Poetry strives towards brevity if prose is expansive in the use of language. It offers the reader highpoints of emotion, reflection, thought and feeling with highly compacted syntax. Very often, poetry expressesthe most powerful and deeply felt experiences of human beings. Many exquisite poems become our lifelongfriends, and we visit them over and over again for insight, understanding, and peaceful reflection about ourlife. Poetry may be subclassified into lyric (including ode, ballad & sonnet), epic poetry (i.e. narrative poetry)and dramatic poetry.
Drama is literature designed for stage or film presentation by actors for the benefit and delight of theaudience. The essence of drama is the development of character and situation through speech and action.
Although most modern plays use prose dialogue, on the principle that the language of drama should resemblethe language of everyday speech, many plays from the past are in poetic form. Drama may be subclassifiedinto tragedy, comedy, tragicomedy, domestic drama and melodrama.
Fiction, or prose fiction, in an inclusive sense, is any literary narrative, whether in prose or verse. Ina narrower sense, fiction denotes only narratives that are written in prose and sometimes it is used simplyas a synonym for“novel.”It normally has a plot, characters, action and dialogue. Sometimes the storiesare“true”, but more often they are not. Some fiction, for instance, historical or autobiographical fiction,may focus on real people and the plot may be grounded in actual events, but the way characters interact andhow the plot unfolds are the author’s own invention. The essence of prose fiction is narration, the relating of asequence of events or actions. Fictional works usually focus on one or a few major characters who change andgrow as a result of how they deal with other characters and how they attempt to solve their problems. Prosefiction may be subclassified into historical novel, psychological novel, novel of manners, naturalistic novel,realist novel, surrealist novel, magical realist novels, postmodern fiction, etc.
Nonfiction prose refers to any piece of non-fiction writing. And recently, it is also called CreativeNonfiction. It is one of the most flexible and adaptable of all literary forms. It consists of essays, biography,autobiography, travels, memoir, natural landscape, figure profile, news reports, feature articles, historicalworks, etc. The main purpose of nonfiction prose is to present truths and make logical conclusions about thefactual world of history, science, and current events.
3．結論綜上所述，我們得出多數人的結論。在學術界，大學教授們盡管喜好不同，但大都同意下述說法：大學文學課堂裏討論什麼， 什麼就是文學。從各種文本的文學性來看，文學可以下列方式定義：從廣義來說，文學指在一個國家或在世界範圍內，在一段時期或在整個曆史時期內，用一種語言或多種語言寫作的一切文章；從狹義來講，文學指“世界上表達出來的最佳思想和言論”（馬修·安諾德）。從人文主義觀點來看，文學就是人生的呈現，文學就是人生的精髓。
3．ConclusionTo sum up what is discussed above, we’ve come to the conclusion of the majority. In academic circles,university professors, though having different favorites, most of them agree to the following statement:
Literature is what is discussed in university literary classes. From the literariness of texts of all sorts, literaturemay be defined in the following ways: In a broad sense, literature refers to all the literary compositions writtenin one or many languages, of one country or of the world, in one period or of the whole history. In the narrowsense, literature refers to“the best that has been thought and said in the world”(Matthew Arnold). From ahumanistic point of view, literature is the representation of human life. Literature is the essence of life.
第二節 文學的功能Section Two the Functions of Literature文學，作為一種極其重要的理念而出現，是一種被賦予了多種功能的人類精神財富，在促進真正的人類文明中起著非常重要的作用。它至少起著下列作用：
Literature, emerged as an extremely important idea, is a special kind of human spirit wealth chargedwith many sorts of functions and plays a very important role in promoting the real civilization of human being.
