− | ==='''Literature'''=== is literally "acquaintance with letters" as in the first sense given in the [[Oxford English Dictionary]] (from the [[Latin]] ''littera'' meaning "an individual written character ([[letter (alphabet)|letter]])"). The term has generally come to identify a collection of [[writing|text]]s or [[works of art]], which in Western culture are mainly [[prose]], both [[fiction]] and [[non-fiction]], [[drama]] and [[poetry]]. In much of, if not all, the world texts can be [[oral literature|oral]] as well and include such [[genre]]s as [[Epic poetry|epic]], [[legend]], [[Mythology|myth]], [[ballad]], plus other forms of oral poetry, and [[folktale]]. | + | == Literature == is literally "acquaintance with letters" as in the first sense given in the [[Oxford English Dictionary]] (from the [[Latin]] ''littera'' meaning "an individual written character ([[letter (alphabet)|letter]])"). The term has generally come to identify a collection of [[writing|text]]s or [[works of art]], which in Western culture are mainly [[prose]], both [[fiction]] and [[non-fiction]], [[drama]] and [[poetry]]. In much of, if not all, the world texts can be [[oral literature|oral]] as well and include such [[genre]]s as [[Epic poetry|epic]], [[legend]], [[Mythology|myth]], [[ballad]], plus other forms of oral poetry, and [[folktale]]. |