A few years ago, the study of English changed my life. During the 19th century, Ferdinand de Saussure, a Swiss instructor of linguistics (commonly known as the father of modern linguistics), taught a pivotal course in clarifying the general operations of human language and, consequently, a general course in existentialism. In brief (if at all possible), Saussure detailed the arbitrary nature of language. Take a look at the following word: run. Run is a combination of a vowel and two consonants, three letters from the Latin alphabet, possessing a single syllable. This small word also contains many, many different meanings. In fact, according to New York Times author Simon Winchester, in his article, “‘Run,’ a Verb for Our Frantic Times,” the word run contains no fewer than 645 meanings, making it #1 of words with the most meanings. Of what did you think upon first seeing this word? Did you think of going for a run? A running computer? A test run? Running out of ideas? Running a risk? Three letters have never grouped so well in combining for the potential confusion of English speakers. This is because the three letters, as combined in this way, possess no inherent meaning or value, save that given it by the mouths using it. The concept your mind gives the word “run” is what Saussure calls a sound-image; the abstract idea your mind recalls upon hearing of a particular word or, as he puts it, “...not the material sound, a purely physical thing, but the psychological imprint of the sound” (852). Saussure uses the example of a tree. Each human language has a different combination of alphabetical characters and sounds to convey the idea of a tree. For the most part, none of those words for tree are identical. This is because no matter how hard humans try to manage language, the idea of a tree defies one-word description. A tree--what you really know to be a tree--is much more than just a “tree.” So why study literature? Because literature does for the concept of humanity what being outdoors does for the concept of trees.
A tree is only defined by what it is not. A tree is made of wood and has leaves, but so does a shrub, a bush, a weed, and even a table, depending on the use of the word “leaf”. However, a shrub doesn’t grow as tall, a bush has more leaves, and a weed is simply geographically undesirable. And what if you developed your notion of a tree in 1850s North Carolina, with the now extinct Bigleaf Scurfpea? That idea of a tree is largely, if not, totally unknown to all alive today. Saussure summarizes this concept when he says, “...it is clear that only the associations sanctioned by that language appear to us to conform to reality, and we disregard whatever others might be imagined” (853). Reality is rooted in language. If language is arbitrary and unstable, what does that mean for our hope of a concrete grasp of reality?
Ferdinand de Saussure’s ideas -- now known as structuralism -- were first introduced to me in the Spring of 2010, and it was then that my eyes were opened. Imagine how this theory illuminates other spheres of human knowledge! Like language, everything in life follows the pattern of recognition and uniqueness by distinguishment. African-Americans often face the difficulty of finding a definable place in society because, as James Baldwin said, “That's part of the dilemma of being an American Negro; that one is a little bit colored and a little bit white, and not only in physical terms but in the head and in the heart, and there are days -- this is one of them -- when you wonder what your role is in this country and what your future is in it. How, precisely, are you going to reconcile yourself to your situation here and how you are going to communicate to the vast, heedless, unthinking, cruel, white majority, that you are here” (Baldwin)? Similarly, homosexuality was only first given a name in a mid-1800s medical text titled Psychopathia Sexualis by Richard von Krafft-Ebbing. Homosexuality was not hitherto viewed as a pathology, but it became such once it was defined as an “other”(Wikipedia). Like language, both skin color and human sexuality possess arbitrary meaning; meaning that is contingent and rooted only in those utilizing its concepts, based on what it means to them. UVU professor Nathan Gorelick, in his lecture, “The University Must Be Defended,” explains this more thoroughly as he discusses Michel Foucault’s attempt to, “understand the apparatuses of normalization from the position of its objects -- the criminal, the hysteric, the precocious child, and all those people who were used, literally as instruments, to define abnormality, since it is only through the definition of the abnormal that something like ‘normal’ can begin to make sense.” Only through categorization and ontologization do concepts come into existence. Think about it. Utah has no actual boundaries other than those drawn by humans and then honored by the same.
