Although the word Literature is commonplace, it is not easy to say what it means. The question ‘What is Literature?” has been asked times without number in the past. And many answers have been given. However’ none of the answers have been satisfactory.
When one hears the word literature, ones mind is flooded with many poems, stories, dramas, novels so on. Though the label literature is appropriate for all of them, they are different forms of literature to be precise. These various forms of literature emerged at different times and different places. For instance, epic, drama etc were produced in the ancient Greece. Novel, the form of literature most of the readers are familiar with emerged in England in the wake of Capitalism in the 17th and 18th centuries.
It may be said without much fear of being contradicted that the different forms of literature portray our life. Having said that, we have to qualify the statement. The life portrayed in literature need not be that of a real person. It can be the life of an imaginary person as well. Robinson Crusoe comes to the mind almost instinctively. Did a person named Robinson Crusoe ever live on the earth? We do not have any concrete evidence to suggest that he did at a particular part of the world. But the author of the book tells us not only the name of a person but a detailed account of his daily life. Then we may ask is there any difference between the kind of life he led and the life of a real person alive or dead? The same question can be framed in a different way. To what extent the life portrayed in the book resembles the life we live? Irrespective of our answer to this simple question, the moment it is answered some other question pops up.
Like I said earlier many have tried their best to explain what literature is, but in vain. The Greeks had their concepts of ‘poetry’, as the term ‘literature’ was not in use at that time. The Romans had their own views. After renaissance and with the arrival of who were later called the humanists a new concept of literature emerged slowly and gradually.
However, it did not last very long. With what is now called the ‘linguistic turn’, almost everything turned upside turn. Literature, literary criticism and everything associated with it were challenged. The last word has not yet been uttered.
When one hears the word literature, ones mind is flooded with many poems, stories, dramas, novels so on. Though the label literature is appropriate for all of them, they are different forms of literature to be precise. These various forms of literature emerged at different times and different places. For instance, epic, drama etc were produced in the ancient Greece. Novel, the form of literature most of the readers are familiar with emerged in England in the wake of Capitalism in the 17th and 18th centuries.
It may be said without much fear of being contradicted that the different forms of literature portray our life. Having said that, we have to qualify the statement. The life portrayed in literature need not be that of a real person. It can be the life of an imaginary person as well. Robinson Crusoe comes to the mind almost instinctively. Did a person named Robinson Crusoe ever live on the earth? We do not have any concrete evidence to suggest that he did at a particular part of the world. But the author of the book tells us not only the name of a person but a detailed account of his daily life. Then we may ask is there any difference between the kind of life he led and the life of a real person alive or dead? The same question can be framed in a different way. To what extent the life portrayed in the book resembles the life we live? Irrespective of our answer to this simple question, the moment it is answered some other question pops up.
Like I said earlier many have tried their best to explain what literature is, but in vain. The Greeks had their concepts of ‘poetry’, as the term ‘literature’ was not in use at that time. The Romans had their own views. After renaissance and with the arrival of who were later called the humanists a new concept of literature emerged slowly and gradually.
However, it did not last very long. With what is now called the ‘linguistic turn’, almost everything turned upside turn. Literature, literary criticism and everything associated with it were challenged. The last word has not yet been uttered.
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