Is this Literature?

CLASSROOM ACTIVITY #13

IS THIS LITERATURE?


Extract 1

We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inherent and inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among them, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed ... We therefore the representatives of the United States of America in General Congress assembled, do in the name, and by the authority of good people of these states reject and renounce all allegiance and subjection to the kings of Great Britain ...
(The Declaration of Independence)

Extract 2
Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose
(Gertrude Stein)

Extract 3:
This Is Just to Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were
in the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
(William Carlos Williams)

Extract 4
Roses are red
Violets are blue
Love will last forever
Between me and you
(Valentine)

Extract 5
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass ...
(Walt Whitman)

Extract 6
God doesn’t exist
Yes I do!
(Graffitti)