literature definition according to experts

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1 What Is Literature and Why Do We Study It?

literature definition according to experts

In this book created for my English 211 Literary Analysis introductory course for English literature and creative writing majors at the College of Western Idaho, I’ll introduce several different critical approaches that literary scholars may use to answer these questions. The critical method we apply to a text can provide us with different perspectives as we learn to interpret a text and appreciate its meaning and beauty.

The existence of literature, however we define it, implies that we study literature. While people have been “studying” literature as long as literature has existed, the formal study of literature as we know it in college English literature courses began in the 1940s with the advent of New Criticism. The New Critics were formalists with a vested interest in defining literature–they were, after all, both creating and teaching about literary works. For them, literary criticism was, in fact, as John Crowe Ransom wrote in his 1942 essay “ Criticism, Inc., ” nothing less than “the business of literature.”

Responding to the concern that the study of literature at the university level was often more concerned with the history and life of the author than with the text itself, Ransom responded, “the students of the future must be permitted to study literature, and not merely about literature. But I think this is what the good students have always wanted to do. The wonder is that they have allowed themselves so long to be denied.”

We’ll learn more about New Criticism in Section Three. For now, let’s return to the two questions I posed earlier.

What is literature?

First, what is literature ? I know your high school teacher told you never to look up things on Wikipedia, but for the purposes of literary studies, Wikipedia can actually be an effective resource. You’ll notice that I link to Wikipedia articles occasionally in this book. Here’s how Wikipedia defines literature :

“ Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction , drama , and poetry . [1] In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include oral literature , much of which has been transcribed. [2] Literature is a method of recording, preserving, and transmitting knowledge and entertainment, and can also have a social, psychological, spiritual, or political role.”

This definition is well-suited for our purposes here because throughout this course, we will be considering several types of literary texts in a variety of contexts.

I’m a Classicist—a student of Greece and Rome and everything they touched—so I am always interested in words with Latin roots. The Latin root of our modern word literature is litera , or “letter.” Literature, then, is inextricably intertwined with the act of writing. But what kind of writing?

Who decides which texts are “literature”?

The second question is at least as important as the first one. If we agree that literature is somehow special and different from ordinary writing, then who decides which writings count as literature? Are English professors the only people who get to decide? What qualifications and training does someone need to determine whether or not a text is literature? What role do you as the reader play in this decision about a text?

Let’s consider a few examples of things that we would all probably classify as literature. I think we can all (probably) agree that the works of William Shakespeare are literature. We can look at Toni Morrison’s outstanding ouvre of work and conclude, along with the Nobel Prize Committee, that books such as Beloved and Song of Solomon are literature. And if you’re taking a creative writing course and have been assigned the short stories of Raymond Carver or the poems of Joy Harjo , you’re probably convinced that these texts are literature too.

In each of these three cases, a different “deciding” mechanism is at play. First, with Shakespeare, there’s history and tradition. These plays that were written 500 years ago are still performed around the world and taught in high school and college English classes today. It seems we have consensus about the tragedies, histories, comedies, and sonnets of the Bard of Avon (or whoever wrote the plays).

In the second case, if you haven’t heard of Toni Morrison (and I am very sorry if you haven’t), you probably have heard of the Nobel Prize. This is one of the most prestigious awards given in literature, and since she’s a winner, we can safely assume that Toni Morrison’s works are literature.

Finally, your creative writing professor is an expert in their field. You know they have an MFA (and worked hard for it), so when they share their favorite short stories or poems with you, you trust that they are sharing works considered to be literature, even if you haven’t heard of Raymond Carver or Joy Harjo before taking their class.

(Aside: What about fanfiction? Is fanfiction literature?)

We may have to save the debate about fan fiction for another day, though I introduced it because there’s some fascinating and even literary award-winning fan fiction out there.

Returning to our question, what role do we as readers play in deciding whether something is literature? Like John Crowe Ransom quoted above, I think that the definition of literature should depend on more than the opinions of literary critics and literature professors.

I also want to note that contrary to some opinions, plenty of so-called genre fiction can also be classified as literature. The Nobel Prize winning author Kazuo Ishiguro has written both science fiction and historical fiction. Iain Banks , the British author of the critically acclaimed novel The Wasp Factory , published popular science fiction novels under the name Iain M. Banks. In other words, genre alone can’t tell us whether something is literature or not.

In this book, I want to give you the tools to decide for yourself. We’ll do this by exploring several different critical approaches that we can take to determine how a text functions and whether it is literature. These lenses can reveal different truths about the text, about our culture, and about ourselves as readers and scholars.

“Turf Wars”: Literary criticism vs. authors

It’s important to keep in mind that literature and literary theory have existed in conversation with each other since Aristotle used Sophocles’s play Oedipus Rex to define tragedy. We’ll look at how critical theory and literature complement and disagree with each other throughout this book. For most of literary history, the conversation was largely a friendly one.

But in the twenty-first century, there’s a rising tension between literature and criticism. In his 2016 book Literature Against Criticism: University English and Contemporary Fiction in Conflict, literary scholar Martin Paul Eve argues that twenty-first century authors have developed

a series of novelistic techniques that, whether deliberate or not on the part of the author, function to outmanoeuvre, contain, and determine academic reading practices. This desire to discipline university English through the manipulation and restriction of possible hermeneutic paths is, I contend, a result firstly of the fact that the metafictional paradigm of the high-postmodern era has pitched critical and creative discourses into a type of productive competition with one another. Such tensions and overlaps (or ‘turf wars’) have only increased in light of the ongoing breakdown of coherent theoretical definitions of ‘literature’ as distinct from ‘criticism’ (15).

One of Eve’s points is that by narrowly and rigidly defining the boundaries of literature, university English professors have inadvertently created a situation where the market increasingly defines what “literature” is, despite the protestations of the academy. In other words, the gatekeeper role that literary criticism once played is no longer as important to authors. For example, (almost) no one would call 50 Shades of Grey literature—but the salacious E.L James novel was the bestselling book of the decade from 2010-2019, with more than 35 million copies sold worldwide.

If anyone with a blog can get a six-figure publishing deal , does it still matter that students know how to recognize and analyze literature? I think so, for a few reasons.

First, the practice of reading critically helps you to become a better reader and writer, which will help you to succeed not only in college English courses but throughout your academic and professional career.
Second, analysis is a highly sought after and transferable skill. By learning to analyze literature, you’ll practice the same skills you would use to analyze anything important. “Data analyst” is one of the most sought after job positions in the New Economy—and if you can analyze Shakespeare, you can analyze data. Indeed.com’s list of top 10 transferable skills includes analytical skills , which they define as “the traits and abilities that allow you to observe, research and interpret a subject in order to develop complex ideas and solutions.”
Finally, and for me personally, most importantly, reading and understanding literature makes life make sense. As we read literature, we expand our sense of what is possible for ourselves and for humanity. In the challenges we collectively face today, understanding the world and our place in it will be important for imagining new futures.

A note about using generative artificial intelligence

As I was working on creating this textbook, ChatGPT exploded into academic consciousness. Excited about the possibilities of this new tool, I immediately began incorporating it into my classroom teaching. In this book, I have used ChatGPT to help me with outlining content in chapters. I also used ChatGPT to create sample essays for each critical lens we will study in the course. These essays are dry and rather soulless, but they do a good job of modeling how to apply a specific theory to a literary text. I chose John Donne’s poem “The Canonization” as the text for these essays so that you can see how the different theories illuminate different aspects of the text.

I encourage students in my courses to use ChatGPT in the following ways:

To generate ideas about an approach to a text.
To better understand basic concepts.
To assist with outlining an essay.
To check grammar, punctuation, spelling, paragraphing, and other grammar/syntax issues.

If you choose to use Chat GPT, please include a brief acknowledgment statement as an appendix to your paper after your Works Cited page explaining how you have used the tool in your work. Here is an example of how to do this from Monash University’s “ Acknowledging the Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence .”

I acknowledge the use of [insert AI system(s) and link] to [specific use of generative artificial intelligence]. The prompts used include [list of prompts]. The output from these prompts was used to [explain use].

Here is more information about how to cite the use of generative AI like ChatGPT in your work. The information below was adapted from “Acknowledging and Citing Generative AI in Academic Work” by Liza Long (CC BY 4.0).

The Modern Language Association (MLA) uses a template of core elements to create citations for a Works Cited page. MLA asks students to apply this approach when citing any type of generative AI in their work. They provide the following guidelines:

Cite a generative AI tool whenever you paraphrase, quote, or incorporate into your own work any content (whether text, image, data, or other) that was created by it. Acknowledge all functional uses of the tool (like editing your prose or translating words) in a note, your text, or another suitable location. Take care to vet the secondary sources it cites. (MLA)

Here are some examples of how to use and cite generative AI with MLA style:

Example One: Paraphrasing Text

Let’s say that I am trying to generate ideas for a paper on Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper.” I ask ChatGPT to provide me with a summary and identify the story’s main themes. Here’s a link to the chat . I decide that I will explore the problem of identity and self-expression in my paper.

My Paraphrase of ChatGPT with In-Text Citation

The problem of identity and self expression, especially for nineteenth-century women, is a major theme in “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (“Summarize the short story”).

Image of "Yellow Wallpaper Summary" chat with ChatGPT

Works Cited Entry

“Summarize the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Include a breakdown of the main themes” prompt. ChatGPT. 24 May Version, OpenAI, 20 Jul. 2023, https://chat.openai.com/share/d1526b95-920c-48fc-a9be-83cd7dfa4be5

Example Two: Quoting Text

In the same chat, I continue to ask ChatGPT about the theme of identity and self expression. Here’s an example of how I could quote the response in the body of my paper:

When I asked ChatGPT to describe the theme of identity and self expression, it noted that the eponymous yellow wallpaper acts as a symbol of the narrator’s self-repression. However, when prompted to share the scholarly sources that formed the basis of this observation, ChatGPT responded, “As an AI language model, I don’t have access to my training data, but I was trained on a mixture of licensed data, data created by human trainers, and publicly available data. OpenAI, the organization behind my development, has not publicly disclosed the specifics of the individual datasets used, including whether scholarly sources were specifically used” (“Summarize the short story”).

