Why the Study of History and Literature Must Be Paired Together

51,000 human beings dead, 51,000 people who will never see their families again, each one a tragic story displayed only as a section of a colored block moving across a screen. It pains me to think that each soldier and civilian who lost their life in the Battle of Gettysburg, or any battle for that matter, could be simplified down to a speck and a number, or even rounded away to make it easier for me to remember. People are not numbers, and they must never be viewed only as such. This is why history and literature must be intertwined. History gives us general statistics and literature tells individual stories, together they provide the big picture of what really happened. Without literature, history would carry far less emotional value, and without history, literature would have no context to make sense with. Together, they support each other for increased credibility. Essentially, when combined there is a much stronger sense of ethos, pathos, and logos, all compiling for a stronger representation of the event and the text. Pure statistics can account for origin, but to truly understand value it is important to surpass the limitation of a constricted view and venture into the emotional side of historical events. The things learned in one class are most definitely applicable in the other as they intertwine with each other like the subjects themselves. In this blog alone, I have combined the ideas of areas of argument strength and historical analysis to prove my point. To go back to the first example, we are given the historical stats to understand the numbers, but only if paired with a text, such as a soldier’s journal, can we  better understand both the lit and the history. Overall, combining or intertwining history and literature creates a better knowledge and comprehension of both.