Spiritual Influences on Classic Literature

Activism can be described as any action that is designed to create change in society. Some activists use tools such as public protests, street marches, public rallies, signed petitions and publicity stunts to get their message out into the minds of the public masses. A skillful writer is an activist of another sort who conjures up a Trojan horse of significantly greater stealth and resilience, because his political or religious platform might outlast his lifetime and be passed from one generation to the next. The writers examined in this book are indeed activists who have launched their message in a rocket-propelled vehicle that will go on and on through hundreds of years.

Like a well engineered computer virus, such works of literature can easily bypass the sentries on the wall who would otherwise scan and discard their teachings and doctrines if it were not cloaked in rich symbolism with multilayered meanings and a plausible storyline. Even better, a skilled writer is an activist whose works are embraced and cherished by sections of the populace who might not otherwise have encountered or entertained such teachings and beliefs during the course of their entire lifetimes.

In this book, we examine six such activists throughout world history that sought to sway, influence and persuade the masses through their stories, poems and plays. Many such writings have become classics of literature. Their works have survived the years and continue to inspire readers everywhere.

If a writer who strives to impact readers with religious truths can be viewed as a religious activist, then Nathaniel Hawthorne is one such religious activist. Written when he was 31 years old, his short story "Young Goodman Brown" is a multilayered yarn that carries a delicious helping of symbolism and metaphor to intrigue the hungry mind that yearns to unlock such ethereal puzzles and unravel its deeper meanings, both those that are intended by the author, and those that are purely coincidental. Hawthorne was a religious activist who ultimately wanted to do good in the world, to expose hypocrisy, and to strengthen mankind with his stories and their embedded teachings.

Yeats was a religious activist who may have had darker motivations for his writing.

Sophocles' play launches immediately into the moral and religious dilemma, whether a citizen should always obey the laws of the land, or take a moral stand for higher laws when one feels the two are in conflict. He examines the ethics of right and wrong, asking the question are some things more right than other things?

We examine Ralph Ellison's ground breaking work during the turbulent 1950s when African Americans were fighting for the rights that the rest of the country take for granted. His book shocked the literary world with its bluntness and graphic violence.

Countee Cullen's "Incident" is a classic rope-a-dope product that lulls you somewhat in the beginning. Then, suddenly, it becomes sharp and poignant, cutting the reader to the bone. Cullen examines the generational promulgation of racial hatred, as passed from parent to child. His writing brings the reader to wonder what it would take to suddenly wipe racism and racial hatred from the world in a single generation. Or, are we as a species going to allow ourselves to be forever subject to this endlessly repeating pattern of passing blind hatred from one generation to the next, like we would do with a family heirloom.

Wislawa Szymborska's "The End and the Beginning" takes us on an emotional roller coaster in examining the utter insanity and depravity of modern war. Will we ever become a more enlightened race that will forever eradicate war as we have done with diseases like polio?

Buckle up as we dive on in and explore the hidden caverns buried deep within these great works