Listen to Clinton Terrell tell how his discovery of Shakespeare's. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. Today most essays are written as expository, informative journalism, although there are still essayists in the great tradition who think of themselves as artists. On the other hand, the animal performance superficially most like human speech, the mimicry of parrots and of some other birds that have been kept in the company of humans, is wholly derivative and serves no independent communicative function. By signing up for this email, you are agreeing to news, offers, and information from Encyclopaedia Britannica. To use the word writing when describing literature is itself misleading, for one may speak of “oral literature” or “the literature of preliterate peoples.” The art of literature is not reducible to the words on the page; they are there solely because of the craft of writing. Many works of philosophy are classed as literature. Delivered to your inbox! By signing up for this email, you are agreeing to news, offers, and information from Encyclopaedia Britannica. Learn a new word every day. Dance movements of the honeybee: (left) round dance and (right) tail-wagging dance. Now, as in the past, some of the greatest essayists are critics of literature, drama, and the arts. 1. The Greeks thought of history as one of the seven arts, inspired by a goddess, the muse Clio. Most theories of literary criticism base themselves on an analysis of poetry, because the aesthetic problems of literature are there presented in their simplest and purest form. Human beings are unrestricted in what they can communicate; no area of experience is accepted as necessarily incommunicable, though it may be necessary to adapt one’s language in order to cope with new discoveries or new modes of thought. Please tell us where you read or heard it (including the quote, if possible). On the contrary, a scientific exposition might be of great literary value and a pedestrian poem of none at all. Bees are able, by carrying out various conventionalized movements (referred to as bee dances) in or near the hive, to indicate to others the locations and strengths of food sources. An excellent example is Gilbert White’s Natural History and Antiquities of Selbourne (1789). Send us feedback. Different systems of communication constitute different languages; the degree of difference needed to establish a different language cannot be stated exactly. Certain forms of writing, however, are universally regarded as belonging to literature as an art. Get exclusive access to content from our 1768 First Edition with your subscription. Other members of the animal kingdom have the ability to communicate, through vocal noises or by other means, but the most important single feature characterizing human language (that is, every individual language), against every known mode of animal communication, is its infinite productivity and creativity.