2. What is Literature ?
Imaginative or creative writing
Distinguished writing, with deep sublime, or
noble feelings. It includes oral tradition passed
on from generation by word of
mouth(proverbs, myths, legends, epic, folk
song, etc.)
3. [Oxford Advanced Learner’s
Dictionary]Defined Literature ..
The writing or study of books, etc., valued as
works of art(drama, fiction, essays, poetry,
biography) contrasted with technical books and
journalism.
All the writings of the country (french lit.) or a
period (18th century English lit.)
Printed material describing or advertising
(pamphlets)
Books dealing with special subjects, travel,
poultry farming.
4. For Del Prado literature is..
An art expressing beauty through the medium
of language; a recreation through the
language of human situation and experience
The orchestration of the manifold but
elemental experiences of man blended into
harmonious and desired patterns of
expressions and a faithful reproduction of life
executed in an artistic pattern.
6. The Academic Value of Literature to
Student
In a addition to the personal benefits of
literature for young readers, there are also
several important academic benefits.
Reading. Many teachers and librarians believe
that regular involvement with excellent and
appropriate literature can foster language
development in young people and can help
them to learn to read and to value reading.
7. Writing. Since people tend to assimilate or adopt
what they like of what they read and hear, young
people may, by listening to and reading literature,
begin to develop their own writing “voice”, or
unique, personal writing style. Devices found in
books such as the use of dialects, dialogue, and
precise description are often assimilated into
students’ own writing.
Content Area Subject. In reading about and
discussing the literature, you will often hear the
phrase literature across the curriculum. This
means using works of literature as teaching
materials in the content area of reading.
8. Art Appreciation. Illustration in some literature
books(Children’s Literature) can be appreciated
both for its ability to help tell the story(cognitive
value) and for its value as art (aesthetic value)For
this reason, illustrations in picture books are said
to be integral to the story. Without the
illustrations, therefore these books would
diminished, and in some case the story would
make no sense or would be nonexistent. For
example, novels and anthologies(used by college
students) often have a few scattered illustrations
that depict what has already been described in
the text or that serve to decorate the text. These
illustration are said to be incidental to the story.
9. Generic Classification
Prose. There are two subgenres within this category:
prose fiction and prose non-fiction.
1. Fiction: these include the short stories, novels,
myths, parables, romances, and epics.
2. Nonfiction: Works of facts and theory.
Drama. Plays are written with characters, implied
action, and dialogue, and are usually intended for
actors to perform on stage.
Poetry. Poetry is highly imagistic, and it is written in
condensed language, stylized syntax, and figures of
speech not found in ordinary communication.
10. Understanding the Genre of the
Short story.
Understanding the elements of a short story,
however, will heighten your enjoyment
because it will you to read critically; that is it
will help you to evaluate and compare
different stories so that you will understand
why a story affects you in certain way and why
you like some stories more than others
11. Conflict can be external or internal. Physical or
external conflict is easy to recognize especially in
an adventure story which emphasizes a vivid
physical struggle. Internal Conflict may be
represented by a character's struggle with
conscience, or between what is and what should
be.
The forces opposing each other in a conflict are
labeled the protagonist and the antagonist. The
protagonist is the main character who is faced
with a basic problem or struggle. The antagonist
is the person, place, idea, or physical force
opposing the protagonist. To succeed, the
protagonist must overcome the antagonist.
12. The Elements of Shorts story
Conflict. The reason that the story grows in
tension and suspense as it builds to a climax is
that the pressure of conflict, the struggle
between two opposing forces, is in increased
by each events: Conflict in a story may be
(1)person against person, (2)human against
nature, (3)person against itself, (4)the
individual against society, (5)a combination
of two or more of these types.
13. Plot. This is the plan of the story- the sequence of
actions and events that tells what happened. In
many short stories, the plot has a well-defined
beginning, middle, and end.
As the main characters struggles with those
conflicts, the reader begins to recognize a
growing tension or rising action in the plot
toward a particular high point of interest called
climax.
Following the climax come the denouement,
which is final unraveling or solution of the plot.
Foreshadowing. This means exactly what the
word implies- a hint of thing to come.
14. Characterization. Characters and plots are closely
related. A well convinced plot involves
meaningful human action. A plot is believed only
if the characters in a story act in a consistent and
natural way.
• Point of View- there are basically two points of
view from which a writer can tell a story.
1. First-Person Narrator. Here the writer usually
has a major or minor characters who tells the
story in his or her own words.
2. Third-Person Narrator. If an author feels that
the reader should know more than any person
can tell, the story may be written from an
omniscient or all knowing point of view.
