I　WHAT LITERATURE IS Just as the birth of new life begins with a fertilized egg，all discussions must proceed from a definition.Indeed，it is generally necessary to follow definition by definition，fixing the meaning of the terms used in the original explanation，and again explaining the words employed in this exposition. I once heard a learned but somewhat pedantic man begin to answer the question of a child by saying that a lynx is a wild quadruped.He was allowed to get no further，but was at once asked what a quadruped is.He responded that it is a mammal with four feet.This of course provoked the inquiry about what a mammal is；and so on from one question to another，until the original subject was entirely lost sight of，and the lynx disappeared in a maze of verbal distinctions as completely a…