WHAT IS LITERATURE?
R.J.REES, Introduction to
literature:
“Any
writing where words
and language used is ‘literature’”.
For example, Time-Table,
Brochures, Catalogues, etc.
Here we can take a example,
Customer to sales girl:”I wanna
buy mobile. Please show me its literature”.
Thus in broader sense
Wordsworth’s poem and book on surgery are literature.
Take one more example,
We
shall compare two pieces of writing about London.
1. One is
taken from popular encyclopedia.
2.
The other is taken of Wordsworth’s famous sonnet
“Upon Westminster Bridge”.
We shall forget for a moment that
one piece is prose and the other is verse: much more important is the
difference in ‘purpose’.
The writer in the encyclopedia
had a very simple purpose, which was to give us as many about London as he
could in a small space.
But, Wordsworth’s purpose was
quite different. He wanted to communicate feelings, not facts; emotions, not
information.
The sudden intense pleasure he
felt in the beauty of the man-made landscape, and the strange silence of a city
not yet awake, was too good to keep to him ’.
“He
wanted the reader to feel what he ‘felt’”.
-R.J.REES
Let us try to define literature
more specifically:
“LITERATURE
holds the Mirror
up to Nature.”
-by
William Shakespeare in
his ‘Hamlet’.
Dictionary meaning,
Literature is:
“Written work with Artistic
values.”
Creative literature is fictional
because creative ideas make literature fictional.
According to Plato,
“Literature makes ‘Nothing’
but, rational fools.”
“Literature is bundle of lies.”
R. J. Rees, concern with the statement,
“Everything
which is in written form is literature”.
But, the
writing which gives delightful feeling, imagination and most is that its
timelessness or permanence is literature.
Often we found,
“Society never likes to listen
the
‘Truth’ which is not convenient to them.”
And, Literature tries to say that
those are inconvenient truths.
“Literature
expands the
Horizon of our
thinking.”
Literature says never it’s truth,
thoughts and feelings directly, if it would be direct it would become
‘philosophy’.
“Philosophy
is a direct way of feelings, and
thoughts but, literature is not.”
Relationship between
Literature & Religion, &, Literature and science & Technology.
· According
to literary terms,
Literature is not in favor with Religion,
Science & Technology. Because, literature never agrees to the rigidity and
orthodoxy of religion. And it never agrees to the Technology and Science.
Because, these both are Harmful to the human kinds.
Thus, we can say that Literature
only takes place besides the human beings and humanity.
Literature basically
holds two types,
· Literaedidectiese (Latin)- didactic
literature- it aims to teach or to give information. (Anti-literature).
· Literaehumanieonare- literature – it
aims to please, to move, to transport, and to entertain.
DE Quincy,
Literature of knowledge: philosophy,
economics, history, math, physics, information brochures..etc.
Literature of power: poetry, drama, novel, dance, painting, sculpture… etc.
Terry Eagleton recently wrote an
essay on this particular subject, “What is Literature”?
According to Terry Eagleton,
Literature
is,
·
Flux and static.
·
There is no good vs. evil.
·
Virtue vs. vise.
“Art is not a mirror to reflect reality
But
a hammer to shape it.”
-Bertolt
Brecht.
According to R.J.REES,
“A consciousness of Moral Values”.
“Literature may be good, bad
or indifferent; but good literature
will have same, if not all of before
qualities.”
Conclusion:-
We
often found ‘pain’ in literature. Though, it has that test to give delight.
Because,
“Best
form of happiness is in ‘pain’”.
At last I can say that,
Literature
provides one the most direct ways of stimulating their mind’s ‘imagination’.
“Literature helps us to know
that, ‘Who We Are”?.
