The study of literature is in a dismal state of affairs these days.
Given the exorbitant cost of college, coupled with the fact that most people no longer read books unless they’re forced to—and almost no one reads poetry recreationally—classic novels, plays and poems could soon be obsolete.
For example, how many young adults right now could name one Russian novelist, much less having read one of their books? As an educator, I can tell you the answer: not many.
Recently, we’ve been seeing a steep decline in the number of college students majoring in English. And I get it. A degree in literature—or really critical thinking—is entirely impractical when it comes to finding work.
While literature teaches empathy and the essence of what it means to be a human being on this earth trying to forge a meaningful life, this doesn’t equate to gainful employment.
However, with millions upon millions of my fellow Americans planning to vote for a pied piper in November, a grifter named Donald Trump, I wonder whether reading some of the classics, and making some valuable connections with the text, wouldn’t help some voters peek behind Trump’s thin veil of invulnerability.
Case in point, if people were to study “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, how could they possibly miss the fact that Trump is a modern version of the monster Tom Buchanan?
Both Trump and Buchanan were born into a wealth that they never earned, an old wealth that has created generations of spoiled trust fund babies. Both men are also self-centered, bigoted bullies and misogynists, who are colossally ignorant and susceptible to whack-job conspiracy theories from known quacks.
And let’s talk about the Big Bard’s play “King Lear” and its title character. When Shakespeare created Lear—an old monarch succumbing to senility, incoherently ranting while desperately trying to cling to power and refusing to acknowledge his own frailties—it seems like he may have been gazing into a crystal ball and seeing the embattled former president.
Both Trump and Lear also have strange relationships with their daughters.
Then there is the story of Charles Foster Kane from Orson Welles’ 1941 film “Citizen Kane,” but that one is almost too much of a layup. While Welles based Kane on media mogul William Randolph Hearst, it captures the former president to a tee.
And while a film is not technically “literature,” it does tell a story, a cautionary tale that Trump seemed to miss.
But there is one poem that reads so prophetic that it shakes me from my sleep. It’s not a character, rather a handful of lines from W.B. Yeats’ poem, “The Second Coming,” that seem to perfectly prophesize Trump and the MAGA movement.
The last five lines of the first stanza read:
“Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”
As I said, no one will ever be asked to interpret a poem at a job interview, and the ability to understand the human condition and practice empathy learned from the vicarious experience of reading is never going to amount to obnoxious wealth.
But if more people practiced empathy and thought critically, I can almost guarantee that this election wouldn’t be close. People would see through the grifter’s game—throw The Duke and the King from “Huck Finn” into the mix as well—and no one would be able to stomach the man, much less vote him into the most powerful position in the world.
And it is also worth noting that Donald Trump doesn’t like to read.
You can reach Nathan Graziano at ngrazio5@yahoo.com
