“A great writer within any culture changes everything. Because the thing is different afterwards and people comprehend themselves differently. If you take Ireland before James Joyce, and Ireland fifty years afterwards, the reality of being part of the collective life is enhanced and changed.”
— Seamus Heaney
That’s very true, when a nation is – at least in some diffuse way – aware of its own literature.
In America, though, I have to wonder what percentage of the population could even identify William Faulkner, Eugene O’Neill and Henry James as writers, much less have any awareness whatsoever of their specific works…
MikeR-
In the crowd I run in, everyone has an awareness of those writers. So there is hope!
But I do think that there are certain cultures, or certain countries, that revere their literature as something holy. It is an outpouring of cultural feeling, cultural memory, and the entire country feels qualified to take ownership of these authors. Perhaps it has something to do with countries deprived of their native tongue (the Seamus Heaney quote came from a short essay about “language” – and the importance of native language to poetry in places where people were not allowed to speak their mother tongue.) Derek Wolcott is another example, another person included in the essay I quote from.
In situations where people have little choice in their destinies – where the tongue of their ancestors is made illegal and is no longer taught in schools – the voice of the poets, the voice of the literati – becomes the voice of all.
Look at how people from Iran love their poetry. I have friends from Iran, and their relationship to their poets (and yes, they see them as “their” poets) is beautiful, something I completely envy.
The same is true for how the Irish feel about their writers – although they weren’t even ABLE to read James Joyce when it first came out, because none of it could be published there.
Just a thought…
I think you’re on the right track. Our general lack of interest in or knowledge about our literature probably has a lot to do with our relative freedom and lack of subjugation by foreign powers.
But red, I do hafta tell ya that your crowd is somewhat atypical…