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What is literature, why we read.
WHAT IS LITERATURE?
Literature is a term used to describe written or spoken material. Broadly speaking, "literature" is used to describe anything from creative writing to more technical or scientific works, but the term is most commonly used to refer to works of the creative imagination, including works of poetry, drama, fiction, and non-fiction.
It can be:
- writing in which expression and form are characteristic or essential features such as poetry, novels, history, biography, and essay.
- the entire body of writings of a specific language, period, or people, e.g., the literature of England.
- writing dealing with a particular subject, e.g., the literature of ornithology.
In the broadest sense, literature includes any type of writings on any subject, e.g., the literature of medicine. Usually, it means the body of artistic writings of a country or a period that are characterized by certain expressions and forms, and by universality of intellectual and emotional appeal, e.g., English literature of the 16th century.
Literature is an expression and reflection of culture. Reading is also a form of listening. You will learn a lot about most authors or their work by reading them aloud. A good start is listening to music, and trying to follow the lyrics as if they were a story.
As readers, we discover meaning in literature by looking at what the author says and how he/she says it.
Reader types
There are various types of readers. We read differently and for different purposes. Some people only run through the text, others pay attention to details. Some readers search for inspiration or knowledge, others to fill their time, for fun or to forget everyday life. Some readers look at the end first, others skip long descriptions, some sympathize with the protagonist, and others focus on action.
Common readers mainly focus on the story (action) and the characters. They follow the protagonist’s fate and read predominantly on an emotional level. They let the work affect them, making them laugh, cry, or be distressed. That means they are emotionally involved in the work. Professors as well as students of literature, should, however, read a bit differently. They are many questions to be asked: how did the writer do it? Why do I feel this way? Are the characters, setting or structure of the story similar to what I have read?
WHY DO WE READ LITERATURE?
Literature represents a language or a people – culture and tradition, however, it is not only a historical or cultural artefact. Literature introduces us to new worlds of experience. We learn from literature, we enjoy it and we may even grow and evolve through our literary journey. Literature speaks to us, it is universal, and it affects us.
Students are taught how to interpret the author´s message through the use of literary theory, using a mythological, sociological, psychological, historical or other approach.
Study questions for WED 4 Oct:
What is the function of literature?
Should be literature taught at primary and secondary schools? State your arguments.
What and why do you read?
Compare and contrast the two texts.
Language of literary texts: figures and tropes.
Literature has its own structures, or grammar, which is formed by conventions, patterns and rules. Every language has a grammar that establishes its form and meaning and the same is true for the literary language.
There is a significant difference between the language of literature – literary language and the language of not-literature – instrumental language.
Literary language: polysemic, radical ambiguity, strong/poetic metaphor, connotation, open, less probable, more potential messages.
Instrumental language: monosemic, unambiguous, conventional metaphor, denotation, more probable, fewer potential messages, clear.
Study questions for WED 11 Oct:
Find similes, symbols and metaphors in the short story.
Find an example of dramatic or tragic irony.
Find an example of an oxymoron.
Classification of literature, literary genres.
The classification of literature is the major concern of narratology, which analyses all types of narratives, literary and non-literary, fictional and nonfictional, verbal and nonverbal.
Study questions for WED 18 Oct:
What is the difference between a short story and a novel? Think of the length, number of characters, number of story lines.
What is the main function of a short story?
What, in your opinion, is the most popular genre generally and why?
What genre is Donald Barthelme´s story? State your arguments. Is it only one literary genre?
Prose: important concepts (characters, setting, story).
Study questions for WED 25 Oct: (read The Fall of the House of Usher again)
Identify the theme and motifs.
Describe the plot in several sentences.
Analyze the setting. What sort of atmosphere does Poe create and how?
How is the setting connected with the characters?
Desctibe the characters. What types of characters are they?
Narratology, author-reader-text relationship.
Study questions for the seminar on 31 Oct:
1 Who speaks? Describe the narrator.
2 What narrative situation is this?
3 Is this narrator reliable? Does he present the reader with the story as it happened? State your arguments.
4 Find the following tropes: alliteration, personification, simile, symbols, metaphors, dramatic irony, oxymoron.
Drama: important concepts (characters, setting, ways of speaking).
Hamlet - questions part A (for Wed 8 Nov)
1. Analyze the play according to Freytag´s Pyramid.
2. Does the play follow the three unities?
3. What is the driving force of each leading character?
4. What stands in the way of the leading character?
5. What is the crisis (the leading character must make a crucial decision that will affect the outcome of the play)?
Types of drama.
Hamlet - questions part B - for the seminar on 15 Nov
1. What type of drama is it and why?
2. What was the purpose of the play (entertainment, humour, excitement)?
3. Analyse the use of comedy, paying attention to the gravediggers.
4. Does it present any problem of human relationships?
5. Find examples of nemesis, tragic flaw, soliloquy, and dramatic irony.
Poetry: important concepts; types of poetry.
Study questions for the seminar (29 Nov): Read the sonnet by Browning and the excerpt from Beowulf.
1. Analyse the sonnet (its structure and form - the rhythm pattern and rhyme scheme used). What figures of speech can you find? Give examples of the imagery used, alliteration and silmiles. What is the theme of the poem? Is it a lyric or epic one? State your arguments.
2. Find more about the form and topic of Beowulf yourselves.
Poetic forms, prosodic means.
Study questions for the seminar (6 Dec): Please follow the SQs in the individual handouts (Sidney, Thomas).
Critical thinking, how to write a literary essay.
Study questions for the seminar (13 Dec): Do the exercise in the pdf handout below. It shall be checked in class.
Further information:
https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/logical-fallacies-examples
Method of documentation of sources in the essay, citation standards.
Study questions for the seminar (20 Dec): Have a look at the paper titled "Innocents on the Island: A Rousseauistic Reading of Lord of the Flies" by Radek Glabazňa in the conference proceedings Silse 2012 uploaded below. Identify the sources used and decide what kind of sources they are (a book, an article, etc.), find examples of citations and paraphrases. Find examples of linking words and expressions used. All these are going to be checked in the last seminar on Wed.