literature

Noun

literature (usually uncountable, plural literatures)

1. (usually) The body of all written works.
2. (usually) The collected creative writing of a nation, people, group, or culture.
   • He’s studying English literature at university.
   • There’s a vast body of scientific literature on the subject.
3. (usually, usually preceded by the) All the papers, treatises, etc. published in academic journals on a particular subject.
   • The obvious question to ask at this point is: ‘Why posit the existence of a set of Thematic Relations (THEME, AGENT, INSTRUMENT, etc.) distinct from constituent structure relations?ʼ The answer given in the relevant literature is that a variety of linguistic phenomena can be accounted for in a more...1988, Andrew Radford, chapter 7, in Transformational grammar: a first course, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, page 373
   • In fact, information on when each of the terms first appeared in English, and if obsolete, how long they persisted, is entirely absent from the literature.2018, James Lambert, “A multitude of ‘lishes’: The nomenclature of hybridity”, in English World-Wide, page 3
4. (usually) Written fiction of a high standard.
   • However, even “literary” science fiction rarely qualifies as literature, because it treats characters as sets of traits rather than as fully realized human beings with unique life stories.2008, Adam Cadre

   Synonyms:

   literary fiction

5. (obsolete, usually) Literacy; ability to read and write.
   • They all assumed to be mighty rakish and knowing, they were not very tidy in their private dresses, they were not at all orderly in their domestic arrangements, and the combined literature of the whole company would have produced but a poor letter on any subject.1854, Charles Dickens, Hard Times: A Novel