A classical philosophical operation in order to define a term is to relate it to its genus proximum, its hyperonym so to speak. In case of literature this is language. All literature belongs to the field of language, literature can be understood as a special use of language. Therefore, it is necessary to have a closer look at the most important factors which play a role when language is used. Ferdinand de Saussure established among other things the basic difference between langue and parole, that is language as a system and language as actual use.
Both points of view are important when it comes to understanding what literature is. According to theoreticians like Terry Eagleton, or Meyer Howard Abrams there are four basic dimensions when language is considered:

• the linguistic sign itself, a text
  (semantic relation),
• the relation of texts among each other
  (syntactic relation),
• the relation of texts to the author
  (pragmatic relation),
• the relation of texts to the reader
  (pragmatic relation).

The first two approaches belong to the field of langue, the latter ones fall under the category of parole.

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