Learning Experience 1: What is literature?

When I signed up for this class, I had no idea what it would be about. I had heard from other students who had previously taken it that it was engaging, the teacher was great, and that they looked forward to going to class. Consequently, this was the first class I signed up for that was based heavily on other people’s opinions, with little information on the actual content of the course. From a requirement standpoint, this class filled multiple, and on these whims, I enrolled.

Defining this class was not only hard for me, but as I learned in class this past week, hard for many people. What is literature? What is civilization? Both terms are vague, and rely on previous education, context, and experiences. There is no set definition for either term. For the first activity in class, my partner and I asked random people around TCU how they would define literature and civilization. As expected, there were mixed responses, providing no clear answer as to what these words mean, or any insight as to what this class would focus on.

As our discussion and exploration of these words progressed throughout the week, I learned that literature is dependent upon the reader. It is his/her response that gives it literary value. Furthermore, this response is based on each person’s specific values which are created through a personal, specific context. For example, a map of my home state, Colorado, has value to me but may be useless and have no literary value to someone who lives in Florida. This concept can apply to any piece of writing as there are “no inherent properties or qualities” that distinguish one piece as literature over another. In other words, anything can be literature.

The idea that literature is defined based on how the reader responds to it intrigued me. Instinctively, I would not have described literature this way due simply to the fact that awards are given for the best literary works, specific reading lists are assigned through school, and curriculums are designed based on attempts to be “well read”.  

After this class period, I have realized that the idea of certain writing pieces being classified as literature over others may have been influenced by the values and atmospheres I was brought up in. First, my mom is an eighth grade English teacher, my grandma taught high school AP literature classes, and I have an aunt and uncle who are ESL teachers. Needless to say, I have been surrounded by people providing me with new books every Christmas, and pushing ideals of what books and pieces of writing are more significant than others.

Additionally, there are certainly factors that make some pieces of writing more appealing or that hold more academic value to teach. Just because one book is taught more often than another, does not mean that it fits the definition of literature better than the other. This was also a realization I came to after this discussion.

In summary, this learning experience led me to examine my own literary and academic upbringing in response to how I classify literature. I recognized that personal context and values play a larger role in how information is perceived, regardless of how those around me view it. Value is created by people in specific situations, and the interpretation of it is how we define literature, something I never would have considered prior to this class.