15. • Tone. Tone is a writer’s attitude toward his or
her subject and characters. It may be
sorrowful, sentimental, angry, ironic,
sympathetic or objective, and impersonal.
• Setting the Atmosphere. The time and the
place of a story’s action- is most often
stressed in a story of local color, which
emphasizes the particular characteristics of a
region and its habitants.
As a rule, setting is not a dominant element, but
it does serve to establish or heighten
atmosphere. This is esp. evident in stories
where the author wants to create a special
feeling or mood.
16. • Symbol. A symbol is something that
represents or suggests a relationship or
association. For example, a flag symbolizes
patriotism; lamp represents knowledge; a
cross stands for the Christian Church.
In fiction, symbols are often concrete objects
used to represents abstract ideas.
• Theme. Another important elements is the
theme, the central insight or idea on which
the story is based. A theme is rarely stated;
usually it is implied. Generally, a theme is a
significant insight about human life.
17. The second why will help relate the different
parts or elements of the story. Short stories
are limited. They do not include “extras”. Ask
then, why did the author use this type of
setting, this kind of dialogue, these events,
these characters, this particular point of view?
Asking these questions will help you to
understand how the story’s meaning is
conveyed through the relationship of all the
parts of the story.
18. • Analysis of Short story. In order to discover the
underlying meaning of a story, you need to
learn to read more than just the printed
words. Much of the pleasure of reading comes
from being able to supply what the author
does not say but only suggests.
The key to a story will most often be found by
asking the question “why?” Of each story, asks
two why’s. The first why is directed toward the
character’s motivations. Why do characters
act and speak as they do? What motives do
they have for their choices and decisions?.
19. Drama is the gateway into the wonderland of
“Let’s pretend.” Few people can travel to far-
way lands, but plays enable everyone to go in
imagination almost anywhere and to meet
almost anyone.
A play introduces you to a great variety, of
people, for dramatists have the power of
creating characters who seem as alive as the
people one meets every day.
20. Kinds of Drama
All drama cannot be the same kind because life
itself is varied. Some lives are grave and sad;
some seem only merry and happy; others appear
romantically beautiful. Most lives are all of these
kinds at different times.
Here are some of the different kind of plays.
1. Tragedy. A tragedy is a play in which the leading
character is overcome by trouble of some kind.
2. Comedy. A comedy is a play in which the leading
character overcomes the obstacles placed in his
way and wins in the conflicts; thus the comedy
ends happily.
21. 3. Farce. A farce is comedy in which the
situations are too ridiculous to be true, the
characters are so exaggerated that they seem
to be caricatures, and the motives are absurd
and undignified.
4. Pantomime. A pantomime is a play in which
the story is told entirely by action. It may be
either a comedy or tragedy.
5. Historical play. A historical play is one in
which some events of history is dramatized.
22. Characteristic of a Play
A play is a story told by means of dialogue and
action on a stage.
Just as a story must possess the ff. characteristics
so, too must a play;
1. Characters. The characters are the people who
take part in the action.
2. Settings. The setting tells when and where the
vents happened.
3. Plot. The story of the play is told in a series of
incidents arranged in such a way that there is a
beginning, a middle, and an end.
23. 6. Puppet play. A puppet play is one in which
the parts are acted by puppets or
marionettes. A puppet is a small figure in
human form, constructed with jointed limbs,
which are made to move by means of wires
operated by someone from either above, or
below the stage.
7. Plays or Fantasy. In a play of fantasy , the
action could not take place in real life, but not
in the imagination of the writer
24. 4. Conflict. The plot must give an account of a
struggle, or conflict, it may be struggle
between to persons, or between two group of
peoples, or the struggle maybe a mental one.
5. Suspense. As the story moves toward the
clashing of the two forces, the account of the
incidents must be told, so that each one grows
more and more exciting
6. Climax. With the growth of excitement the
action becomes more and more intense until
the highest point of interest is reached with
clashing of the two forces.
25. 7. Single effects. The story of the play must arouse
some feeling in the reader. the emotion maybe that
of anger, humour, fear, sadness, or pity. One
emotion, or effect, predominates.
8. Theme. the author discovered something about life
that he or she thinks is worth knowing- a general
truth that he wishes to present; or he has made a
general observation that he thinks would be of
interest to others.
9. Style. Style I the manner in which the play is written.
Words frequently used to describe style are; clear
vivid, simple, forceful, humorous, polished,
individual.
Features that belong to play but do not belong to a
story or these.