It’s worth noting here that ChatGPT can “ hallucinate ” fake sources. As a Microsoft training manual notes, these chatbots are “built to be persuasive, not truthful” (Weiss &Metz, 2023). The May 24, 2023 version will no longer respond to direct requests for references; however, I was able to get around this restriction fairly easily by asking for “resources” instead.

When I ask for resources to learn more about “The Yellow Wallpaper,” here is one source it recommends:

“Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper: A Symptomatic Reading” by Elaine R. Hedges: This scholarly article delves into the psychological and feminist themes of the story, analyzing the narrator’s experience and the implications of the yellow wallpaper on her mental state. It’s available in the journal “Studies in Short Fiction.” (“Summarize the short story”).

Using Google Scholar, I look up this source to see if it’s real. Unsurprisingly, this source is not a real one, but it does lead me to another (real) source: Kasmer, Lisa. “Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s’ The Yellow Wallpaper’: A Symptomatic Reading.” Literature and Psychology 36.3 (1990): 1.

Note: ALWAYS check any sources that ChatGPT or other generative AI tools recommend.

For more information about integrating and citing generative artificial intelligence tools such as ChatGPT, please see this section of Write What Matters.

I acknowledge that ChatGPT does not respect the individual rights of authors and artists and ignores concerns over copyright and intellectual property in its training; additionally, I acknowledge that the system was trained in part through the exploitation of precarious workers in the global south. In this work I specifically used ChatGPT to assist with outlining chapters, providing background information about critical lenses, and creating “model” essays for the critical lenses we will learn about together. I have included links to my chats in an appendix to this book.

Critical theories: A targeted approach to writing about literature

Ultimately, there’s not one “right” way to read a text. In this book. we will explore a variety of critical theories that scholars use to analyze literature. The book is organized around different targets that are associated with the approach introduced in each chapter. In the introduction, for example, our target is literature. In future chapters you’ll explore these targeted analysis techniques:

Author: Biographical Criticism
Text: New Criticism
Reader: Reader Response Criticism
Gap: Deconstruction (Post-Structuralism)
Context: New Historicism and Cultural Studies
Power: Marxist and Postcolonial Criticism
Mind: Psychological Criticism
Gender: Feminist, Post Feminist, and Queer Theory
Nature: Ecocriticism

Each chapter will feature the target image with the central approach in the center. You’ll read a brief introduction about the theory, explore some primary texts (both critical and literary), watch a video, and apply the theory to a primary text. Each one of these theories could be the subject of its own entire course, so keep in mind that our goal in this book is to introduce these theories and give you a basic familiarity with these tools for literary analysis. For more information and practice, I recommend Steven Lynn’s excellent Texts and Contexts: Writing about Literature with Critical Theory , which provides a similar introductory framework.

I am so excited to share these tools with you and see you grow as a literary scholar. As we explore each of these critical worlds, you’ll likely find that some critical theories feel more natural or logical to you than others. I find myself much more comfortable with deconstruction than with psychological criticism, for example. Pay attention to how these theories work for you because this will help you to expand your approaches to texts and prepare you for more advanced courses in literature.

P.S. If you want to know what my favorite book is, I usually tell people it’s Herman Melville’s Moby Dick . And I do love that book! But I really have no idea what my “favorite” book of all time is, let alone what my favorite book was last year. Every new book that I read is a window into another world and a template for me to make sense out of my own experience and better empathize with others. That’s why I love literature. I hope you’ll love this experience too.

writings in prose or verse, especially : writings having excellence of form or expression and expressing ideas of permanent or universal interest (Merriam Webster)

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What is Literature? || Definition & Examples

"what is literature": a literary guide for english students and teachers.

View the full series: The Oregon State Guide to English Literary Terms

Guide to Literary Terms
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What is Literature? Transcript (English and Spanish Subtitles Available in Video; Click HERE for Spanish Transcript)

By Evan Gottlieb & Paige Thomas

3 January 2022

The question of what makes something literary is an enduring one, and I don’t expect that we’ll answer it fully in this short video. Instead, I want to show you a few different ways that literary critics approach this question and then offer a short summary of the 3 big factors that we must consider when we ask the question ourselves.

Let’s begin by making a distinction between “Literature with a capital L” and “literature with a small l.”

“Literature with a small l” designates any written text: we can talk about “the literature” on any given subject without much difficulty.

“Literature with a capital L”, by contrast, designates a much smaller set of texts – a subset of all the texts that have been written.

what_is_literature_little_l.png

speaker gesturing to literature with a small "l" rather than with a big "L"

So what makes a text literary or what makes a text “Literature with a capital L”?

Let’s start with the word itself. “Literature” comes from Latin, and it originally meant “the use of letters” or “writing.” But when the word entered the Romance languages that derived from Latin, it took on the additional meaning of “knowledge acquired from reading or studying books.” So we might use this definition to understand “Literature with a Capital L” as writing that gives us knowledge--writing that should be studied.

But this begs the further question: what books or texts are worth studying or close reading ?

For some critics, answering this question is a matter of establishing canonicity. A work of literature becomes “canonical” when cultural institutions like schools or universities or prize committees classify it as a work of lasting artistic or cultural merit.

The canon, however, has proved problematic as a measure of what “Literature with a capital L” is because the gatekeepers of the Western canon have traditionally been White and male. It was only in the closing decades of the twentieth century that the canon of Literature was opened to a greater inclusion of diverse authors.

And here’s another problem with that definition: if inclusion in the canon were our only definition of Literature, then there could be no such thing as contemporary Literature, which, of course, has not yet stood the test of time.

And here’s an even bigger problem: not every book that receives good reviews or a wins a prize turns out to be of lasting value in the eyes of later readers.

On the other hand, a novel like Herman Melville’s Moby-Di ck, which was NOT received well by critics or readers when it was first published in 1851, has since gone on to become a mainstay of the American literary canon.

moby_dick_with_quote.png

graphic with cover of Melville's "Moby Dick" and quote

As you can see, canonicity is obviously a problematic index of literariness.

So… what’s the alternative? Well, we could just go with a descriptive definition: “if you love it, then it’s Literature!”

But that’s a little too subjective. For example, no matter how much you may love a certain book from your childhood (I love The Very Hungry Caterpillar ) that doesn’t automatically make it literary, no matter how many times you’ve re-read it.

Furthermore, the very idea that we should have an emotional attachment to the books we read has its own history that cannot be detached from the rise of the middle class and its politics of telling people how to behave.

Ok, so “literature with a capital L” cannot always by defined by its inclusion in the canon or the fact that it has been well-received so…what is it then? Well, for other critics, what makes something Literature would seem to be qualities within the text itself.

According to the critic Derek Attridge, there are three qualities that define modern Western Literature:

1. a quality of invention or inventiveness in the text itself;

2. the reader’s sense that what they are reading is singular. In other words, the unique vision of the writer herself.

3. a sense of ‘otherness’ that pushes the reader to see the world around them in a new way

Notice that nowhere in this three-part definition is there any limitation on the content of Literature. Instead, we call something Literature when it affects the reader at the level of style and construction rather than substance.

In other words, Literature can be about anything!

what_is_literature_caterpillar.png

speaker telling a secret with photo of Carle's "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" in the background

The idea that a truly literary text can change a reader is of course older than this modern definition. In the English tradition, poetry was preferred over novels because it was thought to create mature and sympathetic reader-citizens.

Likewise, in the Victorian era, it was argued that reading so-called “great” works of literature was the best way for readers to realize their full spiritual potentials in an increasingly secular world.

But these never tell us precisely what “the best” is. To make matters worse, as I mentioned already, “the best” in these older definitions was often determined by White men in positions of cultural and economic power.

So we are still faced with the question of whether there is something inherent in a text that makes it literary.

Some critics have suggested that a sense of irony – or, more broadly, a sense that there is more than one meaning to a given set of words – is essential to “Literature with a capital L.”

Reading for irony means reading slowly or at least attentively. It demands a certain attention to the complexity of the language on the page, whether that language is objectively difficult or not.

In a similar vein, other critics have claimed that the overall effect of a literary text should be one of “defamiliarization,” meaning that the text asks or even forces readers to see the world differently than they did before reading it.

Along these lines, literary theorist Roland Barthes maintained that there were two kinds of texts: the text of pleasure, which we can align with everyday Literature with a small l” and the text of jouissance , (yes, I said jouissance) which we can align with Literature. Jouissance makes more demands on the reader and raises feelings of strangeness and wonder that surpass the everyday and even border on the painful or disorienting.

Barthes’ definition straddles the line between objectivity and subjectivity. Literature differs from the mass of writing by offering more and different kinds of experiences than the ordinary, non-literary text.

Literature for Barthes is thus neither entirely in the eye of the beholder, nor something that can be reduced to set of repeatable, purely intrinsic characteristics.

This negative definition has its own problems, though. If the literary text is always supposed to be innovative and unconventional, then genre fiction, which IS conventional, can never be literary.

So it seems that whatever hard and fast definition we attempt to apply to Literature, we find that we run up against inevitable exceptions to the rules.

As we examine the many problematic ways that people have defined literature, one thing does become clear. In each of the above examples, what counts as Literature depends upon three interrelated factors: the world, the text, and the critic or reader.

You see, when we encounter a literary text, we usually do so through a field of expectations that includes what we’ve heard about the text or author in question [the world], the way the text is presented to us [the text], and how receptive we as readers are to the text’s demands [the reader].

With this in mind, let’s return to where we started. There is probably still something to be said in favor of the “test of time” theory of Literature.

After all, only a small percentage of what is published today will continue to be read 10, 20, or even 100 years from now; and while the mechanisms that determine the longevity of a text are hardly neutral, one can still hope that individual readers have at least some power to decide what will stay in print and develop broader cultural relevance.

The only way to experience what Literature is, then, is to keep reading: as long as there are avid readers, there will be literary texts – past, present, and future – that challenge, excite, and inspire us.

