In most cases, literature is referred to as the entirety of written expression, with the restriction that not every written text can be categorized as literature in the more exact sense of the words. Some people define literature as the art of written works.
Etymologically, the Latin word ‘litteratura’ is derived from ‘littera’ (letter), which is the smallest element of alphabetical writing. The word text is related to ‘textile’ and can be translated as ‘fabric’, since as single threads form a fabric, words and sentences form a meaningful and coherent text. The origins of the two central terms are not of great help in defining literature or text; it’s just derived us to look at literature or text as cultural and historical phenomena and to investigate the conditions of their product.
Literary production is certainly the human wishes to leave behind a trace of oneself through creative expression, which will exists detached from the individual and therefore, outlast its creator. The earliest remain of this creative wish are prehistoric paintings in caves, which hold ‘encoded’ information in the form of visual signs. Not only the visual, but also the acoustic element, the spoken word, is an integral part of literature, for the alphabet translates spoken words into signs. Before writing developed as a system of signs, ‘text’ was passed on orally. Audio-literature and the lyrics of songs display the acoustic features of literary phenomena.
Genre, text type and discourse
Literary criticism resorts to the concept of evolution (development) and to criteria of classification to distinguish various genres. The term genre usually refers to one of the three classical literary forms; epic, drama or poetry. Although this old classification is still in use, the tendency today is to abandon the term epic and introduce prose, fiction or prose fiction for the relatively young literary forms of the novel and short story.
Text type refers to highly conventional written documents which cannot be categorized under the canonical genres of fiction, drama and poetry; such as instruction manuals, sermons, obituaries, advertising texts, catalogues, and scientific/scholarly writing.
Discourse is used as a term for any kind of classifiable linguistic expression. It has become a useful denotation for various linguistic conventions referring to areas of content and theme. The classifications for these forms of linguistic expression are based on levels of content, vocabulary, syntax, as well as stylistic and rhetorical elements. Whereas the term of text type refers to written documents, discourse includes written and oral expression.
Primary and secondary sources
Traditional literary studies distinguish between the artistic object or primary source and its scholarly treatment in a critical text, or secondary source. Primary sources denote the traditional objects of analysis in literary criticism, including texts from all literary genres, such as fiction, poetry or drama. While the term secondary source is applied to texts which are published primarily in scholarly journals such as articles or essays, book reviews and notes (brief comments on a very specific topic).
In terms of content, secondary literature tries to uphold those standards of scholarly practice which have, over time, been established for scientific discourse, including objectivity, documentation of sources and general validity. The readers have to be able to check and follow the arguments, results and statements of literary criticism.
The scholarly documentation of the sources should permit the reader to refer back to the original texts and thus make it possible to compare results and judge the quality of the interpretation.
A number of formal criteria have evolved in literary criticism which can be summarized in term critical apparatus, which includes some elements: footnotes/endnotes, providing comments on the main text or references to further secondary or primary sources; a bibliography (or list of works cited); and, possibly, an index.
| Forms of Secondary Sources | Publishing Media |
| Essay (article) | Journal |
| Note | Anthology (collection essays published): compiled by one or several editors on a specific themes |
| Book Review | Festschrift: anthology which is published in honor of a famous researcher |
| Review Article | book |
| Monograph |
| Formal Aspect of Secondary Literature | Aspects of Content |
| Footnotes | Objectivity |
| Bibliography | Lucid arguments |
| Index | General validity of thesis |
| quotations | |
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