Literature

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This article is about (usually written) works. For the card game, see Literature (card
game).
For a topical guide to this subject, see Outline of literature

Literature
Major forms

Novel Poem Drama

Short story Novella
Genres
Epic Lyric Drama
Romance Satire
Tragedy Comedy
Tragicomedy
Media
Performance (play) Book
Techniques
Prose Verse
History and lists
Basic topics Literary terms
History Modern history
Books Writers
Literary awards Poetry awards
Discussion
Criticism Theory Magazines

Old book bindings at the Merton College library.

Literature is the art of written works. Literally translated, the word means "acquaintance
with letters" (from Latin littera letter), and therefore the academic study of literature is
known as Letters (as in the phrase "Arts and Letters"). In Western culture the most basic
written literary types include fiction and nonfiction.

Contents
[hide]

1 Definitions
2 History
3 Poetry
4 Prose
5 Essays
6 Fiction
7 Other prose literature
8 Drama
9 Oral literature
10 Other narrative forms
11 Genres of literature
12 Literary techniques
13 Literary criticism
14 Legal status
15 UK
16 See also
17 Notes

18 External links

[edit] Definitions

The word "literature" has different meanings depending on who is using it. It could be
applied broadly to mean any symbolic record, encompassing everything from images and
sculptures to letters. In a more narrow sense the term could mean only text composed of
letters, or other examples of symbolic written language (Egyptian hieroglyphs, for
example). An even more narrow interpretation is that text have a physical form, such as
on paper or some other portable form, to the exclusion of inscriptions or digital media.
The Muslim scholar and philosopher Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq (702-765 AD) defined
"literature" as follows: "Literature is the garment which one puts on what he says or
writes so that it may appear more attractive."[1] added that literature is a slice of life that
has been given direction and meaning, an artistic interpretation of the world according to
the percipient's point of views. Frequently, the texts that make up literature crossed over
these boundaries. Russian Formalist Roman Jakobson defines literature as "organized
violence committed on ordinary speech", highlighting literature's deviation from the dayto-day and conversational structure of words. Illustrated stories, hypertexts, cave
paintings and inscribed monuments have all at one time or another pushed the boundaries
of "literature."
People may perceive a difference between "literature" and some popular forms of written
work. The terms "literary fiction" and "literary merit" often serve to distinguish between
individual works. For example, almost all literate people perceive the works of Charles
Dickens as "literature," whereas some critics[citation needed] look down on the works of Jeffrey
Archer as unworthy of inclusion under the general heading of "English literature." Critics
may exclude works from the classification "literature," for example, on the grounds of a
poor standard of grammar and syntax, of an unbelievable or disjointed story-line, or of
inconsistent or unconvincing characters. Genre fiction (for example: romance, crime, or
science fiction) may also become excluded from consideration as "literature."

[edit] History
One of the earliest known literary works is the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, an epic
poem dated around 2700 B.C., which deals with themes of heroism, friendship, loss, and
the quest for eternal life. Different historical periods have emphasized various
characteristics of literature. Early works often had an overt or covert religious or didactic
purpose. Moralizing or prescriptive literature stems from such sources. The exotic nature
of romance flourished from the Middle Ages onwards, whereas the Age of Reason
manufactured nationalistic epics and philosophical tracts. Romanticism emphasized the
popular folk literature and emotive involvement, but gave way in the 19th-century West
to a phase of realism and naturalism, investigations into what is real. The 20th century
brought demands for symbolism or psychological insight in the delineation and
development of character. literature comes from the word "littera which means letter.

[edit] Poetry
A poem is a composition written in verse (although verse has been equally used for epic
and dramatic fiction). Poems rely heavily on imagery, precise word choice, and

