What is literature?

우성민

When we hear the word ‘literature’, we usually think of famous poems or novels we read in normal lives. However, most of us often overlook the fact that we don’t know the exact meaning of literature. In fact, it is quite difficult to define the border of literature since it is ambiguous for some writings to determine whether to put them in literature or not. Books like ‘The autobiography of Benjamin Franklin’ can be the best example because it has enough factors as one great literature even though it is just the story of one man who existed in the past. For this problem, I want to suggest some factors that define literature based on ‘The Brave New World’ written by Aldous Huxley, which are valuable theme, writer’s creativity, and remarkable use of language.

To begin with, literature should have valuable theme. The word ‘theme’ refers to the unifying, consistent subject of a story and it always contains certain value that gives lessons to the readers. Although there are tremendous amount of books in the whole world, all of them have their own theme. For instance, in ‘The Brave New World’, the writer shows us that we will lose our essence as a human in the future society with advanced science if we just continue following the power of science and technology. By reading literature and getting lessons from themes, people feel certain feeling that moves their mind and sometimes it serves as the factor that changes one’s life considerably. This is the reason why people read literature and feel pleasure after reading it. So, we can say that literature should have unique theme that gives valuable message to readers.

Also, literature should be based on the writer’s originality. We don’t think that simple list of reality is literature because it does not need any idea or effort. Since it is a solemn fact that literature is a story, all factors including setting, characters, and events should be considered by the author. In other words, writing literature means to create the writer’s own world that other people cannot think of. To illustrate, everything in the future society depicted in ‘The Brave World’ and its characters including John and Mustapha Mond was Huxley’s own ideas. Since explanation about the future society was so realistic, we felt like we are actually seeing the dystopia made by side effects of science. Without the writer’s creativity, ‘The Brave New World’ would not be remembered as a masterpiece so far. Therefore, I suggest that literature need the author’s creativity.

Finally, literature needs to show us remarkable use of language. Although there are various kinds of arts in this world and they have their own way of expression, literature is basically composed of language. With beautiful expressions supported by the author’s writing ability, literature move reader’s mind and let them relax. For example, in ‘The Brave New World’, savage John shouts “I don’t want comfort. I want god. I want true danger and freedom and virtue. I want vice”. In the novel, he wants to say that he just want to live as one human even though he has to give up all advantages he gets from future society. We can see that the message writer intended can be conveyed to the reader effectively when it is expressed through beautiful language from this example. Like this, literature should have outstanding use of language since it is the art made up of language.

In conclusion, I suggest that there are three factors that define the existence of literature. They are worthy theme, author’s originality, and beautiful use of language. Nowadays, enormous amount of literature is being ‘produced’ in the market by a number of writers. Among this, we need to know how to get true literature that will give us something beneficial.

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