Literature

• Literature


  Essays, novels, short stories, poems, biographies, auto-biographies, and journals
• Belles-lettres


  Beautiful writing
• Literature


  • Possesses aesthetic quality
  • Focused on the beautiful, moral, social, and practical consideration
• Short story


  Prose fiction which begins in parables, fables, tales, allegory and folklores<|>A work of fiction SHORT enough to be read in a single setting
• Elements of the short story

  • Plot or Action
  • Character
  • Setting
  • Theme
  • Point of View
• Plot or Action

  1. Exposition

  2. Development

  3. Turning point

  4. Climax

  5. Denouement

  6. Conclusion
• Protagonist


  The principal character
• Antagonist


  The one who opposes the protagonist
• Confidant


  A character to whom the protagonist or hero and /or other major characters reveal their secrets or innermost feelings
• Theme


  The meaning of the story, often not directly stated but revealed in the totality of the literary piece
• Point of View


  The perspective from which the story is told
• Types of Narrative Poetry

  • Epic
  • Lyric
  • Ballad
  • Dramatic poetry
• Elements of Poetry

  • Denotation and Connotation
  • Imagery
  • Figurative Language
  • Rhythm and Meter
  • Meaning and Idea
• Types of Essay

  • Formal Essay
  • Informal Essay
• Formal Essay


  Serious, informative and intellectually stimulating
• Informal Essay


  Light, humorous and entertaining
• Elements of Essay

  • The writer's purpose in introducing the issue
  • The writer's viewpoint and stand on the issue
  • Relevance of the theme of the issue to our lives
• Novel


  A long prose fiction which deals with characters, situations and scenes that represent real life
• Elements of Novel

  • Plot
  • Setting
  • Theme
  • Characters
  • The moral Lesson
• The First Folio is the 1623 collection of Shakespeare's plays, published as Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies in 1623
• The Bible is a collection of writings ranging over a thousand years in time, composed of two main books – The Old Testament and the New Testament
• The Iliad and the Odyssey are two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to a poet known as Homer
• The Epic of Gilgamesh is an ancient Mesopotamian epic poem, author unknown
• Major ancient Greek epic poems

  • The Iliad
  • The Odyssey
• The Iliad


  Set during the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek city states
• The Odyssey


  Focuses on the journey home of Odysseus, king of Ithaca, after the fall of Troy
• The Iliad and the Odyssey are the central works of ancient Greek literature and incredibly influential texts for all forms of art, thought, and music in Western civilization
• Major ancient epic poems

  • The Iliad
  • The Odyssey
  • The Epic of Gilgamesh
• The Epic of Gilgamesh


  An ancient Mesopotamian epic poem dating from about 2100 BCE, thought to be the world's earliest great work of literature
• Major classical novels


  • Don Quixote
  • The Dream of the Red Chamber
  • Oedipus the King
  • Paradise Lost
  • Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
  • The Canterbury Tales
  • The Divine Comedy
  • Mahabharata
  • Nineteen Eighty Four
  • Moby Dick
  • 1984
  • Arabian Nights
  • One Hundred Years of Solitude
  • The Tale of Genji
• Don Quixote


  A Spanish novel published in two volumes in 1605 and 1615, one of the earliest European novels and one of the most influential
• The Dream of the Red Chamber


  One of China's greatest classical novels, written around the middle of the 18th century during the Qing Dynasty
• Oedipus the King


  A Greek tragedy by Sophocles, first performed in about 430 BCE
• Paradise Lost


  A blank verse, epic poem by John Milton, first published in 1667, based on the biblical story of the temptation of Adam and Eve
• Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

  A fantasy novel by Lewis Carroll, published in 1865, an imaginative tale of a girl who falls through a rabbit hole into a dream world
• The Canterbury Tales


  A collection of 24 stories written between 1387–1400, mainly in verse, in English, presented as contributions to a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims
• The Divine Comedy


  The pre-eminent Italian literary work, a long narrative poem written between 1308 and 1320, an imaginative vision of the afterlife
• Mahabharata


  The major Sanskrit epic of Ancient India, an epic narrative about the Kuruksetra War and the Kaurava and the Pandava princes
• Nineteen Eighty Four


  An English novel by George Orwell, published in 1949, a dystopian novel set in a totalitarian regime
• Moby Dick


  A novel about a man's hunt for the great whale, considered one of the greatest American novels ever written