What is Literature

Introduction

Every language, culture or community either minor or major, has its own unique literature type. This can be either in oral or written form. To think in general one may ask, What is literature? Well the term literature may have various meanings. These meanings vary from person to person and their perspective. However, the means that create a tight knit bonding among all the definitions is human emotion. For this we have to understand the close relationship between history and literature.

History is the record of the concrete past and literature adds life to it. While history talks about the immobile human actions and outcomes that are long dead and buried. Literature revives the things that are long gone and allows the events to reoccur in every reader’s mind. History tells us about important events and talks of significant happenings. While literature highlights insignificant human emotions and thoughts surrounding the historical events in a grandeur style.

Literature is the artistic manifestation of a composer’s notion and emotion through which it tells us about the occurrences. It not only reflects its time but also tells us about how people perceived and reacted towards the happenings. History often serves as a source of warning and teaches one to be cautious. Whereas literary works allow one to relate themselves with incidents and gain experience out of it. If the word “immortality” is true then literature is the only path to acquire it. For instance, the beloved of William Shakespeare is still alive through his poems. This beloved is still alive and keeps living as long as people read the works of Shakespeare. 

Primary Elements of Literature

Literature is the artistic representation of time. It is an art form that is not available to every individual’s reach. Only the gifted and the intellectual one thrives. To create an artistic piece, a person needs a high level of imagination and knowledge of vocabulary. Here, thoughts are not presented in an ordinary manner. Rather the words are embellished with rhetorical devices. 

1.1 IMAGINATION

Imagination refers to the ability of the human mind to generate extended ideas, concepts, meaning or images to existing things. This can be implied to both objects and abstract thoughts. Imagination is the faculty of mind that is available to all men, but only a limited number of people can modify the colours of imagination. According to Samuel Taylor Colreidge, imagination is of two distinct types, namely: Primary Imagination and Secondary Imagination. 

• Primary imagination exists in all ordinary people where the thoughts remain raw. It is the basic idea or assumption that one creates for an object or idea. Here the words stand for its literal or primary meaning.
•  Secondary imagination, also known as poetic imagination is reserved only in the minds of distinct ones i.e, the writers and poets (the artists). According to ST Coleridge, poetic imagination “dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, in order to recreate”. Here the word not only sticks to its literal meaning rather acts as connotation. Secondary imagination allows the artist to sustain and modify the images, thoughts and emotions in his mind. 

To get a better insight of these differences, let us look into the following example of a waterfall:

The first waterfall picture is drawn by an ordinary person. The task achieved, remains limited only to the waterfall and surroundings, which is a simple idea. On the contrary the second picture is the work of a professional artist. Here the artist added more colours to the surrounding and abstract details to the objects and the landscape.

1.2 Rhetorical Devices

Literary artists are experts in exploiting words. Due to their word fluency ability and good knowledge of vocabulary, it enables them to play with words. This helps them to persuade, influence and entertain the readers. Writers manipulate words to exploit the audience’s emotion as well as attention. To achieve this state of mind, writers use rhetorical devices. Rhetorical devices are artistic ornaments like the use of imagery, proper diction and so on. Again figures of speech like paradox, metaphor, personification, simile etc are used to embellish words. 

Let us look into the following example:

The first picture shows the common way of using vocabulary by people. This is the way of our daily conversation. Although the second picture also gives the same message, the words are ornamented with rhetorical devices. Here readers will have to think twice to understand the literal meaning. To acquire this state of mind, writers use embellished words to retain the reader’s interest.

Conclusion

Literature is an exclusive way of conveying and preserving human emotion and should be represented in a grand way. The purpose of literature is not only to gain pleasure or maintain organic beauty. It should also be able to express life, hence the ultimate truth. To express life, writers use different techniques. These techniques will make people think and employ their brain to find the true meaning.

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