It, at least, performs the following functions:
1．我們應該把文學所有的錯綜性和多樣性看成一種由來已久的社會實踐和機製，這種機製的基礎是你能說出你想象得到的任何事情。不論什麼正統思想、什麼信仰、什麼價值觀，文學都可以想象出各種不同的、怪異荒誕的虛構故事來嘲笑它，戲仿它。文學一直具有通過虛構而超越前人所想所寫的東西的可能性，如《西遊記》因為在譏諷和戲仿的語境中使用了神聖的名字和主題而引起了軒然大波。任何看似合乎情理的東西，文學都可以使其變得荒謬不堪，都可以超越它， 都可以用一種向其合理性和充分性提出質疑的方式改變它。通過與那些人類智慧啟迪者的思想和言語進行交流，我們的心與整個人類的感情合奏一個節拍。在人類憂慮、經營和爭吵的低級生活的煙霧和動蕩之上，在一片喧囂和混亂之上有一個清澈而又明亮的地方，那就是真、善、美存在的地方，所有人都在那裏相會，並以同樣的方式交談。
因此可以說，一切優秀的文學都在宣揚與體現人的規律，都在歌頌和傳播著真、善、美，從而不斷促進真正的人類文明。
1. We should note all the complexity and diversity of literature as a long social practice and institutionbased on the possibility of saying anything you can imagine. For any orthodoxy, any belief, any value, aliterary work imagine some different and monstrous fictions to mock it and parody it. Literature has possessedthe possibility of fictionally exceeding what has previously been thought and written, for example, Journeyto the West which has caused so much outrage for its use of sacred names and motifs in a context of satireand parody. For anything that seemed to make sense, literature could make it nonsense, go beyond it, andtransform it in a way that raised the question of its legitimacy and adequacy. By converse with the thoughtsand utterances of those who are intellectual leaders of the race, our heart comes to beat in accord with thefeeling of universal humanity. Above the smoke and stir, the din and turmoil of man’s lower life of care,business and debate, there is a serene and luminous region of truth, goodness and beauty where all may meetand expatiate in common. Therefore, it may be said that all good literature preaches and embodies humanlaw, praises and spreads truth, goodness and beauty, and consequently keeps promoting the real civilizationof human being.
2．一部文學作品，比如《哈姆雷特》，就其特點而言，是一個虛構人物的故事，而這個故事本身又在某些方麵具有代表性（不然，你為什麼想讀它呢），但同時它拒絕界定那個有代表性的領域或範圍——正因為如此，讀者和批評家們才能如此輕鬆自如地談論文學的“普遍性”。正是文學作品的這種結構才使我們比較容易把它們看做是在普遍意義上向我們講述“人類境況”，而不是局限在它們所描述或者說明的具體範疇之內。《哈姆雷特》僅僅是關於王子的故事嗎？僅僅是描述文藝複興時期人物的故事嗎？或者僅僅是有關喜歡內省的年輕人的故事？僅僅是關於那些父親死因不明的人們的故事？既然所有這些都不是令人滿意的答案，所以對讀者來說，還是不回答更容易些，因此便默認了它的普遍性。我們中國讀者，正如世界各國的讀者一樣，可以用不同的方式，在不同的層次上把《哈姆雷特》與真實的世界聯係起來。我們發現《哈姆雷特》的故事與我國《西遊記》中烏雞國太子的故事非常相似，為什麼呢？通過比較《哈姆雷特》和《西遊記》生成的時代背景、作家的生平和作品的主題，不難看出英國人莎士比亞和中國人吳承恩對人性、人的生死和人生意義的認識相同。由此可見，文學可以促進國際交流，避免因語言文化差異而引起的誤會或矛盾衝突，從而起到維護或保持世界和平的作用。
2．A literary work, for instance, Hamlet, is characteristically the story of a fictional character: itpresents itself as in some way exemplary (why else would you read it?) but it simultaneously declines todefine the range or scope of that exemplarity—hence the ease with which readers and critics come to speakabout the“universality”of literature. The structure of literary works is such that it is easier to take them astelling us about“the human condition”in general than to specify what narrower categories they describe orilluminate. Is Hamlet just about princes, or men of the Renaissance, or introspective young men, or peoplewhose fathers have died in obscure circumstances? Since all such answers seem unsatisfactory, it is easierfor readers not to answer, thus implicitly accepting a possibility of universality. We Chinese readers, just likeall readers throughout the world, can relate Hamlet to the real world in different ways at several differentlevels. We have found that the story of Hamlet and the story of the Crown Prince of Wuji State in our Journeyto the West very much alike. Why? By comparing the times and background of writing Hamlet with thatof writing Journey to the West, Shakespeare’s life with Wu Cheng’en’s life, the theme of Hamlet with thetheme of Journey to the West, it’s not difficult to find out the reason: the Englishman Shakespeare and theChinese Wu Cheng’en are identical in the views on human nature, the question“to be or not to be”and thesignificance of life. From here we can see that literature may promote international communication and avoidmisunderstandings or conflicts because of different languages and cultures, hence performs the function ofmaintaining or keeping the world peace.
