Literary Studies 1

• Literary studies

  Consists of textual analysis and interpretation, literary theory and history
• Textual analysis & interpretation

  Aim = critical understanding of what literary texts mean in terms of their aesthetic, as well as social, political, and cultural statements and suggestions
• Literary theory

  A particular form of literary criticism in which particular academic, scientific, or philosophical approaches are followed in a systematic fashion while analyzing literary texts
• Literary history

  The development of literature over time; can help you interpret a piece of literature
• Normative vs. descriptive definitions of literature

  • Normative = value-based definitions, subjective opinions, "is / ought" (high-brow vs. low-brow literature)
  • Descriptive = literature is analyzed in a more objective way, What is there in a text?
• Broad vs. narrow definitions of literature

  • Broad = everything that is written, also includes newspapers, manuals, academic non-fiction (= secondary literature), ...
  • Narrow = literature as poetic and imaginative texts, subject of literary studies
• Mimesis

  Literature as an imitation of the world (text = reality)
• Poesis

  Literature creating independent models of reality (text = factuality/truth)
• How are we able to distinguish literary from non-literary texts?

  • Through fictionality, aesthetic convention, polyvalence convention (ambiguity), deviation/defamiliarization of language and literature as non-pragmatic discourse
• Fictionality

  Fictionality describes the peculiar relationship between literary texts and the extra-textual world as well as the peculiarities of production and reception of literary texts. How can we tell whether something claims to be fictional or not?
• Signals of fictionality

  • Textual signals ("Once upon a time …", ambiguity of language, intertextuality, modes of representation of speech and consciousness)
  • Contextual signals (referring to the context, e.g. the communicative situation, theater visits, public readings, poetry slam, signals relating to the publishing process)
  • Paratextual signals (titles and subtitles, e.g. "a novel", "a short story", ..., legal disclaimers: "Any similarity to any person, living or dead, is purely coincidental", "Based on a true story")
• Aesthetic convention

  Reading literature for its aesthetic qualities rather than for information, facts or truth(s)
• "Willing suspension of disbelief"


  Samuel T. Coleridge - A reader allows to be transported to an invented world in the full knowledge that the literary text will supply no 'true' information about reality
• Ambiguity/polyvalence-convention

  "ambiguous" or "polyvalent" = open to more than one interpretation; not having one obvious meaning: ambiguity of a literary text is a sign of quality
• Deviation/defamiliarization of language


  Language in literary texts is different from language in everyday life, gives the author more room for expression, function of language in literature differs from function of language in everyday life communication
• Literature as non-pragmatic discourse

  "Autofunktionalität" (R. Jakobson) - Literature has no practical or pragmatic function no specific purpose no directions for actions = non-pragmatic "Art for Art's Sake"
• Literature as a system of signs


  Process of selection + combination / syntagmatic axis + paradigmatic axis
• Semiotics


  The study of signs and how signs are used to create meaning
• Sign


  A sign is something that stands for something else
• Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913)
• Signifier + signified = sign

  • Signifier = the shape of a sign (e.g. a word on the printed page, the phonetic realization of "tree": /tri/)
  • Signified = the concept or object that appears in our minds when we perceive the signifier
  • Signified ≠ Referent (it is not the actual object in real world)
• Charles Peirce: iconic signs – indexical signs – symbolic signs

  • Iconic signs = signifier and signified have a relationship of similarity (photographs, portraits, onomatopoetic terms ("purr"))
  • Indexical signs = signifier and signified are linked by an actual connection or real relation; signifier points to/indicates the signified (smiling person points to happiness, smoke indicates fire)
  • Symbolic signs = relation between signifier and signified is based on arbitrariness; meaning has to be acquired or learned (language (exception: onomatopoetic words = iconic), national flags)
• How does literature use the sign system that is language? (Jakobson)


  "Die poetische Funktion überträgt das Prinzip der Äquivalenz von der Achse der Selektion auf die Achse der Kombination." - When speaking/writing particular signs are chosen from a particular semantic field (a paradigm) and combined according to syntactical rules (syntagma)
• What is poetry?


  The 'essence' of poetry = high degree of diversity, historical change, system of genres is continually changing
• Müller-Zettelmann's definition of what poetry is


  Brevity, compression, condensation, reduction, increased subjectivity, musicality and proximity to songs, structural and phonological complexity, aesthetic self-referentiality, morphological and syntactic complexity, deviation from everyday language, increased artificiality
• Communication model for lyric texts (according to Nünning)

  Poetry is shorter, more reduced/compressed, has subjective perspective and subjective experiences, has musicality, most dominant in degree of self-referentiality and has immediate mediacy.
• Communicative situation of poems

  • Who is the textual speaker? To whom are his/her remarks addressed? Where and when are the speaker and addressee situated?
• Speaker (lyric I or lyric persona) vs. real historical author, addressee (lyric thou) vs. real-world recipient


  • Real author → fictive speaker (lyric persona/lyric 'I') → subject matter of speech → fictive addressee (lyric thou) → real reader
• Implicit and explicit subjectivity


  • Implicit = impersonal, speaker does not appear as an individualized lyric persona
  • Explicit = lyric persona uses first person singular: "I", appears as a communicating individual, innermost thoughts and feelings, high degree of self-expression (e.g. dramatic monologue), explicit "lyric thou"
• Level of phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and external form of poetry


  • Type of foot
  • Number of beats per line
  • Meter = foot + number of stressed syllables or beats per line
• Session 3 p. 28-33 = example of meter determination
• Deviations from the meter


  • Double stress/accent xx xx xx
  • Inversion (start of poem/line) xx xx xx
  • Unrealized ictus/missing stress xx xx xx
  • Elision = a vowel sound is deleted (The eternal note of sadness)
• Rhythm


  • Enjambments = sentence continues for more than one line
  • End-stopped lines = punctuation, end of a sentence
  • Caesura = break in rhythm and content/theme
• Verse


  Can be understood as a literary composition representing one line poetry, which has a definite rhythm, it is used to indicate any stanza or any other part of the poetry
• Prose


  Written or spoken language in its ordinary form, natural/everyday language, no metrical structure, pragmatic or direct
• Free verse


  Free verse is a literary device that can be defined as poetry that is free from the limitations of a regular meter or rhythm and does not rhyme with fixed forms. Such poems are without rhythm and rhyme schemes, do not follow regular rhyme scheme rules, yet they provide artistic expression. In this way, the poet can give his own shape to a poem however he or she desires. However, it still allows poets to use alliteration, rhyme, cadences, and rhythms to get the effects that they consider are suitable for the piece.
• Finding out how the phonological level contributes to the meaning of the poem


  • Foregrounding of particular words (relation to their importance?)
  • Affects meaning making (stress on different words = different meaning "How are you")
  • Might reflect the content level (imitation of aspects of external reality (e.g. sounds, objects) or internal processes (perceptions, feelings))
  • Sometimes: no deeper meaning but merely convention or organizational reasons
• Stanzas


  • Couplets (2 lines)
  • Tercets (3 lines)
  • Quatrains (4 lines)
  • Quintets (5 lines)
  • Sestet (6 lines)
  • Septet (7 lines)
  • Octave (8 lines)
• Heroic couplet


  Two lines, paired lines of verse (rhyming pairs)
• Rhyme schemes


  • Rhyming couplets aa bb cc
  • Alternate rhyme abab cdcd
  • Embracing/envelope rhyme abba cddc
  • Chain/interlocking rhyme aba bcb cdc
  • Tail rhyme aab ccb