A Defence of Literature

Literature has become obsolete. Literature has become meaningless and redundant. Literature has died – and this is coming from an English student with a concerning list of books to be read.

The death of literature is not a new concept. One of the earliest proponents had brought the death of the novel-form to the attention of readers as far back as in 1925. José Ortega y Gasset addresses literature’s impending death in his Decline of the Novel (1925). Other media theorists and critics were quick to join the bandwagon of doom once the first alarm was rang. Contributors expanded the analysis of its decline in the 50s and 60s, and by the 2000s, technological developments and changing tastes proved the truth behind these claims. The literary landscape required an update of its traditional forms.

Percy Shelley's A Defence of Poetry had long proven this. The essay, published in 1840, reiterated the role of poetry (coined as a generally all-encompassing name for meaningful literary forms) and that of the poet. It was written as a rebuttal to an article stating that poetry had become meaningless. By this point, British literary society was torn between the logic-moved Enlightenment and the Romantic’s modernist rejection of beauty. Literature had become an amalgam of reactionary means and banal entertainment. Poets were either political commentators or artists, seeking to evade social control or to create art for art’s sake. Shelley condemned this simplification. Beyond being a critic, a philosopher, or an artist, Shelley’s view of the poet is one combining the goals of a “teacher” and a “prophet”. For him, poets are “the unacknowledged legislators of the world”. Other than addressing the role of the poet, his essay proved the necessity of the meanings and feelings evoked by literature. It demonstrates literature was already weakening early in the 19th century.

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In light of recent developments in the industry, over 200 years after Shelley’s A Defence of Poetry, let us revisit his ethos to return to literature the role it deserves.

The first lesson Shelley imparts in A Defence of Poetry is that literature and meaning are one. Whatever the goal of poetry (and other forms of literature, by extension) is, having  a meaning is essential – be it implied by the author’s hand or the reader’s understanding. Still, the modern practice of placing commercialisation above anything else makes this difficult. Contemporary culture is one that gratifies accessibility and speed, sometimes sacrificing quality and, unfortunately, meaning. It follows that literature is no longer art. Instead, it is solely a product meant to be consumed and discarded before it stops being trendy.

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The ease of access that BookTok, Bookstagram, and similar platforms for fast literature propose has ruined this industry, precisely because they are built solely on engagement statistics and trends. The need to produce books quickly has made authors sacrifice the quality of their writing.

This is not to say we should restrict poems to a certain audience. The goal is not to sequester the novel to a reader that can analyse every sentence with a level of precision that not even the author can imitate. Literature should not be an elitist industry that only accepts new members after they have passed the trails of reading Homer, Eurypides, and Plato, and pitted them against Haruki Murakami, Donna Tart, and Margaret Atwood. On the contrary, this criticism meant to highlight that literature being accessible is not synonymous with accepting every verse and every line blindly.

The desire for readers to find like-minded people, and the pressure on the author to produce books to satisfy fast-moving consumerism has perpetuated poor-quality fast literature. The expansion of this industry under social expectations has created the pretense that every work is valid, regardless of its artistic quality, formal characteristics, or concluding ethos. However, while taste is subjective, literature is not. It is precisely because literature evades rules and aesthetic judgements that there can and must be objectively bad books, and thus, that there must be antagonistic opinions. Literature losing its meaning to be easily sold and follow trends has killed literary criticism and readers' freedom to truly judge whether they like or dislike a text. If nothing else, let meaninglessness and commercialisation become the meaning, but do not let literature and its readers be shackled by the latest social media trend. The industry should help authors write something that truly calls out to them independently of how well it will do on social media without shame, and should help readers consume what they want – from classics to Tumblr poetry – and be able to freely admit their true opinion without fearing being isolated from the community. In other words: let readers have opinions, let writers experiment freely, and let trends be a safe space for dialogue instead of the be-all and end-all of modern literature. 

We have failed the industry by expanding it without protecting what lays at its core. We have failed those who have wanted to enjoy this industry by sacrificing what makes it unique. We have failed by making literature lose its meaning. While it might not be dying in the sense of consumption, it is dying as a platform of exchange and debate. Do not kill literature in the name of trends and fitting in. Instead, let’s participate “in the eternal, the infinite, and the one” and return to literature its glory – like Shelley would have wanted us to.