Literature: Points to Ponder

An Analogy
A child and a man were one day walking on the seashore when the child found a little shell and
held it to his ear. Suddenly he heard sounds,--strange, low, melodious sounds, as if the shell were
remembering and repeating to itself the murmurs of its ocean home. The child's face filled with
wonder as he listened. Here in the little shell, apparently, was a voice from another world, and he
listened with delight to its mystery and music. Then came the man, explaining that the child
heard nothing strange; that the pearly curves of the shell simply caught a multitude of sounds too
faint for human ears, and filled the glimmering hollows with the murmur of innumerable echoes.
It was not a new world, but only the unnoticed harmony of the old that had aroused the child's
wonder.
Some such experience as this awaits us when we begin the study of literature, which has always
two aspects, one of simple enjoyment and appreciation, the other of analysis and exact
description. Let a little song appeal to the ear, or a noble book to the heart, and for the moment,
at least, we discover a new world, a world so different from our own that it seems a place of
dreams and magic. To enter and enjoy this new world, to love good books for their own sake, is
the chief thing; to analyze and explain them is a less joyous but still an important matter. Behind
every book is a man; behind the man is the race; and behind the race are the natural and social
environments whose influence is unconsciously reflected. These also we must know, if the book
is to speak its whole message. In a word, we have now reached a point where we wish to
understand as well as to enjoy literature; and the first step, since exact definition is impossible, is
to determine some of its essential qualities.
William J Long
What is Literature?
The quest to discover a definition for literature is a road that is much travelled, though the
point of arrival, if ever reached, is seldom satisfactory. Most attempted definitions are broad and
vague, and they inevitably change over time. In fact, the only thing that is certain about defining
literature is that the definition will change. Concepts of what is literature change over time as
well. What may be considered ordinary and not worthy of comment in one time period may be
considered literary genius in another. Initial reviews of Emily Bront's Wuthering Heights in
1847 were less than spectacular, however, Wuthering Heights is now considered one of the
greatest literary achievements of all time. The same can be said for Herman Melville's MobyDick (1851).
Generally, most people have their own ideas of what literature is. When enrolling in a literary
course at university, you expect that everything on the reading list will be literature. Similarly,
you might expect everything by a known author to be literature, even though the quality of that
author's work may vary from publication to publication. Perhaps you get an idea just from
looking at the cover design on a book whether it is literary or pulp. Literature then, is a form
of demarcation, however fuzzy, based on the premise that all texts are not created equal. Some
have or are given more value than others.

Most forays into the question of what is literature go into how literature works with the reader,
rather than how the author set about writing it. It is the reception, rather than the writing, which
is the object of enquiry. Largely, what we call literature is often a subjective value judgment,
and naturally, value judgments, like literary tastes, will change.
Etymologically, literature has to do with letters, the written as opposed to the spoken word,
though not everything that is written down is literature. As a classification, it doesn't really have
any firm boundary lines. The poet Shelley wanted to include some legislative statutes of
parliaments under poetry because they created order and harmony out of disorder. There is
recurring agreement amongst theorists though that for a work to be called literature must display
excellence in form and style. Something may also be literary by association that is, because
V.S. Naipaul is a literary figure through his novels, his private letters are passed as literature as
well.
There is also general agreement that literature foregrounds language, and uses it in artistic ways.
Terry Eagleton goes some way towards a definition of literature and its relationship to language:
Literature transforms and intensifies ordinary language, deviates systematically from everyday
speech. Just as architecture is the art form that arises out of the human ability to create
buildings, literature is the art form that arises out of the human ability to create language.
The common definition of literature, particularly for university courses, is that it covers the
major genres of poetry, drama, and novel/fiction. The term also implies literary quality and
distinction. This is a fairly basic view of literature because, as mentioned in the introduction, the
meaning of the term has undergone changes, and will no doubt continue to do so. Most
contemporary literary histories show a shift from the belles-lettres tradition, which was
concerned with finding beauty, an elevated use of language, emotional effects and moral
sentiments before something could be called literature.
The three main ways of approaching a definition of literature are relativism, subjectivism and
agnosticism. With relativism, there are no value distinctions in literature; anything may be called
good literature. Subjectivism, as the term implies, means that all theories of literary value are
subjective, and that literary evaluation is a purely personal matter. Agnosticism follows from
subjectivism, though it argues that though there may be real distinctions in literary value, our
subjective value systems prevent us from knowing anything about the real values.
By the 1980s, there was a sense of inclusiveness (and relativism) in what was termed literary that
ran alongside the inclusiveness of multiculturalism - anything could be literature, and attempts
were made to dismantle distinctions between high and low culture. Letters, diaries, reports,
petitions, journals and essays as well as the traditional genres of novel, short story, poem and
play can be included as literature. In universities, literature began to be studied for issues and
themes, and works were valued for their ideas and engagement with the world as much as for
their aesthetic qualities. These standards are also applied to non-fiction, such as auto/biography
and philosophy. The most recent amendment to what constitutes literature is the inclusion of oral
narratives. This inclusion hasn't been without debate. There is some argument that the written
word lends itself more easily to analysis, while the flip side is that oral narratives are a legitimate
part of a culture's literary capital.

