Literature vs. Performance & Play vs. Novel

Literature, by the definition of Merriam-Webster Dictionary, is “written works that are considered to be very good and to have lasting importance” and the “written works” include poems, plays, novels, books, etc.. Performance, on the other hand, is “the way an actor performs a part in play, movie, etc.” by the definition of Merriam-Webster Dictionary. From these two definitions, we can see the styles of the two ways of conveying information are totally different, but they are still closely related. Literature is more of an understanding of the material while a performance is more of a visual and auditory entertainment. Literature, in my point of view, can be divided into two categories: entertainment and non-entertainment. Much like that of performance, the goal of entertaining literature is letting the readers find something that is enjoyable and can spend their free time on. However, unlike most of the performance, the non-entertainment literature aims at informing, recording, or teaching the reader certain events that are worth pondering on and extending their knowledgement of the world. In my point of view, one of the biggest advantages of performance is that the performance can reach the audience and impress them in a way that an article can never manage to achieve, because, after all, literature is a collection of pallid( maybe I am being too exaggerated)  papers and literature can never become that vivid like performance. Still, literature has its own uniqueness. Literature can have plenty of details and places for the readers to imagine. Besides, literature is mostly the foundation of performance and in order to develop an awesome performance, a well-prepared script must be written first. For instance, my most favorite TV show, “The Game of Thrones”, is derived from the famous novel “The Song of Fire and Ice”. The partial reason that this TV shows has made such a great success is the author of the book, George R.R Martin, already delineated the world settings and the personality of characters so detailedly that the TV show can just simply follow the progress of the novel.

Both play and novels are viewed as a part of literature and both of them are mainly figments of authors’ imagination. Even though some will claim that plays are great because of the wide imagination space that the readers can have, I personally prefer reading novels to reading plays mainly because in the plays, there is a lack of details. People can easily know the personal trait of the different characters by reading their mind activities, backgrounds and actions in the novel; however, the only way people can interpret what is going on in the play is through the dialogue between characters and the short description of the change of places. Reading the stage direction in the play is crucial because otherwise the play won’t make a lot of sense to the reader. Unlike novels, all plays are meant to be performed and the director and actor have to add their comprehension of the characters’ emotion, the settings, and the actions  to the performance.