Literature vs. literature. As illustrated in the somewhat silly example above, one way we can define what constitutes literature is by identifying what is definitely not literature. Circa 1600, English playwright and poet William Shakespeare (1564-1616). While there may be some debate, most students usually respond that Friedrich's painting is more artistic. Shakespeares is no exception. "Banned Books of Guantnamo: 'An American Slave' by Frederick Douglass." That is one reason why the current study of literature is so exciting. Shakespeares literary and social aspirations are revealed at every turn. The Atlantic, 2000. In the midst of horror, disease, and death, Shakespeare was offering access to a golden world, showing the delights of applying learning for pleasure rather than pointing out the obvious morals to be drawn from classical authors when faced with awful catastrophe. While the definition of little l literature is fairly easy to understand and apply, the definition of Big L Literature remains amorphous. Traditionally Lucrece has been dismissed as a bookish, pedantic dry run for Shakespeares tragedies, in William Empsons phrase, the Bard doing five-finger exercises, containing what F.T. Dont turn the page until you have written them down. Literature is a form of human expression. For one author and scholar's perspective on this topic, please watch this the following TED Talk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to see the ways in which such misrepresentations are harmful, and why it is important to veer away from the historically parochial Canon into what Chinua Achebe calls "a balance of stories" (qtd. The stanza (as in Complaint of Rosamund) is the seven-line rhyme royal (ababbcc) immortalized in Chaucers Troilus and Criseyde (circa 1385) and thereafter considered especially appropriate for tragedy, complaint, and philosophical reflection. Just like a stick figure or cartoon character might be perfectly fine if intended for a particular audience or purpose, readers can still enjoy People Magazine even though it is not of the same literary quality as Hamlet. Accessed 6 September 2019. The consequent disjointedness expresses a form of psychological verisimilitude by the standards of Shakespeares day, where discontinuity and repetition were held to reveal the inner state of a speaker. Poetics, his teacher Plato also offered an extended critique and definition of the role of literature in society in his dialogues The Republic and The Symposium. Works often achieve public prominence or survive based on qualities unrelated to skill or aesthetics, such as an author's fame, wealth, connections, or acceptance by the dominant culture. She lives in you and in me, and in many other women who are not here tonight, for they are washing up the dishes and putting the children to bed. (Photo by Stock Montage/Getty Images), Hark, hark! He was baptized in Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon on April 26, 1564, his mothers third child, but the first to survive infancy. Yet Shakespeares linguistic performance extends beyond the middling sort. He was a great popularizer, translating court art and high artJohn Lyly, Sidney, Edmund Spenserinto palatable and sentimental commercial forms. In it a young writer courts respectability and patronage. For our intents and purposes of defining most terms in this textbook, we will use the Oxford English Dictionarys definitions. At the age of 18, in November 1582, he married Anne Hathaway, daughter of a local farmer. Others have looked more closely at Thorpe, at Benson, and at the circulation of Shakespeares verse in the manuscript culture: these investigations have led to a reexamination of the ideas of authorship and authority in the period.
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definition of literature according to shakespeare