The Literary Genres:

Understanding the World of Literature

What is Literature ?

Imaginative or creative writingDistinguished writing, with deep sublime, or noble feelings. It includes oral tradition passed on from generation by word of mouth(proverbs, myths, legends, epic, folk song, etc.)

[Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary]Defined Literature ..

The writing or study of books, etc., valued as works of art(drama, fiction, essays, poetry, biography) contrasted with technical books and journalism.All the writings of the country (french lit.) or a period (18th century English lit.)Printed material describing or advertising (pamphlets) Books dealing with special subjects, travel, poultry farming.

For Del Prado literature is..

An art expressing beauty through the medium of language; a recreation through the language of human situation and experience The orchestration of the manifold but elemental experiences of man blended into harmonious and desired patterns of expressions and a faithful reproduction of life executed in an artistic pattern.

Why study Literature?

EnjoymentImagination and InspirationVicarious ExperienceUnderstanding and EmpathyHeritageMoral ReasoningLiterary and Artistic Preferences

The Academic Value of Literature to Student

In a addition to the personal benefits of literature for young readers, there are also several important academic benefits.Reading. Many teachers and librarians believe that regular involvement with excellent and appropriate literature can foster language development in young people and can help them to learn to read and to value reading.

Writing. Since people tend to assimilate or adopt what they like of what they read and hear, young people may, by listening to and reading literature, begin to develop their own writing “voice”, or unique, personal writing style. Devices found in books such as the use of dialects, dialogue, and precise description are often assimilated into students’ own writing.Content Area Subject. In reading about and discussing the literature, you will often hear the phrase literature across the curriculum. This means using works of literature as teaching materials in the content area of reading.

Art Appreciation. Illustration in some literature books(Children’s Literature) can be appreciated both for its ability to help tell the story(cognitive value) and for its value as art (aesthetic value)For this reason, illustrations in picture books are said to be integral to the story. Without the illustrations, therefore these books would diminished, and in some case the story would make no sense or would be nonexistent. For example, novels and anthologies(used by college students) often have a few scattered illustrations that depict what has already been described in the text or that serve to decorate the text. These illustration are said to be incidental to the story.

Generic ClassificationProse. There are two subgenres within this category: prose fiction and prose non-fiction.

1. Fiction: these include the short stories, novels, myths, parables, romances, and epics.

2. Nonfiction: Works of facts and theory.Drama. Plays are written with characters, implied action, and dialogue, and are usually intended for actors to perform on stage.Poetry. Poetry is highly imagistic, and it is written in condensed language, stylized syntax, and figures of speech not found in ordinary communication.

Understanding the Genre of the Short story.

Understanding the elements of a short story, however, will heighten your enjoyment because it will you to read critically; that is it will help you to evaluate and compare different stories so that you will understand why a story affects you in certain way and why you like some stories more than others

Conflict can be external or internal. Physical or external conflict is easy to recognize especially in an adventure story which emphasizes a vivid physical struggle. Internal Conflict may be represented by a character's struggle with conscience, or between what is and what should be.

The forces opposing each other in a conflict are labeled the protagonist and the antagonist. The protagonist is the main character who is faced with a basic problem or struggle. The antagonist is the person, place, idea, or physical force opposing the protagonist. To succeed, the protagonist must overcome the antagonist.

The Elements of Shorts story

Conflict. The reason that the story grows in tension and suspense as it builds to a climax is that the pressure of conflict, the struggle between two opposing forces, is in increased by each events: Conflict in a story may be (1)person against person, (2)human against nature, (3)person against itself, (4)the individual against society, (5)a combination of two or more of these types.

Plot. This is the plan of the story- the sequence of actions and events that tells what happened. In many short stories, the plot has a well-defined beginning, middle, and end.

As the main characters struggles with those conflicts, the reader begins to recognize a growing tension or rising action in the plot toward a particular high point of interest called climax.

Following the climax come the denouement, which is final unraveling or solution of the plot. Foreshadowing. This means exactly what the word implies- a hint of thing to come.

Characterization. Characters and plots are closely related. A well convinced plot involves meaningful human action. A plot is believed only if the characters in a story act in a consistent and natural way.

• Point of View- there are basically two points of view from which a writer can tell a story.

1. First-Person Narrator. Here the writer usually has a major or minor characters who tells the story in his or her own words.

