The importance of Reading Literature

“Teach literature to your children, because it can change the coward become the brave” (Umar Bin Khattab Ra)

If there is word “literature”, the first thing that come up in my mind is “imagination” , free, and beautiful”. The words automatically come up in my mind because literature that I know always something beautiful which produced from the imagination from the author, and literature is free; free how to interpret the literary work. Similarly, with me, Boulton (1980) defines literature from a functional perspective as the imaginative work that gives us R’s: recreation, recognition, revelation and redemption. Not too different from Boulton, Moody (1987) writes that literature springs from our in born love of telling a story, of arranging words in pleasing patterns, of expressing in words some special aspects of our human experience. Those definitions lean to describe that literature is imaginative, literature is about feeling expression, literature deals with experience.

Therefore, literary work usually reflects the condition of a society. Describing of social life from the society is described in the literary work in the author’s perspective. How the author looks his/her surrounding is explained by the author that is combined with his imagination. Literary work usually base on what happen in the society, often the story base on the true story of the author. Because literary work reflects the social life, there will be some lesson that we can take from the literary work. So, reading literary work is advantaging thing. There are some advantages of reading literary work, first, we will learn how to solve our problem or conflict that happen in our life, because the literary work will teach us indirectly how to face and solve our life problem. Second, the literary work will build our character. The problem in the story can make us wiser and become a better person because actually when we read a novel or others literary work, we will learn about a conflict in life without facing it in our life. Then when some day we face the same problem will know how to solve it. In addition, when we read an inspiring story like “The Rainbow Troops by Andrea Hirata” or others, we will be motivated to have a good life. B. Rahmanto in book entitle “Metode Pengajaran Sastra”, he said that someone who read many literary work usually has more sensitive feeling to know what the valuable thing and what is not. In generally,further,  he can face his problems with understanding, insight, tolerance, and deeper sympathy (Rahmanto, 1988 :25).

In short, we can say that literature is something imaginative and deals with experience. The real experience that describe in the literary work will bring advantages for the readers. The literary work will give good impact to the reader’s self. It will build the character of the readers, and people who much read literary work usually wiser and can solve his problem without depression. So, reading literary work actually is about learning the life then live the life.

Reference:

-          - Isaac, Olaofe A. I.2008. ENG 111 An Introduction in Literature and Literary Criticism. Nigeria : National Open University of Nigeria.

-      -  Mas’ud, Bulqia. 2012. Sastra Pembentukan Karakter. (http://edukasi.kompasiana.com/2012/04/11/sastra-dan-pembentukan-karakter/ accessed on Thursday, October 25^th 2012 at 6.00 am)

cCreated by Ayufi

October 25th 2012, Semarang