Want to cite this?

MLA Citation: Gottlieb, Evan and Paige Thomas. "What is Literature?" Oregon State Guide to English Literary Terms, 3 Jan. 2022, Oregon State University, https://liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/wlf/what-literature-definition-examples. Accessed [insert date].

Interested in more video lessons? View the full series:

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Quick Reference

A body of written works related by subject-matter (e.g. the literature of computing), by language or place of origin (e.g. Russian literature), or by prevailing cultural standards of merit. In this last sense, ‘literature’ is taken to include oral, dramatic, and broadcast compositions that may not have been published in written form but which have been (or deserve to be) preserved. Since the 19th century, the broader sense of literature as a totality of written or printed works has given way to more exclusive definitions based on criteria of imaginative, creative, or artistic value, usually related to a work's absence of factual or practical reference (see autotelic). Even more restrictive has been the academic concentration upon poetry, drama, and fiction. Until the mid-20th century, many kinds of non-fictional writing—in philosophy, history, biography, criticism, topography, science, and politics—were counted as literature; implicit in this broader usage is a definition of literature as that body of works which—for whatever reason—deserves to be preserved as part of the current reproduction of meanings within a given culture (unlike yesterday's newspaper, which belongs in the disposable category of ephemera). This sense seems more tenable than the later attempts to divide literature—as creative, imaginative, fictional, or non-practical—from factual writings or practically effective works of propaganda, rhetoric, or didactic writing. The Russian Formalists' attempt to define literariness in terms of linguistic deviations is important in the theory of poetry, but has not addressed the more difficult problem of the non-fictional prose forms. See also belles-lettres , canon, paraliterature. For a fuller account, consult Peter Widdowson, Literature (1998).

From: literature in The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms »

Subjects: Literature

1.10: Literature (including fiction, drama, poetry, and prose)

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Lori-Beth Larsen
Central Lakes College

Essential Questions for Literature

How is literature like life?
What is literature supposed to do?
What influences a writer to create?
How does literature reveal the values of a given culture or time period?
How does the study of fiction and nonfiction texts help individuals construct their understanding of reality?
In what ways are all narratives influenced by bias and perspective?
Where does the meaning of a text reside? Within the text, within the reader, or in the transaction that occurs between them?
What can a reader know about an author’s intentions based only on a reading of the text?
What are enduring questions and conflicts that writers (and their cultures) grappled with hundreds of years ago and are still relevant today?
How do we gauge the optimism or pessimism of a particular time period or particular group of writers?
Why are there universal themes in literature–that is, themes that are of interest or concern to all cultures and societies?
What are the characteristics or elements that cause a piece of literature to endure?
What is the purpose of: science fiction? satire? historical novels, etc.?
How do novels, short stories, poetry, etc. relate to the larger questions of philosophy and humanity?
How we can use literature to explain or clarify our own ideas about the world?
How does what we know about the world shape the stories we tell?
How do the stories we tell about the world shape the way we view ourselves?
How do our personal experiences shape our view of others?
What does it mean to be an insider or an outsider?
Are there universal themes in literature that are of interest or concern to all cultures and societies?
What is creativity and what is its importance for the individual / the culture?
What are the limits, if any, of freedom of speech?

Defining Literature

Literature, in its broadest sense, is any written work. Etymologically, the term derives from Latin litaritura / litteratura “writing formed with letters,” although some definitions include spoken or sung texts. More restrictively, it is writing that possesses literary merit. Literature can be classified according to whether it is fiction or non-fiction and whether it is poetry or prose. It can be further distinguished according to major forms such as the novel, short story or drama, and works are often categorized according to historical periods or their adherence to certain aesthetic features or expectations (genre).

Taken to mean only written works, literature was first produced by some of the world’s earliest civilizations—those of Ancient Egypt and Sumeria—as early as the 4th millennium BC; taken to include spoken or sung texts, it originated even earlier, and some of the first written works may have been based on a pre-existing oral tradition. As urban cultures and societies developed, there was a proliferation in the forms of literature. Developments in print technology allowed for literature to be distributed and experienced on an unprecedented scale, which has culminated in the twenty-first century in electronic literature.

Definitions of literature have varied over time. In Western Europe prior to the eighteenth century, literature as a term indicated all books and writing. [1] A more restricted sense of the term emerged during the Romantic period, in which it began to demarcate “imaginative” literature. [2]

Contemporary debates over what constitutes literature can be seen as returning to the older, more inclusive notion of what constitutes literature. Cultural studies, for instance, takes as its subject of analysis both popular and minority genres, in addition to canonical works. [3]

Major Forms

A calligram by Guillaume Apollinaire. These are a type of poem in which the written words are arranged in such a way to produce a visual image.

Poetry is a form of literary art that uses aesthetic and rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, prosaic ostensible meaning (ordinary intended meaning). Poetry has traditionally been distinguished from prose by its being set in verse; [4] prose is cast in sentences, poetry in lines; the syntax of prose is dictated by meaning, whereas that of poetry is held across metre or the visual aspects of the poem. [5]

Prior to the nineteenth century, poetry was commonly understood to be something set in metrical lines; accordingly, in 1658 a definition of poetry is “any kind of subject consisting of Rythm or Verses”. [6] Possibly as a result of Aristotle’s influence (his Poetics ), “poetry” before the nineteenth century was usually less a technical designation for verse than a normative category of fictive or rhetorical art. [7] As a form it may pre-date literacy, with the earliest works being composed within and sustained by an oral tradition; [8] hence it constitutes the earliest example of literature.

Prose is a form of language that possesses ordinary syntax and natural speech rather than rhythmic structure; in which regard, along with its measurement in sentences rather than lines, it differs from poetry. [9] On the historical development of prose, Richard Graff notes that ”

Novel : a long fictional prose narrative.

Novella :The novella exists between the novel and short story; the publisher Melville House classifies it as “too short to be a novel, too long to be a short story.” [10]

Short story : a dilemma in defining the “short story” as a literary form is how to, or whether one should, distinguish it from any short narrative. Apart from its distinct size, various theorists have suggested that the short story has a characteristic subject matter or structure; [11] these discussions often position the form in some relation to the novel. [12]

Drama is literature intended for performance. [13]

Listen to this Discussion of the poetry of Harris Khalique . You might want to take a look at the transcript as you listen.

The first half of a 2008 reading featuring four Latino poets, as part of the American Perspectives series at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Listen to poetry reading of Francisco Aragón and Brenda Cárdenas

Listen to this conversation with Allison Hedge Coke, Linda Hogan and Sherwin Bitsui . You might want to look at the transcript as you listen. In this program, we hear a conversation among three Native American poets: Allison Hedge Coke, Linda Hogan and Sherwin Bitsui. Allison Hedge Coke grew up listening to her Father’s traditional stories as she moved from Texas to North Carolina to Canada and the Great Plains. She is the author of several collections of poetry and the memoir, Rock, Ghost, Willow, Deer. She has worked as a mentor with Native Americans and at-risk youth, and is currently a Professor of Poetry and Writing at the University of Nebraska, Kearney. Linda Hogan is a prolific poet, novelist and essayist. Her work is imbued with an indigenous sense of history and place, while it explores environmental, feminist and spiritual themes. A former professor at the University of Colorado, she is currently the Chickasaw Nation’s Writer in Residence. She lives in Oklahoma, where she researches and writes about Chickasaw history, mythology and ways of life. Sherwin Bitsui grew up on the Navajo reservation in Arizona. He speaks Dine, the Navajo language and participates in ceremonial activities. His poetry has a sense of the surreal, combining images of the contemporary urban culture, with Native ritual and myth.

Chris Abani : Stories from Africa

In this deeply personal talk, Nigerian writer Chris Abani says that “what we know about how to be who we are” comes from stories. He searches for the heart of Africa through its poems and narrative, including his own.

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Listen to Isabel Allende’s Ted Talk

As a novelist and memoirist, Isabel Allende writes of passionate lives, including her own. Born into a Chilean family with political ties, she went into exile in the United States in the 1970s—an event that, she believes, created her as a writer. Her voice blends sweeping narrative with touches of magical realism; her stories are romantic, in the very best sense of the word. Her novels include The House of the Spirits, Eva Luna and The Stories of Eva Luna, and her latest, Maya’s Notebook and Ripper. And don’t forget her adventure trilogy for young readers— City of the Beasts, Kingdom of the Golden Dragon and Forest of the Pygmies.

As a memoirist, she has written about her vision of her lost Chile, in My Invented Country, and movingly tells the story of her life to her own daughter, in Paula. Her book Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses memorably linked two sections of the bookstore that don’t see much crossover: Erotica and Cookbooks. Just as vital is her community work: The Isabel Allende Foundation works with nonprofits in the San Francisco Bay Area and Chile to empower and protect women and girls—understanding that empowering women is the only true route to social and economic justice.

You can read excerpts of her books online here: https://www.isabelallende.com/en/books

Read her musings. Why does she write? https://www.isabelallende.com/en/musings

You might choose to read one of her novels.

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Listen to Novelist Chimamanda Adichie . She speaks about how our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. She tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice — and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding.

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One Hundred Years of Solitu de

Gabriel García Márquez’s novel “One Hundred Years of Solitude” brought Latin American literature to the forefront of the global imagination and earned García Márquez the 1982 Nobel Prize for Literature. What makes the novel so remarkable? Francisco Díez-Buzo investigates.

