What is Literature?
What is Literature?
What is Literature? ( Before PG)
Literature term derived from Latin Word. literature meaning "use of letters" of "writing formed with letters''. it was Also including works of the creative Imagination, poetry, drama etc... literature divided into many parts like old literature was divided into two parts Prose and Poetry and after long time it included other parts like Tragedy, plays etc... literature introduced to our glamourous and grand history to other. Literature as Art form can also Include biography, autobiography, diaries .. Etc. The literary Text I liked the most... I liked ''The Heart of Darkness" Novel by Joseph Conrad. The reason behind it ..1) it shows the illusion of the present society, 2) it was also illustrate the struggle of normal people, 3) it was depicted by easy-to-understand language and also it was a humorous diction.
What is Literature? ( After PG)
There’s something about literature that has always made me pause and wonder. Is it just stories and poems, words woven together beautifully? Or is it something more? Every time I open a book, it feels like stepping into someone else’s mind hearing voices from the past, walking through worlds I’ve never seen, and feeling emotions, I didn’t know I could understand. Literature isn’t just ink on paper; it’s the way those words stir something inside us, challenge us, and sometimes even change the way we see the world.
To me, literature is the heartbeat of human experience. It’s the mirror that reflects who we are and the window that lets us see beyond ourselves. It carries history, philosophy, and emotion, capturing what it truly means to be human. Matthew Arnold called it "a criticism of life," and I think he was right. Whether it’s the existential dilemmas in Hamlet or Orwell’s unsettling vision in 1984, literature forces us to look at society to see both its beauty and its flaws, to ask difficult questions and sometimes find uncomfortable truths.
But literature isn’t just about society. It’s personal. It’s about those moments when a book speaks to you in ways nothing else can. I still remember the first time I read Kafka’s The Metamorphosis that strange sense of recognition in Gregor Samsa’s alienation, like the book understood something about me before I even did. Or how, while wandering through Dickens’ Victorian London, I could almost hear the echo of footsteps on cobblestone streets, feel the weight of history pressing in. Borges once wrote, "I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library." I know exactly what he meant because every book feels like a doorway, a chance to live another life, to see through different eyes.
And then there’s the way literature helps us make sense of chaos. Life can feel absurd sometimes, like pushing a rock up a hill only to watch it roll back down just like Sisyphus. Camus explored that absurdity, but he also found meaning in it. T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land captures the disconnection of modern life, yet buried in all that fragmentation, there’s still a whisper of hope. Literature doesn’t promise easy answers, but it asks the questions that stay with us, the ones that linger long after we’ve turned the last page.
So, what is literature? To me, it’s more than just words. It’s a rebellion against silence. It’s a way of understanding the world and understanding ourselves. It’s the voices of the past whispering to the present, reminding us that we are not alone. And maybe, at its core, literature is simply proof that we were here that we felt, we thought, we dreamed.