(wiki) Literature

Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose, fiction, drama, poetry,[1] and including both print and digital writing.[2] In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include oral literature, also known as orature[3] much of which has been transcribed.[4][5] Literature is a method of recording, preserving, and transmitting knowledge and entertainment, and can also have a social, psychological, spiritual, or political role.

Literature, as an art form, can also include works in various non-fiction genres, such as biography, diaries, memoir, letters, and essays. Within its broad definition, literature includes non-fictional books, articles or other written information on a particular subject.[6][7]

Etymologically, the term derives from Latin literatura/litteratura "learning, a writing, grammar", originally "writing formed with letters", from litera/littera "letter".[8] In spite of this, the term has also been applied to spoken or sung texts.[9][10] Literature is often referred to synecdochically as "writing", especially creative writing, and poetically as "the craft of writing" (or simply "the craft"). Syd Field described his discipline, screenwriting, as "a craft that occasionally rises to the level of art."[11]

Developments in print technology have allowed an ever-growing distribution and proliferation of written works, which now include electronic literature.

Contents

• Definitions
• History
• Aesthetics
• The influence of religious texts
• Types
• Law
• Awards
• See also
• Notes
• References
• Further reading
• External links

Definitions

Definitions of literature have varied over time.[12] In Western Europe, prior to the 18th century, literature denoted all books and writing. Literature can be seen as returning to older, more inclusive notions, so that cultural studies, for instance, include, in addition to canonical works, popular and minority genres. The word is also used in reference to non-written works: to "oral literature" and "the literature of preliterate culture".

A value judgment definition of literature considers it as consisting solely of high quality writing that forms part of the belles-lettres ("fine writing") tradition.[13] An example of this is in the 1910–1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, which classified literature as "the best expression of the best thought reduced to writing".[14]

History

(Main article: History of literature )

Oral literature ( Main article: Oral literature See also: African literature §Oral literature ) The use of the term "literature" here poses some issue due to its origins in the Latin littera, "letter", essentially writing. Alternatives such as "oral forms" and "oral genres" have been suggested but the word literature is widely used.[5]

Writing (Further information: History of writing) Publishing Publishing became possible with the invention of writing but became more practical with the invention of printing. Prior to printing, distributed works were copied manually, by scribes. University discipline In England (Main article: English studies) In late 1820s England, growing political and social awareness, "particularly among the utilitarians and Benthamites, promoted the possibility of including courses in English literary study in the newly formed London University". This further developed into the idea of the study of literature being "the ideal carrier for the propagation of the humanist cultural myth of a well educated, culturally harmonious nation".[78] America (Main article: American literature (academic discipline)) Women and literature Further information: French literature, German literature, Russian literature, and English poetry §Women poets in the 18th century The widespread education of women was not common until the nineteenth century, and because of this, literature until recently was mostly male dominated.[79] Children's literature A separate genre of children's literature only began to emerge in the eighteenth century, with the development of the concept of childhood.[87]:x–xi The earliest of these books were educational books, books on conduct, and simple ABCs—often decorated with animals, plants, and anthropomorphic letters.[88]

Aesthetics

(Further information: Aesthetic judgment and Value judgment )

Literary theory Further information: Literary theory and Philosophy and literature §The philosophy of literature A fundamental question of literary theory is "what is literature?" – although many contemporary theorists and literary scholars believe either that "literature" cannot be defined or that it can refer to any use of language.[89]

Literary fiction (Further information: Western canon §Literary canon)

Literary fiction is a term used to describe fiction that explores any facet of the human condition, and may involve social commentary. It is often regarded as having more artistic merit than genre fiction, especially the most commercially oriented types, but this has been contested in recent years, with the serious study of genre fiction within universities.[90]

The following, by the award-winning British author William Boyd on the short story, might be applied to all prose fiction:

[short stories] seem to answer something very deep in our nature as if, for the duration of its telling, something special has been created, some essence of our experience extrapolated, some temporary sense has been made of our common, turbulent journey towards the grave and oblivion.[91]

The very best in literature is annually recognized by the Nobel Prize in Literature, which is awarded to an author from any country who has, in the words of the will of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction" (original Swedish: den som inom litteraturen har producerat det mest framstående verket i en idealisk riktning).[92][93]

The value of imaginative literature

Some researchers suggest that literary fiction can play a role in an individual's psychological development.[94] Psychologists have also been using literature as a therapeutic tool.[95][96] Psychologist Hogan argues for the value of the time and emotion that a person devotes to understanding a character's situation in literature;[97] that it can unite a large community by provoking universal emotions, as well as allowing readers access to different cultures, and new emotional experiences.[98] One study, for example, suggested that the presence of familiar cultural values in literary texts played an important impact on the performance of minority students.[99]

