Literature

What is Literature?
• Latin: Litera (“Literae” plural) = letter ; the art
of written works
• An art of expressing beauty through a medium
called language.
According to Cambridge dictionary, literature are:
• written artistic works, especially those with a high
and lasting artistic value.
• all the information relating to a subject, especially
information written by specialists.
• printed material published by a company which is
intended to encourage people to buy that
company’s products or services.
Literature defined:
• “any artistic creative piece, whether written or
oral, which we can enjoy repeatedly”
- E.A. Manuel (Literature in Ethnic Oral Tradition
Liturature and Society p. 108)
• “an art written in memorable language on a
memorable subject
- Maximo Ramos, Literature as a maker of myths
Categories of Literature
A. Poetry
B. Prose
Categories of Literature
I. Poetry
- A genre of literature which refers to those
expressions in verse with measure and rhyme,
line and stanza and has more melodious tone.
Types of Poetry
A. Narrative Poetry
-describes important events in life either real or
imaginary
- the narrative has the essentials of plot,
characters, setting, theme and narrator
Types of Poetry
B. Lyric Poetry – frequently short poem which
expresses a single emotion.
Ex: Haike, sonnet , vignettes
C. Ode – a poem of a noble feeling, expressed with
dignity, with no definite number of syllables or
definite number of lines in a stanza.
D. Psalms – a song praising God and containing a
philosophy of life.
E. Corridos – measures of eight syllables
(octosyllabic) often about oppressions, daily life
of peasants .
Categories of Literature
II. Prose – written in complete sentences and
organized in paragraph form, following the
formal rules of grammar, punctuation and
syntax.
- focus on plot and characters
Elements of literature
A. Elements of Sense
1. Meaning
2. Imagery
3. Grammar
B. Elements of Sound
1. Tone Color
2. Rhyme
3. Rhythm
4. Meter
Elements of literature
A. Elements of Sense
I. Meaning
1. Technical Terms – words used by a particular profession
, business or trade.
Ex : Laissez-faire, Phlebotomy
2. Idioms - to a set expression or a phrase comprising two
or more words.
“Every cloud has its silver lining but it is sometimes a little
difficult to get it to the mint.”
-By Don Marquis
3. New words – new meanings given to words emerged
gradually and constantly over a long period of time.
Ex: Hugot
4. Allusion – an indirect reference to some person, place or
a thing
5. Connotation - implied meaning of word.

B. Imagery - the author’s attempt to create a mental

picture (or reference point) in the mind of the reader.
Remember, though the most immediate forms of
imagery are visual, strong and effective imagery can be
used to invoke an emotional, sensational (taste, touch,
smell etc) or even physical response..
Figurative language - the use of words to express meaning
beyond the literal meaning of the words themselves
• Metaphor - contrasting to seemingly unalike things to
enhance the meaning of a situation or theme without
using like or as
But a BIRD that stalks down his narrow cage
Can seldom see through his bars of rage
His wings are clipped and his feet are tied
The caged bird sings with a fearful trill …
And his tune is heard on the distant hill for
The caged bird sings of freedom.
- I Know Why the Cage Bird Sings (By Maya Angelou)
• Simile - contrasting to seemingly unalike things to enhance the
meaning of a situation or theme using like or as
My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a water’d shoot;
My heart is like an apple-tree
My heart is like a rainbow shell…

-“A Birthday” by Christina Rossetti

• Metonymy - The word “metonymy”, Greek, ‘meta’ –

after; ‘onoma’ – a name, means literally, “substitution of name”,
and the figure consists in “substituting the thing named for the
thing meant”; for example, grey hair may be used for old age,
throne for monarchy. Some other examples are:
(a) The pen (author) is mightier than the sword (the soldier).
(b) “What would I do without your smart mouth?
Drawing me in, and you kicking me out
‘Cause all of me
Loves all of you
• Personification - giving non-human objects human
characteristics
“Pearl Button swung on the little gate in front of the House
of Boxes. It was the early afternoon of a sunshiny day with
little winds playing hide-and-seek in it.”
- How Pearl Button Was Kidnapped (By William
Shakespeare)
• Hyperbole- An extravagant statement; the use of
exaggerated terms for the purpose of emphasis or
heightened effect.
“He cried all night, and dawn found him still there, though
his tears had dried and only hard, dry sobs shook his
wooden frame. But these were so loud that they could be
heard by the faraway hills …”
-The Adventures of Pinocchio (By C. Colloid)
• Irony - The use of words to convey the opposite
of their literal meaning. Also, a statement or
situation where the meaning is contradicted by
the appearance or presentation of the idea.
“Go ask his name: if he be married.
My grave is like to be my wedding bed.”
-Romeo and Juliet (By William Shakespeare)
Elements of literature
• 3. Grammar
-Deals with the classed of words, their inflections
or other means of indicationg relation to each
other

