A Brief Survey of Answers
Kevin Binfield
|
What
is Literature?
A Brief Survey of Answers Kevin Binfield |
What is Literature: A Brief Survey of Answers
Plato:
Literature is an imitation (in words) of an imitation (in matter or material
existence) of an idea that exists originally in the mind of God. As an
imitation twice removed from true reality, it is inferior, deceptive, and
dangerous, largely because audiences imitate what they see and read. (The
Republic, Books 2, 3, 10)
Aristotle:
Literature is an imitation of a sequence of events. Literature can be categorized
and, thereby, understood according to the method of operation and execution
of each category. Viewing or reading literature facilitates the expression
(pushing out) of undesirable emotions. (Poetics)
Longinus:
Literature is written work that causes or fails to cause the experience
of the sublime--awe attached to terror. (On the Sublime)
Horace:
Literature is an imitation of events or objects. It ought to delight and
instruct readers. (Ars Poetica)
Sidney:
Literature is an imitation of events or objects in such a manner as to
render a "golden" world, improved over the real object in nature (which
Sidney calls "brazen"). Literature ought to delight, instruct, and inspirit
the reader. (An Apology for Poesy)
Corneille:
Literature is the execution in language of a number of rules that govern
how to render an imitation of events gracefully and according to form and
verisimilitude. (Three Discourses on Dramatic Poetry)
Pope:
Literature is an imitation of nature that is executed not by copying nature
directly but rather by imitating the works and techniques of previous writers
who are somehow "closer" to nature and to the original. (An Essay on Criticism)
Johnson:
Literature is an imitation which has been judged to have value over a period
of centuries as a true but general reflection of human nature in a variety
of real or imaginary circumstances. ("Preface to Shakespeare")
Wordsworth:
Literature (poetry, at least) is "the spontaneous overflow of powerful
feeling . . . recollected in tranquility." ("Preface to Lyrical Ballads")
Shelley:
Literature is a creative expression of Platonic ideas that is cast in a
form that affects readers by operating upon their sympathies and antipathies,
thereby affording an emotional experience of ideas that Plato had believed
could be apprehended
logically. ("Preface to
The Cenci," Defence of Poetry)
Arnold:
Literature is "the best of what has been thought and written." Poetry,
at least, is an imitation of a noble action and ought to impart pleasure
by permitting a "vent in action" of emotions which would otherwise be stifling.
("Preface to Poems" [1853])
Shklovsky:
Literature defamiliarizes the familiar; that is, it causes us to see the
ordinary in a way that jolts us out of our automatic ways of perceiving
and acting. ("Art as Technique")
Mukarovsky:
Literature is language that draws attention to the mode of expression itself
and thereby goes beyond merely describing or communicating ideas. (Aesthetic
Function)