Gabriel García Márquez was a writer and journalist who recorded the haphazard political history of Latin American life through his fiction. He was a part of a literary movement called the Latin American “boom ,” which included writers like Peru’s Mario Vargas Llosa, Argentina’s Julio Cortázar, and Mexico’s Carlos Fuentes. Almost all of these writers incorporated aspects of magical realism in their work . Later authors, such as Isabel Allende and Salman Rushdie, would carry on and adapt the genre to the cultural and historical experiences of other countries and continents. García Máruqez hadn’t always planned on being a writer, but a pivotal moment in Colombia’s—and Latin America’s—history changed all that. In 1948, when García Márquez was a law student in Bogotá, Jorge Eliécer Gaítan , a prominent radical populist leader of Colombia’s Liberal Party, was assassinated. This happened while the U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall brought together leaders from across the Americas to create the Organization of American States (OAS) and to build a hemisphere-wide effort against communism. In the days after the assassination, massive riots, now called the bogotazo , occurred. The worst Colombian civil war to date, known as La Violencia , also broke out. Another law student, visiting from Cuba, was deeply affected by Eliécer Gaítan’s death. This student’s name was Fidel Castro. Interestingly, García Márquez and Castro—both socialists—would become close friends later on in life , despite not meeting during these tumultuous events. One Hundred Years of Solitude ’s success almost didn’t happen, but this article from Vanity Fair helps explain how a long-simmering idea became an international sensation. When Gabriel García Márquez won the Nobel Prize in 1982, he gave a lecture that helped illuminate the plights that many Latin Americans faced on a daily basis. Since then, that lecture has also helped explain the political and social critiques deeply embedded in his novels. It was famous for being an indigenous overview of how political violence became entrenched in Latin America during the Cold War.In an interview with the New Left Review , he discussed a lot of the inspirations for his work, as well as his political beliefs.

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Don Quixote

Mounting his skinny steed, Don Quixote charges an army of giants. It is his duty to vanquish these behemoths in the name of his beloved lady, Dulcinea. There’s only one problem: the giants are merely windmills. What is it about this tale of the clumsy yet valiant knight that makes it so beloved? Ilan Stavans investigates.

Interested in exploring the world of Don Quixote ? Check out this translation of the thrill-seeking classic. To learn more about Don Quixote ’s rich cultural history, click here . In this interview , the educator shares his inspiration behind his book Quixote: The Novel and the World . The travails of Don Quixote ’s protagonist were heavily shaped by real-world events in 17th-century Spain. This article provides detailed research on what, exactly, happened during that time.

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Midnight’s Children

It begins with a countdown. A woman goes into labor as the clock ticks towards midnight. Across India, people wait for the declaration of independence after nearly 200 years of British rule. At the stroke of midnight, an infant and two new nations are born in perfect synchronicity. These events form the foundation of “Midnight’s Children.” Iseult Gillespie explores Salman Rushdie’s dazzling novel.

At the stroke of midnight, the first gasp of a newborn syncs with the birth of two new nations. These simultaneous events are at the center of Midnight’s Children, a dazzling novel about the state of modern India by the British-Indian author Salman Rushdie . You can listen to an interview with Rushdie discussing the novel here . The chosen baby is Saleem Sinai, who narrates the novel from a pickle factory in 1977. As this article argues, much of the beauty of the narrative lies in Rushdie’s ability to weave the personal into the political in surprising ways. Saleem’s narrative leaps back in time, to trace his family history from 1915 on. The family tree is blossoming with bizarre scenes, including clandestine courtships, babies swapped at birth, and cryptic prophecies. For a detailed interactive timeline of the historical and personal events threaded through the novel, click here . However, there’s one trait that can’t be explained by genes alone – Saleem has magic powers, and they’re somehow related to the time of his birth. For an overview of the use of magical realism and astonishing powers in Mignight’s Children, click here. Saleem recounts a new nation, flourishing and founding after almost a century of British rule. For more information on the dark history of British occupation of India, visit this page. The vast historical frame is one reason why Midnight’s Children is considered one of the most illuminating works of postcolonial literature ever written. This genre typically addresses life in formerly colonized countries, and explores the fallout through themes like revolution, migration, and identity. Postcolonial literature also deals with the search for agency and authenticity in the wake of imposed foreign rule. Midnight’s Children reflects these concerns with its explosive combination of Eastern and Western references. On the one hand, it’s been compared to the sprawling novels of Charles Dickens or George Elliot, which also offer a panoramic vision of society paired with tales of personal development. But Rushdie radically disrupts this formula by adding Indian cultural references, magic and myth. Saleem writes the story by night, and narrates it back to his love interest, Padma. This echoes the frame for 1001 Nights , a collection of Middle Eastern folktales told by Scheherazade every night to her lover – and as Saleem reminds us, 1001 is “the number of night, of magic, of alternative realities.” Saleem spends a lot of the novel attempting to account for the unexpected. But he often gets thoroughly distracted and goes on astonishing tangents, telling dirty jokes or mocking his enemies. With his own powers of telepathy, Saleem forges connections between other children of midnight; including a boy who can step through time and mirrors, and a child who changes their gender when immersed in water. There’s other flashes of magic throughout, from a mother who can see into dreams to witchdoctors, shapeshifters, and many more. For an overview of the dazzling reference points of the novel, visit this page . Sometimes, all this is like reading a rollercoaster: Saleem sometimes narrates separate events all at once, refers to himself in the first and third person in the space of a single sentence, or uses different names for one person. And Padma is always interrupting, urging him to get to the point or exclaiming at his story’s twists and turns. This mind-bending approach has garnered continuing fascination and praise. Not only did Midnight’s Children win the prestigious Man Booker prize in its year of publication, but it was named the best of all the winners in 2008 . For an interview about Rushdie’s outlook and processed, click here. All this gives the narrative a breathless quality, and brings to life an entire society surging through political upheaval without losing sight of the marvels of individual lives. But even as he depicts the cosmological consequences of a single life, Rushdie questions the idea that we can ever condense history into a single narrative.

Tom Elemas : The Inspiring Truth in Fiction

What do we lose by choosing non-fiction over fiction? For Tomas Elemans, there’s an important side effect of reading fiction: empathy — a possible antidote to a desensitized world filled with tragic news and headlines.

What is empathy? How does story-telling create empathy? What stories trigger empathy in you? What is narrative immersion? Are we experiencing an age of narcissism? What might be some examples of narcissism? What connection does Tom Elemans make to individualism?

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Ann Morgan: My year reading a book from every country in the world

Ann Morgan considered herself well read — until she discovered the “massive blindspot” on her bookshelf. Amid a multitude of English and American authors, there were very few books from beyond the English-speaking world. So she set an ambitious goal: to read one book from every country in the world over the course of a year. Now she’s urging other Anglophiles to read translated works so that publishers will work harder to bring foreign literary gems back to their shores. Explore interactive maps of her reading journey here: go.ted.com/readtheworld

Check out her blog: A year of reading the world where you can find a complete list of the books I read, and what I learned along the way.

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Analysis and Interpretation

Defining literature.

Literature , in its broadest sense, is any written work. Etymologically, the term derives from Latin litaritura/litteratura “writing formed with letters,” although some definitions include spoken or sung texts. More restrictively, it is writing that possesses literary merit. Literature can be classified according to whether it is fiction or non-fiction and whether it is poetry or prose. It can be further distinguished according to major forms such as the novel, short story or drama, and works are often categorized according to historical periods or their adherence to certain aesthetic features or expectations (genre).

Major Forms

French words arranged on a page to form a sketch of a man wearing a hat

A calligram by Guillaume Apollinaire. These are a type of poem in which the written words are arranged in such a way to produce a visual image.

Novel : a long fictional prose narrative.
Novella :The novella exists between the novel and short story; the publisher Melville House classifies it as “too short to be a novel, too long to be a short story.” [10]
Short story : a dilemma in defining the “short story” as a literary form is how to, or whether one should, distinguish it from any short narrative. Apart from its distinct size, various theorists have suggested that the short story has a characteristic subject matter or structure; [11] these discussions often position the form in some relation to the novel. [12]

Drama is literature intended for performance. [13]

Leitch et al. , The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism , 28 ↵
Ross, “The Emergence of “Literature”: Making and Reading the English Canon in the Eighteenth Century,” 406 & Eagleton, Literary theory: an introduction , 16 ↵
“POETRY, N.”. OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY . OUP . RETRIEVED 13 FEBRUARY 2014 . (subscription required) ↵
Preminger, The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics , 938–9 ↵
Ross, “The Emergence of “Literature”: Making and Reading the English Canon in the Eighteenth Century”, 398 ↵
FINNEGAN, RUTH H. (1977). ORAL POETRY: ITS NATURE, SIGNIFICANCE, AND SOCIAL CONTEXT. INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS. P. 66. & MAGOUN, JR., FRANCIS P. (1953). “ORAL-FORMULAIC CHARACTER OF ANGLO-SAXON NARRATIVE POETRY”.SPECULUM 28 (3): 446–67. DOI:10.2307/2847021 ↵
Preminger, The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics , 938–9 &Alison Booth; Kelly J. Mays. “Glossary: P”. LitWeb, the Norton Introduction to Literature Studyspace . Retrieved 15 February 2014 . ↵
Antrim, Taylor (2010). “In Praise of Short”. The Daily Beast . Retrieved 15 February 2014 . ↵
ROHRBERGER, MARY; DAN E. BURNS (1982). “SHORT FICTION AND THE NUMINOUS REALM: ANOTHER ATTEMPT AT DEFINITION”. MODERN FICTION STUDIES . XXVIII (6). & MAY, CHARLES (1995). THE SHORT STORY. THE REALITY OF ARTIFICE . NEW YORK: TWAIN. ↵
Marie Louise Pratt (1994). Charles May, ed. The Short Story: The Long and the Short of It . Athens: Ohio UP. ↵
Elam, Kier (1980). The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama . London and New York: Methuen. p. 98.ISBN 0-416-72060-9. ↵
Literature. Provided by : Wikipedia. Located at : . License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
Image of man formed by words. Authored by : Guillaume Apollinaire. Located at : https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Calligramme.jpg . License : Public Domain: No Known Copyright

Strategy: Scholarly Literature
Definitions

The Literature A body of non-fictional books and writings published on a particular subject; considered collectively. See Oxford English Dictionary, " Literature "

Literature Review A formal, reflective survey of the most significant and relevant works of published and peer-reviewed academic research on a particular topic, summarizing and discussing their findings and methodologies in order to reflect the current state of knowledge in the field and the key questions raised. See Oxford Reference Online, " Literature Review "

Academic Journals A discipline‐specific publication through which academics and other researchers can publish and disseminate their work, the academic journal normally takes the form of a collection of articles, research papers, or reviews which have been submitted to the journal's editorial board. In most cases papers being considered for publication are submitted for scrutiny and appraisal by recognized academics or authorities in the appropriate field, who may recommend that the paper be accepted as it stands, or that specific revisions be made, or that the paper be rejected for publication. This process of refereeing is known as peer review. See Oxford Reference Online, " Academic Journals "

P eer Review The process by which an academic journal passes a paper submitted for publication to independent experts for comments on its suitability and worth; refereeing. See Oxford English Dictionary, " Peer Review "

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Definition of Literature

What is literature (definition of literature by celebrated authors).

