What is the point of Literature?

That was the question for yesterday's Spiral Inquiry, asked by Pathma,

Truth be told it was a messy one.

Two key contentions remained in the discussion before the rain came and chased up away from our Al-Fresco dining haunt at Singapore Art Museum's Dome Cafe. How do we define literature, and what exactly did we mean by point?

Literature you see is historically a touchy subject because it has always been in the middle of a lot of disciplines. Leo Tolstoy worked voraciously in the public sphere while writing his books, others like Dostoevsky were thrown in jail for their political work, some philosophical works were used as a backdrop for intellectual thought processes like Goethe's faust.

With it's broad reach to influence so many aspects of society, naturally there were differing views of what was literature and how should we discuss how it should be used.

Would it be fair to say that twilight is literature? Does a significant mass of readers mean that a book be termed literature?

Others disagreed and said that books that stand the test of time were a better gauge of reflecting human complexity and hence better representing what is literature.

Others said if we had enough empirical data we could theoretically work out the framework of what is literature, least to say, that truly evoked a sense of incredulousness amongst some of the audience. Of course this "reductionist" view point is questioning the virtues of literature in today's age.

It seemed that there was a underlying notion that a piece of "literature" had to be a work of writing that evokes a emotional response from it's intended audience. But because we weren't really able to put a needle on it, Kit, one of the Spiral regulars suggested we completely give up trying to define literature and rather just look at what it's implications on societies are.

The rain came and the discussion had to be stopped. There was a rueful look of contemplation on many people's faces as we realized that there was much more to be understood in what we were trying to discuss.

Some of us mused, whether the question was really much simpler, "What is the point of reading classics."

We really don't know. And we would like to hear from you. If the response is significant enough Plato's Cave will have another event on this question. We call it the Focus Inquiry.

And we look forward to that Inquiry as well.

Comments

[dekrazee1]

Sounds like you guys were working off a very narrow definition of literature? Just the classics?
So the question doesn't apply to modern lit? Or are modern works not part of literature?