The Literature in Literature

 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.