Introduction to Literature Quiz

Introduction to Literature

• Literature is the artistic use of language to express human experiences, helping readers understand both familiar and foreign worlds.
• Functions include storytelling, expressing emotions, advocating ideas, and providing insight into past and present human conditions.
• Literature encourages readers to examine values, reconcile cultural identities, and broaden perspectives.

Why Learn Literature?

• Personal growth is promoted through intellectual development and moral judgment.
• Literature fosters cultural insight by connecting to broader contexts, including cultural, philosophical, and religious viewpoints.
• It stimulates imagination and critical thinking, developing creative and problem-solving skills.
• Literature enhances language skills (reading and writing).

Genres of Literature

• Genres categorize literary works, derived from the French word for "type".
• Prose encompasses short stories, essays, novels (fiction and non-fiction), and poetry, which expresses feelings intensely (structured and free verse).
• Drama/plays are written for performance, involving character interaction. Prose uses natural speech and ordinary grammar, lacking strict structure.

Poetry

• Poetry encompasses narratives, both fictional and factual.
• Types include elegies (reflecting on death), odes (tribute to a subject), pastorals (focused on nature), epics/narratives (long poems about adventures), and haikus (three-line poems with a specific syllable pattern).

Drama and Plays

• Dramas are literary works meant for stage performance, involving characters acting out a script.
• Key characteristics include divided acts/scenes, character directions, everyday language, and audience interaction.

What is and Isn't Literature?

• Literature should express significant ideas with artistic merit.
• Technical and journalistic texts typically aren't considered literature.

Literary Canon

• A collection of essential works shaping culture over time.
• Formed by scholars and critics, reflecting collective educational standards.
• Examples include classics like The Odyssey and Pride and Prejudice.

Literariness

• Literariness distinguishes literary from non-literary texts through stylistic variations and thematic depth.
• Components include stylistic variations, defamiliarization of concepts, and transformations of feelings/ideas.

Elements of Fiction

• Prose fiction uses natural speech/grammar and lacks strict structure.
• Plot is the sequence of events with conflict (struggle between opposing forces).
• Parts of plot include exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution.
• Conflict involves the protagonist against antagonists (internal or external).
• Setting includes the time and place, impacting character behavior.
• Characters are round (complex, developed) or flat (simple, stereotypical).

Themes

• Themes are central ideas/messages explored through plot, characters, setting, and conflict.
• Moral values and issues are also explored, reflecting relevant societal problems.

Literary Techniques in Prose

• Imagery uses language to create mental pictures appealing to the senses.
• Symbolism represents something beyond itself; types include conventional/public and contextual/private symbols.
• Flashback recounts past incidents; flashforward hints at future events.
• Foreshadowing provides hints about future events.
• Irony conveys meanings opposite to expectations (verbal, dramatic, and situational).

Introduction to Poetry

• Poetry is a concentrated, imaginative form using rhythm, sound, and structure to evoke emotions or experiences.
• Historical overview includes ancient, classical, medieval, and Renaissance poetry.

Types of Poetry

• Narrative poetry tells a story, often with characters, plots, and settings.
• Lyrical poetry expresses emotions and feelings, often in short, emotional, and first-person style.
• Dramatic poetry is designed for performance with dialogue and monologues.

Structures of Poetry

• Closed form poetry has fixed rules, examples include Sonnets, Haikus, and ballads.
• Open form poetry follows no strict rules; free verse is an example.
• Basic structure involves lines and stanzas.

Figurative Language

• Types include imagery, simile, metaphor, and personification.

Interpreting Poetry

• To interpret, read multiple times, analyze language, imagery, and themes.
• Consider form, structure, historical/cultural context, and relate to personal experiences.

Sounds in Poetry

• Sound devices enhance rhythm, meaning and emotional resonance: exact rhyme, internal rhyme, end rhyme, and rhyme scheme.
• Figures of sound include alliteration, assonance, consonance, euphony, cacophony, and onomatopoeia.

Introduction to Plays & Drama

• Plays/Dramas tell stories with dialogue, pantomime or action in prose/verse designed for performance.
• Origins of drama include ancient Greek theatre rooted in religious rituals (e.g. Dionysian festival).
• Key Greek play types include tragedies and comedies with associated literary conventions and characteristics.

Medieval Drama

• Shifts to religious themes with liturgical, mystery, miracle, and morality plays.

Renaissance Theatre

• Secularity increases featuring famous playwrights like Shakespeare, Marlowe, Jonson, showcasing new themes and techniques.

Elements of Drama

• Key dramatic techniques: monologue, soliloquy, aside.
• Staging elements include set, props, costumes.
• Plots usually follow a three-act structure with a setup, confrontation, and resolution.
• Conflicts are central, while characters, themes, figures of speech and moral values help give the play depth and meaning.

Staging a Play

• Plays require carefully considered considerations for audience engagement, effective script tailoring, directional choices, acting/delivering roles and visibility, as well as moving actors for optimal impact. Important to organize stages for effective scenes.