Literature is a genre of writing that includes a concrete presentation of the human experience, literary genres as the form that embodies the meaning, literary resources of language, and artistry.
(The Origin of the Bible: Newly Updated by F. F. Bruce, J. I. Packer, Philip W. Comfort, and Carl F. H. Henry, 2020. The Bible as Literature by Leland Ryken, Page 127)
Separating literature from other writings
It shares the universal human experience, rather than abstract facts or information, and it embodies its ideas and meanings in concrete form. Literature is an experience, not an abstraction, so it cannot be reduced to an idea or proposition. It appeals to the imagination and requires the function of our brain's image-making and image-perceiving capacity to be understood, in other words, requires you to relive the scenes, characters, and events.
In the Bible, the commandment "you shall not murder" gives us a precept, while literature incarnates the same truth in the story of Cain and Abel. Instead of defining "neighbor," Jesus gave a parable about the Good Samaritan's neighborly behavior.
Literature employs more figurative language, including metaphor, simile, symbolism, connotative language, allusion, pun, paradox, irony, and word play.
It also more often has an intentional arrangement of sentences or rhetorical patterning. Examples of literary rhetoric include series of questions or statements that follow a common pattern, rhetorical questions, question-and-answer constructions, imaginary dialogues, and the conciseness of a proverb.
No matter the genre, literature is an art form, characterized by beauty, craftsmanship, and technique, and shares elements of pattern or design, theme or central focus, organic unity (unity in variety, or theme and variation), coherence, balance, contrast, symmetry, repetition or recurrence, variation, and unified progression. It provides pleasure, delight, and enjoyment.
It is impossible to separate what is said (context) from how it is said (form). Literature's forms and techniques are more complex, subtle, and indirect than ordinary discourse. Stories communicate through character, setting, and action. Poetry conveys meaning through figurative language and concrete images.
(The Origin of the Bible: Newly Updated by F. F. Bruce, J. I. Packer, Philip W. Comfort, and Carl F. H. Henry, 2020. The Bible as Literature by Leland Ryken, Page 123-127)
List
- Literary analysis
- Literary approach to the Bible
- Literary form
- Literary types, literary genres