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Definitions of literature

The word “literature” is derived from the Latin word “littera”, meaning “letter”. In that respect, literature should refer only to something written, but that would not leave room for oral tradition. Therefore, literature is divided into oral and written. In order for a written or oral work to be called a literary work, it has to be a work of art. We do not study shopping lists as literary works, for example. The term “literature” was first used in 19th century literary criticism and it applied to “great books”, the works of art notable for their form and expression. Today, we divide literature in three major categories: epic, lyric and drama.

In order for something to be studied as a literary work, it has to satisfy certain criteria. First among them is the aesthetic criterion. A piece of work has to possess the beauty of structure, style, composition, the way language is used, etc. It is supposed to evoke the feeling of pleasure in the reader. It does not have to be practical or useful, whatsoever.

The second criterion is intellectual distinction. Some literary works are studied for the impact they have on their readers. Some of them do not only influence a single reader, but some other writers or even the entire generations of writers. They do have aesthetic value, but of a rather narrow kind. An example of those works is Darwin’s “The Origin of Species”.

The third criterion is the language of literary works. It is different from the language of non-literary works in the way that the latter is supposed to inform or teach. Its language signs are denotative (1:1 correspondence) and transparent. In the language of the literary works, on the other hand, the signs are not arbitrary and synonyms cannot be used to replace a word because each word draws attention to itself and is used deliberately.

Every literary work is supposed to have the emotional impact on its readers. Literature appeals to the emotions of the readers more than any other type of writing. It communicates to us through the feelings. It can encourage us to do extraordinary things or even overcome our deepest fears.

Last, but not least, is the fictional nature of a literary work. Literary works are the result of the creative imagination of the writer, even if we consider historical novels. This fictional nature allows us to imagine things that exist, but are not present, or things from the future and the past and also allows us to imagine non-existing things.

Fictional nature of literary works – continued

The very word “fictional” is derived from the Latin word “fictus”, the part participle of the verb “fingo”, meaning “to create, to invent”. In Greek, the word “poetus” means “maker, creator, while the word “drama” derives from the Greek word for deed, act, performance.

The facts presented in a literary work do not have the impact of being true. While the lyric poetry is considered the most inventive of all the forms, we have to bear in mind that the I of the poem should not be mistaken with the I of the poet. Furthermore, this fictional nature allows the space and time of the work not to be equal to the space and time of reality. What is more, we are not introduced to every minute of our hero’s life, but we get to see only slice of it important for our story.

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The literary work as a structure

The literary materials as aesthetically insensitive elements inquire beauty only when the structure is imposed on them, meaning that they become beautiful if they are well structured and that structure is the way in which materials acquire aesthetic merit. The structure of a literary work is consisted of its form and content. Literature studies relations between different works, chapters, stanzas and other parts, how the ideas inside of them are developed, the inner movements inside them, their topics, and so on.

Intrinsic and extrinsic approach to literature

Every literary text is composed of text and context, which means that it includes both textual and contextual elements.

Intrinsic approach to literature is concerned with textual elements. It studies characters, thematic analysis, genres, versification, etc. and it focuses exclusively on the elements found in the text, disregarding external factors. This means that the readers have to approach the text from within in order to interpret its elements.

Extrinsic approach, on the other hand, is involved with context in which the text appears. It studies the influences and the external factors that affected the work and it can be either narrow, concerned with personal motives of the author, or extended, regarding some historical, political or philosophical events that influenced the author.

Nowadays, most interpretations of literary works are the combination of the two.

Studying literature: History of literature

The studies of literature can be divided into three major fields – literary theory, literary criticism and history of literature.

Literary theory studies the general principles in literature and does not deal with specific works. It studies genres, literary devices, and some other basic principles and criteria. Literary criticism, on the other hand, deals with specific works. Its role is to interpret and evaluate a literary work, it makes the work easier to understand and is closely related to history and theory.

History of literature combines theory and criticism and gives a synthetic view of certain works in chronological order. It deals with the historical development of literature during a specific period or in a specific place. It gives an overview of writers and their works and it speaks about tendencies and movements. It also places a work into a socio-historical and cultural context.

So far, history of literature was divided on geographical principle. Based on that, we can talk about history of national literature, comparative history of literature and general history of literature.

History of national literature deals with the development of literature of a specific nation from its beginnings. However, within this sub-type there are some inconsistencies. If we talk,

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for example, about English literature, we can interpret that term in two ways. Either we are referring to the literature written in England, or we are referring to all the works of literature written in English language, including American, Irish, Australian, etc. writers.

Comparative history of literature, as its name says, studies various points of comparison between one national literature and the other. It points out their similarities and differences, talks about what is unique about each and what is general and common among them.

General history of literature is also called the “world literature”. It tries to create an overview of various national writers who contributed to world literature in general, possessing certain features that transcendent national limits. It teaches us to think out of the borders of our national literature and keep in mind political and social movements that changed the world through history. However, a problem with general literature is on what criteria should the important representatives be separated from the rest.