Literal Meaning of Literature

WHAT IS THE MEANING OF LITERATURE?

"Literature" has been commonly used since the eighteenth century, equivalently with the French "bells Lettres" to designate fictional and imaginative writings, poetry, prose fiction and drama. In an expanded use, it designate 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. It is in this larger sense of the term that we call "literary" the philosophical writing of Plato and William James, the historical writing of James Gibbon, the scientific essays of Thomas Henry Huxley, and the psychoanalytic lectures of Sigmund Freud and include them in the reading list of some courses of literature. Confusingly, however, "literature" is sometimes applied also, in a sense close to the Latin original, to all written works whatever their kind or quality. This all-inclusive use in especially frequent reference to the sum of works that deal with a particular subject matter. 

Modern critical movements aiming to correct what is seen as historical injustices stress strong but convert role played by gender, race, and class in establishing what has in various eras been accounted as literature, or informing the ostensibly timeless criteria of great and canonical literature or in distinguishing between "high literature" and the literature addressed to a mass audience. See for example the entries on cultural studies, gender criticism, Marxist criticism and new historicism.

   




Location: India

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