Literature

Prepared by: Ms. Diana Rose D. Dullas

What is
Literature?
“Litera” – Latin word which
literally means an
What is Literature?
 It is a body of work, either
written, oral, or visual, containing
imaginative language that
realistically portrays thought,
emotions, and
experiences of the human
condition.

What is Literature?
 •is a product of particular culture that
concretizes man’s array of values, emotions,
actions and ideas. It is therefore a creation of
human experiences that tells about people and
their world.

What is Literature?
What is Literature?
Importance of Literature
• Studying literature is like looking
at the mirror of life where
man’s experiences, his
innermost feelings and
thoughts are reflected.
• Through literature, we learn the
culture of people across time
and space.
Importance of Literature
• We understand not only the past life
of a nation but also its present.
• Moreover, we become familiar not
only with the culture of neighboring
countries but also with that of
others living very far from us.
 Artistry
This is the quality that appeals to our sense of
beauty.

Intellectual Value
A literary works stimulates thought. It enriches
our mental life by making us realize
fundamental truths about life and human
nature.

LITERARY STANDARDS
 Permanence
A great work of literature endures.
It can be read again and again as each reading
gives fresh delight and new insights and opens a
new world of meaning and experience.
Its appeal is lasting.

LITERARY STANDARDS
 Style
This is the peculiar way in which writers sees life,
forms his ideas and expresses them.

LITERARY STANDARDS
 Spiritual Value
Literature elevates the spirit by bringing out moral
values which makes a better persons.
The capacity to inspire is part of the spiritual
value of literature.

LITERARY STANDARDS
 Suggestiveness
This is associated with the emotional
power of literature.
Great literature moves us deeply and stirs our
feeling and imagination, giving and evoking
visions above and beyond the plane of ordinary
life and experience.

LITERARY STANDARDS
2 General Types of Literature

•Poetry
•Prose
Genres of Literature

•Poetry
•Short Story
•Novel
•Drama
•Essay
ELEMENTS OF POETRY
 POETRY
• It is the art of expressing oneself in verse.
• It uses few words to convey its message.
• It is meant to be read aloud.
• It uses imagery or figures of speech to express
feelings or create a mental picture or idea.
 "Chartless“
Emily Dickinson

Lines 1 I never saw a moor,

2 I never saw the sea,
• A single line in a 3 Yet I know how the heather looks

poem. 4 and what a wave must be.

• Often organized into 5 I never spoke with God,

6 nor visited in Heaven,
stanzas. 7 Yet I am certain of the spot
8 as if the chart were given.

This poem has 8 lines

organized into 2 stanzas.
 STANZ “First and Last”
by David McCord

• It is the A
group of lines. A tadpole hasn’t a pole at all,
And he doesn’t live in a hole in the wall.
• Couplet – 2 lines
You’ve got it wrong: a polecat’s not
• Triplet – 3 lines A cat on a pole. And I’ll tell you what:

• Quatrain – 4 lines A bullfrog’s never a bull; and how

• Quinrain – 5 lines Could a cowbird possibly be a cow?

• Sestet – 6 lines A kingbird, though, is a kind of king,

And he chases a crow like anything.
• Octet – 8 lines
• It develops and Four Stanzas in COUPLETS.

emphasizes one idea.

 RHYME AND RHYME
• WordsSCHEME
rhyme if they
sound alike.
• Poems often use rhymes
at the end of lines.
• Rhyme scheme is the
pattern of rhymes in a
poem.
• Poets use rhymes to add a
musical sound to their
poems.
 TYPES OF
ALLITERATION – repetition of the initial consonant
RHYME
sound.
 She sells sea shells by the sea shore.
CONSONANCE – repetition of the intermediate or final
consonant sound.
• Tick tock, flip flop, singing longing
ASSONANCE – repetition of vowel sound.
• Hear the mellow wedding bells,
Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their
 RHYTHM
• Pattern of beats or a series of stressed
and unstressed syllables in poem.
• Poets create rhythm by using words in which
parts are emphasized or not emphasized.
METER
• It is the measure of a line in a poetry.

