Literature, the Oral Tradition

One topic that came up in class last week that I have yet to comment on, but still think to be truly interesting, is the argument over whether or not oral tradition should count as a form, or as part of the definition of literature. In my opinion, this is very specifically a touchy line to walk along, for many people disagree that talking is considered to be the same use of language as writing is. However, when I think of the way that language impacted stories before stories had the opportunity to be written down, I can only go with the opposite of the aforementioned statement and declare that literature (whatever that actually means) is very much inclusive of oral tradition, it does not even get a choice in the matter. For without the stories that existed before written language, there would not have been many of the stories that we still know of today, that we consistently refer to as literature without even realizing it. Thus, when it comes down to it, I think that it would be impossible to consider literature as non-inclusive of the spoken parts of our written language; that is unless you were to consider pieces such as the Odyssey or Beowulf as non-literature.