DOCSLIB.ORG

Initiation to Literature

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Initiation to Literature INITIATION TO LITERATURE (LICENCE 1) TEACHER: N’GUESSAN KOUADIO GERMAIN Full Professor e-mail: [email protected] Content 1- What is literature? a- Written literature b- Oral literature 2- Major literary genres a- Fiction/novel b- Drama c- Poetry 3- Some components of the literary genre a. The plot b. The author c. The narrator The first-person narrator The second-person narrator The third-person narrator d. The character Types of characters Introduction One of serious problems to overcome when teaching literature is the lack of skill at assessing the literary and artistic qualities of the written page. The words “artistic” and “literary” describe the aesthetic or “beauty” aspect of what one is to comment on. Judging the beauty of a piece of writing is a subjective exercise. The problem is how to best articulate in the students the skill to enter fully into the feelings and attitudes of the writer. It is accepted that the aim of literature, like music or art is to entertain. This is the case whether the written material (prose, drama, or poetry) is a prescribed examination text or an item for sale in a shop. Literature aims to give pleasure. Literary appreciation needs some skills and skill, often, is inborn and any improvement is in terms of its sharpening though the nurture of schooling. The student needs to be taught a few operators that would help him to achieve a quick synthesis of his own cultural background and that being presented to him by a set-book for a fuller understanding. It is when this is done that the study will offer him a vital relevance not dependent upon whether or not the culture is European, African or Asian. 1- What is literature? The desire to define “literature” is of great concern among intellectuals. Attempted definitions are mostly broad and vague, and they change over time. The truth about defining literature is that the definition will change. So do the concepts of what is literature. What may be considered ordinary and not worthy of comment in one period may be considered literary genius in another. Most people have their own ideas about literature. When taking a literary class at university, one expects that everything on the reading list will be “literature”. All the same, one might expect everything from a given author to be literature, even though the quality of that author's work may vary from publication to publication. Perhaps one gets an idea just from looking at the cover on a book whether it is “literary” or “pulp”. Literature then, is a form of demarcation based on the premise that texts are not created equal. Some have or are given more value than others. Most concerns about literature evolve around how literature works with the reader, rather than how the author manages to write it. It is the reception, not the writing, which is the object of enquiry. Largely, what we call “literature” is often a subjective value judgment, and naturally, value judgments, like literary tastes, change. Etymologically, literature has to do with letters, the written material, as opposed to the spoken word, even though not everything that is written down is literature. Literature foregrounds language, and uses it in artistic ways. Terry Eagleton defines literature in its relationship to language. To him, “literature transforms and intensifies ordinary language, deviates systematically from everyday speech”. Just as architecture is the art form that arises out of man’s creative conscience to erect buildings, literature is the art form that arises out of man’s ability to create language. Literature commonly covers the major genres of poetry, drama, and novel/fiction. The term also implies literary quality and distinction. Definitions of literature change because they describe and clarify a reality. They do not create the reality they describe. Also, definitions may tell what we ought to think literature should be. Because there is no single and fast definition of literature, it is more beneficial to seek an analysis instead. In analysing what literature is, it imports to look at some of the things that literature does. Literature is something that reflects society, makes us think about ourselves and our society, allows us to enjoy language and beauty. It can be didactic, and it reflects on “human condition.” It both reflects ideology and changes ideology. It has social and political effects. Literature is the creation of a world that we can only see through reading. There are two major types of literature. 1.1. Written literature It is literature that is found in books whose basis is a kind of conscious art, the creative art of weaving words and imagination. It is generally made up of poetry, short stories, novels, plays or drama. For literature to be really written literature, it must be individual or personal responsibility for its existence. Secondly, an identifiable individual must be known as the writer or creator of a story, poem, play or a technique for any particular genre. However, it is not all the individual components which make up literature found in books that have individual known or unknown creators or writers. Some are from oral literature collected and committed to writing. Folktales, legends, ballads, etc. are examples. They can be written with the most artistic organization or ordering, but they remain oral literature with certain definite features that can never be lost by any reader. 