LITERATURE DEFINED

A. Webster
- The total preserved writings belonging to a given language or people.
- The class or total writings of a given country or period, which is notable
for literary form or expression as distinguished, on the one hand, on works
merely technical or erudite (learned), and on the other, from journalistic
or other ephemeral writings.
B. Henry Van Dyke
- Literature consists of those writings which interpret the meanings of
nature and life, in words of charm and power touched with the
personality of the author, in artistic forms of permanent interest.
C. William Wordsworth
- Literature in an expression of significant human experiences.
- Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful emotions, it takes its
origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.

Reasons Why People Write

1. For self-expression (pleasure and entertainment)

2. For the preservation of truth
3. For the development of greater sensitivity, awareness of human nature and
refinement of character

Why Should Literature be written?

1. For preservation/for posterity

2. For sense of permanence

Print Culture vs. Oral Culture

Permanent Constantly Evolving

(Ballad, epic, folktales, legends)

LITERARY STANDARDS

1. Artistry – the quality which appeals to the sense of beauty

2. Intellectual Value – a literary work stimulates thought; enriches mental life
by making the readers realize fundamental truth about life and human
nature
3. Suggestiveness – a quality associated with the emotional power of
literature.
- Moves a person deeply
- Stirs feelings and imagination
- Gives and evokes visions of ordinary life and experience
4. Spiritual Value – literature elevates the spirit by bringing out moral values
which makes one a better person
- literature inspires
5. Permanence
- a great work of literature endures. Each reading gives fresh delights and
new insights and opens new worlds of meaning and experience
 - Its appeal is lasting
6. Universality – great literature is timeless and timely. It deals with elemental
feelings, fundamental truths, and universal conditions.
7. Style – the peculiar way in which a writer sees life, forms his ideas and
expresses them.

How Can Literature Be Studied?

1. The Expressive Theory

- The relationship between the text and the artist. (Biographical Context)
2. The Mimetic Theory
- The relationship between the text and the world
3. The Didactic Theory
- The relationship between the text and the audience
4. The Formalist Theory – the relationship between the text and itself.
(Genre, mode or form and set of conventions used by the writer in
producing his work of art)

How Should Literature Be Studied

According to:

1. Context
- Biographical details of the author
- Genre, mode or form and set of conventions used by the writer in
producing his work and art.
- Historical, cultural, political, social, economic and affective
(psychological)

2. According to its Value

- (Compare and Contrast Matthew Arnold’s and Plato’s views of the
VALUE of Literature – page 61)
a. Matthew Arnold’s view – from a liberal Humanist’s point of view)
Literature is a powerful beautiful application of ideas of life – to the
question:

“How to live”

- Literature serves a civilizing function – to raise cultured individuals

capable of deriving moral and spiritual guidance from reading
literature.
- Literature can be turned as a kind of substitute to religion or philosophy
if you want to learn “how to live.”
“Universal thesis of literature”

b. Plato (“The Republic”)

- He wanted poets banish from the Republic because poetry for him was
a product of financial of fanciful and wonderful thinking.

3. According to the theories mentioned above.

HW:
1. Three (3) Assumptions about the Nature of Literature.
2. Define “literary” as opposed to traditional forms.