So why do we study literature? Because the civilized world desperately needs us to. Semiotician Mikhail Bakhtin discusses the value of reading literature as a study in humanity and history in his essay, “Discourse in the Novel.” Specifically, he discusses how formal techniques of writing cannot be separated from the culture of the writing’s origin. Bakhtin says, “The separation of style and language from the question of genre has been largely responsible for a situation in which only individual and period-bound overtones of a style are the privileged subjects of study, while its basic social tone is ignored...More often than not, stylistics defines itself as a stylistics of ‘private craftsmanship’ and ignores the social life of discourse outside the artist’s study, discourse in the open spaces of public squares, streets, cities and villages, of social groups, generations and epochs” (268). A study of literature must include the reader’s immersion into the world created by the text. Without the acknowledgment of that author’s world, a significant portion of the literature itself is lost. A novel, however fictional, is in some way a representation of the world in which the author lived, which means we are introduced to different realities. Reading novels and other literature allows readers to develop an understanding of the lives of others, which expands overall that with which the reader is familiar. Familiarity reduces fear, and the world today fears very much.
So why study literature? Because we live in a world of what Mark Slouka calls, “unexamined assumptions”. Society functions like language in that it has no real referent. As language can only define a word by using other words, society bases its ethics, morality, and ultimately knowledge, in some way, on how society operated previously, rarely questioning the value of those concepts. Thus, one who is aware of the potential for unexamined assumptions acts almost like an electrician, looking at a schematic in a room full of non-electricians: frantically aware of the nature of a sequence of operations at play in a machine while everyone else scratches their heads wondering where to begin. Those who study literature invite themselves to question those unexamined assumptions -- they choose to view the schematic, while others, sometimes wilfully, remain ignorant. Such a claim may seem irrational, and yet one must only witness the declining rates of literacy in America, or observe the drought of new political ideas, or even examine the encroaching replacement of books for films, to see the weakening breaths of critical thought. If that isn’t enough, consider Slouka’s explanation of how capitalism has pigeonholed the arts. “In a brochure produced by The Education Commission of the States, titled ‘The Arts, Education and the Creative Economy,’” he says, “we learn that supporting the arts in our schools is a good idea because ‘state and local leaders are realizing that the arts and culture are vital to economic development’” (36). Not only are the arts forcefully being turned into marketable commodities, but people are recognizing the value and haphazardly trying to reintegrate them.
If we can reuse the schematic allegory, society is aware that literature is crucial, but unaware as to why. Students of literature know the reason. Again, Slouka beautifully states, “The case for the humanities is not hard to make, though it can be difficult...not to sound either defensive or naive. The humanities, done right, are the crucible within which our evolving notions of what it means to be fully human are put to the test; they teach us, incrementally, endlessly, not what to do, but how to be...The humanities, in short, are a superb delivery mechanism for what we might call democratic values” (37). If physical exercise is a means to a healthier body, the study of literature is a means to a healthier mind. So why study literature? Because society is in desperate need of those who understand the schematic of humanity.
Works Cited
"Richard Von Krafft-Ebing." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 26 Sept. 2014. Web. 26 Sept. 2014.
Bakhtin, Mikhail. "Discourse in the Novel." The Dialogic Imagination. Austin: U of Texas, 1981. 268-433. Print.
Baldwin, James. "The Negro and the American Promise." Interview by Kenneth Clark. PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 25 Sept. 2014. <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/bonus-video/mlk-james-baldwin/>.
De Saussure, Ferdinand. "Course in General Linguistics." The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. New York: W.W. Norton, 2010. 850-66. Print.
Gorelick, Nathan. "The University Must Be Defended." Revolutionary Students Union. Utah Valley University, Orem, UT. 25 Nov. 2013. Reading.
Slouka, Mark. "Dehumanized: When Math and Science Rule the School."Harper's Magazine Sept. 2009: 32-40. Print.
Winchester, Simon. "A Verb for Our Frantic Times." The New York Times. The New York Times, 28 May 2011. Web. 24 Sept. 2014.
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