What is Literature?
Literature springs from our inborn love of telling a story,
of arranging words in pleasing patterns, of expressing in words some special
aspect of our human experience. It is usually set down in printed characters
for us to read, though some forms of it are performed on certain social
occasions. There are a number of different branches such as drama, poetry, the
novel, the short story; all these are works of the imagination arising from
man’s capacity for invention. The primary aim of literature is to give
pleasure, to entertain those who voluntarily attend to it. There are, of
course, many different ways of giving pleasure or entertainment, ranging from
the most philosophical and profound. It is important to note that the writer of
literature is not tied to fact in quite the same way as the historian, the
economist or the scientist, whose studies are absolutely based on what has
actually happened, or on what actually does happen, in the world of reality.
