What is National Literature?

 NATIONAL LITERATURE

In order to understand a work of literature it is necessary that we have an idea of the personality of the man who has written it. And one of the ways in which to understand better the author is to study the age in which he lived and the nation to which he belonged.

WRITER AND THE NATION:

A great writer does not live an isolated life. He is connected to his nation’s past and the present. That is, he is related to his predecessors and contemporaries and forms a part of the national literature. National literature is a developing organism which changes continuously. It affects the way in which an individual author writes. National literature is not just a dry list of books written in one language, in one country. Such a literature shows the progress or the thinking process of a nation during all these years of its existence. If we study the literature of nation we can know the strengths and the limitations of its citizens. By studying the literature of a nation we travel to the nation and know how the minds of people of other race work. We feel the real spirit of the people, culture and traditions of that country.

However it is not necessary that all the writers of a nation write in the same way. Individual writers may have their own individual personalities and talent. So their writings may be different from others. But one thing is sure that the writers work would reflect the spirit of his race. For example, a Greek writer, however different he may be from his national type would always reflect the Greek spirit. Therefore while political or social history deals with the external detail, literature tells us about the mental and moral characteristics of a nation. The history of literature tells us how intellectual and social life of the nation is formed.

In short, true literature has to be national literature which reflects the real spirit of the people of that particular time period during which it is written.

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