The Literature in Literature.
A few days back I was
asked to write something for ‘Klipboard’, (a monthly journal the Psychology
Department brings out). What should I write about? I didn’t ask this question
nevertheless I was told that it could be anything about literature. The last
phrase ‘anything about literature’ intrigued me. When I sat down to write about
‘literature’, I realized, rather painfully, that I need to have greater
resources to write about literature. On a second thought I was struck with a
vague memory of reading something about how people use the term literature. At
a major American university that includes a College of Agriculture, the Chairman
of the Division of Literature received this letter. ‘Dear Sir, kindly send me
all your literature concerning cow manure as fertilizer.’ If so why can’t I
write about the Literature in literatures? Being a teacher of literature in a
small scale is not an enough qualification to write about literature
nonetheless I was not ready to give in.
There is a literature
implied in every literature. Doesn’t it sound funny? ‘Yes’, if one decides to
stop wasting his\her time here. And a big ‘No’, if one is prepared to peruse
further. Literature in literature includes the literature in everything and
anything. There are ,for example, Cheap literature( of low quality for those
who claim that they write the literature of the highest order)Sports
Literature, Literature of politics ,Literature of condolence Literature of advertisements, the Literature
of images(for Ads of consumer goods in
TV Ads) ,the Literature of reviews about automobiles, films, books and so on.
Among these the literature of advertisements is terribly awesome and amazingly
foolish. Here is a piece of literature of an advertisement (with some changes for effect) that often appeared in one of
the so called magazines for ‘the class
apart’. “Hand woven by our master weavers of the fifteenth century with the
finest wool of an extinct breed of sheep that now found only in the Atacama Desert”.
Wow! Doesn’t it look great in it? There can be plenty of dandies who set out to
buy a length of a suit that made out of the wool of the ‘extinct breed of sheep’
and hand woven by the ‘master weavers of the fifteenth century’. There is yet
another literature –the literature of liquor. It can be found on liquor bottles
and if the most chronic teetotaller in the world happens to read it, even he
would be tempted to taste a drop of it. Next time when you turn the pages of a
newspaper try to read, most probably the italicised part of an advertisement of
any item from safety pins to BMWs, you will for certain come across some sentences
like the above said advertisement. Television advertisements too have a Literature
of images created or fabricated for the implied viewers.
This is the same with most of the
afore-mentioned literatures. If you read certain condolences you might weep not
for the dead but for the one who wrote it. Literature of reviews more
importantly the back cover literature about the content of the book is very
amusing and you sometimes will be intrigued to buy one. Next time when you
visit a book stall try to read a few back covers and you will surely be carrying
on or two books in your trendy handbag. Sometimes the sports literature is
quite interesting especially of games held overnight. The writer goes to the
extent of making great predictions about the result much contrary to the final result.
There is yet another great literature: The Literature about wonderful recipes
for the mouth watering exotic, occidental, continental and Chinese
dishes!
If I procede further writing about the
literature in literatures it might go to great lengths. You might be poised to
think about the type of literature present in this piece of writing. So let
every reader look for the type of literature present in any text he /she may
happen to read.
Saji Joseph
Head, Department of
English.
