THE CONCEPT OF LITERATURE

THE CONCEPT OF LITERATURE

      To understand literature, two basic postulations come to mind by RENE WELLECK and AUSTIN WARREN in their book titled, The Theory of Literature. Their argument is that literature can be examined from two perspectives.

i. The Open Perspective: This view sees literature as the work of the imagination or a fantastic creation of fiction that has a semblance to reality. This is why literature is related to verisimilitude, that is to say that literature is not the truth but very similar to the truth. "The Writer is the greatest liar who speaks the truth."

ii. The Close Perspective: This view supposes that for anybody to produce literature, that person must be literate. That is, a person must be able to read and write to create literature.