Reading Together
Should reading always be a solitary activity? Nadya Williams, in an article for Front Porch Republic , makes the case for a more communitarian kind of reading. "The function of the earliest literature," Williams explains, "was to bring people together rather than give them a delight to hoard all to themselves." Literature, therefore, was meant, not to be consumed in isolation, but to be experienced in a communal setting. The Homeric epics were composed and performed orally by traveling bards before there was a Greek alphabet for writing them down. Performances brought communities together for the joy of such entertainment. These occasions also provided people with shared literature to discuss presumably for days after such performances. I'll admit, my reading is done exclusively alone. I've always found books - good books, that is - to be a sort of vehicle to internal exploration. But, perhaps they can also function as a tool to community cultivation. T...