1.2. Oral literature It is literature whose existence is associated with the beginning of social organization, when man began to live in communities. As human community developed and man got more relief from fear of anxieties about existence, man began to develop and pursue more personal pleasures like drawing, drumming or music-making. Man also started setting up social orders like rulership, economics about marriage, birth, death, etc. Every community in the world has its own folktales, stories, proverbs, usages that may differ from place to place but their application is almost universal. These together make up oral literature. They are said to be oral because they came into being before man began the art of writing and also because their mode of transmission was by word to mouth. The stories depend on the irrational for their very existence. The difference between written literature and oral literature is that written literature is a conscious creation by an individual according to certain modes or styles and so could be judged as being good or bad on the canons of these modes whereas oral literature has no individual creators. It has a collective authorship. Its components are spontaneous. The forms are not consciously decided by anybody but are nonetheless identifiable. They are popular and intimately bound up with living cultures of peoples. 2- Major literary genres There are different literary genres. The major ones are: a- Fiction/novel Fiction is literary work based on the imagination of an author. Though many writers base their works of fiction on a real-life event or characters, they write original scenes and dialog and invent or change aspects of the plot, setting, and character interactions. When fiction writers tell the story of people they have met, most often, those characters are composites of several people they know or have researched. When they base their characters on historical figures, they bring them to life with imagined and factual words and participation in events. Many fiction writers like fictionalizing true events because this practice allows them to easily and freely explore those events and the people involved. Writers are often concerned with imagining events and characters that fit societal trends. Although one of the objectives for writing fiction is to inform, it must contain a good story, one with characters in whom we are invested and situations where something important is at stake. Why do writers write fiction? Some writers explain they write to answer questions that people used to ask themselves. Many fiction writers assert that characters present themselves to be written and tell the author their stories. When we write personal essays and memoir about our experience, we relate real events and circumstances about our lives and those people close to us. While deciding to write fiction, authors imagine their way into others' lives, changing the circumstances and crafting storylines and outcomes. Fiction writers have the freedom to change all the elements of a story to meet their storytelling needs. They can raise and explore facts that they did not experience in their own lives. By following invented characters as they confront and overcome obstacles, the fiction writer observes behavior and finds out what could have been true in "real" life. Many fiction writers report that by fictionalizing intense situations, they can cope in a way that truth makes prohibitive. But as in all writing, even as writers know what they would like to see happen, the characters' lives and situations begin to dictate new events and thoughts. b- Drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a collective form of reception. The structure of dramatic texts, unlike other forms of literature, is directly influenced by this collaborative production and collective reception. Drama is a literary genre that shares many features of other forms of literature, but possesses a characteristic that makes it distinct. Like novels and short stories, dramatic works tell a story by employing the seven elements of fiction: a setting, characters, a problem, a plot, suspense, a point of view, and a theme. However, what sets drama apart from other literary genres is that it is performed by actors on a stage or in a film in front of an audience.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Ontology and Literary Status of the Screenplay:The Case of »Scriptfic«
    DOI 10.1515/jlt-2013-0006 JLT 2013; 7(1–2): 135–153 Ted Nannicelli The Ontology and Literary Status of the Screenplay:The Case of »Scriptfic« Abstract: Are screenplays – or at least some screenplays – works of literature? Until relatively recently, very few theorists had addressed this question. Thanks to recent work by scholars such as Ian W. Macdonald, Steven Maras, and Steven Price, theorizing the nature of the screenplay is back on the agenda after years of neglect (albeit with a few important exceptions) by film studies and literary studies (Macdonald 2004; Maras 2009; Price 2010). What has emerged from this work, however, is a general acceptance that the screenplay is ontologically peculiar and, as a result, a divergence of opinion about whether or not it is the kind of thing that can be literature. Specifically, recent discussion about the nature of the screenplay has tended to emphasize its putative lack of ontological autonomy from the film, its supposed inherent incompleteness, or both (Carroll 2008, 68–69; Maras 2009, 48; Price 2010, 38–42). Moreover, these sorts of claims about the screenplay’s ontology – its essential nature – are often hitched to broader arguments. According to one such argument, a screenplay’s supposed ontological tie to the production of a film is said to vitiate the possibility of it being a work of literature in its own right (Carroll 2008, 68–69; Maras 2009, 48). According to another, the screenplay’s tenuous literary status is putatively explained by the idea that it is perpetually unfinished, akin to a Barthesian »writerly text« (Price 2010, 41).
