Introducing Literature

Aim: At the end of this lecture, students will be able to:

1. identify the meaning and the aspects of literature;

2. discuss the main features of literature;
3. recognize the importance and value of reading, analyzing and
writing literature.

Prerequisites:

Have you ever read a literary work?

If yes, in which language was it presented?

Why do you (not) prefer reading literature?

1-Defining Literature:

1-1- Etymologically, it comes from “Latin littera” (Ayto 312) (italics

in original), which points out ‘letter’ (Ayto 312). The word literātus
was also derived from the latter and elucidates “having knowledge of
letters” which means ‘educated, learned’ (Ayto 312).
1-2- Literature “carries with it qualitative connotations which imply
that the work in question has superior qualities” (Cuddon 472). The
productions of writing can be categorized as literature by assets of
“excellence of their writing, their originality and their general
aesthetic and artistic merits” (Cuddon 472).

2- Characteristics of Literature:

How can differentiate between Literature and other forms of writing?

1- An expression of human thoughts, ideas, feelings and authors’

experience.

2-The medium is both spoken and written language: published

writings in a particular style on a particular subject in oral or written
forms

3-A medium to communicate.

4-It is expressive, fictional, and aesthetic.

5-The language of literature has creativity, value, quality, originality

and pleasure.

6-Literature is characterized by timelessness, eternity, permanence and

universality.

7- Literature reflects society.

3- Importance and Value of Literature:

1- It enhances the command of language in terms of grammar,

vocabulary, idioms, sentence structure, etc.

2- It illustrates issues related to life, culture, politics, society, etc.

3- It helps the reader discover new parts of the world that they have
never visited.

4- It entertains as a useful medium for spare time.

5- It provides the reader with new and different experiences that they
may not be able to live in real life.

6- It provides the reader with new skills of judging, analyzing,

criticizing, sympathizing and evaluating.

7- The reader can compare their lives to the characters’ experiences.

8- Literature usually investigates various fields such as biology,

astronomy, geography and history.

9- Literature can be a field of study for academic research.

10- Literature can be read from different points of view and this
enhances creative thinking and critical thinking skills in addition to
communicative skills.

11- In addition to that, English literature, in particular, is crucial as

English is an international language.
4- Functions of Literature:

1- Social and Political Function

Literature shows and illustrates important political and social

issues.

2- Ideological Function

Literature shapes people’s way of thinking and introduces different

ideologies within the text consciously and unconsciously.

3- Moral Function

Literature provides its readers with moral values and lessons of life
that may help shape their personalities.

4- Linguistic Function

Literature preserves the language and the civilization of any

community or society.

5- Cultural Function

Literature preserves and spreads the cultural heritage and traditions.

6- Educational Function

Literature teaches readers aspects of life and experiences of others in

different times and places and raises their awareness on many issues.

7- Historical Function

Literature is a medium to record historical events that can be

employed by historians, scholars and researchers.

8- Entertainment Function

Reading for the sake of enjoyment and pleasure.

 Literary Genres
Aim: At the end of this lecture, students will be able to:
1- identify the main literary genres;
2- discuss the aspects of each genres;
3- analyse the importance of each genres.

1- Fiction
The most commonly found dictionary definition of fiction is that it
represents “invented stories, now applied to novels, short stories,
novellas, romances, fables, and other [narrative] works in prose”
(Baldick 96). The next widely accepted conception of fiction is a
“general term for any form of [narrative] that is invented or imagined
as opposed to being factual” (Quinn164).
Types of Fiction
Novel :
It is “any fictitious prose work over 50,000 words”
([Link]). Overall, as a fictional piece of writing created in
prose, as opposed to poetry and verse1, it is of considerable word
count and length word: at least 50,000 words long, with a
chronological narrative arc that is introduced from narrative
perspectives.