The word ‘ Literature’ is a modified form of a Latin word ( literra, litteratura or litteratus) that means: ‘ writing formed with letters’ . Let us look at what is literature according to definitions by different celebrated literary personalities.

Literature can be any written work, but it is especially an artistic or intellectual work of writing. It is one of the fine arts, like painting, dance, music, etc. which provides aesthetic pleasure to the readers. It differs from other written works by only its one additional trait: that is aesthetic beauty. If a written work lacks aesthetic beauty and serves only utilitarian purpose, it is not literature. The entire genre like poetry, drama, or prose is a blend of intellectual works and has an aesthetic beauty of that work. When there is no any aesthetic beauty in any written work that is not pure literature.

Definition of Literature According to Different Writers

Throughout the history of English literature , many of the great writers have defined it and expressed its meaning in their own way. Here are the few famous definitions of literature by timeless celebrated authors.

Virginia Woolf : Virginia defined literature in a perfect way. “Literature is strewn with the wreckage of those who have minded beyond reason the opinion of others.”

Ezra Pound : “Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree.”

Alfred North Whitehead : “It is in literature that the concrete outlook of humanity receives its expression.”

Henry James : “It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.”

Lewis : “Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become.”

Oscar Wilde : “Literature always anticipates life. It does not copy it but moulds it to its purpose. The nineteenth century, as we know it, is largely an invention of Balzac.”

Chesterton : “Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.”

Forster: The definition of literature by Forster is much interesting. “What is wonderful about great literature is that it transforms the man who reads it towards the condition of the man who wrote”.

All the these definitions of literature by great writers represent different aspects of it, and shows that in how many ways it can be effective.

Literature: A Depiction of Society

It might sound strange that what is literature’s relation with a society could be. However, literature is an integral part of any society and has a profound effect on ways and thinking of people of that society. Actually, society is the only subject matter of literature. It literally shapes a society and its beliefs. Students, who study literature , grow up to be the future of a country. Hence, it has an impact on a society and it moulds it.

According to different definitions of literature by authors, it literally does the depiction of society; therefore, we call it ‘ mirror of society’ . Writers use it effectively to point out the ill aspects of society that improve them. They also use it to highlight the positive aspects of a society to promote more goodwill in society.

The essays in literature often call out on the problems in a country and suggest solutions for it. Producers make films and write novels, and short stories to touch subjects like morals, mental illnesses, patriotism, etc. Through such writings, they relate all matters to society. Other genre can also present the picture of society. We should keep in mind that the picture illustrated by literature is not always true. Writers can present it to change the society in their own ways.

The Effects of Literature on a Society:

The effects of literature on a society can be both positive and negative. Because of this, the famous philosophers Aristotle and Plato have different opinions about its effect on society.

Plato was the one who started the idea of written dialogue. He was a moralist, and he did not approve of poetry because he deemed it immoral. He considered poetry as based on false ideas whereas the basis of philosophy came from reality and truth. Plato claims that, “poetry inspires undesirable emotions in society. According to him, poetry should be censored from adults and children for fear of lasting detrimental consequences” (Leitch & McGowan). He further explains it by saying, “Children have no ability to know what emotions should be tempered and which should be expressed as certain expressed emotions can have lasting consequences later in life”. He says, “Strong emotions of every kind must be avoided, in fear of them spiraling out of control and creating irreparable damage” (Leitch & McGowan). However, he did not agree with the type of poetry and wanted that to be changed. ( read Plato’s attack on poetry )

Now Aristotle considers literature of all kinds to be an important part of children’s upbringing. Aristotle claims that, “poetry takes us closer to reality. He also mentioned in his writings that it teaches, warns, and shows us the consequences of bad deeds”. He was of the view that it is not necessary that poetry will arouse negative feelings. ( Read Aristotle’s defense of poetry )

Therefore, the relation of literature with society is of utter importance. It might have a few negative impacts, through guided studying which we can avoid. Overall, it is the best way of passing information to the next generation and integral to learning.

History of english literature.

Different types of literature

What is literary English?

Figurative language in English literature

What is a sonnet?

What is metaphysical poetry?

Definition and types of irony

Literary terms used in English drama

How to answer a literary question?

Shakespearean Tragedy

Greek tragedy versus Shakespearean tragedy

10 Definitions of Literature According to Experts, Complete Characteristics and Functions

December 16, 2021
In Miscellanea

10 Definitions of Literature According to Experts, Complete Characteristics and Functions In Indonesian, there are various types of languages contained in it. The language contained in it can give us the readers a positive value or a negative value.

From language we can get to know more about what happens in social life and socializing. State life is also often discussed in language, because language can unite various tribes and cultures.

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Definition of Literature

1. mursal esten, 3. panuti sudjiman, 4. ahmad badrun, 5. eagleton, 7. aristotle, 8. robert scholes, characteristics of literature, literary function.

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In Indonesian there is literature which is a form of language. Literature has many meanings contained in it. To know more about literature, it can be explained as follows:

Understanding literature in general is a form of a very beautiful work either written or spoken. For the understanding of the origin of Literature is an absorption word from the Sanskrit language, namely Literature which means "text containing instructions" or Guidelines , the meaning of 'Sas' which means instructions or in the form of teachings and the meaning of 'tra' which has meaning tool or means . In Indonesian, the word is used to refer to literature or a type of writing that has a certain meaning or has a certain beauty.

Literature is divided into two parts, namely prose and poetry. Prose is a literary work that is not bound. Poetry is a literary work that has ties to certain rules or regulations. Examples of prose literature include novels, stories or short stories, and dramas. Examples of poetry literature include Poetry, Pantun, and also Poetry.

Understanding Literature According to Experts

The definition of literature according to experts varies and among them are different. So the definition of literature according to experts will be explained as follows:

Definition of Literature or Literature is the disclosure of artistic and imaginative facts as a manifestation of human life. (and society) through language as a medium and has a positive effect on human life (humanity).

Definition of Literature. is a form and result of creative art work whose object is humans and their lives use language as the medium.

Understanding Literature as an oral or written work that has various superior characteristics such as originality, artistry, beauty in content, and expression.

Understanding Literature is an artistic activity that uses language and lines of other symbols as a tool, and is imaginative.

In his opinion, fine writing (belle letters) is a work that records the form of language. daily in various ways with language that is condensed, deepened, entangled, lengthened, and reversed, made odd.

Understanding Literature is the result of imitation or description of reality (mimesis). A literary work must be an example of the universe as well as a model of reality. Therefore, the value of literature is getting lower and far from the world of ideas.

In his opinion, namely as other activities through religion, science and philosophy.

Understanding literature and Of course, literature is a word, not a thing.

Explain that literature is a social institution that uses language as a medium. Language itself is a social creation. Literature displays a picture of life, and life itself is a social reality.

He argues that literature is a creative work or fiction that is imaginative or "literature is the use of beautiful and useful language that signifies other things"

To be called a literary work, unique characteristics or things are needed that can define that this is literature. These characteristics are:

The contents can describe humans with various forms of problems.
There is a good and beautiful language order.
The way it is presented can give an impression and appeal to the audience.

10 definitions of literature according to experts

The functions of literary works vary. These literary functions will be explained as follows:

reactive is to provide an impression or entertainment for the readers.
Activated is to be able to provide knowledge or insight about the problems that exist in life to its readers.
Aesthetic is to give beauty to the readers.
Morality is to provide moral knowledge between good and bad for the readers.
Religious is to be able to present the value of religious teachings in it that can be imitated by its readers.

That's the explanation about 10 Definitions of Literature According to Experts, Complete Characteristics and Functions described above. Literature can have a negative impact as well as a negative impact on students

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Definition of literature

Examples of literature in a sentence.

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'literature.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin litteratura writing, grammar, learning, from litteratus

15th century, in the meaning defined at sense 4

Phrases Containing literature

gray literature

Articles Related to literature

woman sitting on floor holding book in front of her face on pink background

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We know how the Nobel Prize committee defines literature, but how does the dictionary?

Dictionary Entries Near literature

literature search

Cite this Entry

“Literature.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literature. Accessed 2 Apr. 2024.

Kids Definition

Kids definition of literature, more from merriam-webster on literature.

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What is Novel? Definition, Usage, and Literary Examples

Novel definition.

A novel (NAH-vull) is a narrative work of fiction published in book form. Novels are longer than short stories and novellas, with the greater length allowing authors to expand upon the same basic components of all fictional literature—character, conflict , plot , and setting , to name a few.

Novels have a long, rich history, shaped by formal standards, experimentation, and cultural and social influences. Authors use novels to tell detailed stories about the human condition, presented through any number of genres and styles .

The word novel comes from the Italian and Latin novella , meaning “a new story.”

The History of Novels

Ancient Greek, Roman, and Sanskrit narrative works were the earliest forebears of modern novels. These include the Alexander Romances, which fictionalize the life and adventures of Alexander the Great; Aethiopica , an epic romance by Heliodorus of Emesa; The Golden Ass by Augustine of Hippo, chronicling a magician’s journey after he turns himself into a donkey; and Vasavadatta by Subandhu, a Sanskrit love story.

The first written novels tended to be dramatic sagas with valiant characters and noble quests, themes that would continue to be popular into the 20th century. These early novels varied greatly in length, with some consisting of multiple volumes and thousands of pages.

