2nd millennium Essay

1. Why do we need to study literature? * Literature is filled with ideas that need to be explored. * Literature helps us to see our world in new ways. It brings us to a deeper understanding of life. * It is important to study literature since when we begin the study of literature,we find it has always two aspects,one of the simple enjoyment and appreciation and the other of analysis and exact description. See more: Foot Binding In China essay Usually what happen when we go through literature in our classroom either by ourselves or teacher use to teach one thing matters very much and that is the importance of literature for students. The first significant thing is the artistic quality of all literature. All art is the expression of life in forms of truth and beauty or in another word which exist in this world and which remain unnoticed until bought to our attention by some sensitive human soul same like the delicate curves of the shell reflects sounds and harmonies too faint to be otherwise noticed. In the same pleasing,surprising way,all artistic work must be a kind of revelation as architecture is probably the oldest creative work of arts and yet we still have many builders but few architects,that is,men whose work in wood or stone suggests some hidden truth and beauty to the human senses. It is a prevalent opinion that literature is like all arts is mere play of imagination,pleasing enough like a new novel without any serious or practical importance. Nothing could be farther from the truth, Literature preserves the ideals of a people and these ideal are love, faith, duty, friendship, freedom and reverence which are the part of human life most worthy of preservation. * To know the beauty of creation, to know about human evolution, to know the various cultures & civilizations, to be compassionate, to understand human values and concerns about other earthlings, to enjoy the fine art of writing, to learn how to express in simple words, to converse politely, to respect the ignorant and the learned, and so on. * Without literature there would be no reference to the past. 2. Define literature * (from Latin litterae (plural); letter) is the art of written work. The word literature literally means â€Å"things made from letters. † Literature is commonly classified as having two major forms—fiction & non-fiction—and two major techniques—poetry and prose. * Literature may consist of texts based on factual information (journalistic or non-fiction), a category that may also include polemical works, biography, and reflective essays, or it may consist of texts based on imagination (such as fiction, poetry, or drama). Literature written in poetry emphasizes the aesthetic and rhythmic qualities of language—such as sound, symbolism, and metre—to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, ordinary meanings, while literature written in prose applies ordinary grammatical structure and the natural flow of speech. Literature can also be classified according to historical periods, genres, and political influences. * Important historical periods in English literature include Old English, Middle English, the Renaissance, the Elizabethan era of the 16th century (which includes the Shakespearean era), the 17th Century Restoration period, the 18th century Age of Enlightenment, the Romanticism of the early 19th century, the later 19th Century Victorian, and 20th Century Modernism and Post-modernism. Important intellectual movements that have influenced the study of literature include feminism, post-colonialism, psychoanalysis, post-structuralism, post-modernism, romanticism, and Marxism. 3. What are the different general types of literature? *