How Literature shaped me?

How Literature shaped me?

I would like to start the above question with a quote by Fernando Pessoa, he was a Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator publisher and philosopher. The quote is-

           “Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life”.

The above quote is very true and I can very well relate with it. It’s so because from an early age onwards I got connected with Literature and started to ignore things in such a way as if they never existed. I started to read novels and started to let go things imagining it to be all fairy tales. I used to interpret life in the same way as the writers use to portray it in their novels. Though I got connected with Literature in this way but now in real sense after five years I am able to understand only few petals of Literature.

When I was in B.A, I used to see Literature through the eyes of my Professors and never tried to go into it of my own. It was so because at that time I thought that going down the Ages would make me insane, so I kept myself aloof from it. Now I can sense that unknowingly I was also in the same group of people known as Sheeples and accepted everything believing it to be the sheer reality. I never thought that one day or the other I would write Blogs or think critically which I am doing today when I am pursuing my M.A. Now Literature seems something very fascinating to me. I have started to think critically and also have started questioning on the existence of any piece of Literature.

Now I have parted myself from the sheeples. Unlike everyone I have also heard the same age- old traditional definition of Literature that it is the “mirror image of society”, now I have started to question this definition and I am also trying to find out the retrospective answer to this definition. Now I have realised that Literature never said to see things in the same way as others see rather it is an open book where we can put our own independent view points and it readily accepts the same. At first I was unable to understand why the writers like Charles Dickens, Virginia Woolf have written the bitter things of society, it’s so because people somehow or the other people would read or listen about Literature through which they would get to know about the deteriorated  condition of their society which they were unaware of. Now I got this reason after thinking deeply and also reading Literature. According to me, Literature not only represents the negative vibes of society but it also represents the positive vibes as well.

Now-a-days whenever I read any novel or poem I try to apply different types of theories in it and try to give it a new shape. Whenever I watch a movie I try to connect it with some literary texts and try to see what end results does it shows in that particular text. I can say Literature has engrossed itself in me in such a manner that every now and then I try to connect many of my real- life experiences with it.

Every culture has its own Literature, but according to me one can’t get the true essence of his or her own culture’s Literature until and unless he or she tries to peep into it of their own.

Last but not the least I would like to say that Literature for me is like a marigold flower which has got end number of petals in it in the form of different literary ideas. And these ideas are always ready to get plucked by us unlike the petals of a marigold flower.

Now I am also able to pluck the petals of Literature after I have removed myself from the group of sheeples.