Definition of Literature Literature

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2.2.1 Literature

The first subchapter of the second chapter is talking about literature. Each topic has differences from one another whether viewed by its definition, history, genres and elements. The elaboration of each topic of the first subchapter will be presented as the following description.

2.2.1.1 Definition of Literature

Literature is a writing that expresses and communicates thoughts, feelings, and attitudes towards life. This certainly seems to be expressing thoughts, feelings and attitudes R.J. Rees 1973:2. Hornby 1974:687 also stated that the definition of literature itself is the writing or study as book valued as works of art. Literary works are the basic men’s expression to have certain attitudes towards the circumtance that heshe belong to. Literary works are about how people respond to their surroundings through the poet’s ideas of thought that are expressed in a written way and then it may be performed such as drama, fiction, essay, poetry and biography. Meanwhile, Widdowson 1975:74 also states, “ When a study of literature requires sensitivity, intelligence, precision of response and so on, it brings the readers’ imagination to an unknown territory where familiar sign may be few and where he must often find his own way by following difficult clues.” So by reading a literary work people can enrich their thinking and their mind as reflected in the literary work. It means that literary work has a close relationship with our thought, feeling, and creates emotional impact on its reader’s mind. 11 “As a work of imagination, literature has no limit, but we have to be aware of the danger of forces outside literature. The principal threat to the creative imagination is the attempt to control man’s thoughts” Koesnobroto 1988:5. There are three characteristics of literature according to Koesnosoebroto. First, that literature has power. The use of language in certain piecework of literature may create a powerful impact on the reader’s mind. A work of literature makes use of producing multiplication of images, which sometimes lead people to action Second, literature is also vivid. One of its great achievments is by the power of the written word to make you hear, to make you feel it is before all, to make you see. The last, the language of literature is clear. For example, in the literary description of a character, it is clear that the writer clarifies his definition of a person by showing what he does, why he does it, how he does it, or what he would never do Koesnosoebroto 1988:2 From the explaination above, I conclude that literature may be divided into novels, plays, poetry, short stories, lyrics, essays, biographies and so on. By learning literary works we can enrich our minds because literary works express and communicat thoughts, feelings and attitude towards life.

2.2.2 Poetry