Nidhi Sharma: “Literature is important in everyday life because it connects individuals with larger truths and ideas in a society.Literature creates a way for people to record their thoughts and experiences in a way that is accessible to others, through fictionalized accounts of the experience.”

Literature’s ability to capture the imagination and depict the lives of others also increases readers’ ability to empathize with others. Literature helps develop critical-thinking skills. Readings and discussions of literature force readers to make reasoned judgments about character motivations, cause and effect, critical analysis of plot and more.

At the same time, I feel reading Literature is a pleasurable, entertaining activity that offers readers the potential to escape from the troubles of daily life.Literature survives because of its capacity to entertain readers. Literature has the power to provoke thought in readers, making it a leisure activity that is also intellectually productive. Literature also has the power to impart a wide variety of experiences to readers.

Nibash: Literature is the subject of mind and it is associated with the mind because it is said that Mind is the receptacle of different emotions and feeling. Likewise, Literature is also the receptacle of different emotions and feeling. But here, we have to feel the literature by reading and understanding the subject simultaneously, so, to me, Literature is the subject which pours the life upon other unanimated aspects and it is the subject which entertains me at the time of my depression, misery and failure and also sometimes clears the bubbles of life, that’s why I am a lover of literature not only a student of literature.

Ashvamegh View: When we say that literature is the mirror of society, we are talking about epitomes – like in India, Coolie, Guide, The Hungry Tide, The Shadow Lines etc.
We cannot say that modern ‘fictions’ like Harry Potter and I too have a love story and more likes of these are the ‘mirror of society’. These are, if we may say, ‘leisure fictions’ for them who only see enjoyment in literature.

Ahmad: May I request group members to furnish me the details about the coronation of English language during Chaucerian era?

Sanjay: Syeed, sure i will. In the age of Chaucer, it was the first time that There was a single dialect which was used as an official language  in England. West Midland Dialect became the Official language of the Capital city, and French and English amalgamated to form Standard English form. So it can be said as the coronation of the standard English form which was a major and effective deviation from Old English and the numerous English dialects.

Another important event was in the frst part of the 14th century (somewhere in 1320s) English replaced French as the Language of English Courts, and Law books. This had a major impact,as now the English lower class or Common people who were mainly  native English speakers.

Sujatha: Is literature a threshold for myths or are myths the starting points of literature?

Ahmad: I think mythical literature is called epic, and general one is called literature. Characteristics of epics and literature are totally different with one another. Epics and legends befit certain ideology. Literature befits pragmatic subjects like philosophy, sociology and morality etc.

Sanjay: The traces of English literature proper started with “Beowulf”, which is an early version of an Epic. So Epics are an integral part of English literature. One of the most influential Epic proper  Milton’s “Paradise Lost”  has its mighty place in English literature. “Literature” is an Umbrella term in which Epic do finds its place. It’s not aloof from it.  As far as “Myths” are concerned we can find its trace from the Greek Epics and even in Shakespearean plays and later many had tried to use the same. So I feel that Myth is a characteristic feature in some of the literary work which makes the creative work to fall in a different genre. A genre we call ” Mythical” in nature.

As the question was asked whether Myths are the starting point of literature, i feel English literature started with a Mythical epic hero named ” Beowulf”. So English literature in indebted to the mythological stories of the bards, which actually resulted in the formation of the first literary work an anonymous “Secondary Epic”  named “Beowulf”.

Ahmad: Beowulf’s fight with Grendel, journey to the watery den and fight with Grendel’s mother, and returning to the Gothland’s kingdom with heads of both and  receiving. Readworthy.

Dr. Mamta: Three things I want to make clear if my time permits In 450A D three tribes Angles, Saxon, n Jutes came from Germany n settled in England they used to speak West Germanic. From 750 to I066 the period is called Anglo-Saxon.
The Duke of Normandy (France) defeated king Harold then Anglo-Saxon period came there was no eng. There were four dialects. East midland, West midland, Northumbrian and Kentish. Chaucer usedEast Midland dialect.
English is khichri (mixed) lang like Hindi. Secondly, Beowulf is an epic means long poem not poetry. Thirdly myth is related to legends, maybe imaginary. We can’t say. Normamdy came with french. Latin, Greek, Spanish all came and mixed with dialects originated from Germanic.