Is a Literature Review the Same as an Abstract
For many folks, the word "literature" conjures up memories of high schoolhouse English class reading lists. While the Western literary canon is expanding to include, and elevate, stories outside of what white, Western readers have dubbed "the classics," in that location are yet some works that crop up in every student's career, from Frankenstein and the Epic of Gilgamesh to Beloved and The Swell Gatsby. And then, why is literature of import — and why exercise we study information technology?
Merriam-Webster defines literature every bit poetry or prose that has "excellence of class or expression and expressing ideas of permanent or universal interest." While it may audio trite to say, the world'southward greatest works of literature have changed minds, sparked rebellions, and helped to change the course of history. While information technology would be incommunicable to contain all of literature'due south contributions and multitudes here, we're going to take a expect at some of the landmark moments in this art grade'southward history.
Literature Transports Usa To the Past
Similar other recovered art objects, literature has the power to tell us about ancient civilizations. Not only tin can we understand their customs, values and lives, but nosotros can get a better idea of what their entertainment looked like. The first-known examples of literature can be traced dorsum to ancient Mesopotamia. Around 3400 BCE, the Sumerians developed a system of writing chosen cuneiform, which allowed scribes to record myths, hymns and poetry. Some of these earliest-known transcriptions include the "Kesh Temple Hymn" and the "Instructions of Shuruppak," both of which were written effectually 2500 BCE.
The Epic of Gilgamesh, a long-form Mesopotamian poem, was originally written around 2100 BCE. Even today, Gilgamesh is considered the first peachy masterpiece of world literature. In fact, much of the Bible parallels this aboriginal work, furthering emphasizing just how universal and influential Gilgamesh was — and continues to exist today.
In 375 BCE, Plato, the Athenian philosopher, authored The Republic, a dialogue between Socrates and his swain Greek thinkers, which explores thought-provoking questions nigh justice, club and the simply man. And, around the eighth century BCE, the landmark epics attributed to the poet Homer, The Odyssey and The Iliad, helped preserve Greek mythology and history in writing.
Literature Helps Us Reevaluate Our Worlds
Early on, literature was contained within poesy and dramatic works — after all, performing plays was another not bad source of entertainment. During the 11th century, or the Heian menses, Japanese noblewoman and lady-in-waiting Murasaki Shikibu penned The Tale of Genji, which is considered the showtime modern novel by many scholars.
Years later on, in Europe, things started to shift in a meaningful way in the wake of Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, a collection of 24 stories written in Eye English between 1387 and 1400. Picking up the prose torch around 1485, Thomas Malory published Le Morte d'Arthur, one of the showtime novels in the Western canon. During the Renaissance, writers similar Molière began satirizing everything from the church and government to society at large, showing that written works had the propensity to shift the remainder of power and brand people rethink their globe views.
During the 16th century, besides known as the Ming dynasty, the Chinese novel Journeying to the Due west was published. Attributed to Wu Cheng'en, this satire- and allegory-filled work is considered i of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature. Around the aforementioned time, William Shakespeare was helping to lay the foundations of modern English and craft the literary tropes and story formats we still relish today. And, of course, in 1615 Miguel de Cervantes penned Don Quixote, a romantic, archetypal novel that's considered one of the most influential works of all time.
Literature Gives Folks a Voice and Platform — and Let's Readers Encounter Themselves Reflected
Once more, information technology's impossible to fully encapsulate the latitude of literary history hither. Moreover, this commodity focuses on written works, merely it's important to notation that many cultures and groups of people record stories through imagery instead — or pass their stories down in oral traditions. All of this to say, our view of literature is a narrow one, and, in many means, limited by the way educational institutions take shaped our agreement of what works are important.
James Simpson, caput of Harvard Academy's English Department, spoke most these limitations directly in an open letter to the Wall Street Journal entitled "Swell Literature Magnifies Repressed Voices, E'er." For Simpson, the ages-old Western literary canon, which highlights the literary contributions of white (and frequently straight) men, "betray[s] the fundamental function of literature and other art forms, which is to hear the voices repressed by official forms of a given culture."
Of course, the literary canon has been refreshed in past, which proves that it's important to reshape and rethink the stories we deem essential. For example, at the fourth dimension of its writing Nathaniel Hawthorne'southward The Scarlet Letter of the alphabet was kind of the scandalous (easily consumable) HBO-like story of the day. Only, now, it'southward largely considered a probing, essential piece of work — not but entertainment. In the wake of World War I, authors like Virginia Woolf and F. Scott Fitzgerald penned novels, similar Mrs. Dalloway and The Great Gatsby respectively, that captured their disillusionment showtime and foremost. Even so, these continue to be must-read works due to the fashion they exemplify craft and storytelling elements. (At to the lowest degree in part.)
More than modern literature too ushered in the more formal notion of literary sub-genres, ranging from scientific discipline fiction — a genre created past Frankenstein author Mary Shelley — to romance, fantasy, and realism. By retracing certain tropes, conventions and graphic symbol types, genre helps us empathise the way particular stories are shaped by categorizing them.
Without a doubt, literature helps us uncover — be it an uncovering of the past, a present self, or a possible future. The virtually distinguished literary greats, similar Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Margaret Atwood, James Baldwin, Kazuo Ishiguro, Chinua Achebe, Jhumpa Lahiri, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Zadie Smith, and Maggie Nelson (and many, many more than folks we don't have the space to name!), capture all of these facets. In short, by climbing into the minds of other characters and worlds — in stepping outside of ourselves — literature allows u.s. to understand universal truths; alter minds; stir empathy; and express our identities and values in lasting, far-reaching ways.
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Source: https://www.reference.com/world-view/importance-literature-society-1a66a3cd21a90dd8?utm_content=params%3Ao%3D740005%26ad%3DdirN%26qo%3DserpIndex
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