"What is Literature?": A Literary Guide for English Students and Teachers

If you enjoyed the video, please let us know by hitting the like button, asking a question, or sharing your thoughts on these definitions of literature in the comments section. Thanks for watching, everybody!

I like her outfit tbh

Very nice madam

The use of white” and “male” exudes a belief in exclusion

Which just isn’t true. From the Brontes to Austen, English women have always been part of the canon.

Women just recently gained an interest, and much of the rest of the world have no indigenous literature.

Finally!I didn't get exact topic what she talking about.

Mi no spico inglish

Literature is fiction told in the vocabulary of our dreams

I am going to teach Language Arts. How to know whether the student has read the whole book or the summary&analysis on the Internet. I think the last one is worse than plagiarism. Though my question is not dirrectly related to the video I'd still appreciate any insights.

It is good to question our predecessors, but I have yet to see this done in a coherent, logical and intelligible fashion. Some in academia today may desire to have modern literature and certain of our favorite texts to be included in a new canon, but the primary purpose of a canon is not to confine ourselves in our reading, but to expand our awareness of what is possible. This video does a pretty good job of explaining some of this. It is problematic however, in its basic argument about why the canon has become more inclusive to modern writers as well as "diverse" writers. The fact that white males were selecting much of what we think of as the canon, does not mean their standards were incorrect. It could mean that. But the color of their skin is an insufficient reason to write them off. In fact, it is racist. Critical Race Theory is essentially the same as any previous racist theory that claims we should make judgments on any other criteria other than content of character.

Mortimer Adler may have had white skin, that doesn't mean his canonical list of great works is false or improper. It could be that his is the best set of books to gain a liberal education in the West, thus leading to a better understanding of where we are as individuals and a culture today. This can help us better integrate newer voices who may be reacting to the canon and a feeling of non-inclusion. This racist view that white people are incapable of setting proper standards is lazy thinking. If you are going to attack the canon, give an actual argument. It is not an argument to say "they so white."

I would say the text stands on its own merit the nationality and race of the author is irrelevant a well written work with layers of interpretation and universal themes makes it literature there’s no escaping the subjectivity of any definition but we need one. standing the test of time would mean something endures, this means that it isn’t just a work for the style of the day it could be popular or unpopular adding to the cannon makes the most sense to me

Dizem que a literatura é escrita...
Esquecem-se da literatura oral e tradicional.
Esquecem-se das origens da literatura.

Na atualidade, há escritores que apenas falam (têm assistentes para fazerem a transcrição).
A literatura voltou às suas origens.

Portanto, a literatura pode ser oral ou escrita. 🤗

When saw a beautiful thing
Brain goes into a dig
Which is made by heart
You are a defination of glory
That is what I needed.
But unfortunately the heart forget to
Close the dig.

Just a few lines from my heart for you ma'am.

Horrible definition . This is not for students in high-school.

Could you point to a critical work that centralises Irony as the literary touchstone? (Are you referring to someone like J Hillis Miller?) Thank you.

this was such a helpful explanation thank you 🙏🙏🙏🙏

اريدتعلم الغه الانكليزيه بليز

Nice explanation minus the swipe at white males.

Thank you for the thought provoking video!

I have been wrestling with the question “What is Literature?” lately and this video has helped push me further into the camp of “There is no objective answer”.

I think that with the help of the internet and globalization, it’s becoming more evident that while actions and events can possess objectivity, the meaning we make as humans can only ever be subjective.

Historically, it seems like describing a work as “Literary” feels more like a synonym for “valuable”. Value that is placed on a text either by the public, or by critics and committees, and sometimes both. Literature is a buzz word that elite committees used to push works that they believed to be (morally) superior; put plainly, Literature can’t exist without bias. Furthering my claim that the Literature label is elitist, considering Literature to be books that sell the most for the longest stretches of time pushes out indie novelists/publishers from participating in Literary discourse as well.

All this being said, I still do have a personal metric for defining Literature: my partner and I both read Literature and we like to joke that Literature is when “nothing happens” in the story. It’s just emotional writing about people and places and the things that happen to them. There’s no framework for a plot in that there’s no defined win/lose state for the characters. Trying to predict the ending of a Literary work is missing the point of the story entirely. In other words, Literature is sort of like “life on a page”.

Good video! I’m interested to see how our perception of Literature changes in the coming years.

Literature = posh writing that like gives us knowledge and stuff cause like value is subjective and stuff oh and some typical CRT stuff cause feelings and stuff.

Loss

I feel like my brain cells are extending alot
(like litterally expanding)

did she get Jouissance mixed up with the sublime?

There is nothing inherently wrong with novels written by white people or males, the issue is that there has been less variety of literary authors in the past than there is today, but that does not take away from those works that came before. Your statement sounds racist and sexist as it stands.
The issue is what hasn’t been not what has.

Your videos are really what makes things interesting and understandable... Can we expect one on literary periods, pls

I SO appreciated this video because, as a literary multi-genre novelist, I've been feeling like the odd man out. I've been told that my work will be appreciated after I'm dead, but that gives me little comfort. However, it's good to know that there really is no consensus on what constitutes literature, good or otherwise. SUBSCRIBED

For some reason, watching this video made me think of the issues brought up in Dave Hickey's book Air Guitar: Essays on Art and Democracy.

Hii, im trying to write an essay about this topic but cant seem to find any resources. Where did you find the thing about literature vs Literature please?

The very hungry caterpillar is definitely literary.

Really enjoyed

Thank you so much for this excellent video, all the best!

✌✌

Great!!! You've regarded the subject from multiple different angles which help us get acquainted with the ins and outs of the topic. But there are intrinsic and extrinsic factors to be taken for granted to decide which texts are literature.

Carefully explained

The first minute of the video is almost the same explanation that was given to us by our professor in literature when I was in college. The rest of it is an expansion of what I already know and at some point, I came to realize that there are more things that I haven't stumbled upon before in the introduction of lit.

Thanks a lot and I hope you produce more content for both language and literature subjects

It's really amazing!! ❤️ Want on topic like How to read critically, close reading or how to read the text effectively

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