Definitions of literature change because they describe and clarify a reality, they do not create the
reality they describe. Or it may be that definitions tell us what we ought to think literature
should be. At a dinner party you would be swiftly corrected if you referred to Mills & Boon as
literature. This might occur for two reasons: the common perception of literature as described
by current definitions doesn't include mass-market romance novels; or Mills & Boon might well
be literature, but contemporary definitions tell us it shouldn't be.
Does it really matter what literature is? Does everyone have to agree? Because there is no
hard and fast definition of literature, perhaps it is more beneficial to seek an analysis instead.
What purposes does literature serve? What distinguishes literature from non-literary works?
What makes us treat something as literature? How do we know when something is literature?
Would it be easier to ask what isn't literature?
Literature is as literature does. In exploring ideas about what literature is, it is useful to look at
some of the things that literature does. Literature is something that reflects society, makes us
think about ourselves and our society, allows us to enjoy language and beauty, it can be didactic,
and it reflects on the human condition. It both reflects ideology and changes ideology, just like
it follows generic conventions as well as changing them. It has social and political effects: just
ask Salman Rushdie or Vladamir Nabakov. Literature is the creation of another world, a world
that we can only see through reading literature.
Literature?
In any conversation, the participants need to share an understanding of the thing being
discussed. If, for example, were going to talk about the film The Big Lebowski, wed need to
both agree that when we use the title of that movie, were referring to the 1998 film starring Jeff
Bridges and John Goodman and written and directed by the Cohen brothers. If this were a
course in cellular biology, wed need to share a definition of a cell (what it is; what it isnt;
what its defining characteristics and behaviors are, etc.) in order to talk meaningfully about it. If
this were a course in business ethics, wed have to share a definition of ethics (and
business). Our conversations this semester will be about "literature" and about "critical
inquiry," and so we need to have some shared understanding of what we mean and what we
dont mean when we use those terms. The purpose of the discussion here is to help us start our
conversation about the meaning of the term "literature."
A safe place to begin when discussing definitions is a dictionary. Dictionary.com defines
literature, in part, as follows:
"writings in which expression and form, in connection with ideas of permanent and
universal interest, are characteristic or essential features, as poetry, novels, history,
biography, and essays."
That seems to make enough sense, and it represents a common definition of literature found in
most dictionaries. But as all dictionaries do, Dictionary.com goes on to offer more definitions,
one of which is this:
"any kind of printed material, as circulars, leaflets, or handbills."