3．提供普遍性和麵對能夠讀懂這種語言的人，二者合一便產生了一種強大的民族性的作用。文學作品，尤其是小說，通過設定並吸引一個廣大的讀者群，有助於創造民族群體。這個民族群體是有界限的。不過，從原則上說，它又是向一切能夠讀懂它的語言的人敞開的。
虛構小說無聲地、不斷地滲入到現實當中，默默地創造著一種非凡的群體信念，這正是現代國家的特征。把文學中的人物、陳述人、情節和主題表現得具有普遍意義，目的就在於促成一個既開放又有界限的、假設的群體。事實上，越是強調文學的普遍性，它的民族作用就越大。例如肯定英國女作家簡·奧斯汀眼裏的世界具有普遍性，反倒使英國成為一個非常特殊的地方，成為一個品位高雅、行為規範的地方。而且，更重要的是，它有利於英國社會道德和社會環境的形成。在這樣的環境之中，倫理道德問題得以解決，人格品質也得以塑造。
3．The combination of offering universality and addressing all those who can read the language hashad a powerful national function. Works of literature, particularly novels, help to create national communitiesby their postulation of and appeal to a broad community of readers, being bounded yet in principle opento all who can read the language. Fiction seeps quietly and continuously into reality, creating remarkableconfidence of community in anonymity which is the hallmark of modern nations. To present the characters,speakers, plots, and themes of some literature as polentially universal is to promote an open yet boundedimagined community. In fact, the more the universality of literature is stressed, the more it may have anational function. For instance, asserting the universality of the world vision offered by the Englishwomanwriter Jane Austen makes England a very special place indeed, a site of standards of taste and behaviour and,more important, of the moral scenarios and social circumstances in which ethical problems are worked outand personalities are formed.
4．文學是意識形態的手段，同時文學又是使其崩潰的工具。它具備社會的和政治的功能。文學作品通過在不同的階級、性別、種族、國家和年齡的人們中提倡認同而促進了一種勸阻鬥爭的“同伴情感”，維護著社會穩定。但同時作品也可能會產生一種強烈的不公平意識，這種意識又使開展進步鬥爭成為可能。從曆史的角度看，文學作品享有促進變革的聲譽，例如美國女作家哈麗特·比徹·斯托的《湯姆叔叔的小屋》在那個時代就是一本暢銷書，它促成了一場反對奴隸製的革命，這場革命又引發了美國的內戰。
4．Literature is the vehicle of ideology and literature is also an instrument for its undoing. It performsthe social and political functions. By promoting identification across divisions of class, gender, race, nation,and age, literary works may promote a“fellow-feeling”that discourages struggle and maintain the socialstability; but they may also produce a keen sense of injustice that makes progressive struggles possible.
Historically, works of literature are credited with producing change: The American woman writer HarrietBeecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a best-seller in its day, helped create a revolution against slavery thatmade the American Civil War possible.
