Literary Criticism and Analysis

Essence and Significance of Literature

• The word "Litera" comes from Latin, meaning letter.
• Literature deals with ideas, thoughts, and emotions.
• Literature is the story of humans.
• Literature broadly encompasses everything that has ever been written.
• From the French "belles-letters," literature means beautiful writing.
• Studying literature fully allows one to understand human nature and a nation.
• Literature helps understand innermost feelings and thoughts, and gains understanding of others and themselves

More on Essence and Significance of Literature

• Literature offers an experience to participate in as one reads
• Literature yields more insights when personal experiences are brought to it
• Literature is a faithful production of life and a commentary on the life process
• Literature illuminates life
• Literature includes life's stories, struggles, ideas, failures, sacrifices, and happiness.
• Literature appeals to emotional, spiritual, intellectual, and creative needs. Literature entertains, gives pleasure, fires imagination, arouses noble emotions, and enriches one's life.
• It enables reflection on life and fills people with new ideas.
• Literature is one of the Seven Arts

Why People Read Literature

• For information
• For assessment
• For higher and deeper pleasure
• For a sense of cultural upliftment
• For discovery of broader dimensions in life

Distinguishable Qualities of Great Literature

• Artistry: Appeals to one's sense of beauty.
• Intellectual Value: Stimulates thought and enriches mental life by realizing truths about life and human nature.
• Suggestiveness: Is associated with the emotional power of literature that moves readers deeply. It stirs creative imagination and gives and evokes vision beyond ordinary life.
• Spiritual Value: Elevates the spirit by bringing out moral values, inspiring people to be better.
• Permanence: Endures and can be read over and over, giving fresh delight, new insights, and open new worlds of meaning and experience.
• Universality: Is timeless, timely, and forever relevant.

Studying Literary Text

• Can be studied for thematic, entertainment value, for the richness of its plot, for comparison with other works,
• Also for ideas contained within, its emotional power, for character analysis, and appeal to readers.
• It can also be looked at for social reforms, representation of movements/techniques, the author's unique language, and reflection of life.

Literary Divisions

• All literature falls under prose and poetry divisions.
• Prose is written in paragraph form, expressing ordinary language to the intellect and to convince, inform, instruct, imitate, and reflect.
• Poetry is written in stanzas/verse, using metrical, rhythmical, and figurative language to stir emotion and set ideals for life.

Types of Prose

• Prose Drama: Consists of dialogues in prose meant to be acted on stage.
• Essay: A short literary composition that is expository. It shares thoughts, feelings, experiences, or observations on aspects of life that interest the author.
• Prose Fiction: Something invented, imagined, or feigned to be true.

Fiction Types

• Novel: a long fictitious narrative with a complicated plot with a main plot and subplots. Characters and actions are representative of real life. "Without Seeing The Dawn by Stevan Javellana" is an example.
• Short Story: A compressed fictitious narrative dealing with character interest, emotions, or single series of emotions.
• Biography: A story of a person's life written by someone who knows them well
• Autobiography: A written account of a person's life written by themselves.
• Letter: A written message that displays aspects of the author's psychological make-up not immediately apparent in public writings.
• Diary: A daily written record or account of the writer's thoughts, activities, and observations.
• Journal: A magazine or periodical, especially of a serious or learned nature.
• Historical Prose: A prose that deals with historical events.

Additional Prose Forms

• Scientific Prose: A prose that deals with the subject of science.
• Satirical Prose: A prose form that ridicules the vices and follies of men.
• Current Publications: Include books, magazines, or newspapers that are commonly known or accepted.
• Literary Criticism: Analysis, interpretation, and evaluation of literary works.
• Book Review: an article dealing with contents, literary worth, etc. of a book, especially a recently published book.
• Fiction is an imaginative recreation and re-creation of life.
• Fiction includes short stories and novels.

