What is Literature and who does it belongs to?

Literature

“It is writing that you want to read even though you have read it before; in fact, it is writing that you want to read all the more, because you have read it before”. (Rainsford 7)

Rainsford and many more literary figures have defined literature in one or the other way, but nearly all definitions fall in any of the following categories.

1. Form and content

2. Imagination and creativity

3. Subjectivity

4. Artistry

5. Greatness

Let us make it a bit simpler, we can simply define it this way “literature is any form of writing that make you thoughtful, happy, sad and sometimes bore”. Literary writing needs some form and content. And literature is not a law chamber where laws and acts are discussed rather literature is something imaginative and creative. It needs description and some artistic touch.

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Literature belongs to

Now why we need literature and for whom the literature has been written? My answer to this question would be, literature belongs to no one in particular and to everyone in general. Writers often hide themselves in their work, while every reader analyses a literary work according to their own perspectives. “Never trust the artist; trust the tale.” (D. H. Lawrence)

So, whenever a poet, a novelist or a storyteller writes something they invent narrators and distance themselves from what is being written. And they put all their load on the shoulders of readers.