PSY 3010 Lecture Notes - Lecture 21: The American Heritage Dictionary Of The English Language, The Open Definition
Document Summary
People have been attempting to define the word literature for as long as there have been people to write or speak. Every definition that is attempted brings up contradictions and questions. The american heritage dictionary defines literature as: the body of written works of a language, period, or culture. Etymologically, the term derives from the latin literatura/litteratura: "writing formed with letters. " Lots of stories and songs were passed along orally until they were eventually written down. Take a slave song from the early 1800"s. Most slaves were not allowed to read or write, and so they passed these songs to each other orally, not through writing. Yet these are some of the most cherished early american literature texts we have. These genres are made to be expressed orally, and while they might be written down, they are really oral literatures.