1
Sometimes stylistically highly poetic or lyrical.
The common types of the novel are: romance; thriller, horror,
mysteries, the historical novel and science fiction. 2
Novella: is a fictional tale in prose, intermediate in length and
complexity between a short story and a novel, and usually
concentrating on a single event or chain of events, with a surprising
turning point.
Novelette: is a trivial or cheaply sensational novel or romance; or (in
a neutral sense, especially in the USA) a short novel or extended short
story.
Short story: is a fictional prose tale of no specified length, but too
short to be published as a volume on its own. A short story will
normally concentrate on a single event with only one or two
characters, more economically than a novel's sustained exploration of
social background.
Folktale: is a story passed on by word of mouth rather than by
writing, and thus partly modified by successive re-tellings before
being written down or recorded. The category includes legends,
fables, jokes, tall stories, and fairy tales. Many folktales involve
mythical creatures and magical transformations.

2
Romance is a story about a love affair; thriller is a book with an exciting story, especially one about
crime or spying; the horror story is a story about strange and frightening things that is designed to
entertain people; mystery is a story in which crimes and strange events are only explained at the end;
the historical novel is a novel in which the action takes place during a specific historical period well
before the time of writing (often one or two generations before, sometimes several centuries), and in
which some attempt is made to depict accurately the customs and mentality of the period; science
fiction is a popular modern branch of prose fiction that explores the probable consequences of some
improbable or impossible transformation of the basic conditions of human (or intelligent nonhuman)
existence (See Baldick).
 2- Poetry
Defining Poetry: is language sung, chanted, spoken, or written
according to some pattern of recurrence that emphasizes the
relationships between words on the basis of sound as well as sense:
this pattern is almost always a rhythm or metre, which may be
supplemented by rhyme or alliteration or both.

Types of Poetry:
Lyric
The lyric is characterized by precise word choice, personal voice and
subjective method expressing the feeling, the mood, the meditation or
the thoughts of a single speaker3. It is “fairly short, not often longer
than fifty or sixty lines, and often only between a dozen and thirty
lines” (Baldick 481)
Verse narrative: it tells a story with characters, themes and plot
including rhythm and rhyme that characterizes poetry like ballads and
epics.
Verse Drama: it is a verse that is meant to be performed in a stage by
an actor.

3
Not necessarily of the poet himself, sometimes an invented character (See Baldick 48, and Quinn
248).
 3- Drama
Drama: is the general term for performances in which actors
impersonate the actions and speech of fictional or historical characters
(or non-human entities) for the entertainment of an audience, either on
a stage or by means of a broadcast; or a particular example of this art,
i.e. a play.
Types of Drama:
Comedy: is a play (or other literary composition) written chiefly to
amuse its audience by appealing to a sense of superiority over the
characters depicted.
Tragedy: is a serious play (or, by extension, a novel) representing the
disastrous downfall of a central character.
Melodrama: is a popular form of sensational drama that flourished in
the 19th-century theatre, surviving in different forms in modern
cinema and television. The term, meaning 'song-drama' in Greek, was
originally applied in the European theatre to scenes of mime or spoken
dialogue accompanied by music.
Tragicomedy: is a play that combines elements of tragedy and
comedy, either by providing a happy ending to a potentially tragic
story or by some more complex blending of serious and light moods.
(See Baldick: Oxford Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms)

4- Non-Fiction
Autobiography: is the story of a person’s life written by him- or
herself. Autobiographical writing embraces a number of forms
including memoirs, diaries, and letters, but the form proper usually
involves the interaction of character and external event over a
substantial span of a person’s life (Quinn 43).

Biography: is the written history of someone’s life, with attention not

only to the events but to the character and personality of the subject
(Quinn 54).

Essay: The term has come to be more or less restricted to mean

composition often in prose and rarely in verse (Cuddon 287).

Discourse: In its modern sense, it is defined as “a learned discussion,

spoken or written, on a philosophical, political, literary or religious
topic” (Cuddon 228), “an extended treatment of a subject” (Quinn
121) or “an extended use of speech or writing” (Baldick 68).
 Elements of Literature

Aim: At the end of this lecture, the students will be able to:
1- identify the various elements of literature;
2- illustrate the importance of each element;
3- explain and break down the function of each element.

