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Literature

Written works which have a particular subject matter can all be considered to be literature. Literature is a subject which many people have to take in high school or college in order to pass into the next grade. It is often a required subject for at least one year in high school. The word literature can be translated to mean, “acquaintance with letters”, or in the western culture, literature consists of basic literary types which include prose and poetry, fiction, and also non-fiction. If it is written in a book, and is about any given subject, it can be considered to be literature, whether it is true or not. Many people and cultures acknowledge literature with different opinions as to its meaning.

Literature can consist of history of countries or beliefs. It can be a collection of texts of a certain subject or a series of books from a certain author. It can be a collection of a subject such as poetry, which can include many different authors. Literature is something that covers a vast area of information, whether it be numbers, text, or graphs or maps. Good examples of literature may be the Ancient Greek writings such as the Iliad of Homer, or the Hebrew Bible, or even the Persian Shahnama. Others may be Beowolf, and even the Constitution of the United States is a form of literature.

If you can learn anything from texts, maps, graphs, etc. and it is written down, it can be considered literature. Some have a view of different forms of literature such as literary fiction and literary merit. These distinguish the difference between individual works. Some consider works such as those by Charles Dickens, as literature, but the same people may consider the works of Jeffery Archer and not good enough to be considered literature. They claim that the works of Jeffery Archer contained bad grammar and syntax, as well as inconsistent characters. Fiction such as romance, crime, and science fiction may also not be considered as literature.

Some of the fiction which can be considered to be literature are, prose poetry, free verse, mini saga, flash fiction, short stories, and fiction containing more than 50,000 words and falls into the category of a novel. Prose essays consist of discussions of topics from an author’s personal point of view. The works of Michel de Montaigne gives him the title of the father of prose essays. Drama is a play or drama and is another form of literature. Oral literature is literature which is not written and includes poetry, epics, and drama.

More information about literature and how to distinguish literature from non literature can be found online. There are many differing opinions on this subject, so there may be no right or wrong in these opinions.

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