> can literature have any impact outside the confines of culture? > Literature, originally "writing formed with letters," from litera/littera "alphabetic lette

> can literature have any impact outside the confines of culture? > Literature, originally "writing formed with letters," from litera/littera "alphabetic letter" also "an epistle, writing, document; literature, great books; science, learning"[1] This old general sense of the word literature is still in use when we refer to scientific papers as "the literature". In my opinion Literature-proper (like Joyce, Tolstoy, Austen, Mann and on and on) has more noble aspirations than mucking about with the "nightmare of history" (quote is Joyce's, or more specifically Dedalus's). Literature is the source code of culture, history is its child. Perhaps history and literature can be seen as 2 independent lenses to understand our world, but I see the relation of literature to history more as that of math to physics. [1] https://www.etymonline.com/word/literature https://www.etymonline.com/word/literature