What does Literature mean to the human species: will it help us to evolve and survive? The Garth Boomer address

Abstract

In this article I restate and reframe the case for literature teaching in English classrooms across the globe by arguing for it from the perspectives of modern interpretations of Darwinian theory. I touch on the current plague that we are all experiencing at this moment, it is a phenomenon as old as humanity and a reminder of our fragile and single species however ‘divided’ by nationalisms and populisms. What have we learnt from history and literature? We can both explain and justify why reading literature is so important for young people by considering literature as a special source of knowledge and understanding for all human beings, one that is part of our evolution and our adapted minds and is a part of ‘culture’, and culture that is itself evolving quite rapidly. We do share much that is universal, that is common to humanity and that many of the narratives of literature deserve to be called widely significant – we can let the word ‘grand’ rest with the derogatory proponents of postmodernism. In recognising the power of nationalism we must teach literature as one means to escape its insidious mind forging manacles. We might think about our literary language, could we cut through some centuries of censorship and talk about, for example, ‘mating’ – it is what we do. Such a basic term raises the shibboleth of reductionism, as in, surely, we cannot be reduced to being animals? Is all this glorious literature just the result of some particles and chemicals? To which the plain answer is simply ‘yes’ – but that is not the point --- we are not reduced by it we are explained by it, we are empowered and emancipated by it – we are all the same stuff, the stuff that dreams are made on – and this little life really is rounded by a sleep. A final opening point is that this is not an argument for what can be called ‘speciesism’, that is a position which simply assumes the ‘superiority’ of humans to all other species. On the contrary, we must face up to the domination of all other species by humans and we must ask our students to understand how literature also tells the story of that domination. Much literature describes and celebrates nature in all its forms and helps to place the human in a relationship to the natural world. In a Darwinian perspective we are just one species amongst many, some survive and some do not, a very powerful reminder in the year of Covid.