Literature and its Scope

Literature can be viewed from various angles. Some critics interpret

literature in its comprehensive sense. Others take its restricted and
ordinary meaning. Sometimes literature is implied in a technical sense.
lt is essential to understand these different interpretations of the term
`literature` Here the views of Anthony X. Soares are adapted:

Literature in its Comprehensive Sense: Literature in its most

comprehensive meaning includes all the activities of the human soul in
general, or within a particular sphere, period, country, or language and
therefore embraces all manner of composition in prose and verse,
scientific or purely literary, set down in writing or communicated by
word of mouth; thus we speak of the literature of Greece, of Eighteenth
century literature, of the literature of Mathematics or the Law, of the
Latin or Persian literature. When we speak of the literature of India, we
do not wish to exclude those poems like the Ramzuyana or the Mahabharata
which were handed down for generations by word of mouth and which only
during recent times have been committed to writing.

Literature in its Restricted and Ordinary Meaning: ln the restricted

sense in which we generally employ the term, literature is that class of
writing which aims at rousing the feelings of the beautiful by the
perfection of form or excellence of ideas or by both. ln this sense,
literature is distinguished from purely scientific and technical
treatises; works on Mathematics, or Prosody, or Philosophy, would not be
literature. Under literature, when used in its narrower meaning. We
should include only such works, as, by reason of their subject-matter or
the artistic way in which they are handled, are of general human
interest, and awaken in us one or more of the pleasurable feelings of the
beautiful, the sublime, the pathetic or the ludicrous, Such are poetry,
romance, history, Biography and essays, as opposed to scientific works or
those writings which aim expressly at imparting, knowledge. A piece of
literature differs from a specialized treatise on astronomy, political
economy, philosophy or even history, in part because it appeals not to a
particular class of readers only but to men and women; and in part
because while the object of the treatise is simply to impart knowledge.
One ideal end of the piece of literature, whether it also imparts
knowledge or not, is to yield aesthetic satisfaction by the manner in
which it handles its theme. It is essentially this aspect of literature
which was well brought out by the late Viscount Morley when he spoke of
it as consisting of all the books—and they are not so many——where moral
truths and human passions are treated with a certain largeness, sanity
and attractiveness of form. For the much in little, the extent of its
scope and yet its brevity, this description of Morley’s would be hard to
beat, though if it were a question of finding a synonym for the word
literature, the French belles letters, beautiful or polite, polished or
refined letters would do admirably well. The French mean by their very
expressive and apposite phrase belles letters exactly what we mean by our
word ‘literature`, when we use it in its restricted sense.

Literature used in a Technical Sense: Besides the two above senses in

which the term ‘literature’ is commonly employed, there is one in which
it is also used, viz., in a technical sense. To designate in the first
place, the study of the rules of literary composition or what is called
literary technique and secondly, to describe the different phrases
through which the intellectual development of a people has passed, or, in
other words, to narrate the literary history of a people. In this latter
meaning, a work on English literature would treat of the literary
activities of the English people from the earliest times to the present,
considered in respect of the national progress, and also of the literary
forms which go on changing from age to age, in which such activities have
been embodied. lt would give an account of the literary achievements of
the different writers from very early times to our own day. It would
show how in different ages, different poetic and prose forms were
invented and became popular
Style in Literature

Literature has to do with written words, not with spoken words.

Spoken words have only a limited range. They have a sort of immortality
conferred on them, when they find their place in literature. Thus there
is difference between. speech and literature. Literature is a permanent
record and it is personal in character. lt is the voice of one
individual, not several individuals that speaks to us in literature. The
writer expresses his personal feelings and thoughts in literature, but
they must have universal truth. Language has an important bearing upon
literature. Literature is the personal use or exercise of language.
Language is the vehicle of thought. Now there is a question whether
language can be superimposed. It is true that poor thought can be dressed
up in fine words but all the same we detect the poor thought. The fact is
that thought and expression are inseparable. The one is made to suit the
other. There is the story of a learned Arabic scholar handing over his
matter to a country-curate to touch it and polish it. The curate damaged
his matter by polishing it.

So in great writers, thought and expression are equally matched.