FOO
T
• It is the grouping of two or more syllables making up a basic
unit of meter.
 “Poor”
MOOD by Myra Livingston
I heard of poor. Short words and
• The feeling that a poem It means hungry, no food. lines create a
creates in a reader. No shoes, no place to live, serious mood.

• It can be positive or Nothing good.

negative.
It means winter nights
• Mood can be made And being cold, These words create
with the length of the It is lonely, alone. the feeling of
sadness.
sentences, chosen Feeling old.
words, and word
Poor is a tired face.
sounds.
Poor is thin.
Poor is standing outside
Looking in.
 TON
•EIt is the attitude a writer takes towards
the subject or audience of the poem.
“The Crocodile” The subject of the poem
How doth the little crocodile are crocodiles. The
Improve his shining tail, writers attitude towards
And pour the water crocodiles is that they
of the Nile On every golden are dangerous.
scale!
How cheerfully he seems to grin,
How neatly spreads his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in
With gently smiling jaws!
 “There is a Thing”
IMAGER by Jack Prelutsky
There is a thing
Y that
• Language beneath the stair These are
image words
with slimy face
appeals to the 5 and oily hair
senses.
• Are “word that does not move
pictures”. or speak or sing
• Helps the reader to or do another
single thing
experience familiar but sit and wait
things in a fresh beneath the stair
way using the with slimy face
senses. and oily hair.
 FIGURES OF
•
SPEECH
A mode of expression in which words are used
out of their literal meaning or out of their ordinary
use in order to add beauty or emotional intensity
or to transfer the poet's sense impressions by
comparing or identifying one thing with another
that has a meaning familiar to the reader.
SIMIL
• A figure of speech in which two fundamentally
Eunlike things are explicitly compared, usually in a
phrase introduced by like or as.
• "Good coffee is like friendship: rich and warm and strong."
(slogan of Pan-American Coffee Bureau)

• "You know life, life is rather like opening a tin of sardines. We're all
of us looking for the key."
(Alan Bennett, Beyond the Fringe, 1960)

• "When Lee Mellon finished the apple he smacked his lips together
like a pair of cymbals."
(Richard Brautigan, A Confederate General From Big Sur, 1964)
METAPHO
• A figure of speech in which an implied comparison
R is made between two unlike things that actually
have something in common.

• "Between the lower east side tenements

the sky is a snotty handkerchief."
(Marge Piercy, "The Butt of Winter")
•

"The streets were a furnace, the sun an executioner."

(Cynthia Ozick, "Rosa")
PERSONIFICATION
• A figure of speech in which an inanimate object
or abstraction is given human qualities or
abilities.

The wind stood up and gave a shout.

He whistled on his fingers and

Kicked the withered leaves about

And thumped the branches with his
hand

And said he'd kill and kill and kill,

And so he will! And so he will!
(James Stephens, "The Wind")
ONOMATOPOEIA
• The use of words that imitate the sounds
associated with the objects or actions they refer
to.
• "Chug, chug, chug. Puff, puff, puff. Ding-dong, ding-
dong. The little train rumbled over the tracks."
("Watty Piper" [Arnold Munk], The Little Engine
That Could)
• "Brrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinng! An alarm clock clanged in
the dark
and silent room."
(Richard Wright, Native Son, 1940)
• "I'm getting married in the morning!
Ding dong! the bells are gonna chime."
(Lerner and Loewe, "Get Me to the Church on Time," My
HYPERBOL
E• A figure of speech in which exaggeration is used
for emphasis or effect; an extravagant
statement.

