What Is Literature?

Reading, Assessing, Analyzing

What is Literature?
It is sometimes defined as anything written
However we can surely distinguish between literature in the sense
of any writing and literature in the sense of of verbal works of art
Robert Frost said, Literature is a performance in words
Another view holds that literature has in it, a sense of entertaining
display and provides pleasure in addition to the element of truth
involved

What do we mean when we say
something is Literary?
Some texts are born literary, some
achieve literariness, and some have
literariness thrust upon them.
Loosely speaking there are 3 theories of
literature
The Imitative theory
The Expressive theory
The Affective theory
The Imitative theory
Aristotle Art is an imitation of something thing, person or event,
in our world
Recreation or representation in a form not natural to it
Imitative instinct innate in humans, coupled with rhythm, harmony
& pattern, it forms art
Art draws only on the perfect example and not the imperfect
aspects of nature Artist refines nature
Art is imaginative and interpretive, representation is as the artist
perceives it
Blind imitation? No, creativity is in artists outlook
Art insight into reality?
Value of art begins to depend on its truth, but is this always
necessary?
- Taj Mahal how can it tell the truth?
- Julius Caesar will we ever learn from it when we are
Roman tyrants ourselves?
Imititative theory cannot encompass
all aspects of literature as an art
- Hitchhikers Guide reality???
Representative theory H2G2
represents a possibility of what
alien life and the future might be like.
Neo-representative theory conclusively encompasses most
forms of art and most genres of literature as well
Art is anything that is about something
Embraces even Duchamps Fountain represents a satirical
look at classical sculpture
The Expressive theory
Wordsworth:
"Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings the
poets job is "to treat of things not as they are...but as they seem to
exist to the senses, and the passions.
Some aspects of the theory:
The artist does not imitate the external world, but expresses the
world within him.
"Truth" has nothing to do with literature.
The sincerity of the emotion being expressed is indicative of the
"trueness" of the work
Discussion:
How can we say if an emotion is sincere or not?
-We just cannot!
What is the value of expressive writing?
-Proponents of the expressive theory say that upon reading how
another person feels, our own sensibilities are awakened.
-It is a way of expanding and enriching one's personality.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
~Wordsworth (Daffodils)
An expressionist painting by Edvard
Munch : "The Scream"
Munch described his inspiration for the
image thus: "I was walking along a path
with two friendsthe sun was setting
suddenly the sky turned blood redI
paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned
on the fencethere was blood and
tongues of fire above the blue-black
fjord and the citymy friends walked
on, and I stood there trembling with
anxietyand I sensed an infinite scream
passing through nature."

This theory holds that a piece of art ought to arouse some
emotion or at least affect the perceiver in some way
In Alexander Popes words, the artist
Gives my heart a thousand pains
Can make make me feel each passion that he feigns
Enrage,compose,with more than magic of art
With pity and with terror tear my heart
And snatch me oer the earth or through the air
To Thebes, to Athens, when he will, and where
The Affective theory
These theories also hold that stimulation of certain emotions is
good
Most readers seek emotional stimulus from books and they want
to identify themselves with the central character
It also insists that the main aim is not to induce a temporary
emotional state, but to induce an emotional state that will lead to
some kind of action
Finally as Ezekiel Phalele says , the best poetry is one, that has a
memorable expression of revolutionary passion and ideas

The Affective theory (contd.)
Among the books that Gandhi read, the two that
affected him deeply were
The Bhagavad Gita
and
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Thoreau

Back to the opening question : What is Literature?

Tentative Conclusions
The simple truth is that there is no satisfactory answer !


But
it is possible for us to say that works of art:
Give an insight into reality ( as the imitative theory
holds)
Broaden our awareness of possibilities of experience(
as the expressive theory holds )
They valuably affect our nervous system (as the
affective theory holds)
However, all of these theories need not hold for a piece
of art. They just contribute to a deeper and a more
conscious awareness of what is valuable in the works we
read.
From the movie, Dead Poets Society:
We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write
poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race
is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are
noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance,
love, these are what we stay alive for. To quote from Whitman, "O me! O
life!... of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the
faithless... of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O
life?" Answer. That you are here - that life exists, and identity; that the
powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful
play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?