Literature is as literature does. In exploring ideas about what literature is, it is useful to look at some of the things that literature does. Literature is something that reflects society, makes us think about ourselves and our society, allows us to enjoy language and beauty, it can be didactic, and it reflects on “the human condition”. It both reflects ideology and changes ideology, just like it follows generic conventions as well as changing them. It has social and political effects: just ask Salman Rushdie or Vladamir Nabakov. Literature is the creation of another world, a world that we can only see through reading literature.