An Economic Approach to Literature

Dr. Mousumi Ghosh

Literature can dwell on anything ranging from the stars in the heaven to the pin point on earth. So no wonder that literature can also dwell on the most crucial economic issues that haunt the world. In fact of late there is no dearth of stories and poems shooting sharp shafts of satire at the horrors of expanding market and globalisation. But this is not all. Literature in fact springs from the rugged earth of ours. Its roots stretch into the depth of the earthiness of the earth. But these roots are not always discernible to the common man’s eye. The flowers laden with beauty and fragrance are descried. They are the metaphor of literature. It follows logically that however ethereal a work of art might seem to be, its roots are in the material and the mundane world of ours. And economics on the surface is concerned with our so called materialistic and mundane universe. One cannot, however, imagine any human world without economic activity. And perhaps every thought and every emotion is organically related to some economic state. Therefore we propose hereby to analyse and appreciate a literary work of art from economic point of view. In other words, there could be and there should be an economic paradigm to decode any instance of beauty and literature. Even the earliest literatures of the world are engrossed with crucial economic problems. Homer tells us how Troy robbed Greece of its beauteous wealth Helen. In the ancient Indian classic Ramayana a mythical demon Ravana robbed India of her precious wealth Sita. And of course the expanding capitalism is out to rob mankind of all the wealth in which we humans were wont to take pride in. The seas have been polluted. The tranquilities of the villages have been shattered. The skies of the cities like Hanoi are losing their blue dalliance. Thanks to rapid industrialisation, the twittering birds are being replaced by the sonorous music of the chimneys . Troy was put to flames. The demon Ravana of the Ramayana was mowed down. Do they ironically prophesy that a day will come when colonialism will see its omega , when mal distribution of wealth will find its grave , when nature will be rid of the dangers that it faces from human cupidity. As early as in the eighteenth century, an English poet, Thomas Gray observed in his famous elegy

The boast of heraldry,

The pomp of power

And all that beauty, all

That wealth e’er gave,

Awaits alike the

Inevitable hour,

The paths of glory lead

but to the grave

In other words, the so called material affluence and social status have nothing permanent or great in them. Economic disparity is largely responsible for the so called disparity in the manifestation of the talents already in man . Gray observes

Some mute inglorious

Milton here may rest,

Some Cromwell guiltless

Of his country’s blood.

Gray thinks that the person unknown and unsung whose corpse might hide under a grave in the graveyard in the countryside could be as great a poet as Milton or as great a leader as Cromwell. Give the economic prosperity to one and all, give every opportunity to one and all, the world might discover thousands of Milton and Shakespeare.  This is why there has been an emergent literary movement known as Underground Literature Movement in modern Bengali poetry. The Underground Literature Movement begs of every man literate or illiterate, rich or poor a poem. But mind you, there should be no discrimination between one profession and another. Gray observes the farmer is no less useful than a poet.

Oft did the harvest to

Their sickle yield,

Their furrow oft the

Stubborn glebe has broke;

How jocund did they

drive their team afield!

How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy

Stroke!

Thus, Gray by way of describing the annals of the poor not only fingers at the economic disparities of his time and its consequences in shaping the destiny of man but also points out how a brave new world could be cut out from the world as it is by way of correcting the shortcomings of world today. But it does not mean that the world will be shorn of competitions. Presently, I read a Vietnamese poem entitled Bien composed by Xuan Dieu translated into English by Thomas D. Le. It gives us the vision of a sea.The comely beach of which extends to the rows of pine so dreamily and quietly. This could be a symbol of the world as it could be made where competition will exist side by side with a tranquil society where there will be no hunger, no economic deprivation. In fact, a modern development economist as well as the Vietnamese poet seeks to unite the opposites- economic prosperity for all and the market.

Thus, don’t you think economic reasoning could be a paradigm to decode literature as well?