Understanding Literature: Definitions and Types

• Literature is written works expressing ideas, emotions, and human experiences, serving purposes from entertainment to cultural preservation.

Definitions of Literature

• Webster defines literature as preserved writings of a language or people.
• Henry Van Dyke sees literature as interpreting life and nature with charm and author's personality.
• Teofilo del Castillo and Buenaventura S. Medina view literature as a faithful reproduction of life, artistically executed.
• Cleanth Brooks, John Thibaut, and Robert Penn Warren say literature pictures life, including what science omits, allowing experience of 'lived' meanings.
• Edilberto K. Tiempo, Miguel A. Bernard, and Edith L. Tiempo define literature as an expression of meaning articulated through form.

Types of Literature

• Literature is categorized into oral and written forms.

Oral Literature

• Oral literature is verbal expressions of the ancient world, passed down by word of mouth, focusing on immediate storytelling pleasure.

Written Literature

• Written literature is permanent, capturing thoughts and emotions in a readable, preserved form, composed by authors with language mastery.

Reasons for Writing

• People write for self-expression, to spread knowledge, to pass on ideas/values, and to impart wisdom.

Prose

• Prose is written language in ordinary speech, using sentences and paragraphs to express ideas straightforwardly.

Divisions of Prose: Fiction

• Short Story: Brief narrative with a single character or situation, for example, "Dead Stars" by Paz Marquez Benitez.
• Novel: A longer narrative with multiple characters and complex plots, like "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe.
• Play: A story through dialogue/action for performance, for example, "Call Me Flory" by Wilfrido Ma. Guerrero.
• Legend: Traditional story explaining the origin of something.
• Fable: Story with animals, imparting a moral lesson.

Divisions of Prose: Non-Fiction

• Essay: Writing on a specific subject.
• Oration: Formal speech to an audience.
• Biography: Detailed written account of someone's life.
• Autobiography: Self-written account of one's life.
• News: Reports on current events.
• Letters, Diaries, Journals: Personal records conveying thoughts.

Poetry

• Poetry is artistic literature using rhythm, sound, and imagery to evoke feelings, often written in verses with rhyme, meter, and metaphor.

Three Main Types of Poetry

• Narrative Poetry: Tells a story, including epics (heroic deeds) and ballads (short narrative songs).
• Dramatic Poetry: Tells a story through dialogue/action, including dramatic monologues revealing the speaker's personality.
• Lyric Poetry: Expresses emotions/thoughts, including haikus (5-7-5 syllables), odes (praise/admiration), elegies (reflective poems about death/loss), sonnets (14-line poems), and songs.

Imagery

• Imagery utilizes language appealing to the senses to create vivid mental pictures.

Figurative Language

• Figurative language uses non-literal expressions to convey complex ideas.

Types of Figurative Language

• Simile: Comparison using "like" or "as," e.g., "She is as cold as ice."
• Metaphor: Direct comparison without "like" or "as," e.g., "Time is a thief."
• Personification: Giving human qualities to non-human things, e.g., "The wind whispered."
• Synecdoche: Part represents the whole, e.g., "All hands on deck."
• Metonymy: Using a related term, e.g., "The White House announced."
• Hyperbole: Exaggeration, e.g., "Million things to do!"
• Oxymoron: Pairing contradictory terms, e.g., "Bittersweet."
• Paradox: Contradictory statement revealing truth, e.g., "Less is more."
• Allusion: Reference to a known figure/event, e.g., "Romeo of our class."
• Onomatopoeia: Words imitating sounds, e.g., "tick-tocked."
• Litotes: Deliberate understatement, e.g., "Not bad at all."
• Apostrophe: Direct address, e.g., "O Death, where is thy sting?"
• Alliteration: Repetition of consonant sounds, e.g., "Peter Piper picked..."
• Assonance: Repetition of vowel sounds, e.g., "rain in Spain..."
• Consonance: Repetition of consonant sounds (end of words), e.g., "lumpy bumpy road."