What
is Literature?
•
Creative
writing of recognized artistic value.
•
The
humanistic study of a body of literature.
•
All
the information relating to a subject, especially information written by
specialists
Definitions:
•
Literature
is a term used to describe written or spoken material. Broadly speaking,
"literature" is used to describe anything from
creative writing to more technical or scientific works, but the term is most
commonly used to refer the works of the creative imagination, including works
of poetry, drama, fiction, and nonfiction.
•
Literature
is the expression of life in words of truth and beauty; it is the written
record of man's spirit, of his thoughts, emotions, aspirations; it is the history, and the only history
of the human’s soul.
•
Literature
means simply the written records of the race, including all its history and sciences, as well as its poems and
novels; in the narrower sense literature is the artistic record of life, and
most of our writing is excluded from it, just as the mass of our buildings,
mere shelters from storm and from cold, are excluded from architecture.
Introduction
to Literature:
Literature (from Latin litterae (plural);
letter) is the art of written work. The word literature literally means:
"things made from letters". Literature is commonly classified as
having two major forms; fiction and
non-fiction; and two major techniques; poetry and prose.
Literature can be classified
according to historical periods, genres, and political influences. Important
historical periods in English literature are Old English, Middle
English, the Renaissance, the Elizabethan era which includes the Shakespearean
era, the restoration period, the age of Reason, the Romantic age, the Victorian
age, Modern age and Post-modern age. The study of literature is influenced by
the intellectual movements like feminism, romanticism, Marxism, psychoanalysis,
post-colonialism, post-structuralism and post-modernism.
Major
Types of Literature:
Literature is divided into three major types. These types are prose, poetry, and drama. Prose includes books and stories, poetry includes poems, and drama includes plays.
Qualities of Literature:
There are three qualities of literature;
artistic, suggestive and permanent.
Artistic:
The first significant thing is the
essentially artistic quality of all literature. All art is the expression of
life in forms of truth and beauty; or rather, it is the reflection of some
truth and beauty which are in the world, but which remain unnoticed until
brought to our attention by some sensitive human soul, just as the delicate
curves of the shell reflect sounds and harmonies
too faint to be otherwise noticed.
All artistic work must be a kind of
revelation. Thus architecture is probably the oldest of the arts; yet we still
have many builders but few architects, that is, men whose work in wood or stone
suggests some hidden truth and beauty to the human senses. So in literature,
which is the art that expresses life in words that appeals to our own sense of
beauty, we have many writers but few artists. In the broadest sense, perhaps,
literature means simply the written records of the race, including all its
history and sciences, as well as its poems and novels; in the narrower sense
literature is the artistic record of life, and most of our writing is excluded
from it, just as the mass of our buildings, mere shelters from storm and from
cold, are excluded from architecture.
Suggestive:
The second quality of literature is its suggestiveness, it
appeals to our emotions and imagination rather than to our intellect. It is not
so much what it says as what it awakens in us that constitutes its charm. When
Milton makes Satan say, "Myself am Hell," he does not state any fact,
but rather opens up in these three tremendous words a whole world of
speculation and imagination. When Faustus in the presence of Helen asks,
"Was this the face that launched a thousand ships?" he does not state
a fact or expect an answer. He opens a door through which our imagination enters
a new world, a world of music, love, beauty, heroism,--the whole splendid world
of Greek literature. Such magic is in words.
Permanent:
The third
characteristic of literature, arising directly from the other two, is its
permanence. The world does not live by bread alone. Notwithstanding its hurry
and bustle Permanent and apparent absorption in material things, it does not
willingly let any beautiful thing perish. This is even more true of its songs
than of its painting and sculpture; though permanence is a quality we should
hardly expect in the present deluge of books and magazines pouring day and
night from our presses in the name of literature. But this problem of
too many books is not modern, as we suppose.
But literature is like a river in
flood, which gradually purifies itself in two ways, the mud settles to the
bottom, and the scum rises to the top. When we examine the writings that by
common consent constitute our literature, the clear stream purified of its
dross, we find at least two more qualities, which we call the tests of
literature, and which determine its permanence.