Novels in the Middle Ages

Literary historians generally recognize Murasaki Shikibu’s The Tale of Genji as the first modern novel, written in 1010. It’s the story of a Japanese emperor and his relationship with a lower-class concubine. Though the original manuscript, consisting of numerous sheets of paper glued together in book-like format, is lost, subsequent generations wrote and passed down the story. Twentieth-century poets and authors have attempted to translate the confusing text, with mixed results.

Chivalric romantic adventures were the novels of choice during the Middle Ages. Authors wrote them in either verse or prose , but by the mid-15th century, prose largely replaced verse as the preferred writing technique in popular novels. Until this time, there wasn’t much distinction between history and fiction; novels blended components of both.

The birth of modern printing techniques in the 16th and 17th centuries resulted in a new market of accessible literature that was both entertaining and informative. As a result, novels evolved into almost exclusively fictional stories to meet this upsurge in demand.

Novels in the Modern Period

Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes’s 1605 work The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha , frequently shortened to Don Quixote , is the first major Western novel. The popularity of Don Quixote and subsequent novels paved the way for the Romantic literary era that began in the latter half of the 18th century. Romantic literature challenged the ideas of both the Age of Enlightenment and the Industrial Age by focusing on novels entrenched in emotion, the natural world, idealism, and the subjective experiences of commoners. Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters, James Fenimore Cooper, and Mary Shelley all emerged as superstars of the Romantic era.

Naturalism was, in many ways, a rebellion against romanticism. Naturalism replaced romanticism in the popular literary imagination by the end of the 19th century. Naturalistic novels favored stories that examined the reasons for the human condition and why characters acted and behaved the way they did. Landmark novels of this era included The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane, McTeague by Frank Norris, and Les Rougon-Macquart by Émile Zola.

Novels in the Present

Many popular novels of the 19th and 20th centuries started out as serializations in newspapers and other periodicals, especially during the Victorian era. Several Charles Dickens novels, including The Pickwick Papers , Alexandre Dumas’s The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo , and Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin began this way, before publishers eventually released them in single volumes.

In the 20th century, many themes of naturalism remained, but novelists began to create more stream-of-consciousness stories that highlighted the inner monologues of their central characters. Modernist literature, including the works of James Joyce, Marcel Proust, and Virginia Woolf, experimented with traditional form and language.

The Great Depression, two World Wars, and the civil rights movement impacted the American novel in dramatic ways, giving the world stories of war and the fallout of war (Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms , Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front ); abject poverty and opulent wealth (John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath , F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby ); the Black American experience (Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man , Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God ); and countercultural revolution (Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest , Jack Kerouac’s On the Road ).

Changing sexual attitudes in the early and mid-20th century allowed authors to explore sexuality in previously unheard-of depth (Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer , Anaïs Nin’s Delta of Venus ). By the 1970s, second-wave feminism introduced a new type of novel that centered women as authors of their own fates, not as romantic objects or supporting players existing only in relation to men (Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook , Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying ).

Throughout the 20th century, the popularity of the novel grew to such an extent that publishers pushed books more firmly into individual genres and subgenres for better classification and marketing. This resulted in every genre having breakout stars who set specific standards for the works in their category. At the same time, there is literary fiction, often considered more serious because of its greater emphasis on meaning than genre fiction’s entertainment value. However, authors can blur the line between genre and literary fiction; see Stephen King’s novels, Lessing’s space fiction novels, and Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series, to mention just a few. Both genre and literary fiction have legions of devoted fans.

Serialized novels fell out of favor as the 20th century unfolded. Today, novels are almost always published in single volumes. The average wordcount for contemporary adult fiction is 70,000 to 120,000 words, which is approximately 230 to 400 pages.

The Many Types of Novels

Literary Novels

Literary novels are a broad category of books often regarded as having more intellectual merit than genre fiction. These novels are not as bound to formula, and authors feel greater freedom to experiment with style ; examine the psychology and motivations of their characters; and make commentary on larger social conditions or issues. Literary novels possess a certain amount of intellectualism and depth. Their language is rich, their descriptions detailed, and their characters unique and memorable. Examples of popular literary novels include The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, Life After Life by Kate Atkinson, The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen, and A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara.

Genre Novels

In contrast to literary fiction, authors of genre novels tend to follow more of a basic plot formula, and they paint their characters with broader strokes and less nuance and complexity. Stories in this vein accentuate plot over character. The accepted norms of genre fiction allow a reader to pick up a certain kind of novel and, in general, know what to expect from it. However, the boundaries of genre fiction are considerably malleable, and you could just as easily classify many genre works as lofty as any literary novel. Also, many genre novels fall under more than one genre. Below are several major genres/subgenres of the contemporary novel.

Bildungsroman/Coming of Age

A bildungsroman is a coming-of-age novel that highlights a period of profound emotional, psychological, and/or spiritual growth for a young protagonist. Depending on the nature and depth of the story and the author’s goals, a bildungsroman can skew toward a young readership or an adult one. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain are two notable bildungsroman novels.

Children and Young Adult

More of a catchall term than a genre, children and young adult novels center on young protagonists having formative experiences. Plots deal with issues and challenges of special interest to young readers, such as friendship, bullying, prejudice, school and academic life, gender roles and norms, changing bodies, and sexuality.

Classic children and young adult novels include Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. More recently, some young people’s literature has had a crossover appeal to adult audiences, with the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling and The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins garnering legions of fans both young and old.

Death and romance are major plot points in gothic novels. The supernatural, family curses, stock characters like Byronic heroes and innocent maidens, and moody settings like castles or monasteries usually figure prominently in the storylines. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë and The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux are two beloved gothic novels.

Historical novels take place in the past, where plots typically involve a specific historical event or era. The novel may or may not include fictionalized versions of real people. Authors of historical fiction often conduct in-depth research of the times about which they write to provide readers with a vivid reimagining of what life was like. Popular historical novels include The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett, The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory, and Roots by Alex Haley.

Authors of horror novels write plots and characters intended to scare or disgust the reader. The stories frequently incorporate elements of the supernatural and/or psychological components designed to startle the reader and get them to question what they know about the characters. The Shining by Stephen King, The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, and Dracula by Bram Stoker are perennial favorites of this genre.

Mysteries tell stories of crimes and the attempts to solve them. There are multiple types of mystery novels, such as noir, police procedurals, professional and amateur detective fiction, legal thrillers, and cozy mysteries. Examples include Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson, and Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie.

Picaresque novels feature the adventures of impish, lowborn but likeable heroes who barrel through a variety of different encounters, living by their wits in corrupt or oppressive societies. Picaresque novels reached their peak of popularity in Europe from the 16th to 19th centuries, but authors still occasionally write them today. The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling , by Henry Fielding is a classic picaresque, while A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole is a more recent one.

Roman à Clef

A roman à clef is an autobiographical novel, which fictionalizes real people and events. An author of a roman à clef has the freedom to write about controversial or deeply personal, secretive topics without technically exposing anyone or anything—or exposing themselves to charges of libel. They can also imagine different scenarios and resolutions for real-life situations. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath and The Devil Wear Prada by Lauren Weisberger are both roman à clefs.

Romance novels are love stories. The main plot usually features the dramatic courtship of two characters as they discover their feelings and attempt to be together. An antagonist frustrates these attempts but rarely wins, which means romance novels almost always end in a happily-ever-after.

Contemporary romance, historical romance, inspirational romance, and LGBTQ romance are just a few of the subgenres on the market. Examples of romance novels include A Knight in Shining Armor by Jude Deveraux, Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, and The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks.

A satirical novel humorously criticizes someone or something. The author will typically employ exaggerated plots and characters to underscore a specific fallibility or corruption. Common targets include public figures, laws and government policies, and social norms. Satires can possess considerable power by using humor to comment on societal or human flaws. Animal Farm by George Orwell and Catch-22 by Joseph Heller are masterworks of the genre.

Science Fiction and Fantasy

Science fiction novels deal with emerging or new technologies, space exploration, futurism, and other speculative elements. Similarly, fantasy novels integrate elements that defy known scientific laws, with magic and folklore often playing a major role in the worlds and characters created by the author. Science fantasy novels are a subgenre that combine these two forms. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin and The War of the Worlds are prime examples of science fiction, while The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien and A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin are enduring fantasy classics.

The Great American Novel

A uniquely American phenomenon is what novelist John William DeForest called the “Great American Novel.” The definition of this term is open to some interpretation, but, in general, it refers to a novel that captures the spirit and experience of life in the United States and the essence of the national character. Since DeForest coined the term in 1868, many novels have claimed this title, though there’s no single organization or institution that bestows such a designation. Books cited as a Great American Novel include Moby-Dick by Herman Melville, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, and The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Novels’ Different Styles and Formats

Authors can write novels using any number of techniques. A straightforward narrative that utilizes a conventional plot is just one approach. Others include:

An epistolary novel tells its story through fictional letters, newspaper and magazine clippings, diary entries, emails, and other documents. The Color Purple by Alice Walker and Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos are examples of epistolary novels.

Experimental

An experimental novel plays with traditional form, plot, character, and/or voice . The author might invent techniques or words that present their story in innovative ways. Such works are sometimes challenging and exhilarating for readers, and they inspire looking at the novel as an ever-evolving art form. Popular experimental novels include Wittgenstein’s Mistress by David Markson and Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn.

Modernism as a distinct literary form flourished in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Modernist fiction challenged conventional ideas of structure and linear storytelling and is a precursor to today’s experimental fiction. Individualism, symbolism , absurdity, and wild experimentation were common in modernist novels. Ulysses by James Joyce and Nightwood by Djuna Barnes are quintessential modernist novels.

Philosophical

Philosophical novels are, more than anything, novels of ideas. They put forth moral, theoretical, and/or metaphysical ideas, assertions, and speculations. They’re not necessarily academic works; they still include plots and characters, but these exist as symbols of a larger philosophical theme. Examples of philosophical novels include The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera and Under the Net by Iris Murdoch.

