What is Literature?

-By Terry Eagleton

Terry Eagleton in his essay challenges all the definitions of Literature that have been set forth and

questions the basic understanding of literature.

He begins his essay by defining literature as an imaginative writing. The works by Shakespeare,

Milton, etc were considered to be imaginative writings. But in the seventeenth century literature

consisted of works other than imaginative writings such as essays by Francis Bacon, sermons by John

Donne, etc. There was no clear distinction between fact and fiction. Both factual and fictional events

were incorporated in the novels of the 16th and 17th century. Even the news events were not

considered purely facts. He also adds that if literature is considered to be only about factual events

then, certain texts like Mills and boon, Superman comics, etc should be not regarded as literature. “If

literature is ‘creative’ and ‘imaginative’ writing, does this imply that history, philosophy and natural

science are uncreative and unimaginative.” Eagleton questions the idea of defining Literature as

imaginative writing.

After exposing the faults of definition of Literature as fiction, Eagleton talks about the use of language

in peculiar ways which is different from the daily conversation in literature. He says that the

languages used in literary texts intensifies and complicates the normal way of speech. Russian critic

Roman Jackobson speaks Literature as “organised violence committed on ordinary speech”. By

bringing such distinctiveness the language draws attention itself. Eagleton links this definition with

that of the Russian Formalism.

Russian Formalists started seeing the literary works more subjective. Instead of focusing on the

content they gave emphasis on the structure of the work. They found the text as an ‘assemblage of

devices’ such as imagery, sound, rhythm, syntax, metre, etc. Formalists used these literary devices to

‘defamilarize’ elements in the text. Language made the elements unfamiliar and strange and makes

the world renew. This kind of estrangement helps in the better understanding of the works. He says
that “Most of the time we breathe in air without being conscious of it: like language, it is the medium

in which we move. But if the air is suddenly thickened or infected we are forced to attend to or

breathing with a new vigilance and the effect of this may be a heightened experience of our bodily

life.” Eagleton states that Formalists would not entitle the normal language as literature because they

are not estranging. They considered this type of estranging as a deviation from the norm.

The Formalists viewed literature as a special kind of language in contrast to the ordinary language.

The main drawback is that there is no universal ordinary language. In other words, the normal way of

speaking language differs in different culture, space, religion, status, etc. Eagleton says “One person’s

norm may be another deviation”. Thereafter the unfamiliarity of an event does not necessarily be

strange to another. Thus the whole idea of defamiliarizing becomes problematic. In the essay Eagleton

states such difference by saying “Anyone who believes that ‘literature’ can be defined by such special

uses of language has to face the fact that there is more metaphor in Manchester than in Marvel”. Also

he says that the concept of defamiliarizing becomes problematic when the text is read in a strange

manner. For example, a drunken man may see the hidden and deeper meanings and make sense of the

hoardings and road signs in a different way. Thus he concludes that any kind of writing can be

considered estranging.

Then the essay discusses literature as a non-pragmatic discourse. “Unlike biology textbooks and notes

to the milkman it serves no immediate practical purpose, but is to be taken as referring to a general

state of affairs. By this definition, Eagleton states the way a written text occupy more preference than

what the text actually says. For example, if a poet talks about a woman lovely as a rose then as readers

we understand that the poet is talking in general about woman in love. It’s the reader who prefers to

form a sensible meaning from the text. Eagleton claims that this method of defining literature is very

fragile in nature because a text can be interpreted in many different meaning according to the reader.

Thus the way of defining the text non-practically becomes problematic. Eagleton says that a reader

can read Gibbons account on Roman Empire more likely as a prose work than as an information

piece.
Now Eagleton considers literature as a writing which is highly valued. But again the value system

varies according to the culture, status, religion, etc and it changes from time to time. “The so called

‘literary canon’, the unquestioned ‘great tradition’ of the ‘national literature’, has to be recognised as a

construct, fashioned by particular people for particular time. There is no such thing as a literary work

or tradition which is valuable in itself, regardless of what anyone might have said or come to say

about it”. Value judgements can’t be stable and it is subject to change. Thereafter any work can be

considered literature because of the varying value judgements. Eagleton’s last attempt to define

literature is related with one’s ideology. He says that one’s ideology depends upon how we as readers

perceive the text. With the help of Practical Criticism Eagleton shows the influence of one’s ideology

in the way of interpretation. He discusses about the exercise given to the students to analyse a poem

plainly. Each student came with different interpretation according to their respective ideologies. Thus

he says that interpreting literature based on ideologies is not proper and complete.

Eagleton’s attempt to define the literature is flawed. He concludes by saying that defining literature is

subjective. Literature is too broad to define or to categorise. He claims that generally people tend to

define literature based on their value judgements but such definitions remains problematic and he

concludes one definition to literature will be subjective.

NAMITHA SUSAN JOSE

IInd M.A. English
16PEN11