Appreciating Literature

Literature
Generally,
everything that
is put into
writing is
Literature.
2
Novel, Short Story, Poem & Essay
 Printed matters with an artistic element.
 They are made of art, which means there is
something in them that humanity must see.
 When a writer pulls out his pen and picks up an
empty piece of paper, there is something in his
heart and mind that he wants humanity to
understand.

3
 Novels
• The words in the novel are arranged
Novel and Science Books are
written works and both belonged to
literature. But there is something that
makes literature different from the other.
4
• Novel is made through the long waves
of time. It does not come by accident.
cleverly with author’s sweat and blood
so as to produce something we call
today as art and it is this artistic side of
the novel that separates it from the
book of science.
 Short Story
• Usually concerned with a single effect
conveyed in only one or a few significant
episodes or scenes. Despite its relatively
limited scope, though, a short story is often
judged by its ability to provide a
Short story, brief fictional prose “complete” or satisfying treatment of its
narrative that is shorter than a novel and characters and subject.
that usually deals with only a few
characters.
5
 Poem
Poetry is the other way
of using language.
• Poetry, literature that evokes a
concentrated imaginative awareness
of experience or a specific emotional
response through language chosen
and arranged for its meaning,
sound, and rhythm.

6
Essay • Essay, an analytic, interpretative, or
critical literary composition usually
much shorter and less systematic
and formal than a dissertation or
thesis and usually dealing with its
subject from a limited and often
personal point of view.
7
 Appreciating
Literature
In appreciating Literature consider the
following:
• Understand the purpose of the
writer in writing that certain
Literary Piece.
• Understand the role being played by
the characters.
• Contrast that literature to the other
works you have read in the past.
• Ask yourself, is what happened in
the story will possibly happen in the
reality?
8
Anton Chekhov
He is both playwright and
a short story writer. He was
generally acknowledge as a first
rank Russian playwright with
his play The Seagull (1896), and
as a story writer he put as
second after Pushkin and
Tolstoy.

9
 Misery
A Short Story By ANTON CHEKHOV

The
Man’ssetting of the story
indifference to theis pain
winterof in a
Russian town.isThe
another—this timeofisthe
theme thestory
late
nineteenth
“Misery” by century. It is miserable
Anton Chekhov. The title
outside.
symbolizes The weather
the feelingsisof
cold, bleak, and
snowing. The surroundings
the protagonist Iona Potapov,inathe story
Russian
amplify the wretchedness
sleigh-driver, who is sufferingof the main
from
character.
intense grief.

10
 Interpreting Literature
Following the method forwarded by K.L. Knickerbockers and H. Willard Reninger in Interpreting
Literature 1965

Do I Like the Story? What happens? To Whom and Why?

• First Impression Question or
Natural Response
• This is of course under the literal
level, which is precisely a
springboard to higher questions.
• These questions lead us to shaping devices of
fiction.
• What happens refers to the consideration of
the plot or the series of action of the story.
• To whom, this refers to the consideration of
characters, the people involved in the story.
• Why? To answer this question requires us to
look at the theme of the story

11
 Theme
This is the element of the story that holds the meaning of the character’s action designed
well by the author. Some writer’s call it Germ of the Story.

• Characters, setting, plot and other

shaping devices of fiction are only
invented to show out the theme of
the story.

What is the purpose of the writer in

writing the story?
• The answer is the Theme.

ADD A FOOTER
12
 O. Henry
O. Henry, pseudonym of William
Sydney Porter, American short-story writer
whose tales romanticized the commonplace—
in particular the life of ordinary people in New
York City. His stories expressed the effect of
coincidence on character through humour,
grim or ironic, and often had surprise endings,
a device that became identified with his name
and cost him critical favour when its vogue
had passed. After working different jobs he
found himself landed in a jail for money
embezzlement.
13
The Gift of the Magi
A Short Story By O. HENRY

The story tells of a young married

couple, James, known as Jim, and Della
Dillingham. The couple has very little money
and lives in a modest apartment. Between
them, they have only two possessions that they
consider their treasures: Jim's gold pocket
watch that belonged to his father and his
grandfather, and Della's lustrous, long
hair that falls almost to her knees.

14
Thank You!