Short stories

• Often referred to as "slice of life"
• Fictitious narrative compressed into a single unit of time, place, and action.
• Deals with a single character interest, single emotion called forth by a single situation.
• "Dead Stars" by Paz Marquez - Benitez is an example

Novels

• Fictitious narrative with a complicated plot that may have a main plot and one or more sub-plots that develop with the main plot; characters and actions are representative of real life
• "Dogeaters" by Jessica Hagedorn is an example
• Difference between Novel and Short Story: Differ only in length and complexity; the novel is longer with several complications and twists to its plot.
• Fiction is a "make believe" world, the literary characters seem almost real and the situations are likewise similar to real life conditions and surroundings
• People often see themselves in the characters or relate them to real life people they know

Elements of Fiction

Characters

• Represents a human being involved in a conflict.
• Characters are revealed by: the circumstances and actions, their descriptions, dialogue, what others say about them, and the author's descriptions.

Types of Characters

• Round Character: Also known as a dynamic character who recognizes changes in the circumstances and is fully developed, with bad and god traits
• Flat Character: Also known as a stock or stereotype character who does not grow/develop
• Protagonist: Hero/heroine.
• Antagonist: Foil to the protagonist.
• Deuteroganist: Second in importance.
• Fringe: One who is destroyed by his inner conflict.
• Typical or minor characters.
• Setting: Locale and time in which the story takes place.
• Conflict: The struggle/complication involving characters.

Types of Conflict:

• Internal Conflict: Protagonist struggles within themselves, pulled by courses of action or differing emotions
• Interpersonal Conflict: Protagonist fights with someone.
• External Conflict: Protagonist is in conflict with values of larger society.
• Plot: A casually related sequence of events presented in a structure
• Narrative Order: Sequence of events is as follows; exposition to the order, take, find, go, search, need, and finally change.

Plot types of Narrative Order

• Chronological: is the most common narrative order in children's books
• Flashback: Is when past actions are inserted
• Time Lapse: Is when the story skips a period of time that seems unusual compared to the rest of the plot

Pyramidal Structure of a Plot

• Exposition: the beginning and introduces time, setting, and characters.
• Complication: Rising action, unfolding the problem and initial struggles.
• Climax: The result of the crisis.
• Denouement: Untying of knots, showing conflict resolution.
• Resolution: The End and contains last statement about the story.
• Qualities of Plot: Must be exciting, good structure, the elements must be arranged in a way that is tied together, and one must lead naturally to the next.

Plot Devices

• Flashback: Something out of chronological order; to reveal information, to better understand a character
• Foreshadowing: Device that is a sign of something to happen that creates suspense, readers guessing what will happen
• Suspense: The feeling of excitement or tension in the reader as the plot unfolds.
• Surprise Ending: Catches reader off guard with an unexpected turn of events.
• In Media Res: Beginning the story in the midst of the action.
• Point of View: Writer's feeling and attitude toward the subject, telling who is the narrator

Narrative Perspectives

• First Person: Uses "I"; the writer could be character/participant (protagonist, observer).
• Third Person: Writer-narrator is a character and narrates what they observed/their opinions.
• Omniscient: The writer-narrator sees all and reports everyone's thoughts, entering the minds of characters

POV Characteristics

• First person: the speaker is a part of the story and observes characters, but only reveals the feelings of self and uses "I, me, mine, we, us our" pronouns
• Third-person limited: The story is told only as one character can observe. They are not in the story, cannot read any other characters minds. Pronouns are he, him, his, she, her, they, them theirs.
• Omniscient: The narrator/author knows and sees everything and uses (He, him, his, her (s), they, them, theirs)

Elements of Fiction

• Mood: Atmosphere or emotional effect generated by the words, images, situations, ambiance. Examples could include melancholy, joyous, tense, etc.
• Tone: Used to denote an attitude by the speaker/author including their feeling, language, and artful arrangement; it describes the attitude of the narrator
• Symbolism: Stands for something other than themselves, bringing ideas or obstruction
• Images: Concrete qualities that appeal to the senses.
• Theme: The central or dominating idea, the topic of the story itself. Do not confuse this with moral lesson

Poetry

• From the Greek word poesis which means "making or creating"
• Is a language more intensely communicated than ordinary language

5 Things About Poetry

• Poetry concentrates thought.
• Poetry is a kind of word-music.
• Poetry expresses all the senses.
• Poetry answers the demand for rhythm.
• Poetry is observation plus imagination.

