Literature

What is Literature?

A Definition Based on Prototypes

Jim Meyer

Most definitions of literature have been criterial definitions, definitions based on a list of

criteria which all literary works must meet. However, more current theories of meaning

take the view that definitions are based on prototypes: there is broad agreement about

good examples that meet all of the prototypical characteristics, and other examples are

related to the prototypes by family resemblance. For literary works, prototypical

characteristics include careful use of language, being written in a literary genre (poetry,

prose fiction, or drama), being read aesthetically, and containing many weak

implicatures.

Understanding exactly what literature is has always been a challenge; pinning down a

definition has proven to be quite difficult. In fact, at times one seems to be reduced to saying, “I

know it when I see it,” or perhaps, “Anything is literature if you want to read it that way.”

Sometimes the motivation for a particular definition seems like the work of copyright lawyers,

aimed primarily at stopping people from using the word ‘literature’ for works which have not

been licensed as literature by…well, by The Critics, by the keepers of the tradition, by “all high

school English teachers,” and so on. Almost no one is now so naive as to think that The Critics,

the high school teachers, or anyone else has a monolithic front on the question—yet most

discussions seem to veer either towards an authoritarian definition based on certain critical

assumptions, or towards a definition based solely on whatever a particular reader chooses to call

literature.

To a member of a college English department who is a linguist rather than a literary scholar,

this can seem silly. After all, the word ‘literature’ is a word in the English language; like all

words, it is used by perhaps millions of speakers, speakers who come from vastly different

backgrounds and who have quite divergent personal...