WEEK 1

Introduction to Literature
How to study Literature?
Forms of Literature

World Literature
English Class
Professor: John Michael Cultura
Introduction to Literature

Meaning of Literature

There are different definitions given to literature y different writers, but let us summarize
some of them.

1. Taken from Oxford English Dictionary:

 Literature is literally
“acquaintance with letters” (from
the Latin littera meaning letter);
 The term has generally come to
identify a colletion of texts or
work of art;
 The class of writings in which
imaginative expression,
aesthetic form, universality of
ideas, and permanence are
characteristic features, as fiction,
poetry, and drama;
 It may also mean any printed material.

2. According to Robert Frost, Literature is “a performance in words”.

3. According to Henry Van Dyke, Literature consists of “writings which interpret the
meanings of nature and life, in words of charm and power, touched with the
personality of the author in artistic forms of permanent interest.
 4. To Arsenia Tan of University of Santo Tomas, Literature is life which presents
human experience.

All of these definitions are true to Literature. Literature exists because there are people
who wanted to express their feelings, emotions, and experiences in writing. They used
language craftsmanship and artistry to convey their perceptions in life.

The value judgment definition of literature considers it to cover exclusively those

writings that possess high quality or distinction, forming part of the so-called belles-
lettres ('fine writing') tradition when it classifies literature as "the best expression of the
best thought reduced to writing." Problematic in this view is that there is no objective
definition of what constitutes "literature": anything can be literature, and anything which
is universally regarded as literature has the potential to be excluded, since value
judgments can change over time.

The formalist definition is that "literature" foregrounds poetic effects; it is the

"literariness" or "poetic" of literature that distinguishes it from ordinary speech or other
kinds of writing (e.g., journalism). 

Jim Meyer considers this a useful characteristic in explaining the use of the term to
mean published material in a particular field (e.g., "scientific literature"), as such writing
must use language according to particular standards. 

The problem with the formalist definition is that in order to say that literature deviates
from ordinary uses of language, those uses must first be identified; this is difficult
because "ordinary language" is an unstable category, differing according to social
categories and across history.
Importance of Literature

In the emergence of media technology, literature has now katen another form. Literature
has now come alive in the Filipino television set through Telenovelas which were the
counterpart of Soap Operas in radio. Why are these programs patronized by the
national audience?

Some possible answers will be:

 For pleasure and

entertainment
 For emotional gratification
 For information and education

The most common answer would be for

pleasure and entertainment. But the
curiosity is a natural instinct of man, people want to talk to people and people want to
know about people. This helps man understand life by reflecting on their own and
others’ lives. By reading literature, man picks-up something in life that he applies to his
own.

Why then, is literature a part of our curriculum? One of the objectives of education is to
develop the personality and mode of being of the student. Literature aids in the
attainment of this goal. Formal studies do not just aim to enhance technical knowledge
in the profession but also caters to the enablement of students to become mature in
dealing with life. Students will never completely learn about life by simply focusing on
the mechanics of computer; accounting, engineering, or the technical side of any
vocation. Life could be learned from the life of others. Thus, Literature teaches students
how to live. It is in Literature that students learn about the art of living.
The impact of literature in modern society is undeniable. Literature acts as a form of
expression for each individual author. Some books mirror society and allow us to better
understand the world we live in.  
Authors like F.Scott Fitzgerald are prime examples of this as his novel ‘The Great
Gatsby’ was a reflection of his experiences and opinions of America during the 1920s.

We are easily connected to the psyche of authors through their stories. However,
literature also reiterates the need to understand modern day issues like human conflict.
A Gulf News article says, “In an era of modern media, such as television and movies,
people are misled into thinking that every question or problem has its quick corrections
or solutions.

However, literature confirms the real complexity of human conflict”.

Literature is a reflection of humanity and a way for us to understand each other.
By listening to the voice of another person we can begin to figure out how that individual
thinks.
I believe that literature is important because of its purpose and in a society, which is
becoming increasing detached from human interaction, novels create a conversation.

How to Study Literature?

Primarily, what we should lear from literature is what the writer wanted to convey us.
The subject that the author wanted to figure out in us is the first concern of the study of
literature.

The subject could be anything under the sun like love, forgiveness, regrets, courage,
nature, etc.

Next to the subject is the technical part which the writer employed to make his ideas be
written with arts and beauty. It is here where the students have to be acquainted with
the different literary genre and their elements. It is a great help for the student to study
the different literary genre or type so that he may appreciate better the Literature.
Start With the Basics

Let’s say you’ve been assigned Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer or T.S. Eliot’s “The Love
Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” Before you begin reading, keep in mind that you will need to
be in command of this literature for classroom discussion, papers and, of course,
exams.