1- Elements of Fiction

Characterization is a means by which writers present and reveal

characters – by direct description, by showing the character in action,
or by the presentation of other characters who help to define each
other.
Characters in fiction can be conveniently classified as major and
minor, static and dynamic. A major character is an important figure
at the center of the story’s action or theme. The major character is
sometimes called a protagonist whose conflict with an antagonist
may spark the story’s conflict. Supporting the major character are one
or more secondary or minor characters whose function is partly to
illuminate the major characters. Minor characters are often static or
unchanging: they remain the same from the beginning of a work to the
end. Dynamic characters, on the other hand, exhibit some kind of
change – of attitude, purpose, behavior, as the story progresses.
Irony is not so much an element of fiction as a pervasive quality in it.
It may appear in fiction in three ways: in a work’s language, in its
incidents, or in its point of view. But in whatever form it emerges,
irony always involves a contrast or discrepancy between one thing and
another. The contrast may be between what is said and what is meant
(verbal irony), what is expected to happen and what actually happens
(situational irony) or between what a character believes or says and
what the reader understands to be true (dramatic irony).
Plot, the action element in fiction, is the arrangement of events that
make up a story. Many fictional plots turn on a conflict, or struggle
between opposing forces, that is usually resolved by the end of the
story. Typical fictional plots begin with an exposition, that provides
background information needed to make sense of the action, describes
the setting, and introduces the major characters; these plots develop a
series of complications or intensifications of the conflict that lead to a
crisis or moment of great tension. The conflict may reach a climax or
turning point, a moment of greatest tension that fixes the outcome;
then, the action falls off as the plot’s complications are sorted out and
resolved (the resolution or dénouement). Be aware, however, that
much of twentieth-century fiction does not exhibit such strict
formality of design.
Point of view refers to who tells the story and how it is told. The
possible ways of telling a story are many, and more than one point of
view can be worked into a single story. However, the various points of
view that storytellers draw upon can be grouped into two broad
categories:
Third-Person Narrator (uses pronouns he, she, or they):
1. Omniscient: The narrator is all-knowing and takes the reader
inside the characters’ thoughts, feelings, and motives, as well
as shows what the characters say and do.
2. Limited omniscient: The narrator takes the reader inside one
(or at most very few characters) but neither the reader nor the
character(s) has access to the inner lives of any of the other
characters in the story.
3. Objective: The narrator does not see into the mind of any
character; rather he or she reports the action and dialogue
without telling the reader directly what the characters feel and
think.

First-Person Narrator (uses pronoun I):

The narrator presents the point of view of only one character’s
consciousness, which limits the narrative to what the first-person
narrator knows, experiences, infers, or can find out by talking to
other characters.
Setting is the physical and social context in which the action of a
story occurs. The major elements of setting are the time, the place, and
the social environment that frames the characters. These elements
establish the world in which the characters act. Sometimes the setting
is lightly sketched, presented only because the story has to take place
somewhere and at some time. Often, however, the setting is more
important, giving the reader the feel of the people who move through
it. Setting can be used to evoke a mood or atmosphere that will
prepare the reader for what is to come.
Style is the way a writer chooses words (diction), arranges them in
sentences and longer units of discourse (syntax) and exploits their
significance. Style is the verbal identity of a writer, as unmistakable as
his or her face or voice. Reflecting their individuality, writers’ styles
convey their unique ways of seeing the world.
A symbol is a person, object, image, word, ore vent that evokes a
range of additional meanings beyond and usually more abstract than
its literal significance. Symbols are devices for evoking complex ideas
without having to resort to painstaking explanations. Conventional
symbols have meanings that are widely recognized by a society or
culture, i.e., the Christian cross, the Star of David, a swastika, a
nation’s flag. A literary or contextual symbol can be a setting, a
character, action, object, name, or anything else in a specific work that
maintains its literal significance while suggesting other meanings. For
example, the white whale in Melville’s Moby Dick takes on multiple
symbolic meanings in the work, but these meanings do not
automatically carry over into other stories about whales.
Theme is the central idea or meaning of a story. Theme in fiction is
rarely presented at all; it is abstracted from the details of character and
action that compose the story. It provides a unifying point around
which the plot, characters, setting, point of view, symbols, and other
elements of a story are organized. Be careful to distinguish theme
from plot – the story’s sequence of actions – and from subject – what
the story is generally about.
Tone is the author’s implicit attitude toward the reader, subject, and/or
the people, places, and events in a work as revealed by the elements of
the author’s style. Tone may be characterized as serious or ironic, sad
or happy, private of public, angry or affectionate, bitter or nostalgic,
or any other attitudes and feelings that human beings experience.

