Definitions of literature have varied over time: it is a
"culturally relative definition".[1] In Western
Europe prior to the 18th century, literature denoted all books and
writing.[1] A
more restricted sense of the term emerged during the Romantic
period, in which it began to demarcate "imaginative" writing.[2][3] Contemporary
debates over what constitutes literature can be seen as returning to older,
more inclusive notions; Cultural
studies, for instance, takes as its subject of analysis both popular and
minority genres, in addition to canonical
works.
The value
judgment definition of literature considers it to cover exclusively
those writings that possess high quality or distinction, forming part of the
so-called belles-lettres ('fine writing') tradition.[4] This
sort of definition is that used in the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh
Edition (1910–11) when it classifies literature as "the best
expression of the best thought reduced to writing."[5] Problematic
in this view is that there is no objective definition of what constitutes
"literature": anything can be literature, and anything which is
universally regarded as literature has the potential to be excluded, since
value judgments can change over time.[4]
The formalist definition is that
"literature" foregrounds poetic effects; it is the
"literariness" or "poetic" of literature that distinguishes
it from ordinary speech or other kinds of writing (e.g., journalism).[6][7] Jim
Meyer considers this a useful characteristic in explaining the use of the term
to mean published material in a particular field (e.g., "scientific literature"), as such writing
must use language according to particular standards.[8] The
problem with the formalist definition is that in order to say that literature
deviates from ordinary uses of language, those uses must first be identified;
this is difficult because "ordinary
language" is an unstable category, differing according to social
categories and across history.[9]
Etymologically, the term derives from Latin literatura/litteratura "learning,
a writing, grammar," originally "writing formed with letters,"
from litera/littera "letter".[10] In
spite of this, the term has also been applied to spoken or sung
texts.