be and what should not be. Adolescents, who live in difficult life circumstances, have found through literature a vision of life and hope for the future, and many of them have became able to find their human values of life.
As a result, it seems that literature has contributed to shaping the construction of man in every age according to its characteristic, but the imbalance occurs when it becomes an old topic that is not relevant to the contemporary world.When literature shrinks it’s space to describe feelings and encompasses the idea and technology takes over the area of feeling and the depth of the idea and the renewal of creativity. Also, not to forget the role of the Ministry of Education in marginalizing literature in its curriculum and limiting it to particles that do not fatten and do not sing anything to its reader. Literary clubs have a role in what literature suffers from apathy. With the globalization and its intertwining with the so-called globalization, literature is the one who can preserve our identity and protect it from loss and falsification. In the end, it can be said, that Literature has an impact on people’s lives, it is a source of pleasure and benefit, polite to sentiments and emotions, and motivates to take stances, as it expands the experiences, and helps to understand life, nature and society as well as ourselves. That is why it is the need for people, especially students, to write in the various parts of literature such as poetry, story, play, thought and essay, and to read literary books; Such concerns devoid them from falling into violence, and being characterized by harshness and cruelty. The function of literature, with its intellectual and aesthetic values, except to soften the conscience is engineering emotions, and pushing man to walk the path of mental and emotional transcendence.
( The author is a Research Scholar at the Department of Arabic, BGSB University, Rajouri. Views are his own)
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