Literature and History: The Unbreakable Bond

  Literature has enriched human lives for centuries uncountable. Literature has created, moulded and destroyed nations and civilizations. History and Literature have a deep bond between them. The bond connects them firmly, tangling them in with each other. History needs Literature to be expressed and Literature needs History so it can be created.

  Henry James, the American-born writer said "It takes a great deal of History to produce a little literature". Literature is in fact as quoted from Henry James is the fuel which burns to produce Literature. Most of you might have read The Lliad and The Odyssey by Homer. These Greek epics are surviving tales of an era so old, and battles so old that there is little or no other record for them. (even if some were there they would be pieces of Literature). For example a detail account of the Trojan war has been given in the epic. Thus it proves that History needs literature to survive and Literature needs History to be produced.
  Literature has been used not only for accounting Historical incidents. It has been used to create uprisings and start revolutions. The word has power to start revolutions end nations and give rise to new ones. Literature is such an important and necessary knowledge that nations thrive because of it. Decline of Literature is decline of a nation.
  The Holy books Qura'n and Bible are master pieces of literature. They were created for a purpose, like each piece of literature is. Knowledge and wide spread of the religion was the purpose. Other than the Holy messages revolutionary men like John Milton, William Shakespeare, Plato, Allama Iqbal and Frederick Douglas changed the views of the worlds by the way they wrote. Each one of them seeing the conditions of the world around them set their life with a common goal and that goal was revolution.

  To properly understand History we need to have accounts of that era in written forms and that's when Literature helps us. Likewise, when understand Literature, History of the era of the writer is necessary too. For example one of the most famous Industrial age writers Charles Dickens has written a number of pieces of Literature. The common thing in them is the hardship of the labour class, the tone too is harsh and sad i many of his works. He also shows magnified hope in very small events which tell that he believes that there is hope. The era in which he lived was of Industrial revolution. The labour class was very badly affected and that is why his stories showcase so much pain and poverty. Britain in general was also very badly injured economically at that time.
  All these works from these famous or not-so famous writers tell us a part of History. Literature represents History with emotions. The emotions heighten our feel and the more beautifully it is written the more touched we are from the emotions that the writer wants to produce. After all, "The difficulty of Literature is not to write, but write what you mean; not to affect your writer but to affect precisely as you wish".