Essay | Literature, History and a People
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The literature and history of a country reveal its people from more angles than almost anything else.
The character of a people grows from its shared culture, and that culture is formed under the influence of geography, social institutions and many other conditions. Someone who has not grown naturally within that cultural atmosphere will find it difficult to grasp the character hidden behind it. Yet a convenient path remains: by reading a people’s classic literature, one can glimpse some of its features. A classic work necessarily reflects many aspects of its nation during a particular period. Time may introduce differences, but certain features are always preserved or developed. Moreover, citizens often read such classics from childhood, so reading the same works is almost like entering the environment itself. Just as people who eat the same food may acquire similar bodies, those who consume the same spiritual nourishment may acquire similar ways of thinking.
The literature of an age is a cross-section of that age. Consider vocabulary: after concentrating for some time on books written three hundred years ago, I used too many archaic words and constructions when writing in Italian, making my prose contorted and difficult to understand. The same applies to ideas. A classic is often long enough for the thoughts its author has exposed on the page to become partly visible. Alessandro Manzoni’s I Promessi Sposi, for example, is like a camera that captured the appearance of an age—not only its outward appearance, but its spiritual one.
History records events of the past. The earliest people may not have possessed a strong intention to preserve history. For many different reasons, some became interested in what had happened and wished to record it; from that desire, history emerged. Clues are gathered from documents and artefacts until the rough outline called “the past” can be drawn.
Beyond accurately reconstructing past events, a historian also needs a capacity for resonance: the ability to feel, through lifeless materials, what people of another age believed; to experience the world as it appeared inside their minds. It is a form of imagination that crosses time. I believe this is where the true fascination of history lies.