Prepartion Notes

“Literature cannot be given a specific and absolute definition that the aforementioned can all agree upon because, in the broadest sense, literature is the art of the written word in any language; and art, of course, is subjective.” “It is written works which employ basic literary criteria that affects a reader so as to provide an interpretation of an authors implications.” Literature does not really have any firm boundary lines. Literature transforms and intensifies ordinary language, and deviates systematically from everyday speech. I like to think that architecture is the art form that arises out of the human ability to create buildings; literature is the art form that arises out of the human ability to create language. Literature covers major genres of poetry, drama, and novel and or fiction. The term also implies literary quality and distinction. This is a fairly basic view of literature because the meaning of the term has undergone changes, and will no doubt continue to do so. Many people think the definition of literature is very different. The three main ways of approaching a definition of literature are relativism, subjectivism and agnosticism. With relativism, there are no value distinctions in literature; anything may be called good literature. Subjectivism, as the term implies, means that all theories of literary value are subjective, and that literary evaluation is a purely personal matter. Agnosticism follows from subjectivism, though it argues that though there may be real distinctions in literary value, our subjective value systems prevent us from knowing anything about the real values.
Grayson, Ninochka. What is Literature. July 29, 2009. Examiner. http://www.examiner.com/article/literature-101-really-what-is-literature
Eagleton, Terry. What is Literature. 2012. Eagleton University.