Literature and History

History Definitions

Pithy: no one could argue that the best definition isn't a short one, but it helps if you can
be witty as well.

History is the study of the human past as it is described in the written documents left by
human beings.

John Jacob Anderson (1821–1906)

"History is a narration of the events which have happened among mankind, including an
account of the rise and fall of nations, as well as of other great changes which have
affected the political and social condition of the human race."—1876. A Manual of
General History.

W.C. Sellar (1890–1951) and R.J. Yeatman (1897–1968)

"History is not what you thought. It is what you remember. All other history defeats
itself."—1930. Preface, 1066 and All That.

James Joyce (1882–1941)

"History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake."—.Ulysses.

1922(1988) Published by Oxford University Press. P. 34

Arnold J. Toynbee (1889–1975)

"History not used is nothing, for all intellectual life is action, like practical life, and if you
don't use the stuff well, it might as well be dead."—April 17, 1955. NBC television
broadcast.

The Psycho-Historian

Between 1942 and 1944, the science fiction writer Isaac Asimov wrote the first short
stories which were to become the basis for the Foundation trilogy. The main conceit of
the Foundation Trilogy is that if you are a good enough mathematician, you can
accurately predict the future, based on the record of the past. Asimov read very widely
indeed, so it should come as no surprise that his ideas were based on the writings of other
historians.
Charles Austin Beard (1874–1948)

"If a science of history were achieved, it would, like the science of celestial mechanics,
make possible the calculable prediction of the future in history. It would bring the totality
of historical occurrences within a single field and reveal the unfolding future to its last
end, including all the apparent choices made and to be made. It would be omniscience.
The creator of it would possess the attributes ascribed by the theologians to God. The
future once revealed, humanity would have nothing to do except to await its doom."—
1933. "Written History as an Act of Fate." Annual address of the president of the
American Historical Association, delivered at Urbana, Illinois. December 28,
1933. American Historical Review 39(2):219–231.

Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges 1830–1889

"History is and should be a science... History is not the accumulation of events of every
kind which happened in the past. It is the science of human societies."

Voltaire (Francois Marie Arouet; 1694–1778)

"The first foundations of all history are the recitals of the fathers to the children,
transmitted afterward from one generation to another; at their origin, they are at the very
most probable, when they do not shock common sense, and they lose one degree of
probability in each generation."—The Philosophical Dictionary. translated 1924 by H.I.
Woolf

Edward Hallett Carr (1892–1982)

"History is ... a dialogue between the present and the past. (originally: Geschichte ist ...
ein Dialog zwischen Gegenwart und Vergangenheit.)" — 1961. What Is History?New
York: Vintage Books.

What Is Literature?

Literature is a term used to describe written and sometimes spoken material. Derived
from the Latin word literature meaning "writing formed with letters," literature most
commonly refers to works of the creative imagination,
including poetry, drama, fiction, nonfiction, and in some instances, journalism and song.

Simply put, literature represents the culture and tradition of a language or a people. The
concept is difficult to precisely define, though many have tried; it's clear that the
accepted definition of literature is constantly changing and evolving.
"The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write what you mean; not to affect your
reader, but to affect him precisely as you wish."–Robert Louis Stevenson

"The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be
intolerably stupid."
–Jane Austen, "Northanger Abbey"

“I’ll call for pen and ink and write my mind.”

–William Shakespeare, "Henry VI"

The relationship between literature and history is complicated, with each affecting the
other. Literature is influenced by history, and it is also influenced by the present. If you
are reading a piece of literature written in the past, you need to understand the historical
time period in order to fully appreciate and understand that literature.

History is all that has happened in the past. History includes natural events, such as
movements of tectonic plates leading to the formation of continents, and events involving
humanity, such as wars and birthdays.

Literature includes written records of events that are history. Literature allows humanity
to have a collective source of memories of events from the past. The hope would be that
people would be able to learn by reviewing those records and seeing patterns, making
connections and generalizing about events or attitudes and consequences of those
occurrences. The writing down of history allows people to progress beyond one stage of
thought or development, building on what has gone before.

Literature and history are closely related, in discovering the history of a race, feelings,
aspirations customs and traditions of a people are surely to be included and these
feelings, aspirations, customs, and traditions, that are written is literature.

The history of literature is the historical developments of writings in prose and poetry
which attempts to provide Entertaiment, enlightment, or instruction to the
reader/listener/observer.

Here are some literary compositions that have influenced the world:

1. the bible or the sacred heart

2. koran

3. the Iliad and odessey

4. the Mahab-Harata

5. Canterbury tales

6. uncle tom's cabin

7. the divine comedy

8. El Cid compeador

9. the song of roland

10. the book of the dead

11. the book of the days

12. one thousand and one nights or the Arabian nights

Literature and history, however, also have differences:

literature may be figments of the imagination or events devoid of truth that have been
written down, while history is made up of events that really happened.

Literature is present during the era of the ancient world. Even without the invention of
words and language, literature was already manifested in the earliest human civilizations.
Carvings and paintings on walls inside caves of stone give evidence about the lives of
prehistoric people. They explain their way of life.

Literature is also a tool for the foundation of a religion. The Holy Bible, one of the
oldest written scriptures, is a compilation of tales, beliefs, and accounts that teach about
Christianity (for both the Old and the New Testament) and about Judaism (for some
selected books in the Old Testament). Within a span of more than a thousand years from
the Prophet Moses to the Apostle Paul, the Bible was written by numerous authors
believed to be inspired by God’s divine wisdom and tries to explain about the mysteries
of life as well as setting rules for one’s personal faith. The same goes with the Qu’ran for
Muslims, Torah for the Jews, and the Bhagavad-Gita, Ramayana and Veda for the
Hindus.

Literature explains human values. The works of Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle (the most
famous Greek philosophers) contain virtues that promote perfection to a society if only
human beings have the willingness to uphold and practice them. Plato’s Allegory of the
Cave speaks about the importance of human wisdom and the penalties that one would
face to achieve a higher level of understanding. Through these philosophers’
contributions to literature, not only did they craft an artistic convergence of words, but
exposed logic and ideas as well.