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About this quote

What does it mean?
Literature examines and interprets events after they have occurred.
In plain terms
Writing looks at things after they happen.
What can you take from it?
Art analyzes experience in retrospect.

Where it applies

  • literary theory
  • writing workshop
  • critical study

Putting it to work

  • reading fiction
  • writing memoir
  • studying history

Questions to consider

  • Do we understand life only later?
  • What is the role of art?

Another view

Some literature aims to predict rather than analyze the past.

More from Doris Lessing

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