Literature is commonly regarded as a body of written works. The word is
often applied to those imaginative works of poetry and prose distinguished
by the intentions of their authors and the excellence of their execution.
Literature may be classified according to a variety of systems, including
language, national origin, historical period, genre, and subject matter.
Definitions of the word literature tend to be peripatetic. The Concise
Oxford Dictionary describes Literature as, "writings whose value lies
in the beauty of form or emotional effect." The 19th century
critic Walter Pater referred to "the matter of imaginative or
artistic literature" as a "transcript, not of mere fact, but of
fact in its infinitely varied forms." These definitions really
assume that the reader already knows what is literature. Although,
its central meaning, at least, is clearly apparent. Deriving from
the Latin littera, "a letter of the alphabet," literature is
first and foremost mankind's entire body of writing; after that it
is the body of writing belonging to a given language or people; then it
is individual pieces of writing.
It is necessary to qualify these statements; to use the word writing
when describing literature is itself misleading, for one may describe "oral
literature" or "the literature of preliterate peoples." The
art of literature is not just reductive ...to the words on the page; they
are selected by the author through the craft of writing. As an art,
literature is the organization of words to give pleasure; through them
it elevates and transforms experience; through them it functions in society
as a continuing symbolic criticism of values.
3JL Literature Links:
* D-Lib Forum and D-Lib Magazine:
http://www.dlib.org/
* D-Lib - Ready Reference:
http://www.dlib.org/reference.html
* Cultivate Interactive HomePage:
http://www.cultivate-int.org/
* Project Gutenberg - Official Homepage:
http://promo.net/pg/
* Project Gutenberg - Master Index: http://fonsg3.let.uva.nl/Homo_Ludens/Gutenberg_Master_Index.html
* Project Gutenberg - Germany:
http://gutenberg.aol.de/
* HTML Writers Guild:
http://gutenberg.hwg.org/