This problematizes our discussion a bit: is literature anything printed (like advertisements and
financial aid pamphlets and the course schedule) or is "literature" only particular kinds of printed
material (like poems and short stories and plays). It wont work for us to take a relativistic path
and say simply that literature is whatever each person thinks it is. If we do that, then we wont
really be able to have a conversation about literature since you may be using the word to refer to
poems and I may be using it to refer to my to-do list or to coupons in the newspaper. We dont
have to agree exactly on every aspect of our definition, but we do need to be in the same general
area together. So for our discussions this semester, lets agree that when we refer to literature,
we ARE NOT referring to just any kind of printed material but only certain kinds of printed
materialspecifically, the kinds that possess some kind of artistic merit.
Well, now Ive really complicated things. Defining literature seems easier than defining
artistic merit. After all, what is art? Again, it simply wont work to take the relativistic path
and say that it is whatever each individual thinks it is. If anything qualifies as art, then
everything qualifies as art, and, consequently, nothing is really art. And art isnt simply
what I like. There are many things I like immensely that dont qualify as art (Backpacker
magazine, for example), and there is much art that I cant stand (for example, almost all of the
poetry of Robert Frost). So what is artistic merit? Here it may be helpful to go back to part of
our Dictionary.com definition of literature:
"expression and form, in connection with ideas of permanent and universal interest, are
characteristic or essential features."
What does this really mean? I understand it to mean first that a work we call "literature" says
something (i.e. the "expression") about issues, experiences, or ideas that are of intense, ongoing
interest to many, many people (i.e. the "ideas of permanent and universal
interest"). Furthermore, a work we call "literature," will not simply address topics we care about
and are interested in; it will address these topics in special ways. That is, the "form" of the
expression or how the expression is presented somehow contributes to the uniqueness of the
work. To break it down further, let's look at three elements of this definition.
1. "...connection with ideas of permanent and universal interest." Since people create ideas
and give them permanence and universal interest, we can paraphrase this part of our definition to
mean that literature addresses topics that are of deep interest to many, many people. What are
these topics? Probably the things that make our lives both complicated and worth living-freedom, truth, beauty, love, loyalty, despair, hope, hopelessness, etc.. Contemplative people
across places and throughout time have concerned themselves with these ideas and have
represented and explored them through literature. It is this that caused American poet Ezra
Pound to describe literature as news that stays news and American historian Barbara Tuchman
to describe it as humanity in print and a carrier of civilization.
2. Furthermore, our definition of literature above implies that what a work of literature
says about an issue or subject of deep interest is important. Its not a particular opinion were
looking for in literature; we're looking for insight into the topic that is of "permanent and
universal interest." A literary text is one that freshens, intensifies, deepens, and/or challenges
our understanding of something we are interested in. Literature should rock us, shake us up,

rattle us, and make us feel like we understand something new about what it means to be human
and experience the world we live in. Nature writer Annie Dillard described it this way:
"Why are we reading, if not in hope of beauty laid bare, life heightened and its deepest
mystery probed? . . . . Why are we reading if not in hope that the writer will magnify and
dramatize our days, will illuminate and inspire us with wisdom, courage, and the possibility of
meaningfulness, and will press upon our minds the deepest mysteries, so we may feel again
their majesty and power?"
Franz Kafka was more blunt:
"If the book we are reading does not wake us, as with a fist hammering on our skull,
why then do we read it? What we must have are those books which come upon us like
ill-fortune, and distress us deeply, like the death of one we love better than
ourselves.A book must be an ice-axe to break the frozen sea inside us."
Many stories and poems deal with love and war and truth and psychology and human emotion,
but literary texts will make us feel like we see something about these things that we didnt see
before or didnt see as clearly or didnt feel as intensely. And sometimes, as Kafka implies in the
quote above, this deepened understanding may be brought to us violently, shattering our illusions
and wrestling away from us our comfortable assumptions.
3. Our definition of "literature" above implies that when determining whether or not a text is
"literary" we should consider not just what is said but also how it is said. Herein lies an oftenforgotten criteria of literature: form. By form we do not mean novel, poetry, short story, or play;
we mean the specific conventions used within those genres to create particular effects. There are
many, many texts that speak thoughtfully and insightfully about issues that matter to the masses,
but that doesnt make them literary texts. A history book, a psychology textbook, a field guide
to edible native plantsall of these may offer valuable insight into issues we care about, but they
are likely not literary texts because they dont offer this insight in a way that is, itself, remarkable
for the way it functions in conjunction with the ideas to create an experience that is greater than
the ideas themselves. Usually, in an artistic work, the form of the presentation (the rhythm of a
song, the perspective of a painting, the metaphors in a poem, etc.) works to achieve a particular
effectthat is, the form works to create a special impact on the ways listeners of a song, the
viewers of a painting, or the readers of a story think about, feel, understand, and relate to the
ideas represented in the artistic work. The insight that literature offers is not often just mental; it
is often felt. Literature, Ezra Pound says, is simply language charged with meaning to the
utmost possible degree, and according to literary theorist Terry Eagleton, it transforms and
intensifies ordinary language. This attention to the ways of communicating for effect and to
intensify and deepen ones felt understanding is what caused writer Iris Murdoch to describe
literature as a sort of disciplined technique for arousing certain emotions.
It is these three qualities in combination that begin to define literature. Many things possess one
or two of these qualities. Perfume advertisers, for example, use special techniques to
emotionally impact audiences about issues of ongoing interest to the masses (e.g. beauty or
love), but these advertisements usually fail to achieve the second quality above because most