Psychologist Maslow's ideas help literary critics understand how characters in literature reflect their personal culture and the history.[100] The theory suggests that literature helps an individual's struggle for self-fulfillment.[101][102]

The influence of religious texts

Further information: Islamic literature and King James Version §Influence

Religion has had a major influence on literature, through works like the Vedas, the Torah, the Bible,[103]and the Quran.[104][105][106]

The King James Version of the Bible has been called "the most influential version of the most influential book in the world, in what is now its most influential language", "the most important book in English religion and culture", and "arguably the most celebrated book in the English-speaking world"[107] - principally because of its literary style and widespread distribution. Prominent atheist figures such as the late Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins have praised the King James Version as being "a giant step in the maturing of English literature" and "a great work of literature", respectively, with Dawkins adding, "A native speaker of English who has never read a word of the King James Bible is verging on the barbarian".[108][109]

Societies in which preaching has great importance, and those in which religious structures and authorities have a near-monopoly of reading and writing and/or a censorship role, may impart a religious gloss to much of the literature those societies produce or retain - as for example in the European Middle Ages. The traditions of close study of religious texts has furthered the development of techniques and theories in literary studies.

Types

Poetry (Main article: Poetry)

Poetry has traditionally been distinguished from prose by its greater use of the aesthetic qualities of language, including musical devices such as assonance, alliteration, rhyme, and rhythm, and by being set in lines and verses rather than paragraphs, and more recently its use of other typographical elements.[110][111][112] This distinction is complicated by various hybrid forms such as digital poetry, sound poetry, concrete poetry and prose poem,[113] and more generally by the fact that prose possesses rhythm.[114] Abram Lipsky refers to it as an "open secret" that "prose is not distinguished from poetry by lack of rhythm".[115]

Prior to the 19th century, poetry was commonly understood to be something set in metrical lines: "any kind of subject consisting of Rhythm or Verses".[110] Possibly as a result of Aristotle's influence (his Poetics), "poetry" before the 19th century was usually less a technical designation for verse than a normative category of fictive or rhetorical art.[clarification needed][116] As a form it may pre-date literacy, with the earliest works being composed within and sustained by an oral tradition;[117][118] hence it constitutes the earliest example of literature.

Prose (Main article: Prose)

As noted above, prose generally makes far less use of the aesthetic qualities of language than poetry.[111][112][119] However, developments in modern literature, including free verse and prose poetry have tended to blur the differences, and poet T.S. Eliot suggested that while: "the distinction between verse and prose is clear, the distinction between poetry and prose is obscure".[120] There are verse novels, a type of narrative poetry in which a novel-length narrative is told through the medium of poetry rather than prose. Eugene Onegin (1831) by Alexander Pushkin is the most famous example.[121]

On the historical development of prose, Richard Graff notes that "[In the case of ancient Greece] recent scholarship has emphasized the fact that formal prose was a comparatively late development, an "invention" properly associated with the classical period".[122]

Latin was a major influence on the development of prose in many European countries. Especially important was the great Roman orator Cicero.[123] It was the lingua franca among literate Europeans until quite recent times, and the great works of Descartes (1596 – 1650), Francis Bacon (1561 – 1626), and Baruch Spinoza (1632 – 1677) were published in Latin. Among the last important books written primarily in Latin prose were the works of Swedenborg (d. 1772), Linnaeus (d. 1778), Euler (d. 1783), Gauss (d. 1855), and Isaac Newton (d. 1727).

Novel (Main article: Novel) See also: Genre fiction and Hypertext fiction

A novel is a long fictional narrative, usually written in prose. In English, the term emerged from the Romance languages in the late 15th century, with the meaning of "news"; it came to indicate something new, without a distinction between fact or fiction.[124] The romance is a closely related long prose narrative. Walter Scott defined it as "a fictitious narrative in prose or verse; the interest of which turns upon marvelous and uncommon incidents", whereas in the novel "the events are accommodated to the ordinary train of human events and the modern state of society".[125] Other European languages do not distinguish between romance and novel: "a novel is le roman, der Roman, il romanzo",[126] indicates the proximity of the forms.[127]

Although there are many historical prototypes, so-called "novels before the novel",[128] the modern novel form emerges late in cultural history—roughly during the eighteenth century.[129] Initially subject to much criticism, the novel has acquired a dominant position amongst literary forms, both popularly and critically.[127][130][131]

Novella (Main article: Novella)

The publisher Melville House classifies the novella as "too short to be a novel, too long to be a short story".[132] Publishers and literary award societies typically consider a novella to be between 17,000 and 40,000 words.[133]

Short story (Main article: Short story)

A dilemma in defining the "short story" as a literary form is how to, or whether one should, distinguish it from any short narrative and its contested origin,[134] that include the Bible, and Edgar Allan Poe.[135]

Graphic novel (Main article: Graphic novel)

Graphic novels and comic books present stories told in a combination of artwork, dialogue, and text.

