What is literature?

The Landscape of Discourses until 1750/1850

• literature = learning, learned publications

discussed in histories of literature and journals reviewing latest literature

• belles lettres = all fashionable and elegant pieces of learning including poetry, fiction

discussed mainly in prefaces to elegant works, exceptionally also in works of literature

• poetry/poesy = language in verse (including comedy and all works performed with music as operas, cantatas, masks, ballets)

discussed with a view on textual beauties

• fiction = a story to be read for its instruction and entertainment even if it should be feigned; (romance = a fictional prose history of love and/or adventure presented in a series of adventures; novel = a short story related for the sake of its (new) example, ending with a surprising point)

interpreted - after Huet’s Treatise on the Origin of Romances (1670) as a cultural indicator