The Nature of Literary

THE NATURE OF LITERATURE

An essay by Siti Nur Khayati

Study English in university level whether in English education or English literature, we always find literature, but what actually literature itself? Why we must study literature while we study language? So let’s discuss about the nature of literature.

From the last literary class I got some definition about literature. Literature is sometimes defined as anything written (any writing, and verbal works of arts). It has a sense of entertaining display and provides pleasure education to understanding life. Literature may consist of texts based on factual information and fiction. It can be classified: informative, and imaginative literature. And I have my own definition of the literature. Literature is used to describe anything from creative writing to more technical or scientific works, but the term is most commonly used to refer to works of the creative imagination including works of poetry, drama, fiction, and nonfiction.

There are a lot of kinds of literary works. Let’s discuss about some of them. According to Ursula Le Guin there are some kinds of literature:

-          An autobiography is the story of a person’s life written or told by that person.

-          A biography is the story of a person’s life written told by another person.

-          A fable is a story that teachers a moral or a lesson. It often has animal characters.

-          Fantasy novels are often set in worlds much different from our own and usually include magic, sorcery and mythical creature.

-          A folktale is a story that has been passed down, usually orally, within a culture. It may be based on superstition and feature supernatural characters. Folktales include fairy tales, tall tales, trickster tales and other stories passed down over generations.

-          A legend is story that has been handed down over generations and is believed to be based on history, though it typically mixes fact and fiction. The hero of legend is usually a human.

-          A myth is a traditional story that a particular culture or group once accepted as sacred and true. It may center on God or supernatural being and explain how something came to be, such as lighting or music or the world itself.

-          Science fiction stories examine how science and technology affect the world. The books often involve fantasy inventions that may be reality in the future.

That is one of reference about kinds of literature. Actually different source it’s become different argument, but what we are going to study is general kinds of literature which often learn in study literature. There are poetry, prose, and drama.

Poetry is creative writing who definite rhythm and rhyme and consists of some stanzas that build by some lines. History, journalism, philosophy, fiction and fantasy writings, scientific writings, children’s literature authors and writers are included in Prose Literature. Drama is a composition which is in the form of a dialogue.

Because there are many literary works so we can appreciate them with understanding and mastery the form and content of a literary work. The way to appreciate is understand the idea or information, and also we can perform in many ways, such as discuss the elements of a literary work, write a note on certain aspect, re-cite poems, short stories, and performing drama on a stage. To understand the literary work we must study the language (word meaning), study the structures of a literary work, and study some approaches. Approach to literary study is relation to its background, the author, its reader, other literature, an as an Entity in itself.

After discuss about literary work, we can take the advantages of them. Such, literary works are authentic sources on how language is used as it is and teach us about life; it enrich our experience of life. With reading literature sharpens our soul and it make us wiser.