We have said that literature reflects life. How then is a novel about a twenty-four hour
period (such as James Joyce's Ulysses) different from a book that merely records everything that
happened in twenty four hours? Or how is a movie different from someone with a movie camera
who simply walks around at random for two or three hours and shoots whatever he sees? Don't
both "reflect" life? But literature doesn't simply record life—it interprets it. It doesn't simply
reflect life—it focuses it. It's a mirror, but a special kind of mirror. It's a mirror in which we can
see ourselves even more clearly, more vividly than in an ordinary mirror. Through a process
sometimes called "artistic selection” the writer or poet or movie maker simplifies experience, yet
at the same time he clarifies and deepens it. He selects that which is most important, most basic.
In other words, he tries to make sense out of life. He reflects on the meaning of life. So there is
implicit in every poem or play or story a "worldview," a set of values. Literature (as well as
philosophy) asks and answers the "big questions": 1) Where have we come from? 2) Where are
we going? 3) What is the meaning of our existence? Literature not only asks these questions in
a searching and eloquent way, but also provides us with a wide variety of possible answers
We have said that literature reflects life. How then is a novel about a twenty-four hour
period (such as James Joyce's Ulysses) different from a book that merely records everything that
happened in twenty four hours? Or how is a movie different from someone with a movie camera
who simply walks around at random for two or three hours and shoots whatever he sees? Don't
both "reflect" life? But literature doesn't simply record life—it interprets it. It doesn't simply
reflect life—it focuses it. It's a mirror, but a special kind of mirror. It's a mirror in which we can
see ourselves even more clearly, more vividly than in an ordinary mirror. Through a process
sometimes called "artistic selection” the writer or poet or movie maker simplifies experience, yet
at the same time he clarifies and deepens it. He selects that which is most important, most basic.
In other words, he tries to make sense out of life. He reflects on the meaning of life. So there is
implicit in every poem or play or story a "worldview," a set of values. Literature (as well as
philosophy) asks and answers the "big questions": 1) Where have we come from? 2) Where are
we going? 3) What is the meaning of our existence? Literature not only asks these questions in
a searching and eloquent way, but also provides us with a wide variety of possible answers
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