Literature as a Work of Art
Literature, as a work of art, gives us knowledge and perception to distinguish for beauty of form expression. The work of art expresses the author's thought, mind, and creation about all condition of human life. McNall Burns, Lerner, and Meacham, in their book Western Civilizations, state that: Artists and Writers responded to a great variety of influences in addition to the new scientific view of the universe: national stylistic traditions, religious demands, differing political and sociological contexts, and, not least, the internal dynamics of artistic evolution within any given creative field (1984: 649).
The ability of science to make nature's law works for the betterment of the human condition. The capacity enables us to express thoughts by words, and to understand the thoughts of others. It is best, in other words, to look at a certain trends without forcing the explanations for them all to fit the same mold. This is what McNall Burns, Lerner, and Meacham meant.
A piece of art is judged as a great work or a high value work, if the artist may infect his feelings with others- very strong or very weak, very important or very insignificant, very bad or very good- then, express in a drama, or describe in a novel, then, evoke them by a funny story, a tragic story, or a thriller story. The clearness of expression assists infection because the readers, who mingle in consciousness with the author, is the better satisfied the more clearly the feeling is transmitted, which, as it seems to them, they have know and felt, and for which they have found the author's expression. Rohrberger and Woods emphasize that: The EVOLUATION of a piece of literature is related to interpretation; an interpretation that emerges from an examination of all the facts is a demonstration of the totality of the work and, as such, implies its esthetic value. Such an interpretation is also a means by which to judge the significance of the experience (1971: 25).
Rohrberger and Woods say that art, as creation of human art, is a human activity consisting in this, that one man consciously, by means of certain external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that other people are infected by these feelings and also experience them.
A novel, as a literary work, can be considered as a high value work, if the author can transmit not only his emotions or feelings through he live, but also his view of life or message is increased by the degree of sincerity in the author. As soon as the reader feels that the author is infected by his own writes, plays for himself, and not merely to act on other, this mental condition of the author infects the receiver or reader; and contrariwise, as soon as the reader feels that the author is not writing, playing for his own satisfaction, but is doing it for him what he wishes to express.
The Question is What do you think about Literature?
References
Burns, Edward McNall, Robert E. Lerner, and Standish Meacham. 1984. Western Civilizations. Vol. II, tenth edition. New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Rohberger, Mary and Samuel H. Woods. 1971. Reading and Writing about Literature. New York: Random House. Inc.