Definitions of Poetry

• ”A poem is a meaningful organization of words." - Gemino Abad
• ”The fusion of two poles of mind, emotion and thought” - T.S Eliot
• ”Poetry is the union of thoughts and feelings” - Manuela Viray
• ”Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings recorded in tranquility” - William Wadsworth
• ”It is the rhythmic creation of beauty” - Edgar Allan Poe
• ”It is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds” - Percy B. Shelly
• ”Poetry if the ‘essence' of the creative imagination of man” - Jaime G. Ang

Elements of Poetry:

• Sense: Is revealed through the meaning of words, images and symbols -Diction: Denotative and connotative meanings/symbols -Images and sense impression: Sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, motion, and emotion -Figure of speech: Simile, metaphor, personification, apostrophe, metonymy, synecdoche, hyperbole, irony, allusion, antithesis, paradox, litotes, oxymoron, onomatopoeia.
• Sound: is the result of a combination of elements
• Tone color: alliteration, assonance, consonance, rhyme, repetition, anaphora.
• Rhythm: ordered recurrent alteration of strong and weak elements in the flow of the sound and silence: duple, triple, running or common rhyme.
• Meter: stress, duration, or number of syllables per line, fixed metrical pattern, or a verse form: quantitative, syllabic, accentual and accentual syllabic.
• Rhyme scheme: formal arrangements in rhymes in stanza or the whole poem.

Structure in relation to Poetry:

• Structure: Refers to the arrangement of words, and lines fit together, and the organization of the parts to form a whole -Word order: Natural and unnatural arrangement of words -Ellipsis: Omitting some words for economy and effect
• Punctuation: Abundance or lack of punctuation marks -Shape: Contextual and visual designs: jumps, omission of spaces, capitalization, lower case

Types of Poetry

• Narrative Poetry: a poem that tells a story -Epic is a long narrative poem of the largest proportions. -Metrical Romance is a narrative poem that tells a story of adventure, love, and chivalry where the typical hero is a knight on a quest. -Metric Tale a narrative poem consisting of a single series of simple connective events ie idyll, home tale, love tale, supernatural, or tales written with a strong moral belief in verse -Ballad is the simplest form of narrative poetry. It's a short narrative poem that is telling only one specific incident in a simple structured meter and stanzas. Meant to be sung. -Popular Ballad is a ballad of workmanship telling of some simple incidents adventure cruelty passion or superstition, an incident that shows the primary instinctive, natural, man who has some influence from the modern civilization restraint. -Modern or Artistic – created by a poet imitation of the folk ballad utilizes with a considerable level many of its devices and conventions -Metrical Allegory – the extended narrative with a carry of the second meaning running right along its surface story. The things actions and situations are very symbolic.

Types of Poetry: Lyric Poetry

• Lyric Poetry: A poem that expresses personal emotions or feelings, typically spoken in the first person.
• Ode: a lyric poem of some length serious in subject and dignified in style. It is the most majestic of the lyric poems. It is written in a spirit of praise of some persons or things
• Elegy – a poem written on the death of friend of the poet
• Song – lyric poem in regular metrical pattern set to music, usually has 12 syllables and is slowly sung to the accompaniment of a guiter or banduria
• Corridos (kuridos) – these are a type of lyric poetry that has measures of eight syllables (octosyllabic) and recited to a material beat
• Sonnet – lyric poem containing fourteen iambic lines, with a complicated rhyme

Figures of Speech in Poetry

• Simile: Comparison using the words "like" or "as."
• Metaphor: Direct comparison of two unlike things or ideas.
• Personification: Giving human traits to inanimate objects or ideas.
• Apostrophe: Direct address to someone absent, dead, or inanimate.
• Metonymy: Substituting a word that closely relates to a person/thing.

Essays

• A popular prose literature of moderate length that aims to explain or clear up an idea, theory, expression, or point of view

Elements of Essays

• Theme and content, "what exactly is the main point of the essay"?
• The general objective/ aim of the essay relating to the ideas being described and the events and their experiences.
• Form and Structure, ""How did you order your ideas to achieve a single effect”?"
• Describing in very clear what are to outline of the essay going from orderly, also systematic or in a logical manner.
• Has three basic parts as is the introduction, the body, and the conclusion. There is two major patterns, the inductive and with the deductive method
• Language and Style, ""What makes the literary essay”?"
• Is the mode or otherwise the tone with the attitude as well then sensibility is with the writer. They do this most in a way that is is very whimsical and often humorous.
• This part also just what describes this with has described how much or how this certain the writer expresses him himself.

