If we could ask a children what is literature, a possible answer would be an amount of old books written a lot of time ago. Don’t you think so? In schools, high schools and universities we have learnt all the ages of literature: romanticism, realism, naturalism… But yet we have not learnt this age, our age. We are in the modern age of literature, but I can not imagine what will the students of the future be taught about this literature. Where are the Shakespeares of today?
We have marched ahead in many different areas, such as medicine, science, life style or human rights. One of the biggest developments has been in entertainment. Films, TV shows and sitcoms, videosgames… all of them have contributed to the pleasure of giving us interesting things to do, as literature started once upon a time. But, who is creating the new literary styles and revolutioning literature? Who is using writing and words in a manner never seen before?
Every age of history has its own age of literature. Indeed, literature is considered to be the mirror of the world. It narrates, not only the history as it was, but also how it could have happened, what ideas did and did not emerge and the ideas that were not victorious. It is considered as well a way of rebelling or rejecting against the established cultural contest. Therefore, if a new age in literature is about to come, this should be its begining. Actually, the same as the others’ starting point – nowadays’ society.
However, the fail of this society regarding art (because literature is art, but not the only expression of it) is that almost all the art that is created – or all of it – is done with comercial purposes. The bussiness of writing books (yes, bussiness), is headed by people, specially, publishers and enterprises, who seek money and fame.
In this context we find the word best-seller, a term which was created not so long time ago to name those literary works that were idely accepted and spreaded by the audience and that achieved a high amount of sellings. More sellings, more money.
In addition, the technology has reached so much importance that all kinds of art have assumed they could not last without it. But there is no why this has to be a bad new for literature or for the art in general, as Billion Temesghen says:
In our times literature has assumed an elevated technological attribute, something that naturally reflects the advanced era we are in. Whether they are traditional or the latest e-Books, books are being written and there are countless paintings and other artistic forms that drown-out the contemporary context. In addition we now have movies: visual recordings that can be surely defined as the latest most popular literary genres.
We live in an epoch in which the old can be compatible with the new. Then, why shouldn’t we try to develop literature from a selfness view, with the help of technology? It can be possible that anywhere we write, a new piece of literature is being created, in journals, newspapers, diaries and even on chats and on Facebook. Having done this, I truly belive that the future generations will have reasons to study our generation’s literature.
References:
Billion Temesghen (March 14, 2013). Where is literature heading to? In Shabait.com. Retrieved 10 December, 2013. http://www.shabait.com/about-eritrea/art-a-sport/12830-where-is-literature-heading-to
Best sllers. Wikipedia. Retrieved December 20, 2013. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bestseller
