In an attempt to figure out: How the literature around the World progressed and enhanced the Earth as a whole? The most important thing about having access to these valuable literature first off needs a more open-mindedness. To be tolerant towards entertaining a view that is in opposition to the world or social view. In the group of specific ethnicity there might be hidden treasure of literary work that might solve today’s problem.
I have always been fascinated about things that I shouldn’t do. Partly that it gave me a reason to find out why was it prohibited. The more we hid and not openly converse in peaceful manner about the differences in thoughts and ideologies held, only leads to banning or other oppressive obsessions over being read.
I am not speaking about the banned books here. My intention is to find out Earth’s literature when oral, written, visualised, and eventually accepted as theory in the books as theory and practice of literature.
A Table of World Literature
The below given table was created with the help of ChatGPT ai; but still, it did not fully cover all parts of the world for me.
The mentioned works of non-English speaking countries are only those works that have been under the Developed Countries of English speaking eyes point of interest.
It does not cover all the text from world over. When ChatGPT Universal Primer ai had to be separately queried for Pacific and South side of the globe.
Wherever there was civilisation that was known by the mainstream those were included, but not those who did not come into the sighting of mainstream popularity, they were then just ignored.
Source of the Table: ChatGPT Ai Universal Primer out of queries for World Literature over a pre-defined Literary Ages.
I still don’t understand if the blanks in the timelines means no one wrote anything or was it the dark or unknown ages of literature of the past. Then, going forward are those blanks will reappear even when in the digitally advancing era. Maybe, by then we will have AI singing a lyrical ballad about how human overtaxed their literary skills for school assignments.
The interesting thing about the various oral literature vs written literature was the written record of it. Now the storyteller can take an advantage of polishing after many parsing of the text. These record stories are passed down from one generation of storytellers to another. This has created the multitude of works at our disposal of learning.
Understanding the Policed Textbooks
The Literature about us the humans is filled with judging and paroling only those that confirm to ideologies. When there is a popular vote for a particular ideology those books that reflect them are even allowed to be showcased while the opposing view does see the daylight.
So, getting back to those books that are shining in the light of day, how many of them find their ways into the hands of school children. Then, the question of age appropriateness of the content crops up.
The sway of ideologies of the educator’s mind and the community for schoolbooks dissemination and distribution provide a version of skewed work to satisfy universal demand to protect children from the truth.
Later, in the grind of commercial reality of working-class office life, the memorised and slaved over textbooks are quietly forgotten in daily dirge of practical application. The shaping of young mind was based on certain factors while the reality’s thunderous strike another experiential reality for the now adult school student.
Should Reality Be Presented to the Child?
Opening the world of education to various stories that are sometimes filled with undercurrent might not be palatable for the child. Sensing that difference, I would say that one needs to aim for a middle ground in the education of World Literature.
Sometimes it is more about acceptance of diversity, if a greater number of people and ideologies are present at a given time. This is partly the reason why some the status quo is refuted then people in authority react and rethink how to act differently to the stimulus.
Learning Never Stops
At every point of progress, a check post arrives with it queries on understanding and really applying to the life’s situations. When that happens what worked for another hero might turn out to make us a zero. But even zero is of value, should be the understanding and the learner should keep moving even if they don’t fully understand the lesson.
I have always love exploring books as a means to an expected end. But I found high flaunting theories in text don’t equate to relate of the world that surrounds me. To do so, we must first have reality that is 360 Degrees with 5 Degrees peripheral views.
Interesting enough that kind of all-knowing view is difficult to come by with just a few years of experience. Sure enough then, humans can do as best as they can with a single angle view of the situation they are in. Put together their emotional upheaval and reactive responses. It sure becomes hard to stay balanced and calm in the situation.
The Incomplete Table
There is still a lot that is missing from the table such the titles of artists work (popular and not so popular works), influential works that became the momentum of the specific writing movement popular during that literary era.
The search is on to find the works in each box and maybe I will find out about those blank ones too!
Present-Day’s Hope
The present age is filled with such interesting opening to self-learn but then it is early days as yet! The most important aspect of this current Gen Now is that it is terrifyingly scintillating to experience.
I completed my undergrad in 1996 and since then, it has been a trip to find something that would fit my major. For most part, I found the job market encouraged me to pick and to choose from the varied options, the kind of studies that I wanted to pursue for my upskill.
The World Literature | A Personal Pursuit of Happiness
I picked up reading from online Archives and personal collection, where I subsist on Ancient and Modern published or printed works to find a balance. It does not matter if I am not tested for the knowledge gained but it does open the mind to think from another point of view.
What I fear in this lone study is that I might misinterpret the text and thereby lead myself to a misconstrued understanding of the said text. Yet in all its shortcoming of self-learning, I still find the possibility of personally reading and experiencing the works of the writers, poets, and dramatist would enrich myself completely.
Itinerant Storyteller 