REPORT ON

”THE MAKING OF LITERATURE”

 While studying literature and relating it with criticism, we come to know
that “Literary criticism is the comparison, analysis, interpretation, and/or
evaluation of works of literature”. Although criticism may include some of
the following elements in order to support an idea, literary criticism is not a
plot summary, a biography of the author, or simply finding fault with the
literature. The critic's specific purpose may be to make valuable judgments
on a work to explain his or her interpretation of the work or to provide other
readers with relevant historical or biographical information. The critic's
general purpose, is to enrich the reader's understanding of the literary work.
This book “THE MAKING OF LITERATURE” deals with the topics that
tells about the history of how critics emphasized or judged the works of
other writers. In the beginning we came across certain examples of artistical
judgments like carpenter’s chair or lump of flesh and blood. We have to
think that what the plan of an artist is when he makes something. What he
wants to show with his creations. How his created things impresses the
people who view it. Everything that is created has a reason over it. To
understand deeply we should have a knowledge of art and literature. Art can
be defined as the expression of creative skill in a visual form. On the other
hand, Literature refers to written works regarded as having artistic merit.
The key difference between art and literature is that while art generally tends
to be visual and auditory, literature is not. It is based on texts. Literature is
something that means we have an insight knowledge of some work.
Literature means to teach and to delight according to Philip Sydney. It has
been said that literature has no end, it can be judged only on aesthetic
grounds. It was the time of Greek people i.e. before Plato. The tyrants had
gone, aristocracies and democracies had risen or fallen. Plato criticized on
the language of poetry and he says that it is written in the modern way and it
has no realistic element. Rustic life, Homeric period and Greek civilizations
were also discussed at the time of Plato. Plato didn’t prove himself a better
poet than poets or a better literary critic than other literary critics. In his
book, THE REPUBLIC he discussed about subject, idea and goodness of a
poem or poetry. Those who are good poets are good teachers as well. He
disapproves poetry being a moralist because he says that it is immoral. He
 disapproves poetry being a philosopher because he says that it is based on
falsehood. It doesn’t show true picture. He says that the artist is concerned
with the appearance only. Here presents a difference between appearance
and reality. Some things are beautiful and impressive from the appearance
but ugliest from inside. He says that with our five senses we should know
the reality of thing or the creations of an artist.
 Furthermore, Aristotle’s poetics been discussed in which we have the
concept of tragedy, comedy and epic. He begins with explaining the types
of poetry, structure of a good poetry and how to use poetry in a proper
manner. He says that poetry is an art of imitation. He says that tragedy
contains 6 elements; plot, character, thought, diction and style, melody and
spectacle. He says that plot is the most important element of a tragedy
because it is a soul of tragedy. He basically compares tragedy with an epic
poetry. After Plato and Aristotle, James discussed about DANTE in which
he acknowledges his reader about the writer of 13th century who wrote about
divine comedy and told his readers that what kind of language he uses in his
work. According to Dante, language should be powerful enough which
could convince his readers. The language can be of vulgar tongue; it should
be the language of culture, expression, thought and he relates Latin and
Italian writers here. He also relates his work with that of Christina Rossetti.
 Scott James also discusses about Ben Johnson who gave the concept of
immortality.