Your assignment is to prepare and submit a paper on i ask my mother to sing. The researcher will begin with the statement that when considering his personal literary manifesto he recognizes that the difficulty due to the broad and encompassing nature of literature. Still, while literature spans a wide array of subject matter and forms, the author believes there are a number of elements that are thematic in all great work. One of the crucial elements of great literature, including poetry, is a deep and almost mythological articulation of aspects of existence. Oftentimes books or movies will depict events of life, but only remain on the surface of these occurrences. Conversely, literature seeks to unearth the hidden realities and explore some of the hard to answer questions that confront our lives. Another essential aspect of great literature is that it articulates its meaning or message in powerful or novel ways. While Tolstoy’s novels do not use experimental forms of storytelling, they are powerful in the way they relay timeless aspects of the human condition. This can be contrasted with a writer such as James Joyce. While some of Joyce’s work explores direct and universal themes of existence, work such as Finnegan’s Wake is more concerned with experimenting with the very confines of language and literature. Although Tolstoy and Joyce are greatly different writers their work still remains literature as masterfully articulates its message. Finally, great literature is lasts the test of time. In this sense, it is difficult to determine if a novel or poem that was recently written is truly literature.