Millions of educated people who enter and leave high school without having developed a love for literature - for great fiction - think that literature is all about stories.
And for many of them, particularly students of natural sciences, the stories are so much ado about nothing, "tales told by idiots, signifying nothing”.
If there is anything of value in a study of literature, it lies in enabling the students to have a functional knowledge of the English language.
All one needs to communicate in English is read the set books and the grammar books the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) recommends for English in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE).
This is a fallacy. Literature is not just about mastering a language, in our case, English. Literature of any society is the depository of the knowledge, skills, abilities and habits of thinking and doing things that society has found useful to its survival and well-being.
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Fictional works - novels, plays, poems, and fairy tales from different civilizations - have capacity, unrivalled capacity, to provide insights into life. It is these insights that are the goal of literature. While those who develop a keen interest in these books invariably master the language, it is the things that these books impart to them that are of lasting value.
The beauty of literature does not lie in creating and solving problems - whether simple or complex.
The problems created (simulated is a better word) are a mirror of actual problems facing the individual at any given point, or which have faced mankind all along and no definitive answer has been provided.
Whatever the case, and whatever the nature of the problem, questions and dilemmas, readers are invited to ponder on the contradictions and mysteries of life - as delineated in the fictional work in question.
In nearly all great literature, there is something called the inciting incident. This is an incident or event that set the central conflict - the main problem - into motion. It is through the unfolding of events, or incidents, triggered by the inciting incident that the reader is enabled to have an understanding about something.
Through reading excellent works of fiction, we come to appreciate life, and human beings, their strength and weakness perhaps more than any other person except those who study psychology, and philosophy. Literature allows people to develop certain insights and vision. With the right critical appreciation, skills are as persuasive as the insights and visions we draw from inductive or deductive logic in other disciplines.
Crucially the experience of reading literary fiction improves the ability to detect and understand other people’s emotions. The characters who illustrate incidents or the incidents which are illustrated enable us to see the motivations, and the traits at work and we are able to understand the nexus always between the action, and the trait or the motivation. This knowledge and skills helps many people to manage complex relationships, in team work or at the workplace.
One does not have to formally study literature in college to gain the insights and skills that are unique to it. All that is needed to appreciate literature is mastery of literacy skills at an early stage of education.
A strong grounding in reading and writing skills in Standard One and Two is sufficient to enable children to read any age-appropriate book - in content and the structure of the language.
It is the building block of these books - small and silly they might look at that early age - that builds the intellectual power to read, understand and appreciate the great works of art that defines great civilisations.
It is pointless to pretend to have learned a language yet not access all the vast intellectual wealth, which the wisest individuals and nations of the earth have created and preserved in that language, in our case, English.
We have some of the most profound speculations on science, philosophy, morals, government, law and economics originally written in English. These are books that educated people and policy makers ought to have acquaintance with.
The idea is not for academic purposes but for use in making personal decisions and decisions on behalf of the society - on opinion and policy formulation and what is vital, on legislative actions society invites educated people to contribute to.
Fictional works should, in our scheme of things, be seen as the gateway to the abilities, capacities and skills mankind has developed for his or her safety and well-being. Literature is not just stories; but knowledge, power and ability.
