Literature is literally "an acquaintance with letters" as in the first sense given in the Oxford English Dictionary; the term has, however, generally come to identify a set of texts. The word "literature" spelled with a lower-case "l" can refer to any form of writing, such as essays; while "Literature" spelled with an upper-case "L" may refer to a whole body of literary work, world-wide or relating to a specific culture. Etymologically, the word literature comes from the Latin word "litera" meaning "a individual written character (letter)". Nations can have literatures, as can corporations, philosophical schools or historical periods. Popular idea commonly holds that the literature of a nation, for example, comprises the collection of texts which make it a whole nation. VARIOUS FORMS OF LITERATURE: POETRY: A poem is a work of art usually written in verse. Poems rely heavily on imagery, precise word choice, and metaphor; they may take the form of measures consisting of patterns of stresses (metric feet) or of patterns of different-length syllables (as in classical prosody); and they may or may not make use of rhyme. One cannot readily characterise poetry precisely. Typically though, poetry as a form of literature makes some important use of the formal properties of the words it uses the properties attached to the written or spoken form of the words, rather than to their meaning. Metre depends on syllables and on rhythms of speech; rhyme and alliteration depend on words that have similar accent. Some recent poets, such as e. e. cummings, made extensive use of words' visual form. Poetry perhaps pre-dates other forms of literature: Early known examples include the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh (dated from around 3000 B.C.), parts of the Bible, and the existing works of Homer (the Iliad and the Odyssey). In cultures based primarily on oral traditions the formal characteristics of poetry often have a mnemonic function, and important texts: legal, genealogical or moral, for example, may appear first in verse form. Much poetry uses specific forms: the haiku, the limerick, or the sonnet, for example. A haiku must have seventeen syllables, distributed over three lines in groups of five, seven, and five, and should have an image of a season and something to do with nature. A limerick has five lines, with a rhyme scheme of AABBA, and line lengths of 3,3,2,2,3 stressed syllables. It usually has a less respectful attitude towards nature. Language and tradition dictate some poetic norms: Greek poetry hardly ever rhymes, Italian or French poetry often does, English and German can go either way (although modern non-rhyming poetry often, perhaps unfairly, has a more "serious" aura). Perhaps the most classic style of English poetry, blank verse, as exemplified in works by Shakespeare and by Milton, consists of unrhymed iambic pentameters. Some languages prefer longer lines; some shorter ones. Some of these conventions result from the ease of fitting a specific language's vocabulary and grammar into certain structures, rather than into others; for example, some languages contain more rhyming words than others, or typically have longer words. Other structural conventions come about as the result of historical accidents, where many speakers of a language associate good poetry with a verse form favored by a particular skilled or well-liked poet.
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