Somehow it was deeply satisfying just for its own sake. Not a lighthearted passage in it, but it was, pardon the expression, fun. Instruction and delight. I mention this fact so you will realize, in case you didn t already, that the world has people in it who hold very strange opinions. Well, no, not exactly.
Most people think of literature as something special.
For one thing, we reserve that term for texts with a long shelf life . The texts they utter do not last, though. A particular folk tale performance also disappears as soon as the echoes die out, but in this case the essence of the tale has been preserved in memory for a long time, often for many generations. Most people reject gossip as literature but accept folk tales. For another thing, we classify as literature only those texts which the author and the audience both approach in a playful spirit .