• “I had to walk 15 miles to school in the snow,

uphill”
• “you could have knocked me over with a feather”
PROSE
 INTRODUCTION

• From Latin word prosa, part of the phrase prosa oratio,

meaning
straightforward speech/ a natural flow of speech
• Written or spoken language in its ordinary form, without
metrical structure
• Written in full grammatical sentences, which then
constitutes paragraph
 TYPES OF PROSE

• Short story • Biography

• Novel • Autobiography

Non Fiction
• Novella • History
Fiction

• Folktale – legend, • Letter

fable, parable • Diary
• Journal
 ELEMENTS OF
NARRATIVE
• Is telling stories, true or false, factual
or fictional, in any medium.
Narrative • Is any activity which results in a story
being told and an event represented and
reported.
 ELEMENTS OF NARRATIVE
(CONTINUED)

Story (What is
told)
Narrative Texts
Discourse (How
is it told)
 ELEMENTS OF PROSE FICTION

1. Plot
2. Character and
characterization
3. Setting
4. Point of View
5. Theme
 PLOT

The structure, “framework” or “skeleton” of

the story

The story arc that holds all the events of a

story in an orderly way (E.M. Froster)

The casual and logical structure that

connects events (E.M. Froster)
PLOT
(CONTINUED)
 PLOT
Introduction (Exposition) (CONTINUED)
Rising Action
• The beginning of the story where • Complications that arise when the characters take
characters and setting are steps to resolve their conflict
established

Falling Action
• The conflict is in the process of
being resolved or “unraveled
Climax
• The turning point of the story and is meant to be the
moment of highest interest and emotion

Resolution (Denouement)
• When the problem/conflict is
resolved and the story ends
 CHARACTER AND CHARACTERIZATION

• Character : a person or being in a story that performs the action of the

plot.
• Characterization : the process by which the writer reveals the
personality of the character
CHARACTER AND CHARACTERIZATION

Protagonist Dynamic

Antagonist Static
Types of
Character
 CHARACTER AND
CHARACTERIZATION
(CONTINUED)

Direct • Example: He was a simple, good-natured man; he was moreover a kind

characterization neighbor and an obedient, henpecked husband. (‘Rip Van Winkle’ by

Washington Irving)

Indirect • Example: I jumped up, knocking over my chair, and had reached the
door when Mama called, ‘Pick up that chair, sit down again, and say
characterization excuse me’. (‘The Scarlet Ibis’ by James Hurst)
 SETTING
The historical time and place, and the social circumstances in the
‘world’ of the literature

Geographic Cultural Artificial

Properties
location backdrop environment

• topography • way of life • buildings • furniture

 SETTING
Like as he is to look at, so is his apartment in the dusk of the present
afternoon. Rusty, out of date, withdrawing from attention, able to afford it.
Heavy broad-backed old-fashioned mahogany and horsehair chairs, not easily
lifted, obsolete tables with spindle-legs and dusty baize covers, presentation
prints of the holders of great titles in the last generation, or the last but one,
environ him. A thick and dingy Turkey-carpet muffles the floor where he sits,
attended by two candles in old-fashioned silver candlesticks, that give a very
insufficient light to his large room.

(Dickens, Bleak House,

ch. 10).
 POINT OF
VIEW
Point of view is how an author tells his or her reader about a character.

• Involving the • Employing the • Entering the • Entering the

use of either of pronoun “you” thought of thought of one
the two every character character
pronouns “I”
and “we
Second Third person Third person
First person person omniscient limited
 POINT OF
VIEW
“I have of late,—but wherefore I know not,—
lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of
exercises; and indeed, it goes so heavily with
my disposition that this goodly frame, the
earth, seems to me a sterile promontory.”
‘Hamlet’ by Shakespeare

Harry had taken up his place at wizard school,

where he and his scar were famous ...but now
the school year was over, and he was back with
the Dursleys for the summer, back to being
treated like a dog that had rolled in something
smelly.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by
J.K. Rowling
 THEME
• A main idea or an underlying meaning of a literary work that may be stated directly
or indirectly.
• Examples of themes:

Love and friendship War

Crime and mystery Revenge

Thank
you!!!