What may appear as lavish richness of style or over-elaboration in
Shakespeare or Cicero is but an adequate rendering of thought. ln great
writers expression is dictated by thought. Cicero’s is the voice destined
to proclaim great things. His rich, majestic diction and his elaboration
are but the natural expression of his thought. Nor should he forget that
genius takes pains with the medium of expression. Some amount of
elaboration will naturally go with the expression of deep, stirring or
tumultuous thoughts as we find in Shakespeare’s tragedies.

It is wrong to think that language is something coming from

without, or that it can be superimposed upon thought. Language is the
skin and body of thought. We must look to the adequacy of language to
thought, and this is the characteristic of a great writer. A mediocre
writer may try to conceal his poor thought in flamboyant language but his
poor thought does not go undetected. lf we think that his language is
richer than his thought, it betrays lack of judgment or discernment in
us. It has been said that men of genius take pains with their thoughts
and their language. They never let language run ahead of their thought,
otherwise they will be no great writers. We may mention here Demosthenes
who studied Thucydides over and over, before he formed his style. Gibbon
was not satisfied with the first draft of his history till he developed
the style to suit his subject. Richness of style and elaborateness are
not faults in a great writer. They are demanded by the subject he deals
with.

In a nutshell, “literature is the personal use or exercise of language.

That this is so is proved from the fact that one author uses it so
differently from another. While the many use language as they find it,
the man of genius uses it indeed, but subjects it withal to his own
purposes and moulds it according to his own peculiarities. The throng and
succession of ideas, thoughts, feelings, imaginations, speculations,
which pass within him, the abstractions the juxtapositions, the
comparisons, the discriminations, the conceptions, which are so original
in him, his views of external things, his judgments upon life, manners,
and history, the exercises of his wit, of his humour, of his depth, of
his sagacity all these innumerable and incessant creations, the very
production and throbbing of his intellect, does he image forth . . . in a
corresponding language, which is as multiform as this inward mental
action itself, and analogous to it, the faithful expression of his
intense personality, attending on his inward world of thought as its very
shadow, so that we might as well say that one man’ s shadow is another’s
as that the style of a really gifted mind can belong to any but himself.
lt follows him about as a shadow. His thought and feeling are personal,
and so his language is personal.” (Newman)

William Henry Hudson has lucidly elaborated the chief features

of literature. According to him, “first, there is the intellectual
element—the thought which the writer brings to bear upon his subject, and
which he expresses in his work. Secondly, there is the emotional element—
the feeling (of whatever kind) which his subject arouses in him, and
which in turn be desires to stimulate in us. Thirdly, there is the
element of imagination (including its light form which we call fancy),
which is really the faculty of strong and intense vision, and by the
exercise of which he quickens a similar power of vision in ourselves.
These elements combine to furnish the substance and the life of
literature. But, however rich may be the materials yielded by experience,
however fresh and strong may be the writer’s thought, feeling and
imagination, in dealing with them, another factor is wanting before his
work can be completed. The given matter has to be moulded and fashioned
in accordance with the principles of order, symmetry, beauty,
effectiveness; and thus we have a fourth element in literature, the
technical element, or the element of composition and style.”

The essential characteristic of literature is that it produces

aesthetic pleasure by manner in which theme is handled. Beyond its
intellectual and emotional content and beyond its fundamental quality of
life, it appeals to us by reason of its form. This means that literature
is a fine art and like all fine arts. It has its own laws and conditions
of workmanship. Literature always communicates experience of the writer.
These experiences of the author’s mind at once affect the reader’s mind
because of the intercommunication of style and thought. His experience
may be actual of a sort of day-dreaming, but imagination can transform it
into something, for the reader. By means of his imagination, the writer
can continue the existence of his experience and communicate it to the
reader as if he has recently caught it out of the flux of life.

“In order to achieve this, the writer must arouse me acre

imagination in his reader, and control it in such a manner that the
reader may also imitate the experience. This he achieves by means of
words which should act as symbols of his experience, so that it can be
properly represented to the reader. The writer must translate his
experience into such symbolic equivalence of language, that the symbol
may be translated back again by the reader’s imagination into a similar
experience. lt is here that the skill of the artist lies. Literature thus
expresses and communicates experience by means of language. lt is the
expression in language for its own sake, of experience for its own sake.
It is beautiful when it achieves this aim. In it, the experience of
receiving the communication, and the experience communicated are
indistinguishable.”