Introduction To Literature

History & Definition

What is literature ?
 Literature, Deriving from the Latin littera, ―a
letter of the alphabet,‖ The 11th edition
of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate
Dictionary considers literature to be ―writings
having excellence of form or expression and
expressing ideas of permanent or universal
interest.‖ ,‖
 Literature can be classified according to whether
it is fiction or non-fiction and whether it is poetry
or prose. It can be further distinguished according
to major forms such as the novel, short story or
drama, and works are often categorized according
to historical periods or genres.
 The Greek philosopher and
scholar Aristotle is the first great
representative of the constructive school
of thought. His Poetics (the surviving
fragment of which is limited to an analysis
of tragedy and epic poetry) has
sometimes been dismissed as a
recipe book for the writing of potboilers.
A Brief Overview of Literature
 Epic is a long, often book-length, narrative in verse form that
retells the heroic journey of a single person, or group of
persons.
 The word "epic" comes from Latin epicus and from
Greek epikos, meaning "a word; a story; poetry in heroic
verse." The elements that typically distinguish epics include
superhuman deeds, fabulous adventures, highly stylized
language, and a blending of lyrical and dramatic traditions,
which also extend to defining heroic verse.
 Many of the world’s oldest written narratives are in epic
form, including the Babylonian Gilgamesh, the
Sanskrit Mahâbhârata, Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey,
and Virgil’s Aeneid. Both of Homer’s epics are composed
in dactylic hexameter, which became the standard for Greek
and Latin oral poetry.
Oral poetry
 The Angles, Saxons, and Jutes who
invaded Britain in the 5th and 6th
centuries brought with them the common
Germanic metre; but of their earliest
oral poetry, probably used for panegyric,
magic, and short narrative, little or none
survives.
 Poetry was intended to tell a story of a
king or a knight or a heroic deed to the
public
Written Literature
 Most Old English poetry is preserved in four
manuscripts of the late 10th and early 11th
centuries. The Beowulf manuscript (British
Library) contains Beowulf, Judith, and three
prose tracts; the Exeter Book (Exeter
Cathedral) is a miscellaneous gathering of
lyrics, riddles, didactic poems, and religious
narratives; the Junius Manuscript (Bodleian
Library, Oxford)—also called the Caedmon
Manuscript, even though its contents are no
longer attributed to Caedmon—contains
biblical paraphrases;
 Carmina Burana Latin for "Songs
from Benediktbeuern" [Buria in Latin]) is a
manuscript of 254 poems and dramatic
texts mostly from the 11th or 12th
century, although some are from the 13th
century. The pieces are mostly bawdy,
irreverent, and satirical. They were written
principally in Medieval Latin, Some
are macaronic, a mixture of Latin and
German or French vernacular.
 Geoffrey Chaucer (born c. 1342/43,
London?, England—died October 25, 1400,
London) the outstanding English poet before
Shakespeare
 Chaucer’s great literary accomplishment of
the 1390s was The Canterbury Tales. In it a
group of about 30 pilgrims gather at the
Tabard Inn in Southwark, across the Thames
from London, and agree to engage in a
storytelling contest as they travel on
horseback to the shrine of Thomas à
Becket in Canterbury, Kent, and back.
The Renaissance
 The Renaissance was a fervent period of
European cultural, artistic, political and
economic ―rebirth‖ following the Middle
Ages. Generally described as taking place
from the 14th century to the 17th
century, the Renaissance promoted the
rediscovery of classical philosophy,
literature and art
Elizabethan era
 Elizabethan Age, in British history, the
time period (1558–1603) during which
Queen Elizabeth I ruled England. Popularly
referred to as a ―golden age,‖ it was a span
of time characterized by relative peace and
prosperity and by a flowering of artistic,
literary, and intellectual culture to such a
degree that it (along with the succeeding
reign of James I) is sometimes designated as
the ―English Renaissance.‖
Shakespeare 1564-1616
 English poet, dramatist, and actor often
called the English national poet and
considered by many to be the greatest
dramatist of all time.
 Shakespeare occupies a position unique in
world literature. His works are worldly
cherished by readers.
Enlightenment era
 Enlightenment, a
European intellectual movement of the
17th and 18th centuries in which ideas
concerning God, reason, nature, and
humanity were synthesized into a
worldview that gained wide assent in the
West and that instigated revolutionary
developments in art, philosophy, and
politics.
 Metaphysical poet, any of the poets in
17th-century England who inclined to the
personal and intellectual complexity and
concentration that is displayed in
the poetry of John Donne, the chief of the
Metaphysicals.