metaphor; they may take the form of measures consisting of patterns of stresses (metric
feet) or of patterns of different-length syllables (as in classical prosody); and they may or
may not utilize rhyme. One cannot readily characterize poetry precisely. Typically
though, poetry as a form of literature makes some significant use of the formal properties
of the words it uses the properties of the written or spoken form of the words,
independent of their meaning. Meter depends on syllables and on rhythms of speech;
rhyme and alliteration depend on the sounds of words.
Poetry perhaps pre-dates other forms of literature: early known examples include the
Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh (dated from around 2700 B.C.), parts of the Bible, the
surviving works of Homer (the Iliad and the Odyssey), and the Indian epics Ramayana
and Mahabharata. In cultures based primarily on oral traditions the formal characteristics
of poetry often have a mnemonic function, and important texts: legal, genealogical or
moral, for example, may appear first in verse form.
Some poetry uses specific forms: the haiku, the limerick, or the sonnet, for example. A
traditional haiku written in Japanese must have something to do with nature, contain
seventeen onji (syllables), distributed over three lines in groups of five, seven, and five,
and should also have a kigo, a specific word indicating a season. A limerick has five
lines, with a rhyme scheme of AABBA, and line lengths of 3,3,2,2,3 stressed syllables. It
traditionally has a less reverent attitude towards nature. Poetry not adhering to a formal
poetic structure is called "free verse"
Language and tradition dictate some poetic norms: Persian poetry always rhymes, Greek
poetry rarely rhymes, Italian or French poetry often does, English and German poetry can
go either way. Perhaps the most paradigmatic style of English poetry, blank verse, as
exemplified in works by Shakespeare and Milton, consists of unrhymed iambic
pentameters. Some languages prefer longer lines; some shorter ones. Some of these
conventions result from the ease of fitting a specific language's vocabulary and grammar
into certain structures, rather than into others; for example, some languages contain more
rhyming words than others, or typically have longer words. Other structural conventions
come about as the result of historical accidents, where many speakers of a language
associate good poetry with a verse form preferred by a particular skilled or popular poet.
Works for theatre (see below) traditionally took verse form. This has now become rare
outside opera and musicals, although many would argue that the language of drama
remains intrinsically poetic.
In recent years, digital poetry has arisen that takes advantage of the artistic, publishing,
and synthetic qualities of digital media.

[edit] Prose
Prose consists of writing that does not adhere to any particular formal structures (other
than simple grammar); "non-poetic" writing, perhaps. The term sometimes appears
pejoratively, but prosaic writing simply says something without necessarily trying to say

it in a beautiful way, or using beautiful words. Prose writing can of course take beautiful
form; but less by virtue of the formal features of words (rhymes, alliteration, metre) but
rather by style, placement, or inclusion of graphics. But one need not mark the distinction
precisely, and perhaps cannot do so. One area of overlap is "prose poetry", which
attempts to convey using only prose, the aesthetic richness typical of poetry.

[edit] Essays
An essay consists of a discussion of a topic from an author's personal point of view,
exemplified by works by Michel de Montaigne or by Charles Lamb.
'Essay' in English derives from the French 'essai', meaning 'attempt'. Thus one can find
open-ended, provocative and/or inconclusive essays. The term "essays" first applied to
the self-reflective musings of Michel de Montaigne, and even today he has a reputation as
the father of this literary form.
Genres related to the essay may include:

the memoir, telling the story of an author's life from the author's personal point of
view
the epistle: usually a formal, didactic, or elegant letter.

[edit] Fiction
Narrative fiction (narrative prose) generally favours prose for the writing of novels, short
stories, graphic novels, and the like. Singular examples of these exist throughout history,
but they did not develop into systematic and discrete literary forms until relatively recent
centuries. Length often serves to categorize works of prose fiction. Although limits
remain somewhat arbitrary, modern publishing conventions dictate the following:

A Mini saga is a short story of about 50 words or less.

A Flash fiction is generally defined as a piece of prose under a thousand words.
A short story comprises prose writing of between 1000 and 20,000 words (but
typically more than 5000 words), which may or may not have a narrative arc.
A story containing between 20,000 and 50,000 words falls into the novella
category.
A work of fiction containing more than 50,000 words falls squarely into the realm
of the novel.

A novel consists simply of a long story written in prose, yet the form developed
comparatively recently. Icelandic prose sagas dating from about the 11th century bridge
the gap between traditional national verse epics and the modern psychological novel. In
mainland Europe, the Spaniard Cervantes wrote perhaps the first influential novel: Don
Quixote, the first part of which was published in 1605 and the second in 1615. Earlier
collections of tales, such as the One Thousand and One Nights, Giovanni Bocaccio's

Decameron and Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, have comparable forms and would
classify as novels if written today. Other works written in classical Asian and Arabic
literature resemble even more strongly the novel as we now think of itfor example,
works such as the Japanese Tale of Genji by Lady Murasaki, the Arabic Hayy ibn
Yaqdhan by Ibn Tufail, the Arabic Theologus Autodidactus by Ibn al-Nafis, and the
Chinese Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong.
Early novels in Europe did not, at the time, count as significant literature, perhaps
because "mere" prose writing seemed easy and unimportant. It has become clear,
however, that prose writing can provide aesthetic pleasure without adhering to poetic
forms. Additionally, the freedom authors gain in not having to concern themselves with
verse structure translates often into a more complex plot or into one richer in precise
detail than one typically finds even in narrative poetry. This freedom also allows an
author to experiment with many different literary and presentation stylesincluding
poetryin the scope of a single novel.
See Ian Watt's The Rise of the Novel. [This definition needs expansion]