2. Third-Person Narrator. If an author feels that the reader should know more than any person can tell, the story may be written from an omniscient or all knowing point of view.

• Tone. Tone is a writer’s attitude toward his or her subject and characters. It may be sorrowful, sentimental, angry, ironic, sympathetic or objective, and impersonal.

• Setting the Atmosphere. The time and the place of a story’s action- is most often stressed in a story of local color, which emphasizes the particular characteristics of a region and its habitants.

As a rule, setting is not a dominant element, but it does serve to establish or heighten atmosphere. This is esp. evident in stories where the author wants to create a special feeling or mood.

• Symbol. A symbol is something that represents or suggests a relationship or association. For example, a flag symbolizes patriotism; lamp represents knowledge; a cross stands for the Christian Church.

In fiction, symbols are often concrete objects used to represents abstract ideas.

• Theme. Another important elements is the theme, the central insight or idea on which the story is based. A theme is rarely stated; usually it is implied. Generally, a theme is a significant insight about human life.

The second why will help relate the different parts or elements of the story. Short stories are limited. They do not include “extras”. Ask then, why did the author use this type of setting, this kind of dialogue, these events, these characters, this particular point of view? Asking these questions will help you to understand how the story’s meaning is conveyed through the relationship of all the parts of the story.

• Analysis of Short story. In order to discover the underlying meaning of a story, you need to learn to read more than just the printed words. Much of the pleasure of reading comes from being able to supply what the author does not say but only suggests.

The key to a story will most often be found by asking the question “why?” Of each story, asks two why’s. The first why is directed toward the character’s motivations. Why do characters act and speak as they do? What motives do they have for their choices and decisions?.

Drama is the gateway into the wonderland of “Let’s pretend.” Few people can travel to far-way lands, but plays enable everyone to go in imagination almost anywhere and to meet almost anyone.

A play introduces you to a great variety, of people, for dramatists have the power of creating characters who seem as alive as the people one meets every day.

Kinds of DramaAll drama cannot be the same kind because life itself is varied. Some lives are grave and sad; some seem only merry and happy; others appear romantically beautiful. Most lives are all of these kinds at different times.

Here are some of the different kind of plays.1. Tragedy. A tragedy is a play in which the

leading character is overcome by trouble of some kind.

2. Comedy. A comedy is a play in which the leading character overcomes the obstacles placed in his way and wins in the conflicts; thus the comedy ends happily.

3. Farce. A farce is comedy in which the situations are too ridiculous to be true, the characters are so exaggerated that they seem to be caricatures, and the motives are absurd and undignified.

4. Pantomime. A pantomime is a play in which the story is told entirely by action. It may be either a comedy or tragedy.

5. Historical play. A historical play is one in which some events of history is dramatized.

Characteristic of a Play

A play is a story told by means of dialogue and action on a stage.

Just as a story must possess the ff. characteristics so, too must a play;

1. Characters. The characters are the people who take part in the action.

2. Settings. The setting tells when and where the vents happened.

3. Plot. The story of the play is told in a series of incidents arranged in such a way that there is a beginning, a middle, and an end.

6. Puppet play. A puppet play is one in which the parts are acted by puppets or marionettes. A puppet is a small figure in human form, constructed with jointed limbs, which are made to move by means of wires operated by someone from either above, or below the stage.

7. Plays or Fantasy. In a play of fantasy , the action could not take place in real life, but not in the imagination of the writer

4. Conflict. The plot must give an account of a struggle, or conflict, it may be struggle between to persons, or between two group of peoples, or the struggle maybe a mental one.

5. Suspense. As the story moves toward the clashing of the two forces, the account of the incidents must be told, so that each one grows more and more exciting

6. Climax. With the growth of excitement the action becomes more and more intense until the highest point of interest is reached with clashing of the two forces.

7. Single effects. The story of the play must arouse some feeling in the reader. the emotion maybe that of anger, humour, fear, sadness, or pity. One emotion, or effect, predominates.

8. Theme. the author discovered something about life that he or she thinks is worth knowing- a general truth that he wishes to present; or he has made a general observation that he thinks would be of interest to others.

9. Style. Style I the manner in which the play is written. Words frequently used to describe style are; clear vivid, simple, forceful, humorous, polished, individual.Features that belong to play but do not belong to a story or these.

