The question of “What is Literature?

” has been argued upon numerous times, by

scholars and researchers, yet, still remains conclusion less, because none of the
answers seems to cover everything that can be called “literature”. Terry Eagleton’s
say, is one of the most known writing about Literature.

The initial thing that comes to mind when thinking about literature according to
Eagleton’s, is the aspect of fact vs. fiction. Some believe that literature is
“imaginative” writing; therefore claiming that literature is not a very factual writing.
Although this distinction is not completely right. As Terry Eagleton says comics are
fiction but not regarded as literature. We can hence understand that literature refers to
“imaginative writing” isn't a very useful result.

If literature shall not refer simply to what is imaginative or fictional writing, maybe it
connects to a certain unique use of language. Literature hence could be seen as a
deviation from the usual language we speak. This concept according to Eagleton is a
formal view of literature. In total, the focus was not on the content but rather on form.
The formalists only portrayed literature as a specific part of language. Formalism as
Eagleton says was only the use of linguistics to the study of literature. Content was
hence not primary to the formalists. This say of concept of literature is criticised by
literary theorist Terry Eagleton. He refuses the claim that literature is a special kind of
language, imply the existence of a normal or ordinary language; while, according to
Eagleton, the say that there is such a thing as a normal language distributed equally in
all members of society is an illusion. To say, the formalistic logic of literature, or as
said by Eagleton of literariness, was in connected to the various relations between one
sort and another; which in itself is not a given property.

Another problem again with this say is that it views the way in which something is
said as being more essential than what is actually told. That is if we decide to claim
literature non-pragmatically, we can leave behind any objective definition of
literature, because as said by Eagleton, we are also forgetting the meaning of literature
to how somebody decides to read the nature of what is written. Eagleton goes on on
his discussion and adds that any piece of writing can be read non- pragmatically‟, as
any text can be read „poetically‟. Therefore, literature cannot be judged as being
simply a discourse that must be read “non-practically”.

However, value-judgements basically have a much to do with how we are to see

something as literature or not literature. This makes Eagleton to say that there is
absolutely no proper definition of literature on it's own. That there is no such piece of
writing that is aptly literary. We can only get that since literature has a much to do
with judgements, mostly value judgements, and as values refers to whatever is valued
by particular people in specific instances, according to specific criteria and in the light
of given reasons, we understand the very crucial line suggested by Eagleton when he
says that “all literary works… are rewritten only if unconsciously by the people who
read them. As a matter of fact there is no reading of work which is not also a re-
writing. This is in fact a very brilliant point made by Eagleton, we can assume that no
part of literature can be dissected to a number of people without being changed; and
this is why literature remains an unstable topic.

We've experienced how various evaluations of defining literature lead to one and
another, only to get us viewing literature as an unstable affair that can never be
described in an objective manner. Yet the saying that what we tend to view as
literature has much to do with value judgements, is a very fascinating one, as we can
understand that ideology has much to do with what we view as „literature. Put more
openly, we can claim that the social groups in power needs us to consider some piece
of writings as literature and others as not. This can only make us to think that by
reading what a certain people claims as „literature‟ we may assume a lot about them.
We also get that for literature to be under so much non definable ideas, then it might
only have a very serious impression on the reproduction of social inequalities, for
whom there are always something at stake.
Run Lola Run, a German film directed by Tom Tykwer, may be a thriller that talks
about a woman named Lola trying to get enough money in twenty minutes to rescue
her boyfriend. The film follows Lola's journey showing three different scenes of her
rescuing plan. While Lola changes her paths and plans every time, people she
encounters also receive distinct consecutive consequences resulted either from time or
behavioural differences. Although the rescuing is motivated by a sense of affection,
the film doesn't focus on the love bond between the both, Lola and Manni. The life
changing twists of these who meet with and travel by Lola within the film show the
interrelationship and importance instances, decision and fate. during this paper, i will
be able to discuss how the film deals with realism in an unrealistic setting. Having the
restart button isn't a concrete case, but the teachings of creating decisions, learning
from mistakes, living with surprises and running against the clock are genuine. Life
comes with many crucial moments. With one decision has been made, it'll cause a
special life path. Tom Tykwer deals with the importance of deciding within the film.
In the limited time, he chooses to use several photo collages to portray different fates.
as an example, the wife with a stroller who gets her own baby removed decides to
steal another person's baby within the first scenario. The photo collages show her
love , her frustration after baby is removed and her sick excitement seeing another
baby. within the second scenario, the montages again indicate moments with strong
emotions like showing off the lottery ticket, overloaded happiness after winning the
lottery and clams and satisfaction after owning the sudden wealth. an equivalent
montage technique applies to the biker and therefore the hallway lady also, showing
their love stories or suicides in several scenarios. Whatsoever their fates are, the photo
collages catch the important moments, the moments with heavy emotions that show
how they perceive their decisions. Happy or sad or hopeful or disappointed, the
moments are their turning points of life a bit like the wife decides to measure in an
unhealthy moments, the moments with intense feeling that show how they perceive
their decisions. Happy or sad or hopeful or disappointed, the moments are their
turning points of life a bit like the wife decides to measure in an unhealthy
relationship or deciding to shop for a lottery. She lives with an equivalent man and
therefore the same kid in two scenarios, but her decisions make an enormous
difference. The technique cuts straight to the points in fleeting speed where it conveys
that sometimes it's just a matter of a fleeting moment which will ultimately determine
a life path.
The reason why an author chooses a selected literary device or metaphor is because
the method develops our abilities to parse a text for meaning and fill within the gaps in
information by ourselves. Also, as an addendum, the explanation we study literary
analysis is because everything an author writes has meaning whether it absolutely was
intentional or not and their biases and agendas are often reflected in their choice of
language and literary devices and then forth. for instance , the racist and anti semantic
dog whistles often employed by the right wing or the subconscious word choices
which will unintentionally illustrate someone’s bias or blind spot.Language has
weight and meaning , the way we communicate may be a reflection of our inner selves
and that’s true no matter whether it’s a short story or a novel or a blog post or simply
a tweet , assuming that there's no deeper meaning or thought behind the words on the
page we should always ask ourselves these questions instead :
what's the author trying to mention ?
What does the author maybe not realise they're saying?
Because the foremost interesting reading of any piece of literature is that it always
occupies the space in between those questions.