literature final

• Literature comes from the Latin word “litera” which means letter
• Literature is classified into two groups: prose and poetry
• Prose is written or oral language without metrical control
• Poetry is the imaginative articulation of emotion, thought or narrative, frequently in a metrical form and figurative sense
• Types of Literature:

  • Prose consists of written within the common flow of conversation in sentences and paragraphs
  • Poetry refers to expressions in verse, with measure and rhyme, line and stanza and has a more melodious tone
• • Essay: expresses the viewpoint or opinion of the writer about a particular problem or event
  • Biography: deals with the life of a person
  • News: a report of everyday events in society, government, science, and industry
  • Oration: a formal treatment of a subject intended to be spoken in public
• Types of Prose:

  • Novel: a long narrative divided into chapters, events taken from true-to-life stories, involves many characters
  • Short story: a narrative involving one or more characters, one plot, and one single impression
  • Plays: presented on a stage, divided into acts and have many scenes
  • Legends: fictitious narratives about origins of things, events or natural phenomena
  • Fables: stories dealing with animals and inanimate things that speak and act like people, enlighten the minds of children
  • Anecdotes: products of the writer’s imagination, aim to bring out lessons to the reader
• Types of Poetry:

  • Narrative Poetry: describes important events in life, real or imaginary
  • Lyric Poetry: meant to be sung, expresses emotions and feelings of the poet
  • Dramatic Poetry: includes Comedy, Melodrama, Tragedy, Farce, Social Poems, Riddles, Proverb
• Narrative Poetry includes Epic, Metrical Tale, Ballads

  • Lyric Poetry includes Folksongs, Sonnets, Elegy, Ode, Psalm, Song, Corridos
• Dramatic Poetry includes Comedy, Melodrama, Tragedy, Farce, Social Poems, Riddles, Proverb
• Literary Elements:

  • Plot: a casually related sequence of actions and events in the story
  • Characters: any make-believe persons encountered in the story, may include animals or objects
• Types of Characters:

  • Protagonist (hero): supports the good side
  • Antagonist (villain): contradicts the good intention of the protagonist
  • Confidant/confidante (sidekick): supports the main character
  • Background characters (minor): make the setting real
• Methods of Character Portrayal:
• Direct Method describes a character with a straightforward enumeration of his or her traits
• Indirect Method shows a character through:

  • Action: mannerisms and gestures
  • Word: words and speech accent
  • Thought: what and how the character thinks
  • Physical appearance: description of how the character looks like
  • What others say: someone's reaction or description of others
  • Juxtaposition with other characters: reaction of characters to each other in a particular situation in the story
• Setting refers to the time, physical, and social locality in which the story occurs
• Principal Functions of the Setting:

  • It can give immediacy to the story, referring to the deadline or time limit of the hero to solve the problem
  • It can lend an atmosphere to the story, contributing to its emotional effect
  • It can enter directly into the meaning of the story, giving hints to the characters
• Theme refers to the main meaning of the story projected by the characters or the central idea in the story
• Guide to Stating the Theme:

  • The title of a story may directly lead to a generalization
  • The resolution of the conflict may lead to a generalization
  • The theme is not always explicit, and the reader is left to arrive at it
  • Symbolic elements may point towards the theme
  • The theme should be stated in a complete sentence
• Other Literary Devices:
• Point of View is the focus of the narration, in whose eyes the story is seen
• Tone refers to the attitudes taken by the writer toward some ideas or toward his work
• Irony is a discrepancy between what seems and what is, with common forms like verbal, dramatic, and situational irony
• Poetic justice refers to the outcome of events that rewards the good and punishes the evil
• Foreshadowing is the dropping of important hints by the author to prepare the reader for what is to come
• Conflict refers to the clash between two opposing forces, ideas, or beliefs, upon which the action depends
• Poetic Devices:
• Tone (poetic voice) reveals the attitude of the narrator
• Alliteration is the repetition of consonant sounds
• Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds
• Meter is the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in measurable rhythms
• Figures of Speech include simile, metaphor, personification, apostrophe, allusion, hyperbole, litotes, metonymy, synecdoche, paradox, and oxymoron