Historical variations Even a bit of historical perspective makes this question more complex. For twenty-five centuries people have written works that we call literature today, but the modern sense of literature is scarcely two centuries old. Prior to 1800 literature and analogous terms in other European languages meant writings or book knowledge. Even today, a scientist who says the literature on evolution is immense means not that many poems and novels treat the topic but that much has been written about it. And works that today are studied as literature in English or Latin classes in schools and universities were once treated not as a special kind of writing but as fine examples of the use of language and rhetoric. They were instances of a larger category of exemplary practices of writing and thinking. which included speeches. sermons. history, and philosophy. Students were not asked to interpret them. as we now interpret literary works. seeking to explain what they are really about. On the contrary students memorized them.studied their grammar, identified their rhetorical figures and their structures or procedures of argument A work such as Virgil Aeneid. which today s studied as literature, was treated very differently in schools prior to 1850