Sentimental

Sentimental novels tug at the heartstrings. Authors design these novels to appeal to readers’ sympathy and compassion. As its own literary form, sentimental novels—like The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson—abounded during the 18th century. Stella Dallas by Olive Higgins Prouty and Beaches by Iris Rainer Dart are more recent novels written in this style.

Novels written in verse are rare in today’s literary landscape, but they have their roots as far back as The Iliad and The Odyssey . The narratives blend fiction and poetry by telling a fictional tale through traditional verses of rhythms and stanzas . Two contemporary verse novels are Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson and Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow.

The Function of Novels

Compared to short stories and novellas, novels give authors the opportunity to create more detailed plots, characters, and worlds. An author can delve more fully into the trajectory of the story and the evolution of the characters, presenting struggles, conflicts , and, ultimately, resolutions. For readers, novels also entertain and educate. They can be an escape and a leisure activity, one that engages the mind in a way that other forms of entertainment cannot. They are instructive as well, informing readers about society, history, morality, and/or aspects of the human condition, depending on the novel.

Novels have never been entirely without controversy. They give authors an outlet to create imaginative stories, but they can also function as commentaries on the societies that publish them. Governments, schools, and other authority figures and institutions might see such novels as subversive and even dangerous. This has led many countries, including the United States, to ban novels deemed offensive. Novels banned by authorities at one point or another include The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence, and Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin.

Notable Novelists

Bildungsroman/Coming of Age: Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Children and Young Adult: Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House on the Prairie
Epistolary: Marilynne Robinson, Gilead
Experimental: Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves
Gothic: Mary Shelley, Frankenstein; The Modern Prometheus
The Great American Novel: Toni Morrison, Beloved
Historical: Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall
Horror: Ira Levin, Rosemary’s Baby
Literary: Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude
Modernist: Marcel Proust, Swann’s Way
Mystery: Paula Hawkins, The Girl on the Train
Philosophical: Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha
Picaresque: William Makepeace Thackeray, The Luck of Barry Lyndon
Roman à Clef: Carrie Fisher, Postcards from the Edge
Romance: Nora Roberts, Northern Lights
Satire: Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
Science Fiction and Fantasy: Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower
Sentimental: Maria Susanna Cummins, The Lamplighter
Verse: Allan Wolf, The Watch That Ends the Night: Voices from the Titanic

Examples in Literature

1. Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote

Don Quixote is a satire of the chivalric romances popular during Cervantes’s time. Middle-aged Don Quixote of 16th-century La Mancha, Spain, spends his life reading these epic tales. They inspire him to revive what he sees as the lost concept of chivalry, so he picks up a sword and shield and becomes a knight. His goal is to defend the defenseless and eliminate evil. His partner in this endeavor is a poor farmer named Sancho Panza. They ride through Spain on their horses, searching for adventure, and Don Quixote falls in love with a peasant named Dulcinea. Don Quixote and Sancho embark upon multiple quests to restore lost honor to the nation. Ultimately, Don Quixote returns home, denounces his knighthood, and dies of fever, bringing an end to chivalry.

2. Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

Sense and Sensibility is a classic Romantic -era novel that also contains some satirical elements that wittily criticize the social decorum of the time. In 1790s England, Henry Dashwood’s death leaves his wife and three daughters nearly destitute. The older daughters, Elinor and Marianne, realize their only hope for saving the family is to find suitable husbands.

Sensible Elinor falls for Edward Ferrars, while romantic Marianne feels torn between dashing John Willoughby and sturdy Colonel Brandon. After recovering from a fever, Marianne realizes Colonel Brandon is the steady force she desires, not the impetuous Willoughby, and after some initial confusion, Elinor learns that Edward is in love with her. The young women marry their suitors, and the two couples live as neighbors.

3. F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby is a novel that examines the American Dream, class inequality, and themes of love and loss. Nick Carraway arrives on Long Island in the spring of 1922, moving into a cottage next to a sprawling estate owned by elusive millionaire Jay Gatsby. Known for hosting lavish parties that he never attends, Gatsby is an almost mythic figure in the community. Nick learns that Gatsby is passionately in love with Daisy, the wife of Nick’s old college friend Tom, who has a mistress named Myrtle.

Nick wrangles an invitation to one of Gatsby’s parties, and the two become friends. Through Nick, Gatsby arranges a meeting with Daisy, beginning an intense affair. One night, Gatsby and Daisy are driving home and accidently run into and kill Myrtle. Daisy was the one driving, but Gatsby takes the blame, and Myrtle’s husband kills him. The entire experience leaves Nick cold toward New York life, feeling that he, Gatsby, Daisy, and Tom never fit in with this world.

4. Toni Morrison, Beloved

Beloved is an historical novel that delves into the lasting psychological effects of slavery. Sethe, a formerly enslaved woman, lives with her daughter Denver in 1870s Cincinnati. Paul D, a man enslaved with Sethe on the Sweet Home plantation, arrives at their door, and not long after, a mysterious young woman—only identifying herself as Beloved—arrives as well. Sethe eventually believes that Beloved is the incarnation of her youngest daughter, who she killed to prevent her capture and sale into slavery.

Sethe grows obsessed with Beloved, losing her job, pushing away Paul D, and alienating Denver in the process. Denver reaches out to the local Black community and gets a job working for a white family. When Denver’s employer comes to pick her up for her first day of work, Sethe, by this time delirious and delusional, thinks he’s a slavecatcher coming yet again to take Beloved. She attempts to attack him but is held back by the townspeople, an act that seemingly sets Beloved free, and the mysterious young woman disappears in a cloud of butterflies. Denver supports the family, and Paul D returns to Sethe and reminds her of her worth.

Further Resources on Novels

Jane Friedman answers the question, What is a literary novel?

The Guardian has a list of their picks for the 100 best novels written in English .

Literary Hub offers insights into the Great American Novel .

Writer’s Digest shares the 10 rules of writing a novel .

Writing coach Vivian Reis coaches beginners through the writing of a novel .

Related Terms

Point of View
Romanticism
Science Fiction

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Hong Kong Adopts Sweeping Security Laws, Bowing to Beijing

The legislation targets “external interference” and the theft of state secrets, with implications for businesses, journalists, civil servants and others.

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Lawmakers sitting in rows inside Hong Kong’s legislature vote by raising their hands.

By Tiffany May and David Pierson

Reporting from Hong Kong

Hong Kong on Tuesday passed national security laws at the behest of Beijing, thwarting decades of public resistance in a move that critics say will strike a lasting blow to the partial autonomy the city had been promised by China.

The new legislation, which was passed with extraordinary speed, grants the authorities even more powers to crack down on opposition to Beijing and the Hong Kong government, establishing penalties — including life imprisonment — for political crimes like treason and insurrection, which are vaguely defined. It also targets offenses like “external interference” and the theft of state secrets, creating potential risks for multinational companies and international groups operating in the Asian financial center.

Analysts say the legislation, which will take effect on March 23, could have a chilling effect on a wide range of people, including entrepreneurs, civil servants, lawyers, diplomats, journalists and academics, raising questions about Hong Kong’s status as an international city.

An earlier attempt to pass such legislation, in 2003, set off mass protests involving hundreds of thousands of people.

But this time many of the opposition figures who might have challenged the legislation have either been jailed or have gone into exile since China’s ruling Communist Party, under Xi Jinping, its most powerful leader in decades, imposed the first national security law , in 2020. That law gave the authorities a powerful tool to quash dissent after months of antigovernment demonstrations engulfed the city in 2019.

Hong Kong’s Beijing-backed leader, John Lee, has said the package of new laws is needed to root out unrest and to fight what he described as Western spying. Once the laws are passed, he has said, the government can focus on the economy.

In a speech at the legislature, Mr. Lee said that the new laws would “allow Hong Kong to effectively prevent and put a stop to espionage activities, the conspiracies and traps of intelligence units and the infiltration and damage of enemy forces.”

As the bill was passed unanimously on Tuesday, lawmakers and officials called it a “historic moment.” Chris Tang, Hong Kong’s secretary for security, who oversaw the bill, likened its passage to the birth of his own son after multiple “miscarriages.”

Lawmakers had put the legislation on the fast track, holding marathon sessions over a week and working through a weekend.

“A rapid passage is meant to show people in Hong Kong the government’s resolve and ability to enforce it,” said Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute in London. “The new national security bill is as much about intimidation as it is about enforcement.”

For Mr. Lee, the Hong Kong leader, “the first concern is not how people in Hong Kong or in the rest of the world see this,” Professor Tsang said. “He is performing for the audience of one — Xi himself.”

And in the eyes of Beijing, these laws are long overdue.

When Hong Kong, a former British colony, was returned to Chinese rule in 1997, it was given a mini-constitution designed to protect civil liberties unknown in mainland China, such as freedom of expression, assembly and the media. But China also insisted on a provision called Article 23, which required Hong Kong to draft a package of internal security laws to replace colonial-era sedition laws.

Hong Kong’s 2003 effort to pass internal security legislation not only triggered large protests. Top officials also resigned, and in the years that followed, city leaders were reluctant to raise the matter again, for fear of public backlash.

But in recent months, the Chinese Communist Party again urged the Hong Kong government to enact Article 23 laws.

There was little chance that China’s will would not be heeded; Hong Kong’s legislature has been overwhelmingly stacked with pro-Beijing lawmakers since China overhauled the electoral system to exclude candidates who aren’t considered “patriots.”

The new laws take aim at five types of offenses: treason, insurrection, theft of state secrets, sabotage and external interference. They also introduce key changes to due process. In some instances, the police may now seek permission from magistrates to prevent suspects from consulting with the lawyers of their choice, if that is deemed a threat to national security.

Human rights groups said that in swiftly passing the legislation, the authorities had reversed course on the freedoms once promised to the city.

Maya Wang, the acting China director at Human Rights Watch, said on Tuesday that the new security legislation would “usher Hong Kong into a new era of authoritarianism.” The government has criticized rights advocacy groups based overseas as “anti-China” and “anti-government” organizations.

