WAQAS AZEEM

  “What is literature?” Our very first class started with this question when he entered the class to teach us the course 17 th century English poetry. Each one of us came up with definitions of literature based on their own reading and understanding. Differing though the definitions presented were, the common point between them all was that literature is a verbal art form: literary writers choose and arrange in such a way that they impart aesthetic pleasure, Sir Shahzeb Khan explained. Then drawing on Matthew Arnold, I defined literature as “a verbal art form which can be regarded as a criticism of life.”                         Continuing the lecture, Sir Shahzeb Khan explained to us the four inborn tendencies in human beings: one of them is aesthetics which means appreciation of what is beautiful. Now the function of literature, as mentioned above, is to impart ae...

  “English would replace Latin.” If you had said this some years back, you would more likely have been labelled as someone who is not in his senses at all. It is because at that time English was meant for dull-minded students while bright and intelligent students were taught languages like Latin. No one could therefore predict that English would outdo Latin. This happens in the case of many languages of the world. Languages like Hebrew, once the most prestigious ones, become extinct.       The reason why it is so lies in the fact that language, which is usually confined to being only a neutral means of communication, is not an apolitical, but a highly political phenomenon closely linked with power. Power has different forms of manifestations. Language is one of them. Not a neutral means of communication, therefore, language is instrumental in construction of identities.     Although there is no such thing as a language being naturally superior or in...

  Our times have seen the scientific activity at its height: what once used to be impossible in the past has now become possible because of advancement in science and technology. Indeed, scientists both from the past and the present having worked wonders in their field have done a great favour to literary writings and our oral tradition of storytelling. About storytelling what once used to be discarded just because of being otherworldly, having nothing to do with the world of objective reality has come to be believed as true just because of science and technology. There are a number of examples in this regard. In the long foggy nights of the winter with a chill of fear and silence reigning supreme, our ears were soothed by the stories our grandmothers used to tell us: the manner in which they would tell was fascinating. Thus spellbound as we were, of course, we were seldom or never convinced that what they told could exist in the objective world because, as mentioned above, it look...