# When teaching Religion, Myth and Legend as Literature should it be labeled as Fiction? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [April 9, 2026, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-teaching-religion-myth-and-legend-as-literature-should-it-be-labeled-as-fiction/1029156 "2026-04-09T19:33:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2026, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-teaching-religion-myth-and-legend-as-literature-should-it-be-labeled-as-fiction/1029156/121 "2026-04-14T22:23:54Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > As I detailed above, the entire 800s is labeled literature in DD. That include fiction, plays, poetry, humor, and much nonfiction. Well, I’m confused then, because I thought you just said the DD keeps them separate. > [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Both DD and LoC put fiction into different codes than what we now consider to be literature. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2026, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-teaching-religion-myth-and-legend-as-literature-should-it-be-labeled-as-fiction/1029156/122 "2026-04-14T22:37:19Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#): > > I’ve never seen a library that has separate sections for SF or mysteries. Mine does. There’s separate alphabetically sorted sections for Fiction, Scifi/Fantasy, Mystery/Crime, and Teen/Young Adult. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2026, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-teaching-religion-myth-and-legend-as-literature-should-it-be-labeled-as-fiction/1029156/123 "2026-04-14T22:49:23Z")
Did you read the second paragraph of the post you responded to? ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2026, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-teaching-religion-myth-and-legend-as-literature-should-it-be-labeled-as-fiction/1029156/124 "2026-04-14T22:51:43Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > the term “literature” is in modern usage is reserved for classic works. Sez who? I’m not even sure what you are calling “literature”. Is “Tom Sawyer” literature? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2026, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-teaching-religion-myth-and-legend-as-literature-should-it-be-labeled-as-fiction/1029156/125 "2026-04-14T23:02:57Z")
Absolutely. It is a work of prose fiction that has became a “literary classic” (to quote the National Endowment for the Arts). Are you asking whether it is shelved with fiction in libraries? Yes, it probably is. Certain classics are. As I also said above, dividing lines are blurry. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2026, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-teaching-religion-myth-and-legend-as-literature-should-it-be-labeled-as-fiction/1029156/126 "2026-04-14T23:09:41Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Did you read the second paragraph of the post you responded to? I did, it was not illuminating. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2026, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-teaching-religion-myth-and-legend-as-literature-should-it-be-labeled-as-fiction/1029156/127 "2026-04-14T23:15:41Z")
As with so much great literature, repeated readings may prove rewarding. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2026, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-teaching-religion-myth-and-legend-as-literature-should-it-be-labeled-as-fiction/1029156/128 "2026-04-14T23:36:49Z")
Well, my library does separate out mysteries and science fiction from general fiction. But it does not have a section for “literature”. It just has a big fiction section sorted by the author’s last name. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2026, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-teaching-religion-myth-and-legend-as-literature-should-it-be-labeled-as-fiction/1029156/129 "2026-04-14T23:37:33Z")
Apparently not in this case, but if you’re not interested in elaborating, I’m not that hung up on it. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2026, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-teaching-religion-myth-and-legend-as-literature-should-it-be-labeled-as-fiction/1029156/130 "2026-04-15T06:19:29Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > As I said above, humor gets a different Dewey number than fiction. Humorous fiction is shelved and treated differently than books marketed as humor, although the dividing line, as all dividing lines, is often blurry. As a collector of humor I’ve encountered books - in bookstores and libraries - sometimes in a separate section and sometimes merged in with fiction. Or memoirs. Or politics. Or nonfiction. Nobody knows what to do with it or what the boundaries are. My life is a misery. I judge humor and some sf for a contest, and most years I get a book entered in both categories - and properly so. My library shelves humor differently also - and Twain goes into literature, not general fiction. My example was more whether the book was humorous fiction or humorous nonfiction. I get some humor books in both classes - sometimes it is hard to judge. But I’ve got different rubrics for each, so I have to pick on. Historical fiction is another example. It is mostly fiction, but if you fictionalize known history there is a problem, unless it is in an alternate history genre. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2026, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-teaching-religion-myth-and-legend-as-literature-should-it-be-labeled-as-fiction/1029156/131 "2026-04-15T16:34:19Z")
I’m told that historical fiction is hot now. Especially mysteries set in the 19th and 20th centuries, undoubtedly because modern forensics, databases, and communications make classic whodunit forms nearly impossible without many contortions. Putting famous people into or solving mysteries goes back a ways, to be sure. Peter Lovesey’s Bertie series, about Edward VII when he was still Prince of Wales, contain wonderfully sly looks at Victorian England. Elliot Roosevelt (ghostwritten by William Harrington) had mother Eleanor solve a murder in practically every room of the White Room during her husband’s terms, with plenty of high-level Washington scandal, though not nearly as much sheer fun as Lovesey was capable of. (Take that _The Residence_.) Probably hundreds more by now. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2026, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-teaching-religion-myth-and-legend-as-literature-should-it-be-labeled-as-fiction/1029156/132 "2026-04-15T17:36:31Z")
I’ve read two different series with Groucho Marx as the detective, so, yeah. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2026, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-teaching-religion-myth-and-legend-as-literature-should-it-be-labeled-as-fiction/1029156/133 "2026-04-15T18:26:37Z")
I have Ron Goulart’s (awful) series. Whose is the other? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2026, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-teaching-religion-myth-and-legend-as-literature-should-it-be-labeled-as-fiction/1029156/134 "2026-04-16T07:35:25Z")
The other has him visiting Chicago and getting messed up with gangsters. Though, come to think of it, he might be a guest star in another series. It’s been a while and I don’t read that many mysteries. Agree with you on the Goulart one. His continuation of The Avenger series wasn’t so hot either. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2026, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-teaching-religion-myth-and-legend-as-literature-should-it-be-labeled-as-fiction/1029156/135 "2026-04-16T15:59:39Z")
That’s probably Stuart Kaminsky’s _You Bet Your Life_. The private eye series protagonist is working to save Chico’s life from gangsters he owes money to. Both Harpo and Groucho are also characters. Better than Goulart by far. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2026, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-teaching-religion-myth-and-legend-as-literature-should-it-be-labeled-as-fiction/1029156/136 "2026-04-20T18:35:29Z")
I’m currently reading a Victorian murder mystery series by Irina Shapiro about a police inspector in London and a nurse (who was in Crimea with Nightengale). I’ve caught a few anachronisms, but mostly entertaining. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-teaching-religion-myth-and-legend-as-literature-should-it-be-labeled-as-fiction/1029156.md?page=6)