Literature reports and represents history, with the two intertwined. Literature can take many forms and requires merit and artistry. History is the representation of mankind’s history and is divided into anthropology, archeology, and history. Historical fiction and literary fiction both use history as inspiration. Comparative literature analyzes different pieces of literature from different cultures.
The main connection between literature and history is that literature is used to report and represent history. The two are, therefore, intertwined with each other. The biggest difference between literature and history is that the latter arises as a fact, while the former is considered an art form. The twin ideas of fact and spectacle often intertwine within literature and history to produce historical fiction and narrative nonfiction.
Literature takes many forms. They range from personal notes to poems and non-fiction articles. Literature can be presented in a number of mediums including online content, magazine and newspaper articles, and in book form. For a work to be considered literary, it usually requires merit and artistry. What constitutes literary is a subjective matter and rarely agreed upon.
History in its most basic form is the history of mankind. It is divided into anthropology, archeology and history. History is the history of the representation that man makes of his own history, that is to say what people have chosen to record and write over the centuries. Both literature and history come in numerous forms, from tax records and letters to complete histories of entire nations and people.
Early accounts of events wove mythology into history with varying degrees of success. Homer has no illusions about the literary quality of his epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Thucydides has given a comprehensive historical account of the Peloponnesian War, but he appears to have died before the war was concluded, leaving key elements missing. Herodotus, on the other hand, tried to give the full story in the manner of Thucydides, though he preceded him, but made no effort to separate myth from truth.
Literature and history are linked in the field of comparative literature. This analytical mode of study attempts to compare any two pieces of literature from different languages or cultures. The French school of thought examines literature for its historical and national basis. Peter Szondi’s German school, on the other hand, seeks social inspirations, while the American school seeks universal truths.
Historical fiction is a popular form of literature. Show the deep connections between history and literature by having the writer study a particular era of the past to write a story. These stories may be entirely fictional or may be fictionalized accounts of real people and real events. Popular authors of historical fiction include Bernard Cornwell, who wrote books on Napoleonic Europe, the Middle Ages, and the Battle of Agincourt, and Hilary Mantel, who wrote “Wolf Hall,” a book about Thomas Cromwell.
Literary fiction, on the other hand, tends to be contemporary with the events or a recollection of those events by someone who experienced them. These can be used as historical documents for their contexts and to study how history inspires literature. Chinese writers such as Gao Xingjian in “Soul Mountain” and Ma Jian in “Red Dust” combine literature and history during Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Haruki Murakami’s “Norwegian Wood” explores the life of a student in 1960s Tokyo. Romanian-German writer Herta Muller won the Nobel Prize in literature for her books describing her life under the Ceausescu regime in Romania.
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