5．文學既是文化的雜音，又是文化的信息。它既是一種製造混亂的力量，又是一種文化資本。學習文學等於是一筆文化投資，它可能會以各種方式給你以回報，幫助你進入社會上層，特別是在現代社會裏，在這樣一個對個人和群體來說充滿形形色色的又相互結合的社團、國家權力、傳播行業和跨國公司的時代裏。但是不能認為文學僅僅具有這種保守的社會功能。它不是“家庭價值觀”的傳播者。相反從彌爾頓《失樂園》中撒旦反叛上帝，到陀思妥耶夫斯基《罪與罰》中拉斯科爾尼科夫謀殺老婦人，可以說文學使各種罪惡具有了誘惑力。它鼓勵抵製資本主義的價值觀，反對由資本主義經濟滋生出來的自私和物欲主義，為人們提供替代的價值觀和文化資本。
5．Literature is the noise of culture as well as its information. It is an entropic force as well as culturalcapital. Learning about literature gives you a stake in culture that may pay off in various ways, helping you fitin with people of higher social status, particularly in the modern world, for individuals and groups, in a worldof diverse and intermingled communities, state power, media industries, and multinational corporations.
But literature cannot be reduced to this conservative social function: it is scarcely the purveyor of“familyvalues”but makes seductive all manner of crimes, from Satan’s revolt against God in Milton’s Paradise Lostto Raskolnikor’s murder of an old woman in Dostoevski’s Crime and Punishment. It encourages resistanceto capitalist values and counters the selfishness and materialism fostered by the capitalist economy, offeringpeople alternative values and giving them a stake in culture.
6．文學起到一種替代宗教的作用。宗教似乎不能再把整個社會團結在一起了。文學在傳授中立的審美體驗的同時培養一種民族自豪感。
6．Literature functions as a replacement for religion, which seems no longer to be able to hold societytogether. While teaching disinterested appreciation, literature provides a sense of national greatness.
7．每個國家的文學，實質上都表現其國民性。每個國家的文學都會歌頌其祖國，歌頌其人民，特別是民族英雄，從而培養愛國心。
7．Every nation’s literature is essentially the manifestation of its national spirit. Every nation’s literaturewill always sing the praises of its nation and its people, especially its national heroes, thus cultivating thepatriotism.
8．作為審美對象，文學可以使我們成為“更完美的人”。這種觀點是和一種關於主體的思想相關的，理論界稱這種主體為“自由主體”，即不受社會環境和利益界定，由個人主體性（理性和道德）界定的自由主體，根本不受社會決定因素的製約。這種與實用目的脫離，並且誘導獨特的反思和認同的審美對象，幫助我們通過自由公正地運用想象功能而成為自由主體，而這種想象功能把理解力和判斷力合理地結合起來。文學具有的這種能力是通過鼓勵讀者思考複雜的事物而不要急於作出判斷，通過鼓勵讀者思考那些倫理是非問題，通過引導讀者作為局外人或者像小說讀者一樣去檢驗行為（也包括檢驗他們自己的行為）而實現的。
它促進了客觀公正，培養了鑒賞力和細微的辨別能力，產生了與處境不同的男女人物的認同，從而促成了集體感。
8．Literature, as an aesthetic object, may make us“better people”. This viewpoint is linked to acertain idea of the subject, to what theorists have come to call“the liberal subject”, the individual definednot by a social situation and interests but by an individual subjectivity (rationality and morality) conceivedas essentially free of social determinants. The aesthetic object, cut off from practical purposes and inducingparticular kinds of reflection and identifications, helps us to become liberal subjects through the free anddisinterested exercise of an imaginative faculty that combines knowing and judging in the right relation.
Literature does this by encouraging consideration of complexities without a rush to judgement, engagingthe mind in ethical issues, inducing readers to examine conduct (including their own) as an outsider or areader of novels would. It promotes disinterestedness, teaches sensitivity and fine discriminations, producesidentifications with men and women of other conditions, thus promoting fellow-feeling.
