Literature shapes moral values, serves as a transcendental compass, and illuminates the chaos of existential struggles. In your perspective, what are the most transformative works of literature in human history?
The Bible and V.E. Frankl's "Trotzdem Ja zum Leben zu sagen"
Humanity has never truly been transformed by literature.
The printing press wasn’t invented until around 1450... and even then, books remained inaccessible to most of the population for centuries. It's only in the last 150 years or so that literature has begun to play a broader role in public discourse.
But even today, its influence might be overstated. People are far more impacted by mass media, social platforms, and real-time communication than by written works that attempt to define or teach values. The idea that literature has collectively transformed humanity assumes a level of reach and influence it simply didn’t have, especially not historically.
Literature philosophizes about "eternal values"... while outside, someone on an e-scooter steals a homeless person's last banana. You can write a thousand pages about virtue and compassion... but then TikTok comes along and erases it all from the collective memory in 15 seconds with a dance filter. Literature talks about values. People talk about literature. But most people live by shopping algorithms, peer pressure... and the next stimulating scroll on their phone. Not by Dostoyevsky.
Thank you for sharing your valuable insights. However, I don’t doubt the transformative power of literature, its inspirational nature, and ethics-driven characteristics. As early as the 5th century BCE, works of Greek literature—such as those by Sophocles, Euripides, and Aeschylus—explored deep moral questions and human suffering. Medieval literature offered profoundly ethical reflections as well, with texts like The Consolation of Philosophy shaping values through reason and virtue. During the Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment, writers like Shakespeare and Voltaire continued this legacy of shaping thought and values through literature. Then classicism upheld ideals of order, reason, and humanity.
The problem is not in literature—it’s still transformative. The true issue is TikTok-level interests, surface thinking, and distraction-driven mindsets. That banana example you mentioned shows once again that literature is needed more than ever.
Literature is a value-based power, which either guides humanity or becomes shadowed in existential crisis.
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