What is Literature?

Novels, manuals, magazines, poems, notebooks... They are all written Language, but which ones are Literature? Some persons make a relation between Literature and high culture written language, like poems or novels; others, relate it to all types written pieces. There are a lot of definitions of Literature, and they all vary. I think that the main problem when trying to tell what is Literature is to define what type of writings are Literature and which ones aren't. Also, can we consider oral expressions part of literature? This can be answered with something called Oral Literature, which involves non-written literature, mainly oral traditions and oral stories.


Here I present some definitions for Literature:

1. "Writings in which expression and form, in connection with ideas of permanent and universal interest, are characteristics or essential features, such as poetry, novels, history, biographies and essays." (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/literature)
2. "Written matter, both fictional and non fictional." 
   (http://thesaurus.com/browse/literature?s=t)

From this entry and on, I will refer to Literature as "A highly developed use of language in that is the stylized manipulation of language for larger effect (purpose) and/or affect (emotional response)" (Taken from Course Companion book, IB).