How exactly do we define "Literature"?

By Christian Rounds

With so many technological innovations changing our view of the world, does our view of "literature" need to change as well?

I remember in my public education days how I would power through books in order to grasp at their plot, especially so with the required reading my English classes would give me. I read other things besides novels of course, but to some degree in my mind they weren't "real" literature, they were just entertainment for kids like me to read. However, it wasn't until my Senior year of high school that I would be handed a copy of a comic book called "Maus" by my English Teacher, which would change how I viewed "Literature" for the rest of my life.

The Initial Spark

During that Senior English class, our assignment in reading Maus was to not only read through it, but to also analyze the characters, setting and themes, as is typical of your average book report. However, unlike how books are typically inspected, we also had to consider the importance of visual elements as well. What did each of the species of anthropomorphic animals shown represent ethnicity-wise? What was so important of the chores and activities the author's father performed as to have directly shown them in the panels? On and on we were to critique individual pieces of the art in order to determine what significance it could have on the story and it's themes. It was only on the final paper for the work that we were doing that I realized what the point of all of this was: That the illustrations were an intrinsic part of the narrative, and without them the story would not nearly have as much depth as it does. Where flowery details and narrative devices alluded him, author Art Spiegelman instead turned to the visual medium as a substitute to give his story strength comparable to the novels and epics of old. With this realization, I knew then what I know now: That new emerging written mediums are as deserving of the title of "Literature" as the books and plays of old.

The Charcoal

Literature as we currently consider it has existed for millennia, from the original epic poems such as the Ramayana and the Iliad. Emerging from a similar time were the dramas and plays of ancient Greece and Rome, which would influence the plays of the Renaissance. However during the Reformation period, there was a rising Puritanical belief that plays and other forms of entertainment were "sinful" activities that lead to idleness. After this lead to the formal banning of such, they were then disregarded for more "appropriate" activities such as hard work and scripture studying. It was only decades later that this ban was overturned, and with it came a resurgence of both plays and novels, which had begun to spread far and wide with the utilization of the printing press. Combined with the rising literacy rates, people began to further appreciate the written word, where previously most people looked to oral recitation for their stories and histories. Up until the early to mid 19th century, Literature included all written works underneath it's banner, but with the rise of Romanticism came also a bias against works of "imaginative" origin as opposed to more realistic works of the time. It was with this bias that the structured definition of "Literature" began to be formed, which would persist until this very day.

The Fire

Enter the world of today. With recent innovations in printing, data transferal and even recorded video, we have more than twice as many written mediums today as people once had two hundred years ago, in the forms of comics, manga, "graphic novels", "visual novels", etc. And yet, because of the overly structured definitions established by the Romanticists, these forms of written works are not even considered to be of the same importance as the novels and dramas of old. "Comics are for kids," and other such stereotypes have hindered the spread of popularity these mediums have. However, just as the Puritans' ban on entertainment was overturned, it is my hope that such stereotypes and biases can also be done away with eventually.

Maus is just one sample of a large pool of intriguing and analyzing works which have not been seriously considered by the scholars of today, despite their potential value. Does not "V for Vendetta" hold as much value in showing the dangers of a dystopian society as "1984"? Does not "Berserk" go into as much depth on human morality as that fan fiction we call Dante's "Divine Comedy"? And while these mediums certainly do have examples that live up to the Stereotypes, such as with comics coming from the Silver Age, there are still plenty of novels and plays regarded as being worthy of the gutter, most famously in the modern day with books like "Twilight", but which can be seen with novels from the even the time of the Enlightenment (of which I will not link to, because the content within those rare "gems" is astonishing even to my jaded modern mind). All in all, I do not say that the every entry within these mediums are worthy of being put on the same pedestal as Shakespeare's works and the like, but rather that each field of written work has exemplars which are worthy of being placed under the same banner of "Literature" as the classics of old.

Image Credits: 

• "Globe Theatre "Missing Book" obtained via Wikimedia Commons, 
• "Maus" found on Wikipedia

Sources:

• Burgess, Anthony. “Novel.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 5 July 2018, www.britannica.com/art/novel.
• Rexroth, Kenneth. “Literature.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 28 June 2018, www.britannica.com/art/literature.
• Firth, C.H.; Rait, R.S., eds. (1911). "September 1642: Order for Stage-plays to cease". Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum, 1642-1660 London: His Majesty's Stationery Office.