    [Show full text]
  • Philosophy, Theory, and Literature
    STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS PHILOSOPHY, THEORY, AND LITERATURE 20% DISCOUNT NEW & FORTHCOMING ON ALL TITLES 2019 TABLE OF CONTENTS Redwood Press .............................2 Square One: First-Order Questions in the Humanities ................... 2-3 Currencies: New Thinking for Financial Times ...............3-4 Post*45 ..........................................5-7 Philosophy and Social Theory ..........................7-10 Meridian: Crossing Aesthetics ............10-12 Cultural Memory in the Present ......................... 12-14 Literature and Literary Studies .................... 14-18 This Atom Bomb in Me Ordinary Unhappiness Shakesplish The Long Public Life of a History in Financial Times Asian and Asian Lindsey A. Freeman The Therapeutic Fiction of How We Read Short Private Poem Amin Samman American Literature .................19 David Foster Wallace Shakespeare’s Language Reading and Remembering This Atom Bomb in Me traces what Critical theorists of economy tend Thomas Wyatt Digital Publishing Initiative ....19 it felt like to grow up suffused with Jon Baskin Paula Blank to understand the history of market American nuclear culture in and In recent years, the American fiction Shakespeare may have written in Peter Murphy society as a succession of distinct around the atomic city of Oak Ridge, writer David Foster Wallace has Elizabethan English, but when Thomas Wyatt didn’t publish “They stages. This vision of history rests on ORDERING Tennessee. As a secret city during been treated as a symbol, an icon, we read him, we can’t help but Flee from Me.” It was written in a a chronological conception of time Use code S19PHIL to receive a the Manhattan Project, Oak Ridge and even a film character. Ordinary understand his words, metaphors, notebook, maybe abroad, maybe whereby each present slips into the 20% discount on all books listed enriched the uranium that powered Unhappiness returns us to the reason and syntax in relation to our own.
    [Show full text]
  • AS and a Level English Literature
    AS and A Level English Literature Literary terms: A guide for students Literary terms: A guide for students Literary terms: A guide for students Contents Introduction .............................................................................................. 2 Frequently misused words ........................................................................... 3 General terms: .......................................................................................... 4 Poetry ...................................................................................................... 8 Genres ................................................................................................... 8 Analytic vocabulary ............................................................................... 10 Drama .................................................................................................... 11 Genres ................................................................................................. 11 Analytic Terms ...................................................................................... 12 Prose ...................................................................................................... 13 Genres ................................................................................................. 13 Analytic Terms ...................................................................................... 14 1 Literary terms: A guide for students Introduction The terminology below may be used support your reading and response
    [Show full text]
  • Ukrainian Folk Singing in NYC
    Fall–Winter 2010 Volume 36: 3–4 The Journal of New York Folklore Ukrainian Folk Singing in NYC Hindu Home Altars Mexican Immigrant Creative Writers National Heritage Award Winner Remembering Bess Lomax Hawes From the Director Since the found- a student-only conference. There are prec- Mano,” readers will enjoy fresh prose pieces ing of the New York edents for this format, also. In commenting and poetry in English and Spanish from a Folklore Society, the on the 1950 meeting, then-president Moritz recently published anthology, produced by organization has pro- Jagendorf wrote, “Another ‘new’ at the Mexican cultural nonprofit Mano a Mano, vided two consistent Rochester meeting was the suggestion to the New York Writers Coalition, and a group benefits of member- have an annual contest among students of of New York’s newest Spanish-language ship: receipt of a New York State colleges and universities for writers. Musician, discophile, and Irish- published journal— the best paper on New York State folklore. American music researcher Ted McGraw since 2000, Voices— The winner will receive fifty dollars, and his presents a preliminary report and asks Voices and at least one annual meeting. or her paper will be read before the mem- readers for assistance in documenting the In the early years, the annual meeting bers.” (It is unclear whether this suggestion fascinating history of twentieth-century took place jointly with the annual gathering was implemented!) button accordions made by Italian craftsmen of the New York Historical Association, The 2010 meeting was held at New York and sold to the Irish market in New York.
