Introduction to Literature PDF

INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE LEARNING OUTCOMES  To familiarize commonly used terms in the study in Literature.  Identify the difference between Prose and Verse. WHAT IS LITERATURE?  Imaginative or creative writing, especially of recognized artistic value.  Expression of life through writings h...

INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE LEARNING OUTCOMES  To familiarize commonly used terms in the study in Literature.  Identify the difference between Prose and Verse. WHAT IS LITERATURE?  Imaginative or creative writing, especially of recognized artistic value.  Expression of life through writings having excellence of form. CLASSIFICATION OF LITERATURE ACCORDING TO FORM Prose Poetry paragraph form meter or verse form everyday language utilizes imagery literal language figurative language  EXAMPLE PROSE  In fourteenth-century China a Buddhist monk named Tung-ming, who was also a painter, was fortunate in having a merchant who supported him by buying his ink-paintings. Tung-ming excelled in his art, a very difficult art because an Asian ink painting, unlike a Western oil painting, cannot be changed as the artist works on it. Once the brush touches the paper, the ink makes its mark, and it cannot be removed.  From “The Lesson of the Master” by Emily Wu POETRY  It is written in meter or verse expressing various emotions and ideas which are conveyed using various techniques, such as figures of speech, images, and repetition.  It is a verbal art form in which sound and meaning are both essential for the artwork.  Types of Poetry Lyric – it presents a Narrative – it tells a Dramatic – it tells a person’s reflection story or a sequence story that is meant on a subject or an of events to be acted out emotional state Ballad – it recounts Metrical Romance – Ode – it is written Sonnet – a fourteen Elegy – it is a a single incident and it tells stories of in praise of Song – meant to be line poem with a lamentation of death Epic it is normally set to adventure, love, and something or sung specific rhyme or reflects on human music chivalry someone scheme mortality  THINGS TO CONSIDER IN READING POETRY  Title – it gives a preview of what the subject matter of the poem is.  Speaker – it identifies who is speaking in the poem. Even if the poem is written in the first-person, the speaker is not necessarily the poet. Most poets use a persona in writing.  Context – some poems become more powerful when you apply the external factors that led to the creation of the poem.  Tone – identify the attitude of the author towards the poem.  Patterns and Symbols – Look for sounds, words, or lines that repeat. P “Six P.M.” by Nick Joaquin OETRY  But I—where am I bound?  Trouvere at night, grammarian in the morning, My garden, my four walls ruefully architecting syllables-- and you project strange shores upon my yearning: but in the afternoon my ivory tower falls. Atlantis? the Caribbeans? Or Cathay? I take a place in the bus among people returning Conductor, do I get off at Sinai? to love (domesticated) and the smell of onions burning Apocalypse awaits me: urgent my sorrow and women reaping the washlines as the Angelus tolls towards the undiscovered world that I roam warm responding flesh for a while shall borrow: conquistador tonight, clockpuncher tomorrow. FICTION  It is any form of narrative which deals, in part or in whole, with events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary and invented by its author(s). ELEMENTS OF FICTION  Plot  Characters  Point of view  Setting  Tone  Symbol  Theme PLOT  It is the rendering and ordering of the events and actions of a story.  Conflict – it is the struggle found in fiction. It may be internal or external. It is what holds the readers’ interest in the story.  PARTS OF THE PLOT  Exposition is concerned with introducing characters and setting.  Rising Action is the central part of a story during which various problems arise, leading up to the climax.  Climax is the moment of great emotional intensity. It is also the moment when the outcome of the plot and the fate of the characters are decided. PARTS OF THE PLOT  Falling Action brings a release of emotional tension and moves the reader to the resolution of the conflict(s).  Conclusion (Dénouement) presents a new/stable situation, and gives a sense of closure. Common plot structures Overcoming the Rags to Riches The Quest Rebirth Monster The protagonist The poor The protagonist During the sets out to protagonist and some course of the defeat an acquires power, companions set story, an antagonistic wealth, before out to acquire important force which losing it all and an important event forces threatens the gaining it back object or to get the main protagonist upon growing to a location, character to and/or as a person. facing many change their protagonist's obstacles and ways, often homeland. temptations making them a along the way. better person. CHARACTERS  is a participant in the story. Though characters are usually human beings, it is not always the case.  All characters must have at least some human qualities (ability to think, to feel pain, or to fall in love, etc.). TYPES OF CHARACTER ACCORDING TO COMPLEXITY  Round – act from varied, often conflicting motives, impulses, and desires; they have psychological complexity. They are given a substantial history, and has positive and negative qualities.  