Literature of Knowledge & Literature of Power

Essay: Literature of Knowledge and Literature of Power by Thomas De Quincy

What really do we mean by the classifying term literature? The most ready answer is that which is printed in a book. But that quick definition is easily disturbed: what about unwritten sermons, speeches, dramas, and songs? What about oral traditions and tales? Once these are recorded in writing, certainly we would classify them as literature; but are they not literature until that point? What were the finest of Shakespeare's or Aristophanes' plays before they were recorded? Or the apology of Socrates? What really is literature?

In Thomas De Quincy's opinion,

Books, therefore, do not suggest an idea coextensive and interchangeable with the idea of literature, since much literature...may never come into books, and much that does come into books may connect itself with no literary interest.

Rather, it is the content of a work which defines its place as literature, not the medium. One essential criteria for classifying literature, he says, is its universality.

[It has] some relation to a general and common interest of man, so that what applies only to local or professional or merely personal interest, even though presenting itself in the shape of a book, will not belong to literature. 

But he doesn't give any more criteria than that. Instead, he pivots and focuses on the definition of literature, defining its two primary functions (which can be intertwined):

1. Literature of Knowledge: Functions to Teach 
Literature of knowledge is that which aims primarily to convey information to the reader. In De Quincy's estimation, this is the inferior function of literature. As he describes,

All the steps of knowledge, from first to last, carry you further on the same plane, but could never raise you one foot above your ancient level of earth; whereas the very first step in power is a flight, is an ascending movement into another element where earth is forgotten.

By reading works of this sort, we grow in knowledge or information about something. Intrinsically, this implies novelty. We learn truths which we did not know before, and so increase our storehouse of knowledge. But these are lower forms of truths, De Quincy claims, because of this novelty: higher truths are inherent, not novel. Their roots are already in us; they need to be cultivated, not planted. In his words,

It is the grandeur of all truth which can occupy a very high place in human interests that it is never absolutely novel to the meanest of minds: it exists eternally, by way of germ or latent principle, in the lowest as in the highest, needing to be developed but never to be planted.

All literature of knowledge is transitory. It is eventually made obsolete by literature which presents newer developments in knowledge, or literature which presents the same knowledge in a more palatable way.

The very highest work that has ever existed in the literature of knowledge is but a provisional work, a book upon trial and sufferance...

2. Literature of Power: Functions to Move
 Literature of power is that which aims primarily to move the reader. What do we learn by reading The Call of the Wild? Not much. But works like this appeal to power, not knowledge. What do we feel? A lot. And more than that, we are reminded of latent ideals which remained dormant in our minds.

Tragedy, romance, fairy tale, or epopee, all alike restore to man's mind the ideals of justice, of hope, of truth, of mercy, of retribution, which else (left to the support of daily life in its realities) would languish for want of sufficient illustration.

This is the value of literature of power: it stirs up the great ideals of man and ignites his moral capacities. It throws us into action through inspiration. It pushes us forward, preventing us from lying down in the mire of daily drudge. And it shouts at us, "Press on! Press on to something greater!" Literature of power shines before us those ethereal ideals, in all ages nested in the bosom of our human nature, which the darkness of our times can easily encroach upon and snuff. And this literature, like its ideals, is unalterable and enduring. As Thomas De Quincy remarks,

A good steam-engine is properly superseded by a better. But one lovely pastoral valley is not superseded by another, nor a statue of Praxiteles by a statue of Michelangelo.

So write on, novelists! Read on, fiction enthusiasts! You are engaged in a magnificent task. But be careful with the books you take in your hand: for literature has power.

How Should One Read a Book?

Essay: How Should One Read a Book? by Virginia Woolf

To read a novel is a difficult and complex art. You must be capable not only of great finesse of perception, but of great boldness of imagination if you are going to make use of all that the novelist--the great artist--gives to you. -Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf begins her essay How Should One Read a Book? with a disclaimer: There is no right way to read a book. In fact, she says,

The only advice, indeed, that one person can give another about reading is to take no advice, to follow your own instincts, to use your own reason, to come to your own conclusions.

And so her main agenda, she makes it known, is only "to put forward a few ideas and suggestions."

Here are my reflections on her suggestions:

I. The first thing we must consider is our approach before we begin to read a book. 

Ask yourself, "What do I want from this book?" The answer is already there, or you would have never picked the book up. This question will reveal your intentions, which naturally pilot your reading. For example, if you're reading for encouragement, you will likely pay much more attention to things you find encouraging, and insufficient attention to the rest; if you're reading for a test, you'll read just as much as you need to do well on the test, and no more; and on and on. No matter what, your intentions will guide what you absorb and what you leave behind. It is important to address them beforehand. None of these are wrong - but there is a big difference in skimming through the book of proverbs for a little 'pick-me-up' and reading to understand it.

To get the most out of our reading, our answer ought to be "to understand". If we approach a book open-minded, eager to strain from the book everything that the book can give to us, and not imposing our own limitations for what we want to receive from the book, we will earn a far richer yield than we would have otherwise. As she says,

If we could banish all such preconceptions when we read, that would be an admirable beginning.

II. Two stages of reading

A. Reading as a friend
Understanding must always precede judgment. We want to listen before we speak. Or as she puts it,

Do not dictate to your author; try to become him. Be his fellow-worker and accomplice.

In this process, usually the first read through a book, the object is to receive impressions as they are, with our hands open and preconceptions dropped; to strive for the utmost understanding of the work before us. You are the author's friend. You want to hear from them. You value what they say, as they say it.

B. Reading as a judge
Understanding is only completed by judgment: for better or worse.

We must pass judgment upon these multitudinous impressions; we must make of these fleeting shapes one that is hard and lasting. 

I recommend a second reading for this. Pieces of the work will fall into place now that they are understood in light of the whole work. The goal here is now to appraise: What was good? What was bad? How do the ideas expressed in it compare to those I know in others which are similar? etc. And we can ask more personal questions: So what? What have I learned? What implications does this have on me, my life, my goals, my morals, my day, the world? If we were immersed inside the book in the first stage, we have now emerged outside of it again--yet we have taken some of it with us.

This judgment is more difficult than understanding, as Woolf states,

To continue reading without the book before you, to hold one shadow-shape against another, to have read widely enough and with enough understanding to make such comparisons alive and illuminating--that is difficult; it is still more difficult to press further and say, "Not only is the book of this sort, but it is of this value; here it succeeds; this is bad; that is good." 

That is the goal to reading well--reading for understanding. Pleasure may excite for a moment; knowledge may carry us for some time; but the richness of life comes from understanding--and that changes a man or woman in their depths. If only more of us would put in the effort to strive, when approaching books and people, to understand them rather than seek from them what we want. A man who understands one book has gained more than he who has merely read a lot. A man who understands one man has gained more than he who merely knows many men. But unfortunately,

Yet few people ask from books what books can give us.

Instead, we tell books what we want from them.