Classic English Literature Notes

Literature and its Scope

Literature can be viewed from various angles. Some critics interpret literature in its comprehensive sense. Others take its restricted and ordinary meaning. Sometimes literature is implied in a technical sense. lt is essential to understand these different interpretations of the term `literature` Here the views of Anthony X. Soares are adapted:

Literature in its Comprehensive Sense: Literature in its most comprehensive meaning includes all the activities of the human soul in general, or within a particular sphere, period, country, or language and therefore embraces all manner of composition in prose and verse, scientific or purely literary, set down in writing or communicated by word of mouth; thus we speak of the literature of Greece, of Eighteenth century literature, of the literature of Mathematics or the Law, of the Latin or Persian literature. When we speak of the literature of India, we do not wish to exclude those poems like the Ramzuyana or the Mahabharata which were handed down for generations by word of mouth and which only during recent times have been committed to writing.

Literature in its Restricted and Ordinary Meaning: ln the restricted sense in which we generally employ the term, literature is that class of writing which aims at rousing the feelings of the beautiful by the perfection of form or excellence of ideas or by both. ln this sense, literature is distinguished from purely scientific and technical treatises; works on Mathematics, or Prosody, or Philosophy, would not be literature. Under literature, when used in its narrower meaning. We should include only such works, as, by reason of their subject-matter or the artistic way in which they are handled, are of general human interest, and awaken in us one or more of the pleasurable feelings of the beautiful, the sublime, the pathetic or the ludicrous, Such are poetry, romance, history, Biography and essays, as opposed to scientific works or those writings which aim expressly at imparting, knowledge. A piece of literature differs from a specialized treatise on astronomy, political economy, philosophy or even history, in part because it appeals not to a particular class of readers only but to men and women; and in part because while the object of the treatise is simply to impart knowledge. One ideal end of the piece of literature, whether it also imparts knowledge or not, is to yield aesthetic satisfaction by the manner in which it handles its theme. It is essentially this aspect of literature which was well brought out by the late Viscount Morley when he spoke of it as consisting of all the books—and they are not so many——where moral truths and human passions are treated with a certain largeness, sanity and attractiveness of form. For the much in little, the extent of its scope and yet its brevity, this description of Morley’s would be hard to beat, though if it were a question of finding a synonym for the word literature, the French belles letters, beautiful or polite, polished or refined letters would do admirably well. The French mean by their very expressive and apposite phrase belles letters exactly what we mean by our word ‘literature`, when we use it in its restricted sense.

Literature used in a Technical Sense: Besides the two above senses in which the term ‘literature’ is commonly employed, there is one in which it is also used, viz., in a technical sense. To designate in the first place, the study of the rules of literary composition or what is called literary technique and secondly, to describe the different phrases through which the intellectual development of a people has passed, or, in other words, to narrate the literary history of a people. In this latter meaning, a work on English literature would treat of the literary activities of the English people from the earliest times to the present, considered in respect of the national progress, and also of the literary forms which go on changing from age to age, in which such activities have been embodied. lt would give an account of the literary achievements of the different writers from very early times to our own day.  It would show how in different ages, different poetic and prose forms were invented and became popular.