9．文學提供信息（知識）——古今中外政治及社會情況。每個人都需要一般知識和常識。“秀才不出門，便知天下事”，一點兒不假。難怪義務教育、素質教育或是通識教育，各級各類學校都要學習語文（語言和文學）課。語言和文學密不可分。文學總是顯示著其語言恰當用來表達的最好思想感情而語言又是其文化的重要組成部分，所以，學習文學，我們不僅能學到“世界上表達出來的最佳思想和言論”，而且能提高我們的道德、人格和精神文明。
9．Literature gives information (knowledge) —of the political and social conditions of all times andplaces. Everyone is in need of general knowledge and common sense. It is quite right that a scholar, withoutgoing out, knows the world’s affairs well. No wonder all those who receive a compulsory education or a qualityeducation or a general education have to study the subject of Yu Wen (Language &Literature) at all kinds ofschools at all levels. Language and literature are closely interrelated and can never be separated. Literatureof a nation always shows the best what its language can do when it is well used and its language is the key partof its culture. That’s why we say by learning literature we can not only learn“the best that has been thoughtand said in the world”but also improve our morality, personality and spiritual civilization.
10．文學能通過讓作者宣泄他們的過分感情，讓讀者表達他們的同情，以恢複心態平衡，保持身心健康。
10．By giving an outlet to the writers relieving their excessive feelings and to the readers expressingtheir sympathy, literature can restore the balance of mind and help the writers and readers keep fit.
11．威廉·莎士比亞寫到：“真、善、美，構成我全部的題材，我將真、善、美以不同的詞句表現；我的創造力因這變化而充分施展，三個論題完美統一，題材空間自然無限。”“隻要你在不朽的字裏行間與時間並存，隻要人類在繁衍，隻要眼睛能看見，你就能與我的著作同在，亙古永恒。”這些話向我們表明是文學使莎士比亞的人生更有意義，是文學使莎士比亞、吳承恩、曹雪芹、雨果和很多其他人永遠活在他們的讀者心裏。
11．What William Shakespeare has written—“Fair, kind, and true, is all my argument,Fair, kind, and true, varying to other words;And in this change is my invention spent,Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords.”
“When in eternal lines to time thou growest;So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,So long lives this and this gives life to thee”—shows us that it is literature that makes Shakespeare’slife more significant and it is also literature that makes Shakespeare, Wu Cheng’en, Cao Xueqin, Hugo andmany others living forever in the hearts of their readers.
第三節 什麼是人和人生Section Three What Is Man and What Is Life1．什麼是人？人是萬物之靈，是肉體和靈魂的結合體。肉體部分是獸，即有高度智力的獸；靈魂部分是神，即宇宙的形式。人的物質生活接近獸，精神生活接近神。人有物質（肉體）生命和精神（靈魂）生命，前者終有一死，後者永世長存。人是群居的，有其社會屬性；人有七情六欲，有其自然屬性。但是人的最大特點是具有自由意誌，能采取行動改變自己的處境和命運，在這個意義上，人是自己命運的主人，人接近神。
1．What is man? Man is the wisest of all creatures, the integration of living body and soul. The partof living body is an animal, i.e. a highly intelligent animal. The part of soul is God, i.e. the The Form of theUniverse. Man’s material life is close to animal while spiritual life is close to God. Man has physical (body)life and moral (soul) life. The former is mortal while the latter is immortal. Man is living in groups and hashis social attributes. Man has the seven emotions and six sensory pleasures, consequently has his naturalattributes. But Man’s most outstanding characteristic is that Man has free will and can take action in changeof one’s condition and fate. In this sense, Man is the master of his own fate and Man is close to God.
2．什麼是受過教育的人？受過教育的人應知道物的世界，應理解人的世界，應參與思想的世界，應享受感情的世界。
2．What is the educated man? The educated man is one who knows of the world of things, understandsthe world of people, participates in the world of thought and enjoys the world of feeling.