Literature and Performance?

This year, I choose the class IB Literature & Performance as my only English class. It is the upgraded version of the English classes that I have taken. Literature, I have experienced when I was young. Because, any pieces of writing work is a part of literature, even a little piece of diary. But for performance, especially performance in English, I guess this is my first time to get in touch about it. And now, my assignment is about to discuss the similarities of them. In my opinion, the similarities of literature and performance are much more than their differences. We learn both of them in the same class, and I believe literature is the origin of performance, and performance is the upgraded version of literature, and the different emphasizes.

  "The quest to discover a definition for "literature" is a road that is much travelled, though the point of arrival, if ever reached, is seldom satisfactory. Most attempted definitions are broad and vague, and they inevitably change over time. In fact, the only thing that is certain about defining literature is that the definition will change. Concepts of what is literature change over time as well." This is one of my favorite definition of literature. I found this from wikipedia, and the citation of it is "Simon Ryan; Delyse Ryan. "What is Literature?". Foundation: Fundamentals of Literature and Drama. Australian Catholic University. Retrieved 9 February 2014." Maybe based on my English skills, I think this quote is kind of hard to understand. But to be honest, I like the idea and the way the author wrote it. Actually, when I was trying to find a definition of literature, I had a hard time to describe it correctly and fairly. After I started to search on Internet about how others think about the definition, I think this one the author gets the point. We human beings have literature after we have characters, so we've had such a long time with the experience of literature. The forms of literature have changed so many times, and it is continuing changing. Because of the long history of literature it has, we can't give a accurate definition of it. So in the quote " most attempted definitions are broad and vague, and they inevitably change over time." perfectly describe how the definition of literature should be like. 

"A performance, in the performing arts, generally comprises an event in which a performer or group of performers present one or more works of art to an audience. " This is the definition of performance that I found on Wikipedia. Sadly that I can't find an amazing, detailed definition like the literature's one. Compare with literature, the emphasizes of performance are different. Performance is more like a communication of people, between both of the actors and the audiences. The definition gives the the contents that a performance usually have: an event. It is like the beautiful pack of the event. I would say the event is normally from literature, or just a part of it. For example, script is also a kind of literature. They work together as a whole, and performance is the secondary production of literature. 

About the differences between a novel and a play? I would say it is like "the shadow of the similarities and differences of literature and performance". Novel is a part of literature, and play is also a kind of product of performance. Both of the novel and the play is telling a story. They describe the story, and the people around the story. Normally the script of a play is from a novel. About the differences I think the first is that novel is longer and more detailed, but play is shorter but more impressed. Because a book can be long to read and spend time with it, but a play has a time limitation. Then is the way people enjoy it. For reading a book, I guess mostly people will just read by themselves. It is an independent experience. They may have a conversation with the author of the book when they read it. But a play, audiences watch it together. The actors in the play pay more emotion and it expresses to the audiences too. Sometimes audiences may also express their own emotions.