    [Show full text]
  • Crossmedia Adaptation and the Development of Continuity in the Dc Animated Universe
    “INFINITE EARTHS”: CROSSMEDIA ADAPTATION AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF CONTINUITY IN THE DC ANIMATED UNIVERSE Alex Nader A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS May 2015 Committee: Jeff Brown, Advisor Becca Cragin © 2015 Alexander Nader All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT Jeff Brown, Advisor This thesis examines the process of adapting comic book properties into other visual media. I focus on the DC Animated Universe, the popular adaptation of DC Comics characters and concepts into all-ages programming. This adapted universe started with Batman: The Animated Series and comprised several shows on multiple networks, all of which fit into a shared universe based on their comic book counterparts. The adaptation of these properties is heavily reliant to intertextuality across DC Comics media. The shared universe developed within the television medium acted as an early example of comic book media adapting the idea of shared universes, a process that has been replicated with extreme financial success by DC and Marvel (in various stages of fruition). I address the process of adapting DC Comics properties in television, dividing it into “strict” or “loose” adaptations, as well as derivative adaptations that add new material to the comic book canon. This process was initially slow, exploding after the first series (Batman: The Animated Series) changed networks and Saturday morning cartoons flourished, allowing for more opportunities for producers to create content. References, crossover episodes, and the later series Justice League Unlimited allowed producers to utilize this shared universe to develop otherwise impossible adaptations that often became lasting additions to DC Comics publishing.
    [Show full text]
  • What Literature Knows: Forays Into Literary Knowledge Production
    Contributions to English 2 Contributions to English and American Literary Studies 2 and American Literary Studies 2 Antje Kley / Kai Merten (eds.) Antje Kley / Kai Merten (eds.) Kai Merten (eds.) Merten Kai / What Literature Knows This volume sheds light on the nexus between knowledge and literature. Arranged What Literature Knows historically, contributions address both popular and canonical English and Antje Kley US-American writing from the early modern period to the present. They focus on how historically specific texts engage with epistemological questions in relation to Forays into Literary Knowledge Production material and social forms as well as representation. The authors discuss literature as a culturally embedded form of knowledge production in its own right, which deploys narrative and poetic means of exploration to establish an independent and sometimes dissident archive. The worlds that imaginary texts project are shown to open up alternative perspectives to be reckoned with in the academic articulation and public discussion of issues in economics and the sciences, identity formation and wellbeing, legal rationale and political decision-making. What Literature Knows The Editors Antje Kley is professor of American Literary Studies at FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany. Her research interests focus on aesthetic forms and cultural functions of narrative, both autobiographical and fictional, in changing media environments between the eighteenth century and the present. Kai Merten is professor of British Literature at the University of Erfurt, Germany. His research focuses on contemporary poetry in English, Romantic culture in Britain as well as on questions of mediality in British literature and Postcolonial Studies. He is also the founder of the Erfurt Network on New Materialism.
