Literature and Life

Abstract

The chapter deals with the relation between literature and life. A literary work is to be viewed in its totality and for the quality of experience it evokes. Literature borrows elements from life, but it creates an autonomous domain that is invested with an uncommon import. For that matter, a literary work being in the nature of fiction performs the useful task of making sense of life as such and makes us see it in a new perspective. It is argued that even though the domain of artistic creation is autonomous in character, it helps one to make sense of life. There is also discussed here the alleged opposition between literature and philosophy and that while literature deals with a fictional world, the main concern of philosophy is truth. It has been pointed out that literature makes available to us the truth about life by presenting it as a “closed form” exemplifying the internal coherence and connectedness of various elements in it.