But what is literature?' might also be a question about distinguishing characteristics of the works known as literature: what distinguishes them from non-literary works? What differentiates literature from other human activities or pastimes? Now people might ask this question because they were wondering how to decide which books are literature and which are not, but it is more likely that they already have an idea what counts as literature and want to know something else: are there any essential. distinguishing features that literary works share? Jan JA This is a difficult question. Theorists have wrestled with it. but without notable success. The reasons are not far to seek: works of literature come in all shapes and sizes and most of them seem to have more in common with works that aren't usually called literature than they do with some other works recognized as literature. Charlotte Bronté's Jane Eyre, for instance, more closely resembles an autobiography than it does a sonnet, and a poem by Robert Burns My love is like a red, red rose resembles a folk-song more than it does Shakespeare's Hamlet. Are there qualities shared by poems, plays, and novels that distinguish them from, say, songs, transcriptions of conversations, and autobiographies?