Literature is the expression of humans feelings, ideas, imaginations, thoughts, experiences, and emotions

which are applied in beautiful language whose purpose is to entertain. Literature can be expressed by
language, both oral and written. In other word, the medium of literature is language. The genres of literature
are poetry, prose, and drama.
Literature is used when human use language in their communication. Its mean that the literature is used since Adam
is created. Literature is the product of language. Without language we dont know about literature. Because, the
expression of language produce literature.
Literature is different from scientific work. They can differentiate based on the purpose in making them. While the
function of scientific work is to give information, and the literature is to entertain the reader.

The word literature has its etymological origin in 'litra' or 'written'.The advocates of this theory,ignore
oral literature like legends, folk tales and such other works which have literary values. In literature the
particular use of language as material like as stone is of sculpture and paint of painting .As in The Nature
of Literature the use of the language can be either literary or everyday use ;but this distinction is not
satisfactory.
Nature of literature emerges most clearly under the represential aspects.The centre of literary art is to be
found in lyric,the epic,the drama, it is the reference to a world of fiction,of imagination.Characters have
no past ,no future and no continuity in life.time and space in a novel or drama are not those of real
life.The distinguishing traits of literature are fictionality,invention or imagination.
Literature grows out of life;but it is difficult to define it. Anything in print can be literature but it is not true.
Historical study overlooks literary values;literary study has the emotional content predominant. Purely
informative books have aesthetic points, Oral literature is part of literature as found in legends, myths, and
ballads epics etc.Style and language make literature distinct as it is expression of emotion in words.
Imagination and fictionality are the distinctive features of literature,it is personal use or exercise of
language.

Literaturecanbedefinedasanexpressionofhumanfeelings,thoughts,andideaswhosemediumislanguage,
oralandwritten.Literatureisnotonlyabouthumanideas,thoughts,andfeelingsbutalsoaboutexperiencesof
theauthors.Literaturecanbemediumforhumantocommunicatewhattheyfeel,think,experiencetothe
readers.
Therearemanywaystodefinethetermliteraturebasedondifferentpointofviewssuchasliteratureisart,
literatureislanguage,literatureisaesthetic,literatureisfictional,literatureisexpressive,andliteratureis
affective.Literatureiseverythinginprint.Itmeansanywritingcanbecategorizedasliterature.Anotherway
ofdefiningliteratureistolimitittogreatbookswhicharenotableforliteraryformorexpression.Ellis
(1989:30)definesliteratureastheverbalexpressionofhumanimaginationandoneoftheprimarymeansby
whichaculturetransmitsitself.Basedonthusdefinitions,literaturecontainsuniversalideas,human
imagination,andhumaninterestthatwritteninanywritingsanduselanguageasmediumtoexpresshumans
ideasandfeelings.
Inconjunctionwithliteratureasartform,itisbrokendownintoimaginativeliteratureandnonimaginative
literature.Imaginativeliteratureandnonimaginativeliteraturearedistinguishedbasedontheparticular
usemadeoflanguageinliterature.Languageofimaginativeliteratureishighlyconnotativeandlanguage

ofnonimaginativeliteratureispurelydenotative.Theconnotativemeaningmeanswordsthatusedinliterary
workshavefeelingandshadesofmeaningthatwordstotendtoevokewhiledenotativemeaningmeansthat
thewordsrefertomeaningindictionary.
Thelanguagethatisusedbyliteraturedifferformordinaryspokenorwrittenlanguage.Literatureusesspecial
words,structures,andcharacteristics.Primarilythelanguageofliteraturediffersfromordinarylanguagein
threeways:(1)languageisconcentratedandmeaningful,(2)itspurposeisnotsimplytoexplain,argue,or
makeapointbutrathertogiveasenseofpleasureinthediscoveryofanewexperience,and(3)itdemands
intenseconcentrationfromthereaders.Itindicatesthatthelanguageofliteraturehasoriginality,quality,
creativity,andpleasure.
Inthiscase,todifferentiatebetweentheliterarytextsandnonliterarytexts(imaginativeandnonimaginative),
Kleden(2004:78)statesthatliteraturecanbedifferentiatebasedonthekindofmeaningsthatexistinatext.
Literarytextconsistsoftextualmeaningandreferentialmeaningandnonliterarytextonlyconsistsof
referentialmeaning.Thetextualmeaningisthemeaningthatisproducedbytherelationshipoftextitself.
Whilereferentialmeaningismeaningthatisproducedbytherelationshipbetweeninternaltextandexternal
text(worldbeyondthetext).
Fromtheuseoflanguageandtheexistenceofmeaninginliteraryworks,itcanbeconcludedthatpoetry,prose
anddramaareputinliteraryworksarticle,journalism,news,bibliography,memoir,andsooncanbe
categorizedasnonliteraryworks.

Importance of Literature
It is a curious and prevalent opinion that literature, like all art, is a mere play of
imagination, pleasing enough, like a new novel, but without any serious or practical
importance. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Literature preserves the ideals of a
people; and ideals--love, faith, duty, friendship, freedom, reverence--are the part of
human life most worthy of preservation.
The Greeks were a marvelous people; yet of all their mighty works we cherish only a
few ideals,--ideals of beauty in perishable stone, and ideals of truth in imperishable
prose and poetry. It was simply the ideals of the Greeks and Hebrews and Romans,
preserved in their literature, which made them what they were, and which determined
their value to future generations. Our democracy, the boast of all English-speaking
nations, is a dream; not the doubtful and sometimes disheartening spectacle presented
in our legislative halls, but the lovely and immortal ideal of a free and equal manhood,
preserved as a most precious heritage in every great literature from the Greeks to
the Anglo-Saxons. All our arts, our sciences, even our inventions are founded squarely

upon ideals; for under every invention is still the dream of Beowulf, that man may
overcome the forces of nature; and the foundation of all our sciences and discoveries is
the immortal dream that men "shall be as gods, knowing good and evil."
In a word, our whole civilization, our freedom, our progress, our homes, our religion, rest
solidly upon ideals for their foundation. Nothing but an ideal ever endures upon earth. It
is therefore impossible to overestimate the practical importance of literature, which
preserves these ideals from fathers to sons, while men, cities, governments,
civilizations, vanish from the face of the earth. It is only when we remember this that we
appreciate the action of the devout Mussulman, who picks up and carefully preserves
every scrap of paper on which words are written, because the scrap may perchance
contain the name of Allah, and the ideal is too enormously important to be neglected or
lost.