On the music of literature
I wrote last week of the books we are scared to read, and I wanted to continue the theme. In light of Convocation, I was moved to reflect on literature and its relation to how certain texts affect us.
Think of music for a minute. I'm sure you have come across the classical radio station in Cleveland, a compilation of symphonies and scores of music by great composers such as Handel, Schubert and Bach. This weekend, I was listening to the choral voices of a particularly famous movement of Mozart's "Requiem" fill my car when I was reminded of a quote from the TV series, "The West Wing."
'Words, when spoken out loud for the sake of performance, are music. They have rhythm, and pitch, and timbre and volume. These are the properties of music, and music has the ability to find us and move us and lift us up in ways that literal meanings can't.'
The written word possesses an affecting weight, and the music of literature often has the same influence on us as hearing the moving chords of a symphony. The same is true when we read literature; there is something about the joining of words and well-thought ideas, strong narratives and poignant stories that speak to us.
In recognizing this, we feel that we should devote ourselves to great literary 'symphonies'' the concertos of Milton, the variations of Dante or the epic movements of Melville. And we should, written words reach into us and change us; they shape the world we see afterward, changing its pitch and rhythm. If we let them, they make us into better listeners - better people.
But recall the quotation above. It is not just the music of masters that moves us; it is simply music. It could be a humble chord progression or the repetition of a few bars that stirs our souls. In the world of literature, with its many genres and acclaimed texts, it is sometimes a simple collection of words and a mere four chord melody of a novel that impact us most.
I love the feeling of encountering a work and seeing part of myself reflected there in the words and narrative crafted by the author. Last semester, I read Katy Didden's poem, 'Before Edison Invented Lights.' It met me where I was, and I have read this poem countless times, pouring over the words as if it is a prayer that touches the recesses of my soul.
Katy Didden is a successful poet, and it doesn't matter if I am the only one who has ever read this poem of hers or not. It doesn't have to be a Psalm of David or a Milton poem to have this effect on me. We should all read more David, Milton and Chaucer, but we should not neglect the works of our Katy Diddens. Their works may not be great 'symphonies' like those mentioned above, but they seem to hit us where we live. And for that, they are worth the read.