[edit] Other prose literature

Philosophy, history, journalism, and legal and scientific writings traditionally ranked as
literature. They offer some of the oldest prose writings in existence; novels and prose
stories earned the names "fiction" to distinguish them from factual writing or nonfiction,
which writers historically have crafted in prose.
The "literary" nature of science writing has become less pronounced over the last two
centuries, as advances and specialization have made new scientific research inaccessible
to most audiences; science now appears mostly in journals. Scientific works of Euclid,
Aristotle, Copernicus, and Newton still possess great value; but since the science in them
has largely become outdated, they no longer serve for scientific instruction, yet they
remain too technical to sit well in most programmes of literary study. Outside of "history
of science" programmes students rarely read such works. Many books "popularizing"
science might still deserve the title "literature"; history will tell.
Philosophy, too, has become an increasingly academic discipline. More of its
practitioners lament this situation than occurs with the sciences; nonetheless most new
philosophical work appears in academic journals. Major philosophers through history
Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Descartes, Nietzschehave become as canonical as any
writers. Some recent philosophy works are argued to merit the title "literature", such as
some of the works by Simon Blackburn; but much of it does not, and some areas, such as
logic, have become extremely technical to a degree similar to that of mathematics.
A great deal of historical writing can still rank as literature, particularly the genre known
as creative nonfiction. So can a great deal of journalism, such as literary journalism.
However these areas have become extremely large, and often have a primarily utilitarian
purpose: to record data or convey immediate information. As a result the writing in these

fields often lacks a literary quality, although it often and in its better moments has that
quality. Major "literary" historians include Herodotus, Thucydides and Procopius, all of
whom count as canonical literary figures.
Law offers a less clear case. Some writings of Plato and Aristotle, or even the early parts
of the Bible, might count as legal literature. The law tables of Hammurabi of Babylon
might count. Roman civil law as codified in the Corpus Juris Civilis during the reign of
Justinian I of the Byzantine Empire has a reputation as significant literature. The
founding documents of many countries, including the United States Constitution, can
count as literature; however legal writing now rarely exhibits literary merit.
Game design scripts are never seen by the player of a game and only by the developers
and/or publishers to help them understand, visualize and maintain consistency while
collaborating in creating a game, the audience for these pieces is usually very small. Still,
many game scripts contain immersive stories and detailed worlds making them a hidden
literary genre.
Most of these fields, then, through specialization or proliferation, no longer generally
constitute "literature" in the sense under discussion. They may sometimes count as
"literary literature"; more often they produce what one might call "technical literature" or
"professional literature".

[edit] Drama
A play or drama offers another classical literary form that has continued to evolve over
the years. It generally comprises chiefly dialogue between characters, and usually aims at
dramatic / theatrical performance (see theatre) rather than at reading. During the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, opera developed as a combination of poetry, drama,
and music. Nearly all drama took verse form until comparatively recently. Shakespeare
could be considered drama. Romeo and Juliet, for example, is a classic romantic drama
generally accepted as literature.
Greek drama exemplifies the earliest form of drama of which we have substantial
knowledge. Tragedy, as a dramatic genre, developed as a performance associated with
religious and civic festivals, typically enacting or developing upon well-known historical
or mythological themes. Tragedies generally presented very serious themes. With the
advent of newer technologies, scripts written for non-stage media have been added to this
form. War of the Worlds (radio) in 1938 saw the advent of literature written for radio
broadcast, and many works of Drama have been adapted for film or television.
Conversely, television, film, and radio literature have been adapted to printed or
electronic media.

[edit] Oral literature

The term oral literature refers not to written, but to oral traditions, which includes
different types of epic, poetry and drama, folktales, ballads, legends, jokes, and other
genres of folklore. It exists in every society, whether literate or not. It is generally studied
by folklorists, or by scholars committed to cultural studies and ethnopoetics, including
linguists, anthropologists, and even sociologists.

[edit] Other narrative forms

Electronic literature is a literary genre consisting of works which originate in

digital environments.
Films, videos and broadcast soap operas have carved out a niche which often
parallels the functionality of prose fiction.
Graphic novels and comic books present stories told in a combination of
sequential artwork, dialogue and text.

