I spent half of my dissertation trying to understand what literature is, and I spent the other half trying to explain what I thought it was. So much for the hallucinations of a half mad grad student living on starvation wages. I think I have finally come to the conclusion that “literature” as a term is too broad to define in any meaningful way. One might wax poetically about novels, plays, essays, short stories, poetry, but literature is obviously so much more than that. Literature is about writing, and people have written the oddest things without every thinking they were writing literature. A scientific paper on pi, or a letter to Aunt Hortencia describing your trip to Indiana, or the instructions for hanging a new shower door, or a random love letter, or a travel guide to Las Vegas, or the biography of long since dead pirate, or the encyclopedia entry on the development of trampolines, or a secret message (long since lost) to the last king of Bavaria, or a note left by a stranger admiring your car, or an announcement for a lecture on hairy animals with wings that cannot fly, or the confession left by an unknown man who had accidentally hit a bank robber fleeing the police after a robbery, or the misanthropic revelations of a man who has hated his wife for sixty-five years (and who are still married), or a teenager’s blog detailing their angst and anxiety due to social alienation, can all be (or perhaps should be) literature. I broaden the definition because I have seen (and written) grocery lists that are very literary, especially those parts dealing with household cleaning solutions, organic carrots and celery, and deli products, especially hams and cheeses. I’m not sure, but satire might be excluded from literature–people so often get the wrong idea about satire, and ambiguity is such an ugly thing. You can have your perfect Victorian novels, your Romantic poetry, or even your post-modern fragmentation–it’s all literature to me, but don’t go excluding the mundane, the common, the day-to-day literature which is so overlooked. Somebody had to write those instructions for assembling that bicycle, and in spite of the fact they are of no use at all, they contain a tone of serenity which is almost creepy. Literature isn’t everything, but almost, so keep on reading. Maybe one day we’ll figure this thing out