Don't "Do Literature"!
- 30 dakika önce
- 3 dakikada okunur
Is literature only about writing beautiful sentences or reading and writing poems filled with romantic language and metaphors?
Sometimes I take a quiet journey through my old books. Partly to organize them, and partly to spend some time with myself. As I turn the pages, I touch the past and read again the sentences I underlined many years ago.
Today, I did the same.
As I stood in front of my bookshelf, one question came to my mind:
Why did all these writers, from the past until today, write? What was their real purpose?
I first picked up Stefan Zweig. The great writer who could fit all of humanity into his short novellas. The book I picked up was Amok Runner. I opened it to a random page.
The lines I had underlined read:
"The Southern Cross hung in the sky as if fastened to the invisible with shining diamond nails... The only thing moving was the ship, trembling quietly, moving through the dark waves like a giant swimmer breathing in silence... I felt as if I were in a bath with warm water pouring over me."
Yes...
These lines are undoubtedly the work of a great literary master.
But I thought that Zweig's purpose could not have been only to write beautiful sentences.
He wrote about the darkest corners of the human soul. He wrote about conscience, guilt, passion, and despair. Inspired by Freud's ideas, he brought an extraordinary depth of human psychology into his works. He witnessed Europe slowly surrendering to Hitler's darkness, fell into despair, and in 1942 ended his life together with his wife.
Then I reached for Virginia Woolf.
The woman who said that for women to write, they first needed financial independence and a room of their own.
Such a simple, yet deeply powerful observation.
Could a woman who carried the burden of the household, had no financial independence, and spent her whole day taking care of other people's needs still have time to write?
Virginia Woolf, too, could not bear the weight of life. In 1941, she filled her pockets with stones and walked into the waters of the River Ouse.
Then came Sylvia Plath.
Her story was not very different.
Now I ask myself again:
Did these people write only to "do literature"?
I don't think so.
Each of them had something important to say to the world.
Only words could carry the feelings that kept growing inside them, overflowing, refusing to remain silent.
I put the books down on the table.
Then I ask myself the question that has been discussed for years:
Is literature for art, or is it for people?
My answer is very clear:
It is for people.
Because literature is often born not from laughter, but from pain, longing, loneliness, and the human search for oneself.
When I think about my own writing, I see the same thing.
I never write with the intention of sounding "literary." I do not try to create beautiful sentences. I simply try to put into words a feeling, an idea, sometimes a protest, and sometimes the silent cry inside a human being.
Maybe Zweig was like that.
Virginia was too.
Sylvia was too.
Maybe what we call literature is simply the elegant name that was given to it later.
Because there is an old Turkish saying that many of us grew up hearing:
"Don't do literature."
People say this when someone speaks too much or hides the real point behind fancy words.
But true literature is exactly the opposite.
True literature is not about saying many words; it is about touching the human heart with only a few.
Maybe that is why I do not write to "do literature."
I write to tell the story of people.
And perhaps that is where real literature truly begins.
"Maybe we are not doing literature; we are simply trying to put into words the life that is sometimes too heavy to carry inside us."
Keep reading, because reading is one of the best ways to understand one another.
Rahel Çela Behar
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Have you read my previous post?
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