1. Stage Properties.
2. Stage Directions.
26. STRUCTURE OF THE ONE-ACT
PLAY
It is not a condensed or diminutive full length
play
Has developed a technique of its own, in some
respects more exacting and binding than that
of the full-length play
The heart of the one-act play is concentration,
singles of impression, unity
Dealing with the briefest lapse of time cannot
develop, it can reveal character.
The interest must be continually projected
forward.
27. One-act play must quickly seize the attention
of the audience, clarify the situation, and
carry the interest along a through properly
related sequence of episodes that rise rapidly
to a dramatic climax.
The one-act play is necessarily episodic.
On the contrary, the serious one act play aims
to seize a significant and crucial moment, to
bring to a sharp focus the cumulative force of
character and circumstance, and in a flash as it
were to furnish a revealing glimpse of the
history of life.
28. Exposition and Inciting Moment
Exposition : introduces the characters,
establishes the relation among them, makes
clear the setting, and strikes the key mode of
the dominating mood.
Inciting moment: in one act play the main
characters are likely to be engaged in the
initial dramatic situation(inciting moment).
29. Complication : the reactin of character to
character, and of character to circumstances
will necessarily develop a second dramatic
episode out of the first;and perhaps, a third of
the second.
Crisis and climax: the series of dramatic
episodes must finally bring the action to a
head where the cumulative force of character
and circumstances press for a solution to the
problem.
30. Resolution: it marks the beginning of the
resolution. It also answers the main question
but leaves certain minor ones – bearing
usually on the reaction of the characters.
Surprise ending: the ending of a one act play
may take a turn wholly unexpected in that
nothing in the play has foreshadowed it. This
is usually brought about by what Percival
Wilde calls the “secondary climax”
31. CHARACTER
• Is the stuff out of which drama is made
• “No play can rise above the level of its
characterization”
• Action properly motivated can be understood
freely only in terms of character.
• Usually revealed first by the appearance and
dress of the individual
• Self-characterization through dialogue must,
of course, not always taken at face value
32. PLOT AND THEME
Plot is the design into which the stuff is woven
While Plot is the design of constructed story,
Theme is the central idea which the story
elaborates, or the fundamental truth which it
exemplifies
Plot gives the story form
Theme gives it significance
Theme, however is by no means synonymous
with “moral”
33. ATMOSPHERE
Each scene or locality, by virtue of the nature,
appearance, and arrangement of its components
parts, arouses certain one reaction.This
somewhat intangible reality is known as
atmosphere.
A play may be described as the dominating mood
which the plays generates
In a period play, costumes, stage properties, and
dialogue are the elements most potent in yielding
atmosphere.
34. UNDERSTANDING THE GENRE
OF POETRY
Studying poetry can increase your sensitivity
to sounds and words and to the intricacies of
rhythm, and you may often to be amazed at
how much can be implied with so few words.
NARRATIVE POETRY: the central feature in all
narrative poetry is the story being told.
35. • Three kinds of narrative poetry:
1. Ballad
- is a tightly metered poem which tells a story.
-ballads theme includes disappointment in love,
revenge, super natural beings and events, and
physical strength or agility.
2. Metrical tale
-is a relatively long poem which tells a
completely developed story in verse
3. Epic poem
-is a very long narrative
36. WHAT IS THE SPEAKER
SPEAKING ABOUT?
Speakers can be contemplating, reflecting,
emoting, intellectualizing, describing and so
forth.
They can be involved in a dialogue with other
characters, or can be relating story
37. “WHEN AND WHERE DOES THE
SPEAKER SPEAK?”
• Time and place are important considerations
in the performance of most literary works.
• In general, lyric poems seem to encompass a
short period of time- a flash of illumination.
Dramatic poems take place now-in the
present-and often the time covered in the
poem is the same amount of time it would
take to perform the poem. Narrative poems
are usually the longest and involve a
progression of events in time.
38. HOW DOES THE SPEAKER
SPEAK?”
PROSODY: is the art of patterning poetry..
• These patterns may be on: the repetition of
sensory images, literary images, tone color or
meter.
39. SENSORY iMAGERY
• Are images that appeal to the senses.
There are primarily eight kinds of sensory
images: visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory,
tactile, kinetic, kinesthetic, and thermal.
40. Literary Imagery
Literary Imagery or Figurative Language, helps
to make a poem clearer, fresher, or more vital,
usually through some means of comparisons
or by relating to something outside of the
poem.
41. Major kinds of Literary Images
1. Allusion- is a reference to a person, place, or
thing outside of the confines of the poem.
Poets usually allude to characters or events in
mythology and the Bible, to another literary
work, or to a contemporary or historical
event. Provides valuable Information.