1. Stage Properties.2. Stage Directions.

STRUCTURE OF THE ONE-ACT PLAYIt is not a condensed or diminutive full length

playHas developed a technique of its own, in some

respects more exacting and binding than that of the full-length play

The heart of the one-act play is concentration, singles of impression, unity

Dealing with the briefest lapse of time cannot develop, it can reveal character.

The interest must be continually projected forward.

One-act play must quickly seize the attention of the audience, clarify the situation, and carry the interest along a through properly related sequence of episodes that rise rapidly to a dramatic climax.

The one-act play is necessarily episodic.On the contrary, the serious one act play aims

to seize a significant and crucial moment, to bring to a sharp focus the cumulative force of character and circumstance, and in a flash as it were to furnish a revealing glimpse of the history of life.

Exposition and Inciting Moment

Exposition : introduces the characters, establishes the relation among them, makes clear the setting, and strikes the key mode of the dominating mood.Inciting moment: in one act play the main characters are likely to be engaged in the initial dramatic situation(inciting moment).

Complication : the reactin of character to character, and of character to circumstances will necessarily develop a second dramatic episode out of the first;and perhaps, a third of the second.

Crisis and climax: the series of dramatic episodes must finally bring the action to a head where the cumulative force of character and circumstances press for a solution to the problem.

Resolution: it marks the beginning of the resolution. It also answers the main question but leaves certain minor ones – bearing usually on the reaction of the characters.

Surprise ending: the ending of a one act play may take a turn wholly unexpected in that nothing in the play has foreshadowed it. This is usually brought about by what Percival Wilde calls the “secondary climax”

CHARACTER• Is the stuff out of which drama is made• “No play can rise above the level of its

characterization”• Action properly motivated can be understood

freely only in terms of character.• Usually revealed first by the appearance and

dress of the individual• Self-characterization through dialogue must,

of course, not always taken at face value

PLOT AND THEME

Plot is the design into which the stuff is wovenWhile Plot is the design of constructed story,

Theme is the central idea which the story elaborates, or the fundamental truth which it exemplifies

Plot gives the story formTheme gives it significanceTheme, however is by no means synonymous

with “moral”

ATMOSPHERE

Each scene or locality, by virtue of the nature, appearance, and arrangement of its components parts, arouses certain one reaction.This somewhat intangible reality is known as atmosphere.

A play may be described as the dominating mood which the plays generates

In a period play, costumes, stage properties, and dialogue are the elements most potent in yielding atmosphere.

UNDERSTANDING THE GENRE OF POETRY

Studying poetry can increase your sensitivity to sounds and words and to the intricacies of rhythm, and you may often to be amazed at how much can be implied with so few words.

NARRATIVE POETRY: the central feature in all narrative poetry is the story being told.

• Three kinds of narrative poetry:1. Ballad- is a tightly metered poem which tells a story.-ballads theme includes disappointment in love,

revenge, super natural beings and events, and physical strength or agility.

2. Metrical tale-is a relatively long poem which tells a

completely developed story in verse3. Epic poem-is a very long narrative

WHAT IS THE SPEAKER SPEAKING ABOUT?

Speakers can be contemplating, reflecting, emoting, intellectualizing, describing and so forth.

They can be involved in a dialogue with other characters, or can be relating story

“WHEN AND WHERE DOES THE SPEAKER SPEAK?”

• Time and place are important considerations in the performance of most literary works.

• In general, lyric poems seem to encompass a short period of time- a flash of illumination. Dramatic poems take place now-in the present-and often the time covered in the poem is the same amount of time it would take to perform the poem. Narrative poems are usually the longest and involve a progression of events in time.

HOW DOES THE SPEAKER SPEAK?”

PROSODY: is the art of patterning poetry..• These patterns may be on: the repetition of

sensory images, literary images, tone color or meter.

SENSORY iMAGERY

• Are images that appeal to the senses.There are primarily eight kinds of sensory

images: visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, tactile, kinetic, kinesthetic, and thermal.

Literary Imagery

Literary Imagery or Figurative Language, helps to make a poem clearer, fresher, or more vital, usually through some means of comparisons or by relating to something outside of the poem.

Major kinds of Literary Images

1. Allusion- is a reference to a person, place, or thing outside of the confines of the poem. Poets usually allude to characters or events in mythology and the Bible, to another literary work, or to a contemporary or historical event. Provides valuable Information.

