What is Literature?

What is Literature?

Throughout these five years I came through various definition of Literature. First is very common and famous definition – 

“Literature is mirror of the society”. 

But it is not so because mirror shows only one side of us while literature shows the dual side of people.

During these two years of M.A. so many changes take place in my life. It is the effect of literature and through it my thinking process, mentality and behavior changes.

“Literature is something that reflects society, makes us think about ourselves and our society, allows us to enjoy language and beauty, it can be didactic, and it reflects on the human condition. It both reflects ideology and changes ideology, just like it follows generic conventions as well as changing them. It has social and political effects: just ask Salman Rushdie or Vladimir Nanakov. Literature is the creation of another world, a world that we can only see through reading literature: just like Harry Potter and series of it.”

Literature is a mixture of various things like joy, emotions, anger, human behaviors, etc. So we can say that we get everything from literature. We can develop our thinking capacity through reading literature. We also get knowledge of small kid to old person. It is useful to us if we take it positive.

When I was in graduation study at that time I was not able to think about various terms and theories. But after M.A I am able to apply and think on those terms like feminism, deconstruction, colonialism, etc. And after thinking on those all things I am become open minded and able to accept new things. When I was in graduation study at that time I was not able to think about various terms and theories. But after M.A I am able to apply and think on those terms like feminism, deconstruction, colonialism, etc. And after thinking on those all things I am become open minded and able to accept new things.

 I study so many poems, novels, short stories, criticism and plays during my journey of five years of literature.

Paradise lost one of the last epic poem by Milton, written during g declining days of Christianity celebrates being human rather than divine, where Adam choose Eve( a human being) over God.

From the time of age of Renaissance to this New Literatures we studied so many novels, plays, poems, dramas, and short stories. Hamlet, Paradise Lost, Gulliver’s Travels, Robinson Crusoe, Middlemarch, Oliver Twist, The Old Man and The Sea, Sense and Sensibility, Frankenstein, One Night @ The Call Centre, Harry Potter, The Da Vinci Code, The Grain of Wheat, Things Fall Apart, Waiting for the Barbarians these all text we studies in Post Graduation. All texts presents such common themes like struggle of life, revenge motif, magical world and fantasy, religion, identity of black and white etc.

So it is not only for pleasure and moral but it develops our thinking capacity.