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INTRODUCTION

HISTORY

SAMPLE TEXTS

INTRODUCTION
There is no precise definition of the term literature. Derived from the Latin words litteratus (learned) and littera (a letter of the alphabet), it refers to written works that are intended for reading. But not everything intended for reading is classified as literature. Such things as cookbooks, diet and travel books, or advertisements in magazines are all meant to be read but are not included in what is called literature.

What is expressed in literature is some facet of the whole range of human experience, past and present. The quality of the work depends on the craft of the writer. An author just as much a craftsman as is a silversmith must put the material words together in the form that will best express the content.

HISTORY

One is likely to think of poetry, drama, novels, short stories, and essays when literature is mentioned. But literary excellence has never been confined to these types of writing. Nor are all examples of these kinds of writing necessarily literature. There are long fiction works that, through lack of literary merit and worthwhile content, are not novels in the same sense that the works of such great writers as Tolstoi, Melville, Twain, Dostoevski, Dickens, or Austen are novels. The same may be said of poetry or any other form of literature.

Conversely, there are many published works of types other than those mentioned that have been classified as good literature because of the quality of their writing. Examples can be drawn from almost every field of writing. In history, a few are the 'Peloponnesian War' by Thucydides, 'The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' by Edward Gibbon, and Bruce Catton's histories of the American Civil War. There are famous literary biographies, of which the best known are probably Plutarch's 'Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans' and James Boswell's 'Life of Samuel Johnson'. Philosophy and science also have their masterpieces. The dialogues of Plato are written with great narrative skill and beauty. In the 20th century, 'Life of Reason' by the Spanish-born philosopher George Santayana is read for the quality and clarity of its style as much as for its ideas. The founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, produced several books and essays that merit reading not only for the ideas he expresses in them, but also for the passion and conviction with which he expresses them. Two other scientists of literary excellence were Charles Darwin and Jules-Henri Poincare ('Science and Hypothesis' and 'Science and Method'). Statesmen and political theorists have also produced works of distinction. Such writers include Niccolo Machiavelli ('The Prince'), Thomas Hobbes ('Leviathan'), and others whose writings are too numerous to mention Cicero, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Winston Churchill.

Clearly, literature cannot be defined by a specific form or content; it represents a fusing of the two in such a way that the result has a particular excellence. While the average travel guide is not literature, a book on travel written by Alexis de Tocqueville ('Democracy in America') or by Charles Dickens ('American Notes') can become a classic.

Written language came into existence thousands of years ago, at a time when some humans were able to settle in relatively permanent communities. Much that was written was in the form of reports and records that were used by the few literate members of society. But with the dawn of civilization there developed an oral literature, a spoken tradition, as people attempted to formulate and share ideas about the world and their history. These ancient traditions, myths, and legends were normally expressed in poetry. Poetry is easier to remember than extended prose passages, because of its rhythms and cadences. Because there was not the great profusion of written, recorded, and filmed material that is available today, traditions were passed from one generation to another in spoken or sung form. These oral histories evoked the common experience of a people through language, symbols, plots, allegories, and situations that all could understand.

The themes for this oral literature had a great deal of variety: songs about the origin of the world and in praise of the gods, love stories, tragedies, epic tales of heroism and adventure, ballads of intrigue and murder, folktales, fables, proverbs, and riddles.

Long after these oral traditions developed, the spoken and sung were put into written form. The main reason for doing so was that they not be lost or altered, thereby losing or misrepresenting the whole past of a people. In written form, these traditions have provided the world with some of its greatest literary classics: the 'Epic of Gilgamesh', the 'Iliad' of Homer, and much of the Old Testament portion of the Bible. The Old Testament, in fact, contains as great a variety of ancient oral traditions in written form as can be found in one book. It has creation legends, stories of epic heroism and adventure, love tales, intrigue and murder stories, lyric poetry, songs of praise, proverbs, riddles, and more