What is literature?

Que.: What is literature? What makes literature ‘literature’ in true sense? What is relationship between literature and life?

WH Hudson’s tome, An Introduction to the Study of Literature, is a primary and significant work that defines literature and makes students of literature aware of how they should study literature. The very opening of first chapter, entitled as “Some Ways of Studying Literature” draws boundary line between the books of literature in literary sense and books which cannot be regarded as literature and defines literature.

Hudson says that the word literature is loosely used in everyday communication. In common sense, literature means whatever that is written or printed. It is really difficult to differentiate literature from mere documents. There are some books such as railway guide or manual of cookery which provides the information about some specific subjects, whereas some books like The Paradise Lost or Sartor and Resartus appeals to our heart. He says that the critic like Charles Lamb does not consider works of Hume, Gibbon, and, Josephus as literature, whereas the critic like Hallam considers even the books of theology or medicine as literature. So there is no concrete criterion for making true literature different from mere writings.

Having confronted this difficulty, Hudson gives three criteria that make literature ‘literature’ in true sense. These three features are:

1.      General Human Interest

This refers to the portrayal of essential human experiences magnetizing all irrespective of time, age, and place. The work of literature does not appeal to particular mass of the people of particular era, but touches the hearts of all from whatever corner of the world. A work of literature is not gender-biased or time bound; it appeals to young and old, literate or illiterate. Thus a work of literature always has subject-matter of general human interest, where as mere writing is useful to particular group of the people and is always time bound.

2.      Element of Form

Hudson is of the opinion that element of form is an essential factor that constitutes literature. Mere writing does have particular form but this type of form does not provide artistic pleasure, whereas form of literary work pleases the hearts of readers. In poetic form the use of rhyming schemes, meters and figurative language makes reading pleasant. Form of literary work changes from writer to writer (except fourteen lines of sonnet), on other hand mere writing has fixed format. Thus a work of literature has element of form which imparts pleasure.

3.      Aesthetic Pleasure

The word ‘aesthetic’ denotes: a. innovative, complex use of language and form, b. artistic unity, c. use of literary techniques, and, d. lack of obvious political content. A work of literature is mostly created on the precept of “art for art’s sake” – which means art does not have to serve any function except giving pleasure. Literature’s primary function is to give pleasure, whereas a mere piece of writing aims at providing information. Aesthetic pleasure is hallmark of good literature. 

Thus, Hudson makes it clear that these three factors make literature, ‘literature’. He rightly says, “Literature is composed of those, and those books only, which, in the first place, by the reason of their subject-matter and their mode of treating it, are of general human interest.” On the basis of these criteria, he defines literature in this way –

“Literature is the vital records of what men have seen in life, what they have experienced of it, what they have thought and felt about these aspects of it which have the most immediate and enduring interest for all of us. It is thus fundamentally an expression of life through the medium of language.” (p. 10)

This definition of literature makes relationship between literature and life clear. Hudson says, “A great books grows directly out of life; in reading it we are brought into large, close, and fresh relations with life; and in that fact lies the final explanation of its power.” Literature comes out of human life; it reflects the life of the era in which it is produced. Literature is nothing else but an important record of what men have perceived in the world. In literature, the writer artistically reports his experiences of life; he gives words to those interesting incidents of life which have general human interest. Literature is an artistic expression of the best that is known and thought in the world. It is a record of man’s dreams and ideals, his failures and achievements, his disappointments and pleasures; his motives and passions, and, his experiences and observations. As literature is product of life, while reading it we are brought in large, close, and, fresh revelation of most enduring aspects of life. 

To conclude, we can say that Hudson believes that literature is literary product of life. Thus, in the opening of the first chapter, he defines literature, gives concrete criteria that make literature and finally he convinces us to believe that there is direct relation between literature and life.