"Literature" and "Civilization" are not the easiest words to define.
Since they lack direct definitions, their meanings vary from person to person.
Well, at least they typically do. The three people I interviewed, however, seemed to have similar idea of these ambiguous concepts.
Literature
My father described literature as "a culture of books that society values most."
My mother defined it as "how individuals express themselves in written forms; a reflection of culture."
Meanwhile my friend and fellow college student, Donya, said that literature is "an inspirational, influential, and historical piece of written work."
Civilization
Dad: "the infrastructure and culture where people live together in relative stability"
Mom: "how a culture establishes themselves and grows and develops to build themselves and make themselves known to those around them"
Donya: "a nation or large group of people that coexist and work together for the society to function"
Personally, I believe that multiple definitions of these words can and do exist.
However, with innumerable meanings to the words "literature" and "civilization," the same questions prevail: What is literature? What is civilization?