Ex. “The couple went to Adam’s grocery store and stole
an apple”
42. 2. Apostrophe- is an address to an inanimate
object, a muse, God, or an absent or
deceased person. In apostrophe, the speaker
is reaching out, trying to communicate with
someone or something unable to respond.
Ex. Death, be not proud though some called have thee,
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so
3. Hyperbole- is an exaggerated statement
employing inflated language. A speaker who
uses many hyperbolic statements is prone to
overstatements.
Ex. “She was the most talented and beautiful girl in the
world”
43. 4. Litotes- is an understatement in which the
affirmative is implied by denying its opposite.
Litotes are used by characters who are a bit
uncertain or unsure of themselves and who
hesitate to commit themselves too
vehemently.
Ex. “She wasn't that bad looking”
5. Metaphor- is a comparison in which
something is compared to something else. A
speaker might use a metaphor to make an
image clearer , to relate something not seen
or understood and to something concrete.
Ex. “I’d rather be a sparrow than to be a snail”
44. 6. Metonymy- one word or image is used to
represent another with which it is closely
associated.
Ex. “the pen is mightier than the sword”
7. Oxymoron- is a contradiction that seemingly
cannot be resolved.
Ex. “Parting is such a sweet sorrow”.
8. Paradox- is a seemingly contradictory
statement that turns out to be partly true.
Ex. “You can check out anytime you like,
But you can never leave.”
45. 9. Personification- occurs when the poet
bestows human characteristics on inanimate
object, abstract qualities, and animals.
Ex. The moon doth with delight
Look round her when the heavens are bare
10. Simile- is a comparison using like, as or if.
Ex. My love is like a red rose.
11. Synecdoche-is closely related to metonymy.
In synecdoche, a part is used to suggest the
whole, or that of the whole for a parts, as:
46. • Specie for genus- She has been sixteen summers.
• Individual for specie- He is Croesus.
• Whole for part- The arrow struck me.
• Genus for specie- He is a wretched creature.
12. Irony- is the use of language which when
taken literally express contrary of what is
meant.
Ex. Elijah said to prophet of Baal,
“Cry aloud, for he is god”.
47. 4. Antonomasia- is the use of proper name, or
the name of an office, rank, profession, etc.,
instead of a common name, as in:
Ex. Some village Hampden that with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of the fields withstood;
Some mute, inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country’s blood
-Gray
5. Apostrophe- is a figure of speech in w/c
speaker turns away from his subject to
address some object or she imagines to be
present.
Ex. O thou bright moon! Thou object of my fist love!
48. 6. Asyndeton- is the ellipsis of connectives, as
in:
Ex. I came, (and) I saw, (and) I conquered.
-Shelley
7. Catachresis- is the use of the word to express
something at variants with its tru meaning, as
in:
Brass coppers; or
Taste the smell of dairy
-Thompson
49. 8. Enallage- is the use of one part of speech or
one modification for another, as in :
They fall successive and successive rise poor me!
Solomon, than whom they’re never was a wiser;
Me thinks; me seems; there is no danger that is falling.
It is me.
9. Epigram- is a figure of a speech in which
there is a contradiction between the literal
meaning of the word and the meaning really
intended, as in ;
The child is the father of the man.
50. 10. Epizeuxis- is the emphatic repitition of a
word, as in;
Ex. Break, break, break
On thy gray stone, O sea. --Tennyson
11. Euphemism- is a softened way of saying what
is disagreeable or offensive.
Ex. He fell asleep (He died)
12. Hyperbaton- is an inversion of the natural
order of the natural order of the words or
phrases in a sentence, as in:
Ex. Deep on his front engraven,
Deliberation sat, and public care. -Milton
51. 13. Interrogation- puts in form of a question
what is meant to be a strong affirmation, as
in:
Ex. Hath Lord said it? And shall He do it?
Hath He spoken it? And shall He not make it good?
14. Mimesis- is a ludicrous imitation of
mispronunciation of a word, as in:
Ex. And he said that he had heard
That Hamericans spoke Hinglish;
Yet he felt the deepest hinterest
In the missionary work
-Saxe
52. 15. Paralepsis- is a figure of speech by which the
speaker’ pretends to pass by something which
really mention, as in:
Ex. I make no mention of the enemy's bad faith and treachery,
Now will I notice his unscrupulous attempts to array
The friendly powers against us
16. Paronomasia or punning- is a play on words,
in which the same word is uses in different
senses, or words of familiar sound are placed
in the antithetical relations to each other, as
in:
Ex. The case ism I’ve no case at all,
And in brief, I’ve never had a brief.
