To recall the function of literature

To recall the function of literature

 

A few days ago I met a college alumni and respected teacher at university. He was retiring and now is an honorary professor and spends time translating or climbing. I majored in German literature at university. The teacher’ major was also a German literature and His German poetry lecture remained me impressive among his classes. So he was the most popular professor. In the middle of the Gangnam area, we had dinner together. As one of my colleagues was eating a meal, suddenly recommended his thesis, The Literature in the Age of Multimedia. She said that It was a thesis written by him 20 years ago from now, nonetheless it is a perfect proposition now, and she is doing a university lecture with it. And as a writer, I have published poetry and novels, and I am very fond of writing now, and I want to read it. Our current reality is negatively telling us that in the age of multimedia, the seat of literature is increasingly being lost, Then how did the professor say about that? Google is now replacing the functionality of translation and even creating story. Everyone is concerned that artificial intelligence has the ability to follow human beings.

By the way, as I read the paper, my concerns have flowed into relief.

If the contents of the paper are abbreviated, the professor said that speed is the most important thing in the information society represented by the Internet. Literature, which can be described as "a slow gesture" because of the value of speed, is threatened its place. Literature is a genre that can be pushed back from the concept of speed because it has to be done through writing and reading, contemplation, criticism and acceptance. But the information that only emphasizes the speed of the new media makes us fall into sensuous satisfaction and fragmentary thinking. This means that humans lose the ability to interpret human beings in the totality and historicity of the world, temporality of past, present, and future, and lack critical and creative thinking. All information is given meaning in relation with human being, and critical thinking and creative thinking come out in this meaning giving process. The fragmentary information that attaches importance only to speed and is always pushed by new information is not worthy in relationship and meaning, is constantly abandoned, and does not embody any value. Literature, therefore, plays an enlightening role in this age in this respect and must be resurrected. Literature is constantly producing value, giving meaning to life, interpreting humanity and interpreting the world, and saying that the subject of speed is human, and saying that the life itself is more important than the condition of life.