The origins of literature

To define narrative formally is to accept, perhaps dangerously, the idea or the feeling that the origins of narrative are self-evident, that nothing is more natural than to tell a story or to arrange a group of actions into a myth, a short story, an epic, a novel.

(Genette and Levonas 1976, p. 1)

The development of literature may seem like it was an inevitability. Language predates writing by tens of thousands of years at least, and we know that preliterate cultures had oral narrative traditions. When writing came about, of course those stories would be written down. But that’s a little too simple. For one thing, the development of narrative in itself is a mystery. Humans are the only animals known to engage in storytelling, and it potentially developed early on in our species’ history. Narrative is also universal in human culture and has the same basic structure everywhere.⁶

It would appear, then, that storytelling has played an important role in our development as a species and, conversely, that ancestral environmental conditions have played an important role in the development of narrative.

(Sugiyama 2001, p. 234)

The evolutionary purpose of narrative is presently unknown, but there are some good hypotheses. Narrative may be a way of storing and transmitting information. It has several advantages, including narrative structure making information easier to remember and narratives compressing time compared to firsthand acquisition of information.⁶

Literature shares many of these advantages. However, literature is a very different medium from oral narrative. First, there is a lot of information beyond words that can be communicated through oral storytelling (e.g. gestures). Second, literature requires the use of a specialized skill (reading) which until recently was not common. These limitations partially dictated what literature could be used for. Since writing arose at different times in different places, literature has many independent origins as well.

The earliest literature is thought to be rooted in oral tradition.^3,6 It is unclear how early things were written down since the earliest writings don’t survive. The oldest known work of literature, the Epic of Gilgamesh, dates to approximately 5000 BCE. For another example, the Rigveda, the oldest Hindu religious text, is thought to have been written around 1500 BCE.^1,7

By the time of the ancient Greeks (c. 480-323 BCE), major genres and modes of storytelling had developed, and literature was prevalent enough to be a topic of philosophical study. Aristotle identified a distinction between diegesis, telling a story by narration, and mimesis, depicting a story’s events directly.² Such analysis often focused on literary canon like the Iliad. Literature was extremely important in classical Greek life, although reading itself was limited to an elite stratum of society.⁴ Commoners would have interacted with literature primarily through theatrical performances and public recitations of poetry.

For most of history, literature has been the domain of the elites. One major reason for this was the cost associated with producing manuscripts when writing had to be painstakingly copied by hand. As a result, the introduction of the printing press revolutionized and democratized literature. The Bible was famously one of the first books to be printed on Gutenberg’s press (the “Gutenberg Bible”) and has continued to be one of the most printed books in the world. The desire to retell the same old oral histories dies hard, it would seem.

In China, where printing was also independently invented, it led to the development of popular fiction (novels). The novel form appears to have arisen independently in several cultures, with the first example occurring in Japan in the 11th century CE. This was the Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu, a noblewoman and poet.⁸

By the 19th century in Europe, publishing was becoming easier but it was still costly. This led to the production of serial literature, which could be printed in small parts and continued only if successful. Charles Dickens, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and many other famous authors wrote serials. This form of literature declined over the 20th century and now mostly lives on in comic books and serial television shows.

… the expensive three-volume novel produced in relatively small editions of 750–1,000 remained the standard from 1821 to the 1890s; but Victorian publishers and authors found three ways (besides the circulating library) to reduce the price of new fiction and to expand its audience, while maintaining its respectability. The first of these, part-publication, was yet another accidental innovation-turned-tradition. In this case, the innovators were Chapman & Hall, who in 1836 (only six years after establishing their business) hit upon the idea of issuing a monthly series of sporting plates accompanied by text written by the young journalist Charles Dickens. Though the novice publishers didn’t necessarily envision the ultimate product as a novel, that’s precisely what they got in The Pickwick Papers. And since, by the end of its run in November 1837, the novel had reached a circulation of 40,000 and paid its publishers a total of £14,000, its long-term result was yet another Victorian institution.

(Mays 2005, p. 17)

Now in the 21st century, audiobooks have become quite popular. Have we come full circle back to oral tradition? Maybe not. We now have AI attempting to produce literature and doing a somewhat poor job of it, though who knows what the future holds in that regard.

In the year 2045, nestled in a quaint corner of New York City, the LitHub Café buzzed with literary enthusiasts. Amidst the scent of freshly brewed coffee, patrons discussed the latest sensation sweeping the literary world: a novel titled “The Echo of Tomorrow.”

Unlike any other, this novel had been authored entirely by an AI named Aurora. Programmed with the linguistic prowess of Shakespeare, the wit of Austen, and the narrative depth of Tolstoy, Aurora’s creation was a symphony of words that left readers spellbound.

The story followed a young woman, Elara, navigating a dystopian future where emotions were regulated by a strict regime. Through Aurora’s intricate storytelling, Elara’s journey of rebellion, love, and self-discovery unfolded with profound insight and poetic beauty.

As the novel topped bestseller lists and sparked debates on the nature of creativity, a peculiar phenomenon emerged. Readers claimed that Aurora’s words resonated with their innermost thoughts, as if the AI had peered into their souls.

One evening, as the café hosted a reading, a young woman named Maya stood up. She revealed that Aurora’s novel had given her the courage to pursue her long-lost dream of becoming a writer. Inspired by a machine, she had penned her first short story, embracing the very humanity Aurora’s words had kindled within her.

In that moment, the line between human and machine blurred, as literature crafted by AI not only told stories but also ignited the human spirit in a way no one had ever imagined.

(ChatGPT)

References

1 Britannica. Rigveda. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Rigveda

2 Genette, G. and Levonas, A. (1976). Boundaries of Narrative. New Literary History, 8(1), pp. 1-13.

3 Kawashima, R. S. (2016). Biblical Narrative and the Birth of Prose Literature. In The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Narrative.

4 Spelman, H. (2019). Schools, Reading and Poetry in the Early Greek World. The Cambridge Classical Journal, 65, pp. 150-172.

5 Mays, K. J. (2005). The Publishing World. In A Companion to the Victorian Novel.

6 Sugiyama, M. S. (2001). Narrative Theory and Function: Why Evolution Matters. Philosophy and Literature, 25(2), pp. 233–250.

7 Wikipedia. Rigveda. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigveda

8 Wikipedia. Novel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novel