Ex. “The couple went to Adam’s grocery store and stole an apple”

2. Apostrophe- is an address to an inanimate object, a muse, God, or an absent or deceased person. In apostrophe, the speaker is reaching out, trying to communicate with someone or something unable to respond.

Ex. Death, be not proud though some called have thee, Mighty and dreadful,

for thou art not so3. Hyperbole- is an exaggerated statement

employing inflated language. A speaker who uses many hyperbolic statements is prone to overstatements.Ex. “She was the most talented and

beautiful girl in the world”

4. Litotes- is an understatement in which the affirmative is implied by denying its opposite. Litotes are used by characters who are a bit uncertain or unsure of themselves and who hesitate to commit themselves too vehemently. Ex. “She wasn't that bad looking”

5. Metaphor- is a comparison in which something is compared to something else. A speaker might use a metaphor to make an image clearer , to relate something not seen or understood and to something concrete.

Ex. “I’d rather be a sparrow than to be a snail”

6. Metonymy- one word or image is used to represent another with which it is closely associated.Ex. “the pen is mightier than the

sword”7. Oxymoron- is a contradiction that

seemingly cannot be resolved.Ex. “Parting is such a sweet sorrow”.

8. Paradox- is a seemingly contradictory statement that turns out to be partly true.

Ex. “You can check out anytime you like,

But you can never leave.”

9. Personification- occurs when the poet bestows human characteristics on inanimate object, abstract qualities, and animals.

Ex. The moon doth with delightLook round her when the heavens are

bare10.Simile- is a comparison using like, as or if.

Ex. My love is like a red rose.11. Synecdoche-is closely related to

metonymy. In synecdoche, a part is used to suggest the whole, or that of the whole for a parts, as:

• Specie for genus- She has been sixteen summers.

• Individual for specie- He is Croesus.• Whole for part- The arrow struck me.• Genus for specie- He is a wretched

creature.

12. Irony- is the use of language which when taken literally express contrary of what is meant.

Ex. Elijah said to prophet of Baal,“Cry aloud, for he is god”.

4. Antonomasia- is the use of proper name, or the name of an office, rank, profession, etc., instead of a common name, as in:

Ex. Some village Hampden that with dauntless breast

The little tyrant of the fields withstood;Some mute, inglorious Milton here may rest,

Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country’s blood-Gray

5. Apostrophe- is a figure of speech in w/c speaker turns away from his subject to address some object or she imagines to be present.

Ex. O thou bright moon! Thou object of my fist love!

6. Asyndeton- is the ellipsis of connectives, as in:

Ex. I came, (and) I saw, (and) I conquered.

-Shelley7. Catachresis- is the use of the word to

express something at variants with its tru meaning, as in:

Brass coppers; orTaste the smell of dairy

-Thompson

8. Enallage- is the use of one part of speech or one modification for another, as in :

They fall successive and successive rise poor me!

Solomon, than whom they’re never was a wiser;

Me thinks; me seems; there is no danger that is falling.It is me.

9. Epigram- is a figure of a speech in which there is a contradiction between the literal meaning of the word and the meaning really intended, as in ;

The child is the father of the man.

10. Epizeuxis- is the emphatic repitition of a word, as in;

Ex. Break, break, breakOn thy gray stone, O sea. --Tennyson

11. Euphemism- is a softened way of saying what is disagreeable or offensive.

Ex. He fell asleep (He died)

12. Hyperbaton- is an inversion of the natural order of the natural order of the words or phrases in a sentence, as in:

Ex. Deep on his front engraven,

Deliberation sat, and public care. -Milton

13. Interrogation- puts in form of a question what is meant to be a strong affirmation, as in:Ex. Hath Lord said it? And shall He do it?

Hath He spoken it? And shall He not make it good?

14. Mimesis- is a ludicrous imitation of mispronunciation of a word, as in:

Ex. And he said that he had heardThat Hamericans spoke Hinglish;Yet he felt the deepest hinterest

In the missionary work-Saxe

15. Paralepsis- is a figure of speech by which the speaker’ pretends to pass by something which really mention, as in:Ex. I make no mention of the enemy's bad faith and

treachery,Now will I notice his unscrupulous attempts to array

The friendly powers against us

16. Paronomasia or punning- is a play on words, in which the same word is uses in different senses, or words of familiar sound are placed in the antithetical relations to each other, as in:

Ex. The case ism I’ve no case at all,And in brief, I’ve never had a brief.

