Why Read?

Why do we read and why do we read literature? The British scholar Gilbert Murray, an unimpeachable authority in classical studies during the first half of the twentieth century, thought that readers could be divided into two sorts: some read for amusement, for appreciating the craft of writing, for gathering the ideas to carry on a good conversation. All of those make up one group. The other, however, was looking for something quite different. This group, in which Murray placed himself,

does not really much like the process of reading, but reads because it wants to get somewhere, to discover something, to find a light which will somehow illumine for them either some question of the moment or the great riddles of existence. I believe this is the spirit in which most people in their youth read books….

Given the breadth and depth of Murray’s work, it is remarkable to hear him include himself among those who don’t really enjoy reading, but if one is reading to find illumination of some sort, then one is working, not relaxing. This kind of close, reflective reading requires one to catch up with and follow an author traveling into a world of images and ideas which will often prove at first unfamiliar, and almost always unknown in reach and implication. The value of such literature, Murray says, “is not in conveying a new piece of information; their value lies in their power of suddenly directing your attention, and the whole focus of your will and imagination, toward a particular part of life.” And we forget sometimes how much energy paying attention really requires.

These reflections of Murray’s on reading are from his essay “Literature as Revelation,” which can be found in his Humanist Essays (1964). Another work to read in conjunction with this is Josef Pieper’s Leisure: The Basis of Culture (1948), where this German philosopher reminds us that the classical Greek word for leisure was schole, the origin of our word school. Interestingly, the Latin word for leisure is otium, and when we say no to leisure, when we negate it, we find ourselves in negotium, negotiating and doing business, which itself derives from busy-ness. To read and think deeply about matters of the highest human importance, then, requires leisure. The implications are profound.

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