UNIT ONE: FUNDAMENTALS OF

LITERATURE
B. Ed. 1st sem
1.1 DEFINITION OF LITERATURE
 Literature is writing that uses artistic
expression and form and is considered to
have merit or be important.
 As an artistic term, literature refers to
written works, such as novels, short stories,
biographies, memories, essays, and poetry.
 Literature has derived from the Latin
litteraturae, “writings”):
 The word ‘Literature’ is a modified form of a Latin word
(literra, litteratura or litteratus) that means: ‘writing
formed with letters’. Let us look at what is literature according
to definitions by different celebrated literary personalities.
 Literature can be any written work, but it is especially an
artistic or intellectual work of writing.
 It is one of the fine arts, like painting, dance, music, etc. which
provides aesthetic pleasure to the readers.
 It differs from other written works by only its one additional
trait: that is aesthetic beauty.
 If a written work lacks aesthetic beauty and serves only
utilitarian purpose, it is not literature.
 The entire genre like poetry, drama, or prose is blend of
intellectual works and has aesthetic beauty of that work. When
there is no any aesthetic beauty in any written work that is not
pure literature.
 Literature” has been commonly used since
the eighteenth century, equivalently with the
French belles lettres (“fine letters”), to
designate fictional and imaginative writings—
poetry, prose fiction, and drama.
 In an expanded use, it designates also any
other writings (including philosophy, history,
and even scientific works addressed to a
general audience) that are especially
distinguished in form, expression, and
emotional power.
 Largely, we call “literary” the philosophical writings of
Plato and William James, the historical writings of
Edward Gibbon, the scientific essays of Thomas Henry
Huxley, and the psychoanalytic lectures of Sigmund
Freud, and include them in the reading lists of some
courses in literature.
 Literature refers to all written works, whatever their
kind or quality.
 This is the sum of works that deal with a particular
subject matter.
 At a major American university that includes a College
of Agriculture, the chairman of the Division of Literature
once received this letter: “Dear Sir, Kindly send me all
your literature concerning the use of cow manure as a
fertilizer.”
 In imaginative writing, “literature” has an evaluative as well as
descriptive function, so that its proper use has become a matter of
contention.
 Modern critical movements deal with historical injustices and stress.
 They have covert role played by gender, race, and class in establishing
what has, in various eras, been accounted as literature, or in forming
the ostensibly timeless criteria of great and canonical literature, or in
distinguishing between “high literature” and the literature addressed
to a mass audience.
 For example, the entries on cultural studies, feminist criticism gender
criticism, Marxist criticism, and new historicism; refer also to
Jonathan Culler, The Literary in Theory (2007).
 For the historical development of the concept of a work of literature
as a fine art that is autonomous, and to be enjoyed for its own sake,
see M. H. Abrams, “Art-as-Such: The Sociology of Modern Aesthetics,”
in Doing Things with Texts (1984); and Pierre Bourdieu, The Rules of
Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field (1995). For references
to literature in other entries, see pages 142, 149, 205, 320.
 Literature is a body of written works.
 The name has traditionally been applied to
those imaginative works of poetry and prose
distinguished by the intentions of their
authors and the perceived aesthetic
excellence of their execution.
 Literature may be classified according to a
variety of systems, including language,
national origin, historical period, genre, and
subject matter.
 Virginia Woolf: Virginia defined literature in
a perfect way. “Literature is strewn with the
wreckage of those who have minded beyond
reason the opinion of others.”
 Ezra Pound: “Great literature is simply
language charged with meaning to the utmost
possible degree.”
 Alfred North Whitehead: “It is in literature
that the concrete outlook of humanity
receives its expression.”
 Henry James: “It takes a great deal of history
to produce a little literature.”
 Lewis: “Literature adds to reality, it does not simply
describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that
daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it
irrigates the deserts that our lives have already
become.”
 Oscar Wilde: “Literature always anticipates life. It does
not copy it but moulds it to its purpose. The nineteenth
century, as we know it, is largely an invention of
Balzac.”
 Chesterton: “Literature is a luxury; fiction is a
necessity.”
 Forster: The definition of literature by Forster is much
interesting. “What is wonderful about great literature is
that it transforms the man who reads it towards the
condition of the man who wrote.”
1.2 LITERARY GENRES AND THEIR
FEATURES: POETRY, PROSE AND DRAMA