What is literature

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What is literature?
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Literature all works of imagination which are
transmitted primarily by means of the written
word or spoken narrative that is, in the main,
novels, stories, and poetry.

• John Rowe Townsend

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Not only form, but also function

• Literary texts are not defined as those of a
  certain shape or structure, but as those pieces
  of language used in a certain way by the
  community. This use is that the text is not
  taken as specifically relevant to the immediate
  context of its origin. That is, the text is used
  aesthetically, not practically.
• Peter Hunt

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Literature is language charged with meaning

• Ezra Pound

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Louise Rosenblatt Stances for reading

• Efferent Stance
• to carry away
• Most concerned with what we are taking away from
  the reading, with what information can be learned

• Aesthetic Stance
• Focus on the lived through experience of
  reading
• Focus on the feelings and images that come and go
  with the flow of words.

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Literature is the imaginative shaping of life
and thought into the forms and structures of
language . . . The province of literature is the
human condition. Literature illumines life by
shaping our insight.

• Charlotte Huck

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Literature is reading that, by means of
imaginative and artistic qualities, provides
pleasure and understanding.

• Rebecca Lukens

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Words are merely words, but real literature for
any age is words chosen with skill and artistry
to give readers pleasure and to help them
understand themselves and others.

• Rebecca Lukens

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What is childrens Literature?

• Books written for a child audience
• Books which children have taken for their own
• Childrens literature works produced to give
  children spontaneous pleasure, and not primarily
  to instruct
• Harvey Darton

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To be childrens literature, a work
must speak to and about the experience of the
child. Though boundaries in terms of subject
matter are open, that principle is still
unchanged. It may be that a book will deal with
harsh realities, but to be a work of childrens
literature, the book must somehow deal with these
realities in a way that the child reader can
understand from within his or her
experience. Winters and Schmidt, 2001, 16
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Generalizations about Childrens Literature

• 1. is relatively short
• 2. tends toward simplicity rather than
• complexity
• 3. has a strong dependence on visual
• elements
• 4. tends to be active rather than
• passive

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Generalizations about Childrens Literature

• 5. includes a child protagonist
• 6. takes the narrative perspective
• (point of view) of a child, or has a
• strong omniscient voice
• 7. usually has a single narrative
• perspective

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Generalizations about Childrens Literature

• 8. has a conclusion that is strongly
• resolved or at least points to a clear
  
• resolution
• 9. has a tone that is generally optimistic
• and hopeful
• 10. is didactic, and generally clear in
• depicting distinct moral worlds

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But one reminder . . .

• This is childrens literature
• This is what makes good literature it deals
  with deep human problems in a way that teaches us
  right and wrong, not
• by preachy moralizing, but by a gripping story.
• Charles Colson