The vague wording of some of the legislation has raised questions among legal scholars. For example, an act of espionage, under the new laws, could include the passing of any information or document that is considered “useful to an external force.” Such a broad definition could discourage legitimate exchanges with diplomats, Simon Young, a law professor at the University of Hong Kong, wrote in a submission to the government last month.

Professor Young also objected to the legislation’s sweeping definition of “sedition,” which includes an intent to “bring disaffection” against the state or its institutions. Disaffection is “an emotional state of too low a threshold to be the subject of a crime,” he wrote.

“It is not a crime to simply feel this way,” he added.

The legislation also empowers the city’s leader, known as the chief executive, to make new, related laws, which can carry penalties of up to seven years in prison, without going through the legislature. The leader would consult the cabinet before enacting any such law; the legislative council, known as the LegCo, would be able to amend or reject the law later.

Such a mechanism would not be new to Hong Kong, but it raises the potential for abuse, given how broadly written the new legislation is, said Thomas E. Kellogg, the executive director of the Center for Asian Law at Georgetown University.

“This is deeply disturbing,” Professor Kellogg wrote in an email. “The LegCo is handing the chief executive the power to expand the law even further, in ways that could further infringe on basic rights.”

Hong Kong, known just a few years ago for its boisterous political opposition, now more closely resembles mainland China, where dissent can carry a high cost. During the recent sessions over the new security legislation, lawmakers mostly suggested changes that would make it even tougher.

“They seem to be looking for ways to signal their fealty to the government’s national security agenda, and to ensure that they are demonstrating no daylight between themselves and the government,” Professor Kellogg said.

Discussion of the bill illustrated the city’s new political landscape and the murkiness of the new boundaries around speech.

Lawmakers asked if possession of old copies of Apple Daily, a now-defunct pro-democracy newspaper, would be an offense. (A security official said it would depend on whether there was “seditious intent.”) A government adviser said that priests who heard confessions about national security offenses like treason could themselves be charged under the new laws if they did not report what they heard. (The Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong said the church recognized that citizens had an obligation to ensure national security, but that confessions would remain confidential.)

The legislation’s vague wording — for example, in how it defines offenses like the theft of state secrets — is comparable to language found in security legislation in mainland China. And someone who shares “information that appears to be confidential matter,” even if it is not classified as a state secret, could be punished if that person intended to endanger national security, in the eyes of the authorities.

Business leaders in Hong Kong say such changes could raise the cost of operating in the city by requiring companies to scrutinize documents and other information shared by employees, to ensure that they do not inadvertently violate the new legislation.

One risk is that Hong Kong’s comparative business advantage over the mainland could be eroded, said Johannes Hack, the president of the German Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong.

“Part of the unique value Hong Kong has for Western (German) stakeholders is the openness of the city, and we feel the balance between openness and the desire for security needs to be well calibrated,” he wrote in a message on WhatsApp.

Olivia Wang contributed reporting.

Tiffany May is a reporter based in Hong Kong, covering the politics, business and culture of the city and the broader region. More about Tiffany May

David Pierson covers Chinese foreign policy and China’s economic and cultural engagement with the world. He has been a journalist for more than two decades. More about David Pierson

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1.1: What is Literature?
Literature vs. literature. As illustrated in the somewhat silly example above, one way we can define what constitutes literature is by identifying what is definitely not literature.For our intents and purposes of defining most terms in this textbook, we will use the Oxford English Dictionary's definitions.Many professors who teach Literature use the concept of Big L Literature vs. little l ...
What Is Literature?
define literature in terms of the way it is written. However, literary styles tend to create counter styles. If one finds richly descriptive prose in some literary works, one also finds writing that self consciously avoids such prose. The same goes for ail the characte ristics on the list. This does not show that we need a longer list. If
What Is Literature? A Definition Based on Prototypes.
For literary works, prototypical. characteristics include careful use of language, being written in a literary genre (poetry, prose fiction, or drama), being read aesthetically, and containing ...
Literature
literature, a body of written works. The name has traditionally been applied to those imaginative works of poetry and prose distinguished by the intentions of their authors and the perceived aesthetic excellence of their execution. Literature may be classified according to a variety of systems, including language, national origin, historical ...
(PDF) Defining a Literature
the definition of a literature. For example, the second row refers to ... Experts agree that literature is writing that processes everyday language to ... according to the findings from the first ...
What Is Literature and Why Do We Study It?
Literature is a method of recording, preserving, and transmitting knowledge and entertainment, and can also have a social, psychological, spiritual, or political role.". This definition is well-suited for our purposes here because throughout this course, we will be considering several types of literary texts in a variety of contexts.
What is Literature? || Definition & Examples
1. a quality of invention or inventiveness in the text itself; 2. the reader's sense that what they are reading is singular. In other words, the unique vision of the writer herself. 3. a sense of 'otherness' that pushes the reader to see the world around them in a new way. Notice that nowhere in this three-part definition is there any ...
1
For this purpose definitions of literature may be divided, without remainder, into the descriptive and the honorific; the honorific being those which refer to value or quality, and the descriptive those which do not. In an age when the natural sciences are in such high repute it is usual to look first for a descriptive definition since this, it ...
Literature
Search for: 'literature' in Oxford Reference ». A body of written works related by subject-matter (e.g. the literature of computing), by language or place of origin (e.g. Russian literature), or by prevailing cultural standards of merit. In this last sense, 'literature' is taken to include oral, dramatic, and broadcast compositions that ...
2.1: Defining Literature
Literature, in its broadest sense, is any written work.Etymologically, the term derives from Latin litaritura/litteratura "writing formed with letters," although some definitions include spoken or sung texts. More restrictively, it is writing that possesses literary merit. Literature can be classified according to whether it is fiction or non-fiction and whether it is poetry or prose.
What is literature for? The role of transformative reading
According to TR, literary reading always implies both a text and a reader in a reciprocal experience at a particular time and place. In such a fluid exchange, both text and reader are mutually modified. Thus, from this perspective, although the purpose of literature is only one—to be transformative—it might have different expressions, or ...
1.10: Literature (including fiction, drama, poetry, and prose)
Literature can be classified according to whether it is fiction or non-fiction and whether it is poetry or prose. It can be further distinguished according to major forms such as the novel, short story or drama, and works are often categorized according to historical periods or their adherence to certain aesthetic features or expectations (genre).
PDF Terry Eagleton Introduction : What is Literature?
On this theory, literature is a kind of writing which, in the words of the Russian critic Roman Jacobson, represents an 'organized violence committed on ordinary speech'. Literature transforms and intensifies ordinary language, deviates systematically from everyday speech. If you approach me at bus stop and murmur 'Thou still unravished bride ...
Defining Literature
Literature, in its broadest sense, is any written work.Etymologically, the term derives from Latin litaritura/litteratura "writing formed with letters," although some definitions include spoken or sung texts.More restrictively, it is writing that possesses literary merit. Literature can be classified according to whether it is fiction or non-fiction and whether it is poetry or prose.
Literary Theory
Literary Theory. "Literary theory" is the body of ideas and methods we use in the practical reading of literature. By literary theory we refer not to the meaning of a work of literature but to the theories that reveal what literature can mean. Literary theory is a description of the underlying principles, one might say the tools, by which ...
What Is Literature?, by Arthur Krystal
Adjust. In defense of the canon. by Arthur Krystal. T here's a new definition of literature in town. It has been slouching toward us for some time now but may have arrived officially in 2009, with the publication of Greil Marcus and Werner Sollors's A New Literary History of America. Alongside essays on Twain, Fitzgerald, Frost, and Henry ...
(PDF) Talking about Literature: Literary Terms
experts in literature and pub lish in scientific journals or papers. There is a lso a nother so rt o f reviews, even m uch m ore infl uential i n terms of the work's reception (and selling rates):
Research Guides: Strategy: Scholarly Literature: Definitions
Definitions. The Literature. A body of non-fictional books and writings published on a particular subject; considered collectively. See Oxford English Dictionary, "Literature". Literature Review. A formal, reflective survey of the most significant and relevant works of published and peer-reviewed academic research on a particular topic ...
Definition of Literature
Definition of Literature. The word ' Literature' is a modified form of a Latin word (literra, litteratura or litteratus) that means: 'writing formed with letters'.Let us look at what is literature according to definitions by different celebrated literary personalities.. Literature can be any written work, but it is especially an artistic or intellectual work of writing.
10 Definitions of Literature According to Experts, Complete
So the definition of literature according to experts will be explained as follows: 1. Mursal Esten. Definition of Literature or Literature is the disclosure of artistic and imaginative facts as a manifestation of human life. (and society) through language as a medium and has a positive effect on human life (humanity). 2.
PDF Jonathan Culler, Theory of the Lyric. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2015
The Wenshan Review ．of Literature and Culture Vol 10 .1 ．December 2016 129-135. Jonathan Culler, Theory of the Lyric. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2015. 416pp. $39.95. £29.95. ISBN 9780674744264. Rachel Falconer * Jonathan Culler's Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction (2011) has won the hearts of many for its clarity and common sense ...
Literature Definition & Meaning
The meaning of LITERATURE is writings in prose or verse; especially : writings having excellence of form or expression and expressing ideas of permanent or universal interest. How to use literature in a sentence.
Novel in Literature: Definition & Examples
Novel Definition. A novel (NAH-vull) is a narrative work of fiction published in book form. Novels are longer than short stories and novellas, with the greater length allowing authors to expand upon the same basic components of all fictional literature—character, conflict, plot, and setting, to name a few. Novels have a long, rich history, shaped by formal standards, experimentation, and ...
Hong Kong Adopts Sweeping Security Laws, Bowing to Beijing
The legislation targets "external interference" and the theft of state secrets, with implications for businesses, journalists, civil servants and others.

1 What Is Literature and Why Do We Study It?

What is literature?

Who decides which texts are “literature”?

“Turf Wars”: Literary criticism vs. authors

A note about using generative artificial intelligence

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My Paraphrase of ChatGPT with In-Text Citation

Works Cited Entry

Example Two: Quoting Text

Critical theories: A targeted approach to writing about literature

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What is Literature? || Definition & Examples

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