Poetic License – poets can do whatever they will with

words as long as it pleases and has meaning.
Elements of literature
B. Elements of Sounds
1. Tone Color – achieves effects comparable to those
of different instruments by the sounds of words
2. Rhyme - It's a recurrence of an accented sound or
sounds in a piece of literature.
3. Rhythm – the regular sucession of sounds or
motions.
4. Meter - It is described as sequence of feet, each
foot being a specific series of syllable types - such as
'stressed' or 'unstressed'. It makes the poetry more
melodious.
Verse Form
A. Traditional Verse Forms
1. Couplet – having two successive rhyming lines
in a verse, and has the same meter to form a
complete thought.
“The time is out of joint, O cursed spite
That ever I was born to set it right!”
-William Shakespeare’s Hamlet
2. Triplet – stanza of three lines
Darest Thou Now O Soul
By Walt Whitman 1819-1892
Darest thou now O soul,
Walk out with me toward the unknown region,
Where neither ground is for the feet nor any path to
follow?

No map there, nor guid

Nor voice sounding, nor touch of human hand,
Nor face with blooming flesh, nor lips, nor eyes, are in
that land.
3. Quatrain – stanza of four lines

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil,

this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same,
and their parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
-Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself
B. Sonnet - A sonnet is simply a poem written in a
certain format.
-All sonnets have 14 lines which can be broken
down into four sections called quatrains.
-A strict rhyme scheme. The rhyme scheme of a
Shakespearean sonnet is ABAB / CDCD / EFEF / GG
(note the four distinct sections in the rhyme scheme).
- Sonnets are written in iambic pentameter a
poetic meter with 10 beats per line made up of
alternating unstressed and stressed syllables.
“ From fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty’s rose might never die.
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:
But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed’st thy light’s flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.
Thou that art now the world’s fresh ornament
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content
And, tender churl, mak’st waste in niggarding.
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world’s due, by the grave and thee…”
- Sonnet 1 (By William Shakespeare)
C. Spenserian Stanza – eight lines of iambic pentameter
followed by one of iambic hexameter
Lo I the man, whose Muse whilome did maske,
As time her taught, in lowly Shepheards weeds,
Am now enforst a far unfitter taske,
For trumpets sterne to chaunge mine Oaten reeds,
And sing of Knights and Ladies gentle deeds;
Whose prayses having slept in silence long,
Me, all too meane, the sacred Muse areeds
To blazon broad emongst her learned throng:
Fierce warres and faithfull loues shall moralize my
song.
- Edmund Spenser , The Faerie Queene
D. Blank Verse- type of poetry written in a
regular meter that does not contain rhyme. in the
form of iambic pentameter.
HAMLET: To be, or not to be- that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them. To die- to sleep-
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to. ‘Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die- to sleep.
To sleep- perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub!
- Hamlet by William Shakespeare
Free Verse
• Free verse poems have no regular meter or
rhythm.
• They do not follow a proper rhyme scheme;
these poems do not have any set rules.
• This type of poem is based on normal pauses
and natural rhythmical phrases, as compared to
the artificial constraints of normal poetry.
• It is also called vers libre, which is a French
word meaning “free verse.”
“A noiseless patient spider,
I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Mark’d how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of
itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.
• And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space…
Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile
anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O
my soul.”
A Noiseless Patient Spider (By Walt Whitman)
Difference Between Blank Verse and Free
Verse
Though blank verse and free verse sound like
similar concepts, there are some notable
differences.
• The definition of blank verse stipulates that,
while there is no rhyme, the meter must be
regular.
• Free verse, on the other hand, has no rhyme
scheme and no pattern of meter. Free verse
generally mimics natural speech, while blank
verse still carries a musical quality due to its
meter.
Source
• https://ahmadnursaeful13.wordpress.com/2012
/07/25/literature/
• https://www.scribd.com/doc/43931862/Literat
ure-Ppt
• https://literarydevices.net
• https://www.buzzle.com/articles/elements-of-
literature.html