Defining Literature: Introduction (pt 1 of 5)

What is literature?

Does a book have to be old to be literature? What about literary fiction—is that literature? If all literary fiction is literature, does that mean no genre fiction (i.e. a fantasy novel or murder mystery) is literature?

What if you think a book is literary, but your friend disagrees? What if you like a writing style that no one else does? What if you read a book that leaves you pondering the great questions of life—but the other members of your book club think it’s shallow or trite?

Who is right—and who is wrong?

In his book An Experiment in Criticism, C. S. Lewis argues that when we analyze literature, we shouldn’t be looking at the books, but at the readers. A good book is one that invites reading well, and a good reader can get a lot out of any book, even if it’s not necessarily a “good” book.

This doesn’t mean good literature is subjective. Many literary critics and literature teachers today view literature as a mirror, reflecting back to the reader his own experiences or struggles. But another (and healthier) approach to literature views fiction as a window, showing us a different world and allowing us to see through different eyes.

Different people will notice different things through a window. One may be farsighted, and another nearsighted. One may notice the garden, and another the children playing. But the view from a window is still objective—focused on the object of the window, rather than the subject, the viewer.

Likewise, different readers may get different things out of a work of literature—even to the point that what functions as literature for one person is only pleasure reading for someone else. So how then can we define literature?

As C. S. Lewis said above, good books invite good reading. Some readers may reject that invitation, but that doesn’t make the book bad. Conversely, some readers may read a bad book well, but that doesn’t make that book good (though it may redeem it for the individual).

This begs the question—what is good reading? Of course, the answer varies based on the reader’s goal. Skimming might be good reading if you’re looking for a specific passage in a book. But in general, when reading for the sake of reading rather than as a means to an end (as you’d read a car manual, for example), there are four questions that good readers should be asking:

1. What’s going on in the story?

2. How does this book connect to broader culture, especially the literary tradition?

3. Does this book truthfully depict the consequences of the characters’ actions?

4. Why does this book matter?

These four questions correspond to the four levels of Biblical interpretation: literal, typological (symbolic/allegorical), moral, and anagogical. The chart below compares the questions of a Biblical interpreter to the questions of a good reader.

Now, a good reader can and will ask these questions about every single book. But certain books are difficult to read in this way, while others practically beg to be analyzed on these four levels. And this leads me to my definition of literature:

“A book is literature if it invites readers to engage with it using the four levels of Biblical interpretation (literal, typological, moral, anagogical) in a way that is readily accessible across time, space, and culture, and is written in a way that enhances rather than detracts from that engagement and accessibility.”

In future blog posts, I’ll be going into these four levels in more depth, exploring both how we as readers can look for and find those qualities even in bad books, and how writers can intentionally write in a way that is closer to literature (even if they’re writing genre fiction).

But for now, I encourage you to start asking those four questions as you read—not to overanalyze every single story, but just to explore and understand them in a deeper way. Who knows, you might end up finding depths of riches in books you never would have considered literary before!