commercials dont offer much fresh insight into the issue or deepen our understanding of
it. Usually, in fact, they accomplish just the opposite: advertisements reduce the depth of our
understanding of important issues by oversimplifying them. Most established religious texts,
though, are literary because they employ special techniques like metaphors (think snake, flood,
whale, and apples) and they have narrative plots (think of the stories of the Buddha) and they use
characters to help readers deepen their understanding of particular issues of universal and
ongoing interest to the massesissues like how to live a satisfying and/or moral life; the nature
of good and evil; the relationship between humans and the earth and so on and so on. The
messages of these religious texts can usually be boiled down to just a few pages or less that
explain how people should live (think 10 commandments or the golden rule). But if the
messages were presented as simple straightforward orders theyd be ignored. Dramatize these
messages with narratives and characters and symbols and now you have something that has a
unique and lasting impact. Thats literature.
Okay, so what then is literature.
Back the original question. An example may help. The stories of Edgar Allen Poe and Stephen
King have similarities: works from both authors deal with terror, murder, the supernatural, and
characters encountering extreme conditions. But while most everyone classifies Poes works as
literary, most do not give Kings work the same honor (even King, himself, usually rejects the
label of literature for his stories). Why? Generally because people believe that Poes stories
satisfy all three criteria above; whereas, Kings satisfies one or none. Poes stories are scary
horror stories to be sure, but more than that they are explorations of the human mind, of the
depths of the human heart, of the nature of love and death and fear, and of the nature of
reality. And Poes stories offer insight into these issues of universal interest in extremely artistic
ways, using metaphors and diction and the actual sounds of words in highly technical
ways. King tells stories and tells them well. His stories are highly entertaining, but rarely do
readers find their understanding of important issues deepened by his work. And while King
certainly uses literary devices like plot, character, imagery, etc. he doesnt use them in the artistic
manner that Poe does. If we accept this line of reasoning, then it becomes clear that works like
Chicken Soup for the Soul and Tuesdays with Morrie (both of which provide a kind of Aw
shucks confirmation of what we want to believe is true) are not rightly classified as literature,
but works like Walden by Henry David Thoreau and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are.
It might also be helpful to think about a poem like My Papas Waltz. This very short poem
uses simple forms of upbeat rhythms and bright rhymes mixed with harsh diction and disturbing
images to point to the complexity of father/child or husband/wife relationships. The combination
of form and subject create a deep level of insight into these relationships for readers
specifically, that these relationships are so complex that they often defy logical description.
A Final Note
Its important to note that everything written here is to provide a kind of basic level of shared
understanding for our specific conversations this semester. The question what is literature? is
much, much more complicated than Ive indicated here, and many fine works of literature only
possess one of the three qualities I mentioned. For example, much Modernist literature (1917-

1940 or so) explicitly rejects the first two criteria (issue and insight) and argues that literature
needs to possess only the third quality (form) since pure beauty is all that matters and meaning is
largely unachievable. And many people argue that Native American oral stories (not even
printed texts) and letters from slaves and early women settlers are literary not because they
provide insight into issues that have universal interest and not because they use literary forms but
simply because they provide insight into the experiences of historically underrepresented groups
of people. So theres still enormous room to argue about what makes something literary, and I
look forward to unearthing these over the course of this short semester.