-Saxe
53. 17. Pleonasm – is the use of more words than
are necessary to the full construction of a
sentence, as in:
Ex. The villain, is he yet alive?
The gold you set, it was squandered.
18.Prosthesis – is the intentional prefixing of a
syllable to a word, as in:
Ex. adown; agoing; arunning
19. Syllepsis – is the agreement of one word with
another used in a figurative sense, as in:
Ex. The word was made flesh and dwelt among
us,
54. Component Elements of Poetry
• Tone Color- is the repetition of like sounds
throughout a poem. These sounds become
significant if they are repeated often enough
to show a pattern.
There are five primary kinds of tone color
which a poet may employ: alliteration,
assonance, consonance, rhyme, and
onomatopoeia.
55. 1.) Alliteration
Alliteration is the repetition of identical
consonant sounds, usually at the beginning
of the words in close proximity, throughout a
poem.
Ex. I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.
2.) Assonance
Assonance is the repetition of identical vowel
sounds in words in close proximity
throughout a poem.
Ex. And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with
toil.
56. 3.) Consonance
Consonance is the repetition of identical
consonant sounds that are preceded by
different vowel sounds, for example, struts,
frets.
Ex. The cold, hard diamond was held in her hand.
4.) Rhyme
Rhyme is an element of poetry which helps us
unify a poem by keeping thought groups
together. Rhyme exist when the word have
the same vowel succeeding sounds with
different preceding sound.
Ex. sang-rang, high-dry, sailing-failing
57. 5.) Onomatopoeia
Onomatopoeia, the last aspect of tone color,
involves words that sound like their meanings
that imitate actual sounds.
Ex.
In Emily Dickson’s poem, “I Heard a Fly buzz
When I Died”
58. • Meter- Poetry is a crystallized experience, and
because it is so condensed, it rhythm is more
pronounced than the rhythm in prose and
drama.
Conventional poetry poems which have a
regular rhythmic base.
There are eight common types of metrical
feet; iamb, trochee, anapest, dactyl, spondee,
pyrric, amphibrach and amphimacer (also
called cretic)
59. The following terms are used to represent the
number of feet in a line of poetry :
One foot : Monometer
Two feet : Dimeter
Three Feet: trimester
Four Feet: Tetrameter
Five Feet: Pentameter
Six Feet; Hexameter
Seventh Feet: Septameter
Eight Feet: Octameter
60. Guidelines in Scanning a Poem
1. Read the whole poem aloud first.
2. Scan for sense. Stress those words or syllables
which seems to carry the meaning.
3. Begin your scansion by marking the wrods of
more than one syllable first.
4. Do not force your lines to conform to one
metrical type.
5. When putting in the bar lines, place them where
the word naturally breaks into syllables.
6. If a poem is in free verse, placement of bar lines
can be difficult because an overall metrical
pattern may not be apparent.
61. Understanding the Genre of Essay
Essay is a relatively short literary composition
of a personal nature that deals with a single,
often with clearly organized beginning, middle
and end.
There are many different kind of essays, and
each kind suggests an appropriate
performance style.
62. Humorous Essay- make point through wit,
satire and comicality.
Expository Essay- sets out to develop an idea
in order to instruct or inform.
Personal or Familiar Essay- is highly lyrical
and relates firsthand experience, and relating
them to appropriate external objects.
Formal Essays- is pre-occupied with ideas, its
treatment is generally serious, the writer
having a healthy respect for his own ideas
and expecting his readers to share them.
63. Evaluation and Selection of Traditional
Literature
A traditional tale, even though written down,
should preserve the narrative, or storytelling
style and should be sound as though it is
being told.
Retold Versions must preserve the essential
content .
In illustrated versions, text and illustration
must be of high quality.
64. Editorial Essay- in general is a part of a
newspaper page.
There are various types of Editorial Essays.
1. Editorial of Interpretation
2. Editorial of Criticism
3. Editorial of Entertainment
4. Editorial of Commendation, Appreciation, or
Tribute
5. Editorial of Argument
65. TYPES OF TRADITIONAL
LITERATURE
The term traditional literature to refer to the
entire body of stories passed down from ancient
times by the oral tradition.
The term folktale is sometimes used in the same
way.
The term retold tale refers to a version of a tale
that is obviously based upon earlier.
Variant, a term often used in reference to
folktales, refers to a story that shares
fundamental elements of plot or character with
other stories, and therefore is said to be in the
same story family.
66. 5. Fable- is a simple story that incorporates
characters-typically animals, whose action
teach a moral lesson or universal truth.
6. Religious Stories- Stories based on religious
writings from religious manuscripts are
considered to be religious stories.
