Literature

Literature is literally "an acquaintance with letters" (as in the first sense given in the Oxford English Dictionary), but has generally come to identify a collection of texts. Nations can have literatures, as can corporations, philosophical schools or historical periods. It is commonly held that a literature of a nation, for example, is the collection of texts which make it a whole nation. The Hebrew Bible, Beowulf, the Iliad and the Odyssey and the American constitution all fall within this definition of a kind of literature. More generally, a literature is equated with a collection of stories, poems and plays that revolve around a particular topic. In this case, the stories, poems and plays may or may not have nationalistic implications. The Western Canon is one such literature.

Classifying a specific item as being part of a literature (be it American literature, advertising literature, gay and lesbian literature or Roman literature) is very difficult. To some people, "literature" can be broadly applied to any symbolic record which can include images, sculptures, as well as letters. To others, a literature must only include examples of text composed of letters, or other narrowly defined examples of symbolic written language (hieroglyphs, for example). Even more conservative interpreters of the concept would demand that the text have a physical form, usually on paper or some other portable form, to the exclusion of inscriptions or digital media.

Frequently, these boundaries are crossed by the texts that make up literature. Illustrated stories, hypertexts, cave paintings and inscribed monuments have all at one time or another pressed the boundaries of what is and is not literature.

Forms of literature

A short story is prose writing of less than 20,000 words (and usually more than 500 words) which may or may not have a narrative arc. If a fiction story is more than 20,000 (appox.) words it is called a novella. Beyond that, say into the 50,000 (approx.) word range and above, a fiction text is called a novel.

An essay is a discussion of a topic from an author's personal point of view. A memoir is the story of an author's life from his personal point of view. An epistle is reserved for formal, didactic, or elegant letters.

Comics are generally illustrated pictures with explanatory text added for character lines and story commentary.

A poem is a metrical composition; a composition in verse written in certain measures, whether in blank verse or in rhyme, and characterized by imagination and poetic diction.

A play is a common literary form comprised chiefly of dialog between characters, usually intendeded for theatre performance rather than reading.