Electronic literature

Electronic literature is a literary genre consisting of works created exclusively on and for digital devices.

Nonfiction

Common literary examples of non-fiction include, the essay; travel literature; biography, autobiography and memoir; journalism; letter; diary; history, philosophy, economics; scientific, nature, and technical writings.[7][136]

Nonfiction can fall within the broad category of literature as "any collection of written work", but some works fall within the narrower definition "by virtue of the excellence of their writing, their originality and their general aesthetic and artistic merits".[137]

Drama

Drama is literature intended for performance.[138] The form is combined with music and dance in opera and musical theatre (see libretto). A play is a written dramatic work by a playwright that is intended for performance in a theatre; it comprises chiefly dialogue between characters. A closet drama, by contrast, is written to be read rather than to be performed; the meaning of which can be realized fully on the page.[139] Nearly all drama took verse form until comparatively recently.

The earliest form of which there exists substantial knowledge is Greek drama. This developed as a performance associated with religious and civic festivals, typically enacting or developing upon well-known historical, or mythological themes,

In the twentieth century, scripts written for non-stage media have been added to this form, including radio, television and film.

Law

Law and literature The law and literature movement focuses on the interdisciplinary connection between law and literature.

Copyright (Further information: History of copyright) Copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to make copies of a creative work, usually for a limited time.[140][141][142][143][144] The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educational, or musical form. Copyright is intended to protect the original expression of an idea in the form of a creative work, but not the idea itself.[145][146][147] Censorship (Further information: Book censorship, Theatre censorship, and Film censorship) Censorship of literature is employed by states, religious organizations, educational institutions, etc., to control what can be portrayed, spoken, performed, or written.[152] Generally such bodies attempt to ban works for political reasons, or because they deal with other controversial matters such as race, or sex.[153] A notable example of censorship is James Joyce's novel Ulysses, which has been described by Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov as a "divine work of art" and the greatest masterpiece of 20th century prose.[154] It was banned in the United States from 1921 until 1933 on the grounds of obscenity. Nowadays it is a central literary text in English literature courses, throughout the world.[155]

Awards

There are numerous awards recognizing achievement and contribution in literature. Given the diversity of the field, awards are typically limited in scope, usually on: form, genre, language, nationality and output (e.g. for first-time writers or debut novels).[156]

The Nobel Prize in Literature was one of the six Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895,[157] and is awarded to an author on the basis of their body of work, rather than to, or for, a particular work itself.[note 2] Other literary prizes for which all nationalities are eligible include: the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, the Man Booker International Prize, Pulitzer Prize, Hugo Award, Guardian First Book Award and the Franz Kafka Prize.

See also

• Outline of literature
• Index of literature articles
• List of literary movements
• List of narrative techniques
• List of poetry groups and movements
• Literary agent
• Literary magazine
• Reading
• Rhetorical modes
• Science fiction §As serious literature

Notes

1. The definition of rhetoric is a controversial subject within the field and has given rise to philological battles over its meaning in Ancient Greece.[32]
2. However, in some instances a work has been cited in the explanation of why the award was given.

Further reading

Encyclopedias

• Baldick, Chris (2015). The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms (Online Version) (4thed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0191783234.
• Greene, Roland; etal., eds. (2012). The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (4th rev.ed.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-15491-6.
• Merriam Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature. Springfield, Ma: Merriam-Webster. 1995. ISBN 0-87779-042-6.

Other

• Bonheim, Helmut (1982). The Narrative Modes: Techniques of the Short Story. Cambridge: Brewer. An overview of several hundred short stories.
• Gillespie, Gerald (January 1967). "Novella, nouvelle, novella, short novel? — A review of terms". Neophilologus. 51 (1): 117–127. doi:10.1007/BF01511303. S2CID 162102536.
• Wheeler, L. Kip. "Periods of Literary History" (PDF). Carson-Newman University. Archived (PDF) from the original on 1 March 2008. Retrieved 18 March 2014. Brief summary of major periods in literary history of the Western tradition.

External links

• Project Gutenberg Online Library
• Internet Book List similar to IMDb but for books (archived 7 February 2007)
• Digital eBook Collection – Internet Archive