2- Elements of Poetry
Alliteration is a repetition of the same consonant sounds in a
sequence of words, usually at the beginning of a word or stressed
syllable: “descending dew drops;” “luscious lemons.” Alliteration is
based on the sounds of letters, rather than the spelling of words; for
example, “keen” and “car” alliterate, but “car” and “cite” do not.
Assonance is the repetition of similar internal vowel sounds in a
sentence or a line of poetry, as in “I rose and told him of my woe.”
Figurative language is a form of language use in which the writers
and speakers mean something other than the literal meaning of their
words. Two figures of speech that are particularly important for poetry
are simile and metaphor. A simile involves a comparison between
unlike things using like or as. For instance, “My love is like a red, red
rose.” A metaphor is a comparison between essentially unlike things
without a word such as like or as. For example, “My love is a red, red
rose.” Synecdoche is a type of metaphor in which part of something is
used to signify the whole, as when a gossip is called a “wagging
tongue.” Metonymy is a type of metaphor in which something closely
associated with a subject is substituted for it, such as saying the “silver
screen” to mean motion pictures.
Imagery is the concrete representation of a sense impression, feeling,
or idea that triggers our imaginative ere-enactment of a sensory
experience. Images may be visual (something seen), aural (something
heard), tactile (something felt), olfactory (something smelled), or
gustatory (something tasted). Imagery may also refer to a pattern of
related details in a poem.
Rhyme is the repetition of identical or similar concluding syllables in
different words, most often at the ends of lines. Rhyme is
predominantly a function of sound rather than spelling; thus, words
that end with the same vowel sounds rhyme, for instance, day, prey,
bouquet, weigh, and words with the same consonant ending rhyme,
for instance vain, rein, lane. The rhyme scheme of a poem, describes
the pattern of end rhymes. Rhyme schemes are mapped out by noting
patterns of rhyme with small letters: the first rhyme sound is
designated a, the second becomes b, the third c, and so on.
Rhythm is the term used to refer to the recurrence of stressed and
unstressed sounds in poetry. Poets rely heavily on rhythm to express
meaning and convey feeling. Caesura is a strong pause within a line
of poetry that contributes to the rhythm of the line. When a line has a
pause at its end, it is called an end-stopped line. Such pauses reflect
normal speech patterns and are often marked by punctuation. A line
that ends without a pause and continues into the next line for its
meaning is called a run-on line or enjambment.
Stanza is a grouping of lines, set off by a space, which usually has a
set pattern of meter and rhyme.
Tone conveys the speaker’s implied attitude toward the poem’s
subject. Tone is an abstraction we make from the details of a poem’s
language: the use of meter and rhyme (or lack of them); the inclusion
of certain kinds of details and exclusion of other kinds; particular
choices of words and sentence pattern, or imagery and figurative
language (diction). Another important element of tone is the order of
words in sentences, phrases, or clauses (syntax).

3- Elements of Drama
Dialogue, the verbal exchanges between characters in a play, typically
has three major functions: to advance the plot, to establish setting
(time and place of the action), and to reveal characters’ thoughts,
responses and emotional states – its most important and consistent
function.
Plot, character, and theme, in terms of drama, are generally defined
the same as they are for fiction. See your Elements of Fiction handout.
Stage directions are a playwright’s written instructions about how the
actors are to move and behave in a play. They explain in which
direction characters should move, what facial expressions they should
assume, how they should speak a line, etc.
Staging is a play’s visual detail. This includes such things are the
positions of actors on-stage (sometimes referred to as blocking), their
nonverbal gestures and movements (also called stage business), the
scenic background, the props and costumes, lighting, and sound
effects.
NOTE: Although plays can certainly be read and enjoyed as
literature, always remember that drama is a staged art. Plays are
written to be performed by actors before an audience.