Why Should We Defend Literature

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Why Should We Defend Literature? Humanity characterizes itself for its questioning nature. Questioning about ourselves, about others, about what surrounds us, about the universe, about everything. This characteristic has helped humanity to cognitively evolve throughout history; many things, events and changes have emerged from questioning because it also implies seeking for answers. In this paper we will try to answer one of the most controversial questions: Why should we defend literature? But in order to answer this question we need first to have a clear concept of what literature is. All throughout history there have been as many definitions of literature as scholars that have attempted to define it. Literature comes from the Latin word “litterae” that means “letters”, and this comes from the Greek “ grammatike”, that is, instruction or knowledge related to the act of writing and reading. This meaning was accepted up to the middle of the XVIII Century and it was applied to pieces of writing that belonged to different fields such as philosophy, history and religion. By the end of the same Century the word “literature” acquired a new connotation that of “aesthetic creation” which entailed that all scientific and academic writing would be left aside, and that this term would consider the concepts of beauty, harmony, style, genre, etc. Later on, Jakobson characterized literature as having six main functions: expressive, appellative, informative, communicative, metalinguistic and poetic. But, should we defend literature because it moves us?, it informs us?, entertains us? Would that be enough for us? We can find these characteristics in the form of electronic communication such as television, internet, videos, etc. Should we not look beyond the mere functions of literature? If we change our perspective we could see literature as a source of knowledge and
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