Dynamic - A character that changes during the course of a story. Sometimes, the change is a result of a reckoning with the past or the self.  Flat – one-dimensional characters (only one or two personality traits) that behave and speak in predictable and repetitive ways. TYPES OF CHARACTER ACCORDING TO COMPLEXITY  Static – is a character who does not change during the course of a story.  Stock - is a character based on a common literary or social stereotype that seems to be pulled out of a stock-room of familiar characters (bad boy, mad scientist, femme fatale, etc.) because they repeatedly used in various stories.  POINT OF VIEW  describes from which character's perspective the story is perceived. First-Person Second-Person Third-Person The narrator is a character in The narrator speaks to the The narrator is not a the story reader. character in the story. Is telling someone else’s story It turns the reader into a Has access to the thoughts, or their own experience. character (protagonist) in the perceptions, experiences of It can add immediacy and story. the character(s). intensity. It can provide some information or insight that is unavailable to the characters themselves Can be limited or omniscient. EXAMPLE OF SECOND-PERSON POINT-OF-VIEW  First, stand in front of Florsheim’s Fifty-seventh Street window, press your face close to the glass, watch the fake velvet Hummels inside revolving around the wing tips; some white shoes, like your father wears, are propped up with garlands on a small mound of chemical snow. All the stores have closed. You can see your breath on the glass. Draw a peace sign. You are waiting for a bus.  Excerpt from “How to Be an Other Woman” by Lorrie Moore. SETTING  It is the time, place and social environment in which a story takes place.  Oftentimes only a generic description is given to imply that the story could happen anywhere. EXAMPLE OF SETTING  A girl thought she would have her hair done. This happened in a little village deep in the mountains. When she got to the hairdresser's house, the girl was surprised. All the girls of the village had gathered there.  From “Hair” by Yasunari Kawabata LOCAL COLOR  A detailed description of the characteristics or peculiarities of a place or period as represented in literature or drama.  The author would normally introduce local color to inform the reader that the narrative happened in a particular place. EXAMPLE OF LOCAL COLOR  Ah pull oot some crumpled notes fae ma poakits, and wi touching servility, flatten them oot oan the coffee table. Wi an air ay reverence and all due deference tae Mikey’s status as The Man, ah hand them ower.  Irvine Welsh,Trainspotting. TONE  is the attitude toward the subject and toward the audience implied in a literary work. Tone may be formal, humorous, intimate, solemn, playful, ironic, or many other possible attitudes.  Paying close attention to the words used, especially their connotations, would give the reader an idea about which tone the author is trying to convey.  “People took such awful chances with chemicals and their bodies because they wanted the quality of their lives to improve. They lived in ugly places where there were only ugly things to do. They didn't own doodley-squat, so they couldn't improve their surroundings. so they did their best to make their insides beautiful instead.”  Excerpt from Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut.  It was the year of Our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five. Spiritual revelations were conceded to England at that favoured period, as at this. Mrs. Southcott had recently attained her five-and-twentieth blessed birthday, of whom a prophetic private in the Life Guards had heralded the sublime appearance by announcing that arrangements were made for the swallowing up of London and Westminster.  Excerpt from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens SYMBOL  is something such as an object, picture, written word, sound, or particular mark that represents something else by association.  A literary symbol may be understood as an extended figure of speech that rewards further interpretation.  And as I sat there, brooding on the old unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.  Excerpt from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald WRITERS EMPHASIZE SYMBOLS BY:  describing them at some length  introducing them at times when they might not seem strictly necessary  calling attention to them repeatedly. THEME  is the broad idea, moral, or message of a literary work.  Our experience of any literary work is not complete unless we deal with the question of its theme. OTHER LITERARY DEVICES USED IN FICTION  Flashback – an action that interrupts to show an event that happened at an earlier time.  Foreshadowing - a method used to build suspense by providing hint(s) of what is to come.  Irony - Incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs.  Deus Ex Machina - is a plot device whereby a seemingly inextricable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved usually in an awkward fashion.