Can stories spring up from somewhere? Literature is a reflection of life and living. Before it took the form of books, Literature was there among the people in their stories, songs, ballads, myths and folktales. In fact it is said that the richest and perennial source of imagination for poets and authors alike has been what they heard and listened to as children and not what they read later. In the Indian languages there is an apt word to describe this tradition; Janapadalu, that which lives in the people and is a part of their lore.
What we call Literature may have been an early form of entertainment or an emotional outlet.
“Will no one tell me what she sings?—
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again? “
The mood in this stanza from Wordsworth’s Solitary Reaper tells something about the affiliation between people and their songs. In another sense all Literature is an outcome of a responsive and creative mind to some social situation, circumstance, idea, thought or angst.