Types Of essay

• Formal, usually impersonal essays Deals with any very serious and of with many important topics. Usually has to be using his certain with the authoritative style He impose is that with the formal kind of any tone in of that which is that with the objective then has too has to stay being clear has to stay straight forward kind of wording and then of with the expression. Is in the end what is going to be teaching someone something and instructing with his word which is using his teachings.
• Informal Essay: The covers the the ordinary and common type of the place or if even though place the subjects that go a long casual and a of conversation conversation.
• Reflectives: is that with the aphoristic, short and even with something sharp such to the quotation but not with something like that with the quotation, is it usually will cut deep into someone even the memory and will most be the spur to make them think,

Additional essay Types

• Narratives: Uses an accident, event, or otherwise a story to form a the clear is idea and has it endear
• Descriptives: add also vividness then reality but not with what is a to otherwise a to with the narrative.

Additionals Essay Types

• Specific or specific to Speculative- It is has theories or they can also ask other certain questions that may be found in even other interesting is a for the subject and may most be with the rambling or could also speculate then can even with the problems

• Portrayal: Is with the portraits to it is portraying with a to the specific character with also with his sketches which are not for with the simple with how the life could be and should with most try with a to the specific character in the the story and be for to to analyzed with more with

• Nature: Aims with also picture the world of something like those, flowers, any birds and also with the mountains with may most be with the pictorial or Reflective which it is in this part depends with a lot with the the writer and with something is with a lot with

Additional Essay Types

• Critical
• Critical usually include is his biography then goes after this other then of something like the Literary and with the Criticism then usually with the with all the reviews which are can most with do something of a make sure that analytical with a judgment that is that the with a literature.
• Didactic
• Is someone that is is usually Enforces that with a moral lesson which is what makes his to to for to then is that to usually has with something and which is with the expression to with a some and more so than with to what is to be the something other given
• Scientists- It Contains the best of excellence logic has the clarity of expressions are we are organize what are the presentation to be or a which can go in order within with something more along even the same what is already being said.

DRAMA

• From the Greek word “dan" which means to do
• It is the art make-believe; it consists in acting out events that happened or are simply just all imaginary
• This has been also defines the play when Aristotle was simply with "with the that which is his life."
• Kinds in with the Theaters in something along when:

Theatre

-Arena- is that with their kind of a the that and was it only when the Greeks that would even with only with the actors but usually would with even the surrounded in only for the with which this usually even gives out for his kind

• Medieval- it mostly uses only the the playing which usually even gives out with is for is the for the portable because is will not give it out with distance
• Elizabeth- these are only in with their open air with a stage or a wood structure
• Proscenium- the stage of the 19th century, this distanced the audience from the play so you need to have some sort frame behind which the performance act out there scene
• Theater with-this can closes the gap between the to the actors and for is always in his and they has the must deal with something to know

Drama Types

• Tragedy: Where one of the first to kind with the action happens and of his the character will find someone the only character that has the must be tragic end.
• Comedy: That is when we will we will have all the intent with only the intent with to only amused the to the audience of the with which is more of the happy feeling the good luck for all.
• tragic comedy-: is it when is to is to all do with action that does with the ad here that as well which is what happened inside with his tragedy but as well there will end of be or the happy.

Drama Elements

• It is plot, characters, setting, dialogue, movement, music, and theme.
• Plot a term to see how someone is to and and has to give and in form his to and has will all see it also and which that helps it also can with some can to help the with action and more on
• Characters are the most that to you will be able to or that those of it and has to do a lot and must create the opportunities
• Setting is also some with only will help the of also which the directions or with has well then helps is has is as is with it was
• Dialogue is what and tell us the whole
• Movement will help the act action and much and how much to make in and is the

Drama Elements continued

• Music is the also this very very very with an occasional as well and of this, which helps the action come very nicely and this does with with her then only are are are usually sung
• Theme is is is an idea or in central is what or can with