If I also said to someone that there is an intersection between literature and the interdisciplinary field that combines medicine, psychology, biology, chemistry and computer science, in short, neuroscience, they would probably say that my head requires to be examined. Here is why they would be correct in wondering about the state of my mind. Our superficial understanding of literature bears no connection with our visual perception of what we regard as technology. And given how we may regard or use literature, it is hard to see the interconnection between it and our neural system.
In our time, we perceive technology as “gadgetries of steel and silicon.” In the past, we perceived technology as “contrivances of copper, bronze and tin.” But if one were to peer into literary inventions, in effect, the history of literature, from ancient Mesopotamia (2300 BC) to Elena Ferrante (a pseudonymous female writer of the 20th century), and even to the present, one would be wrong to confine literature to a limited space that does not extend to what technology does. That is the error that Angus Fletcher in his book, “Wonderworks: The 25 Most Powerful Inventions in the History of Literature,” seeks to correct. Repeatedly, Fletcher shows us that to be human is to have material, emotional, and mental needs. Literature meets those needs by having utility and everyday usefulness: of inspiration, upliftment, amusement, resonance, empathy and knowledge. Significantly, particularly for the academic cadre, literature’s drama, films, essays, fiction, and poetry, can be seen, read, understood, and debated beyond any specialist’s criticism or her professional disquisition, into the muck and mire of life itself.