[edit] Genres of literature

A literary genre refers to the traditional divisions of literature of various kinds according
to a particular criterion of writing. See the list of literary genres.
List of literary genres

Autobiography, Memoir, Spiritual autobiography

Biography
Diaries and Journals
Electronic literature
Erotic literature
Slave narrative
Thoughts, Proverbs
Fiction
o Adventure novel
o Children's literature
o Comic novel
o Crime fiction
Detective fiction
o Fable, Fairy tale, Folklore
o Fantasy (for more details see Fantasy subgenres; fantasy literature)
o Gothic fiction (initially synonymous with horror)
o Historical fiction
o Horror
o Medical novel
o Mystery fiction
o Philosophical novel
o Political fiction
o Romance novel

Historical romance
Saga, Family Saga
Satire
Science fiction (for more details see Science fiction genre)
Thriller
Conspiracy fiction
Legal thriller
Psychological thriller
Spy fiction/Political thriller
Tragedy

o
o
o
o

[edit] Literary techniques

Main article: Literary technique
A literary technique or literary device can be used by works of literature in order to
produce a specific effect on the reader. Literary technique is distinguished from literary
genre as military tactics are from military strategy. Thus, though David Copperfield
employs satire at certain moments, it belongs to the genre of comic novel, not that of
satire. By contrast, Bleak House employs satire so consistently as to belong to the genre
of satirical novel. In this way, use of a technique can lead to the development of a new
genre, as was the case with one of the first modern novels, Pamela by Samuel
Richardson, which by using the epistolary technique strengthened the tradition of the
epistolary novel, a genre which had been practiced for some time already but without the
same acclaim.

[edit] Literary criticism

Also see: Literary criticism, Literary history, Literary theory
Literary criticism implies a critique and evaluation of a piece of literature and in some
cases is used to improve a work in progress or classical piece. There are many types of
literary criticism and each can be used to critique a piece in a different way or critique a
different aspect of a piece.

[edit] Legal status

[edit] UK
Literary works have been protected by copyright law from unauthorised reproduction
since at least 1710.[2] Literary works are defined by copyright law to mean any work,
other than a dramatic or musical work, which is written, spoken or sung, and
accordingly includes (a) a table or compilation (other than a database), (b) a computer
program, (c) preparatory design material for a computer program, and (d) a database.

It should be noted that literary works are not limited to works of literature, but include all
works expressed in print or writing (other than dramatic or musical works).[3]

[edit] See also

Wikipedia:Books has a book on: Literature
Main articles: Outline of literature and Index of literature articles
Lists
List of authors
List of books
List of literary awards
List of literary terms
List of prizes, medals, and awards for literary prizes.
List of women writers
List of writers
Related topics
Asemic Writing
Children's literature
Cultural movement for literary movements.
English studies
Ergodic literature
Fiction
Hinman Collator
History of literature (antiquity1800)
History of modern literature (1800 )
Hungryalism
Literature basic topics
Literary criticism
Literature cycle
Literary magazine
Modern Language Association
Orature
Postcolonial literature
Rabbinic literature
Rhetorical modes
Scientific literature
Vernacular literature
World literature
Associations devoted to the study of language and literature
American Council of Learned Societies (for list of member societies)
Modern Language Association

[hide]
vde

Fiction
Character

Protagonist Antagonist Foil character

Plot

Dramatic structure: Exposition Conflict Rising action Climax

(narrative) Falling action Dnouement Plot device Subplot

Setting

Utopia Dystopia Fictional universe Fictional location Fictional

country

Theme Motif
Style

Narrative mode Tone Symbolism Imagery Diction Suspension of

disbelief Literary technique

Form

Novel Novella Short story Flash fiction Play Fable Fairy tale
Poetry Screenplay

Adventure Comic Crime Fantasy Gawda Historical Horror

Genre Mystery Philosophical Political Romance Saga Satire Thriller
Urban
Literature portal

[edit] Notes
1. ^ The Great Muslim Scientist and Philosopher Imam Jafar Ibn Mohammad AsSadiq(a.s),Imam Hussain Publication, First Edition, ISBN 964-7371 12-8
2. ^ The Statute of Anne 1710 and the Literary Copyright Act 1842 used the term "book".
However, since 1911 the statutes have referred to literary works.
3. ^ University of London Press v. University Tutorial Press [1916]

[edit] External links