-Saxe

17. Pleonasm – is the use of more words than are necessary to the full construction of a sentence, as in:

Ex. The villain, is he yet alive?The gold you set, it was squandered.

18.Prosthesis – is the intentional prefixing of a syllable to a word, as in:

Ex. adown; agoing; arunning19. Syllepsis – is the agreement of one word

with another used in a figurative sense, as in:Ex. The word was made flesh and dwelt among

us,

Component Elements of Poetry• Tone Color- is the repetition of like sounds

throughout a poem. These sounds become significant if they are repeated often enough to show a pattern.

There are five primary kinds of tone color which a poet may employ: alliteration, assonance, consonance, rhyme, and onomatopoeia.

1.) AlliterationAlliteration is the repetition of identical consonant

sounds, usually at the beginning of the words in close proximity, throughout a poem.Ex. I wake and feel the fell of dark, not

day.2.) AssonanceAssonance is the repetition of identical vowel

sounds in words in close proximity throughout a poem.

Ex. And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil.

3.) ConsonanceConsonance is the repetition of identical

consonant sounds that are preceded by different vowel sounds, for example, struts, frets.

Ex. The cold, hard diamond was held in her hand.

4.) RhymeRhyme is an element of poetry which helps us

unify a poem by keeping thought groups together. Rhyme exist when the word have the same vowel succeeding sounds with different preceding sound.

Ex. sang-rang, high-dry, sailing-failing

5.) OnomatopoeiaOnomatopoeia, the last aspect of tone color,

involves words that sound like their meanings that imitate actual sounds.

Ex.In Emily Dickson’s poem, “I Heard a Fly

buzz When I Died”

• Meter- Poetry is a crystallized experience, and because it is so condensed, it rhythm is more pronounced than the rhythm in prose and drama.

Conventional poetry poems which have a regular rhythmic base.

There are eight common types of metrical feet; iamb, trochee, anapest, dactyl, spondee, pyrric, amphibrach and amphimacer (also called cretic)

The following terms are used to represent the number of feet in a line of poetry :

One foot : MonometerTwo feet : DimeterThree Feet: trimesterFour Feet: TetrameterFive Feet: PentameterSix Feet; HexameterSeventh Feet: SeptameterEight Feet: Octameter

Guidelines in Scanning a Poem

1. Read the whole poem aloud first.2. Scan for sense. Stress those words or syllables which

seems to carry the meaning.3. Begin your scansion by marking the wrods of more

than one syllable first.4. Do not force your lines to conform to one metrical

type.5. When putting in the bar lines, place them where the

word naturally breaks into syllables.6. If a poem is in free verse, placement of bar lines can

be difficult because an overall metrical pattern may not be apparent.

Understanding the Genre of Essay

Essay is a relatively short literary composition of a personal nature that deals with a single, often with clearly organized beginning, middle and end.

There are many different kind of essays, and each kind suggests an appropriate performance style.

Humorous Essay- make point through wit, satire and comicality.

Expository Essay- sets out to develop an idea in order to instruct or inform.

Personal or Familiar Essay- is highly lyrical and relates firsthand experience, and relating them to appropriate external objects.

Formal Essays- is pre-occupied with ideas, its treatment is generally serious, the writer having a healthy respect for his own ideas and expecting his readers to share them.

Evaluation and Selection of Traditional Literature

A traditional tale, even though written down, should preserve the narrative, or storytelling style and should be sound as though it is being told.

Retold Versions must preserve the essential content .

In illustrated versions, text and illustration must be of high quality.

Editorial Essay- in general is a part of a newspaper page.

There are various types of Editorial Essays.1. Editorial of Interpretation2. Editorial of Criticism3. Editorial of Entertainment4. Editorial of Commendation, Appreciation, or

Tribute5. Editorial of Argument

TYPES OF TRADITIONAL LITERATUREThe term traditional literature to refer to the entire

body of stories passed down from ancient times by the oral tradition.

The term folktale is sometimes used in the same way.

The term retold tale refers to a version of a tale that is obviously based upon earlier.

Variant, a term often used in reference to folktales, refers to a story that shares fundamental elements of plot or character with other stories, and therefore is said to be in the same story family.

5. Fable- is a simple story that incorporates characters-typically animals, whose action teach a moral lesson or universal truth.

6. Religious Stories- Stories based on religious writings from religious manuscripts are considered to be religious stories.