    [Show full text]
  • CHARACTERIZATION in FICTION HONORS THESIS Presented to The
    CHARACTERIZATION IN FICTION HONORS THESIS Presented to the Honors Committee of Texas State University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Graduation in the Honors College by Jack Reams San Marcos, Texas May 2015 CHARACTERIZATION IN FICTION Thesis Supervisor: ________________________________ John M. Blair, Ph.D. Department of English Second Reader: __________________________________ Twister Marquiss, M.F.A Department of English Approved: ____________________________________ Heather C. Galloway, Ph.D. Dean, Honors College Table of Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................1 Introduction ..........................................................................................................................2 P.A.R.T.S of Characterization .............................................................................................4 Direct Characterization ......................................................................................................15 Indirect Characterization ....................................................................................................30 Conclusion .........................................................................................................................43 Abstract The purpose of my thesis is to examine the importance of characterization in fiction, as well as the methods of characterization itself. The scope of the paper will be primarily limited to three works of
    [Show full text]
  • Epsitemology, Literary Genre and Knowledge Organisation Systems
    Epistemology, literary genre and knowledge organisation systems PAULINE RAFFERTY Aberystwyth University Llanbadarn Fawr, Ceredigion, Wales [email protected] Abstract This theoretical paper considers genre as the epistemological foundation for fiction retrieval systems, in particular the relationship between the individual work and generic systems. It explores the characteristics of literary genres, and how they are determined, and examines ontological and historical aspects of genre. It considers the relationship between historically contingent generic transformations and literary genre as categorising principle. Finally, it offers some suggestions for future design of fiction KOS. Keywords: Fiction, Genres, Knowledge organisation systems, Tagging. 20 Años del Capítulo Español de ISKO. Actas del X Congreso ISKO Capítulo Español (Ferrol, 2011) Universidade da Coruña (España), 2012. ISBN: 978-84-9749-535-6 Pp. 553-565 EPISTEMOLOGY, LITERARY GENRE AND KNOWLEDGE ORGANISATION SYSTEMS 555 1. Preface Traditionally, where knowledge organisation systems (KOS) have dealt with fictional works, the approach has generally been through genre (see Beghtol, 1989, 1990, for an overview of fiction classification schemes). The notion of genre as categorisation principle comes to library science, relatively unexamined, from literary theory. It underpins many of the assumptions that fiction KOS has about fictional texts, even when the focus of the fiction retrieval system is predominantly based on user-warrant (e.g. The Book House, Pejtersen, 199, 59). Raymond Williams wrote “the recognition of the relation of a collective mode and an individual object …is a recognition of related practices. That is to say, the irreducibly individual projects that particular works are, may come in experience and in analysis to show resemblances which allow us to group them into collective modes” (Williams, 2001, 179).
    [Show full text]
  • Tragic Hero Analysis on Apollo in Rick Riordan's The
    TRAGIC HERO ANALYSIS ON APOLLO IN RICK RIORDAN’S THE TRIALS OF APOLLO: THE HIDDEN ORACLE THESIS BY: KASYFUL GHOMAM REG. NUMBER: A73217114 ENGLISH DEPARTMENT FACULTY OF ARTS AND HUMANITIES UIN SUNAN AMPEL SURABAYA 2021 TRAGIC HERO ANALYSIS ON APOLLO IN RICK RIORDAN’S THE TRIALS OF APOLLO: THE HIDDEN ORACLE By: Kasyful Ghomam Reg. Number: A73217114 Approved to be examined by the Board of Examiners, English Department, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, UIN Sunan Ampel Surabaya Surabaya, July 18ᵗʰ, 2021 Thesis Advisor Sufi Ikrima Sa’adah M. Hum NUP. 201603318 Acknowledged by: Head of English Department Dr. Wahju Kusumajanti, M. Hum NIP. 197002051999032002 EXAMINER SHEET ii The Board of Examiners are: Examiner 1 Examiner2 Sufi Ikrima Sa’adah M. Hum Dr. Wahju Kusumajanti, M.Hum NUP. 201603318 NIP. 197002051999032002 Examiner 3 Examiner 4 Dr. Abu Fanani, S.s., M.Pd Ramadhina Ulfa Nuristama, M.A. NIP. 196906152007011051 NIP. 199203062020122019 Acknowledged by: The Dean of Faculty of Arts and Humanities UIN Sunan Ampel Surabaya Name NIP iii iv v ABSTRACT Ghomam, K (2021). Tragic Hero Analysis On Apollo In Rick Riordan’s The Trials Of Apollo: The Hidden Oracle. English literature, UIN Sunan Ampel Surabaya. Advisor: Dr. Sufi Ikrima Sa’adah, M.Hum. Keywords: tragic hero, Apollo, myth, catharsis This study aims to analyze the tragic hero shown by Apollo in Rick Riordan’s The Trials of Apollo: The Hidden Oracle. This study focuses on two research questions: How are the characteristics of a tragic hero shown by Apollo, and how did Apollo escape from a tragic hero in The Trails of Apollo: The Hidden Oracle.
