What is Literature?

What is   Literature?

Literature . . . . ? There are many critics who have various views regarding this particular term. There is not any specific definition that defies what exactly literature is. Literature represents society in a way which shows the behavior of the people. It also represents the human psyche and his or her inner struggle towards life. Sometimes literature conveys moral message or displays the cruel image of the society. It seldom represents the imaginative world of the writer. As Terry Eagleton said about imaginative writing of literature….

“Imaginative writing in the sense of fiction-writing which is not literally true.”

So the writer only shares his imagination in the terms of writing. He also creates the imaginative world which is completely different from the original one. Somewhere this imaginative writing in literature represents the inner world of the human being. In this way, we are convinced to read the thing which is not possible in the real world. We accept this imaginative world of the writer. As E. M. Forster said,

“What is wonderful about great literature is that it transforms the man who reads it towards the condition of the man who wrote.”