 Their work is a blend of emotion and
intellectual ingenuity, characterized
by conceit or ―wit‖
Neo Classical
 Neoclassical literature was written between 1660A.D.
– 1798 A.D. It was a time of both formality and
artificiality. Writers of the Neoclassical period tried to
imitate the style of the Romans and Greeks.
 Thus the combination of the two terms- ‘neo’ which
means ‘new’ and ‘classical’ which means ‘as in the
day of the Roman and the Greek classics’.
 Neoclassicism is a revival of the many styles and spirit
of classic antiquity inspired directly from the classical
period, which coincided and reflected the
developments in philosophy and other areas of the
Age of Enlightenment,.
Romanticism
 Romanticism in literature refers to a literary
movement that emerged in the late 18th and
early 19th centuries, primarily in England and
America. The movement emerged as a rejection
of the values and practices of the Age of
Enlightenment, with its focus on reason and
rationality. Romanticism also emerged in response
to the Industrial Revolution, which Romantics
feared was detrimental to the human soul and
spirit, taking them away from the solitude and
spiritual fulfillment of the countryside and
trapping them in cramped and chaotic cities.
The Novel
 As a literary genre, Novel emerged in the
beginning of the eighteenth century. It can be said
that the Industrial Revolution created a desire
among the people to read books or any other
literature related to their everyday experiences.
 Gulliver's Travels, or Travels into Several
Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts.
By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then
a Captain of Several Ships is a 1726
prose satire by the Anglo-
Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift,
satirising both human nature and the "travellers'
tales" literary subgenre.
 Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded is
an epistolary novel first published in 1740 by
the English writer Samuel Richardson.
Considered one of the first true English
novels, it serves as Richardson's version
of conduct literature about marriage.
 Moll Flanders is a novel by Daniel Defoe,
first published in 1722. It purports to be the
true account of the life of the eponymous
Moll, detailing her exploits from birth until
old age.
Victoian era
 Victorian literature is English
literature during the reign of Queen
Victoria (1837–1901). The 19th century is
considered by some to be the Golden Age of
English Literature, especially for British
novels.
 Alfred, Lord Tennyson, (born August 6,
1809, Somersby, Lincolnshire, England—died
October 6, 1892, Aldworth, Surrey), English
poet often regarded as the chief
representative of the Victorian age in poetry.
Victorian Novelists
 Charles Dickens (born February 7, 1812—
died June 9, 1870, English novelist, generally
considered the greatest of the Victorian era.
 The Brontës: The sisters, Charlotte (1816–
1855), Emily (1818–1848) and Anne (1820–
1849), are well-known poets and novelists.
Like many contemporary female writers,
they published their poems and novels under
male pseudonyms: Currer, Ellis, and Acton
Bell.
Modernism
 Modernism refers to a global movement
in society and culture that from the early
decades of the twentieth century sought
a new alignment with the experience and
values of modern industrial life.
 In an era characterized
by industrialization, the nearly global
adoption of capitalism, rapid social change,
and advances in science and the social
sciences (e.g., Freudian theory),
 Modernism as a literary movement is
typically associated with the period
after World War I. The enormity of the
war had undermined humankind’s faith in
the foundations of Western society
and culture, and postwar Modernist
literature reflected a sense of
disillusionment and fragmentation.
Thomas Stern Eliot
 T.S. Eliot, (born September 26, 1888, St.
Louis, Missouri, U.S.—died January 4,
1965, London, England), American-English
poet, playwright, literary critic, and editor,
a leader of the Modernist movement
in poetry in such works as The Waste
Land (1922) and Four Quartets (1943). Eliot
exercised a strong influence on Anglo-
American culture from the 1920s until
late in the century.
Post Modern
 postmodernism, in Western philosophy, a late
20th-century movement characterized by
broad skepticism, subjectivism, or relativism;
a general suspicion of reason; and an acute
sensitivity to the role of ideology in asserting
and maintaining political and economic
power.
 it is an intellectual stance or mode of
discourse characterized by skepticism
toward the "grand narratives" of modernism;
Forms of Literature
 Poetry is a form of literary art that uses aesthetic
and rhythmic qualities of language to evoke
meanings in addition to, or in place of, prosaic
ostensible meaning
 Prose is a form of language that possesses
ordinary syntax and natural speech rather than
rhythmic structure;
 Novel: a long fictional prose narrative.
 Novella:The novella exists between the novel
and short story ―too short to be a novel, too long
to be a short story‖.
 Short Story is the shortest form of a prose
 Drama is literature intended for performance