    [Show full text]
  • An Analysis of Major Characters Characterization in Burgess's A
    Chapter II An Analysis of Major Characters Characterization in Burgess’s A Clocwork Orange 2.1 Literature According to A. Teeuw (in Sastra dan Ilmu Sastra: 1987:30) , literature described as everything written; the use of language in written form. Literature is a form of personal expression of human experience, thought, passion, and belief in a form of concrete picture that evokes the fascination with language tools. In more detail, Faruk suggested that initially very broad definition of literature, which includes all kinds of activity results of language or writing. Along with the widespread the habit of reading and writing, the understanding narrows and is defined as any result that is both imaginative language activities, both in the life depicted in them, and in terms of the language used to describe that life. 2.2 Novel Literally novel come from word “Novella” Italian language vocabulary, which in Latin language mean novus or newly. As for definitively novel is story regarding remarkable event or occurence of life of someone is in it met by processing of soul altering someone chance road, its meaning of someone which is narrated in the novel experience of life of problem in details, good in the form of grief, adventure, struggle, 1 which is on finally the figure experience of change of chance which enough base, what experienced of that figure basically represent of top from all distortion live and life which have happened. Equally can be said that by novel represent life life concentration at one time, which is determine toward its perpetrator chance road.
    [Show full text]
  • The Role of Supporting Character in Animation with an Emphasis On
    Global Journal of HUMAN-SOCIAL SCIENCE: A Arts & Humanities - Psychology Volume 19 Issue 4 Version 1.0 Year 2019 Type: Double Blind Peer Reviewed International Research Journal Publisher: Global Journals Online ISSN: 2249-460x & Print ISSN: 0975-587X The Role of Supporting Character in Animation with an Emphasis on Horse's Character Design By Mohamad Eslami & Mohsen Nafar Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting University Abstract- In many animation works, along with the main character, there is a dependent character, who is the close friend of the hero of the story, which is called side kick or supporting character. The supporting character has been widely presented in animation cinema works and it is necessary to study the use of this kind of character based on its characteristics in the story and its relation to elements and other members of the story. An attempt has been made to fully investigate the supporting character because the more the identification of these kind of characters in the creation of the animation cinema works and the more the narrative of the story will help as effective as possible. In addition to studying the basic principles and types of supporting characters in this series, the focus is on horse's character as a supporting character in the stories and works of animation cinema and in which supporting character plays as a close friend or companion in the hero of the story is more to be addressed. Keywords: supporting character, horse, horse's character, animation character. GJHSS-A Classification: FOR Code: 8 90401 TheRoleofSupportingCharacterinAnimationwithanEmphasisonHorsesCharacterDesign Strictly as per the compliance and regulations of: © 2019.
    [Show full text]
  • THE TRENDS of STREAM of CONSCIOUSNESS TECHNIQUE in WILLIAM FAULKNER S NOVEL the SOUND and the FURY'' Chitra Yashwant Ga
    AMIERJ Volume–VII, Issues– VII ISSN–2278-5655 Oct - Nov 2018 THE TRENDS OF STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS TECHNIQUE IN WILLIAM FAULKNER S NOVEL THE SOUND AND THE FURY’’ Chitra Yashwant Gaidhani Assistant Professor in English, G. E. Society RNC Arts, JDB Commerce and NSC Science College, Nashik Road, Tal. & Dist. Nashik, Maharashtra, India. Abstract: The term "Stream-of-Consciousness" signifies to a technique of narration. Prior to the twentieth century. In this technique an author would simply tell the reader what one of the characters was thinking? Stream-of-consciousness is a technique whereby the author writes as though inside the minds of the characters. Since the ordinary person's mind jumps from one event to another, stream-of- consciousness tries to capture this phenomenon in William Faulkner’s novel The Sound and Fury. This style of narration is also associate with the Modern novelist and story writers of the 20th century. The Sound and the Fury is a broadly significant work of literature. William Faulkner use of this technique Sound and Fury is probably the most successful and outstanding use that we have had. Faulkner has been admired for his ability to recreate the thought process of the human mind. In addition, it is viewed as crucial development in the stream-of-consciousness literary technique. According encyclopedia, in 1998, the Modern Library ranked The Sound and the Fury sixth on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. The present research focuses on stream of consciousness technique used by William Faulkner’s novel “The Sound and Fury”.
    [Show full text]