What is Literature

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Abstract

A first challenge in reading world literature is that the very idea of literature has meant many different things over the centuries and around the world. At its most general, “literature” simply means “written with letters” – really, any text at all. If you go to see your doctor about a persistent cough and she says “I’ll pull up the latest literature on tuberculosis,” she means medical reports, not Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain. Even in more artistic contexts, many cultures have made no firm distinctions between imaginative literature and other forms of elevated writing. “Belles‐lettres” would be a good translation of the ancient Egyptian term medet nefret, “beautiful words,” which could refer to any form of rhetorically heightened composition, whether poetry, stories, philosophical dialogues, or speeches. The classical Chinese term wen designated poetry and artistic prose but carried a much wider set of meanings, including pattern, order, and harmonious design. In Europe, reflecting older ideas of literature as “humane letters,” the concept of literature remained quite broad throughout the eighteenth century but came to be increasingly restricted to imaginative works of poetry, drama, and prose fiction. This understanding has become the norm around the world, including in the meanings now given to such terms as wenxue in Chinese, bungaku in Japanese, and adab in Arabic. Still, these terms can be applied either very broadly or quite restrictively. Often readers only admit some poems and novels into the category of “real” literature, considering Harlequin romances and Stephen King thrillers as little more than verbal junk food, unworthy of inclusion in the company of Dante and Virginia Woolf. Even farther from the realm of literature are advertising jingles. Though it certainly represents a minimal form of poetry, a jingle isn’t meant to be savored for its beauty; its meter and rhyme are used purely instrumentally, to help the message lodge in your mind so that you’ll remember to buy a particular brand of toothpaste. 1