What Is Literature?

In the text "žWhat is literature?"� from Terry Eagleton, the author tries to explain the term literature. He enumerates various definitions of it.

First he defines literature by making a distinction between fact and fiction. All works which are fiction, or also called "imaginative writing"�, can be called literature. In other words, this means that we can decide if a work is literary or not by its content. This explanation does not satisfy Eagleton because much factual writing would not be included. Also some fictional works should not be called literary.

The next attempt to define literature is by its language and its form. The Russian formalists had a theory that literary works had to obey to certain rules to be called literature. The "literary language"� was supposed to be "language made strange"�, that means it was not the language used in the everyday speech. There was probably no one who thought at this time that the language would change over the years.

Culture Wars - Kulturkriege. Luxemburg Lecture mit...

English: Terry Eagleton in Manchester

Eagleton explains that literature (or poetry) depends on the time and the place you are in at the moment you are reading the piece. He also says that the form of a piece doesn't not decide if a work is literary or not, because "a piece of writing may start off as history or philosophy and then come to be ranked as literature"¦"�. Also there are some works that belong to literature nowadays but which don't follow the rules the formalists initiated.

Eagleton enumerates various definitions of literature, but he finally rejects all of them. He asserts that "literature does not exist in the sense that insects do"�. He gives all the responsibility to decide however an author's work is literature or not to the reader. "If they decide that you are literature then it seems...