preview

Literature : The Definition Of Literature

Decent Essays

Literature is something that has been around for years and years. The definition of literature has been debated, scrutinized, and analyzed for all of those many years. It has also been debated over if literature has any value and if it is necessary to the world in which we live in. Another question arises when talking about literature is, if it does have any value at all, then how and why should it be taught in schools and to younger and future generations. What is literature? It is a question that has been debated and discussed over for years and it will probably still be for years to come. Many people have been tried making a definition for literature. For example Terry Eagleton states in Literary Theory: an introduction “As imaginative ' writing in the sense of fiction - writing which is not literally true” as being the definition of literature (1). He also states that the definition of literature is can also be decided based upon “how somebody decides- to read, not to the nature of what is written”, so in reality the definition of literature is a very subjunctive thing because anyone who reads can have their own definition of what literature is to them (Eagleton, 8).
I believe that literature is any type of writing or text that has been written with some kind of intention and has a purpose to the reader. This may seem extremely broad because everything in the written language was written with some kind of intention, so this would include things like the manual for a

Get Access