Literary Texts
A conceptual definition of 'literary text'
Question
What is a literary text?
Answer
In the field of literary studies, a text is, broadly speaking, any object or phenomenon deriving significant artistic or cultural value from a composition of words within it. This will commonly take the form of written material, often fictional or lyrical – in novels, poetry, printed drama etc. – but oral phenomena may often be covered on courses too – such as poetry or plays in performance, or spoken storytelling (as is a key tradition in many cultures without a long history of writing, and is being increasingly promoted as an object for literary study to grant such cultures greater parity of academic esteem in a move away from old pedagogical canons). Increasingly over recent academic history there have been further expansions to the notion of a text, beyond those objects which are the creation of conscious literary design, incorporating many different cases where words combine in a way which is interesting and can be subjected to discussion, analysis and criticism – found poetry is a prominent example of this.
Commonly encountered literary texts can be broadly divided into the forms of prose, poetry and plays.
TL;DR
A literary text is any composition of words that carries artistic or cultural significance, traditionally encompassing written works like novels, poetry, and plays, but also extending to oral traditions and other forms where words combine in interesting ways that warrant analysis