Be realistic—very few students have the time to read any long literary work more than
once. This means you need to read carefully and effectively the first time around.

Always read with a pen or pencil in hand – so that you can take notes, ask questions
and mark important passages as you read. During classroom discussion, always write
down the ideas covered and passages analyzed—these are likely to be at the heart of
any future exam.

In a notepad or at the front of your book, keep track of essential basic information. You’ll
impress no one if you call the main character “what’s-his-name” or if you claim that
Moby Dick is an eighteenth-century British novel. Important information includes:

Title and Author: This may sound like a no-brainer, but on an exam you don’t want to
confuse Herrick with Herbert, write about Mary Shelly (it’s “Shelley”), or draw a blank
when trying to remember that story by Shirley Jackson.

Date and Location: Know when and where each assigned reading was written. You’ll
lose points if you confuse the Medieval Period with the Renaissance. If something is
Post-Modern, don’t call it Modern. For literature in translation, be sure you understand
the cultural context in which the work was created.

Character Names: Every time a new character appears in a piece of literature, write
down the name, page number and a brief character description. You’ll need to know
who’s who when taking an exam.
Plot: For any narrative work, make sure you have a clear understanding of the main
plot points. As you read, write a brief plot summary at the beginning of each section or
chapter—this will allow you to refresh your memory before an exam without rereading
the work.

Genre: Be precise when identifying the type of literature you are reading. Your
professor will likely deduct points if you call a play a novel, or a poem a story. The more
specific you are, the better. Is the work an “Italian Epic Poem,” a “Modernist Story,” a
“Renaissance Tragedy” or a “Gothic Novel”?

Analysis, Not Summary

Okay—you’ve pinned down the details of the text and you’ve mastered the key terms.
Are you ready for the exam? Not yet. While your professor will expect you to know
textual details and use an appropriate vocabulary when discussing a literary work, your
success in an English course will depend largely on your ability to speak and write
analytically.

In college, you will need to analyze the textual details. Why do certain events happen?
What are the motives of the characters? Why has the author written in a particular
style? What is the significance of the point of view? How does the cultural and historical
context influence the writing?

Terminology

When discussing a poem, you will often be talking about stanzas not paragraphs, lines
not sentences. You should be familiar with the building blocks of poetry—metaphor,
simile, personification, rhyme, meter and form. Has your professor introduced terms like
zeugma or caesura? If so, be prepared to use this specialized vocabulary on your
exam.

For every work you read in an English class, you should be prepared to discuss its tone
and point of view. You should be able to identify theme and motif. You’ll need to know
how to distinguish a word’s connotation from its denotation. Exams that earn an “A”
usually demonstrate mastery of this type of terminology.
Anticipate the Questions

You can obviously study character names and vocabulary. But is it possible to prepare
for an exam that requires you to demonstrate critical thinking skills? Fortunately, yes.

Many English exams contain questions that require paragraph or essay-length answers.
Your professors will ask only those questions that they see as central to the course. Did
you spend a week exploring Walt Whitman’s representation of sexuality? If so, it’s a
likely topic for an essay question. Remember that class in which you analyzed the
character of the fool in Shakespeare’s plays? Again, it’s a potential exam topic.

If you’ve taken careful notes in class, you can try to guess what essay questions your
professor is likely to ask. What are the big topics you’ve been exploring? Once you
come up with a list of possible questions, spend a few hours writing practice essays. If
you predict a question correctly, you’ll have a huge advantage during the exam. If you
don’t, you’ve still done some excellent exam preparation— writing those practice
answers got you thinking about the literature analytically. You’ve exercised your critical
thinking.
Forms of Literature

Two main division of literature are Prose and Poetry

Poem is a composition
usually written in verse.
Poems rely heavily on
imagery, precise word choie,
and metaphor; they may take
the form of measures
consisting of patterns of
stresses (metric feet) or of
patterns of different-length
syllables (as in classical prosody); and they may or may not utilize rhyme.

The word poem comes from the Greek word poēma, which was an early variant
of poiēma meaning “fiction, poem,” originally from poiein, meaning “to create.” For such
an ancient and widespread form of art, it’s interesting to note that the definition of poem
originally meant “to create,” signifying how important poem examples are to human
creativity.

Common Examples of Poem

Poetry has such as important function in society that there are numerous ways we
incorporate it into daily life. In English, when someone accidentally rhymes a friend
might respond “You’re a poet and you didn’t know it” (that, in itself, qualifying as a small
light poem). On Valentine’s Day we compose numerous rhyming variations to finish off
the short quatrain “Roses are red, violets are blue,….”
Here are a few other common uses of poetry in everyday life:

 Folger’s rhyming slogan: “The best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup!”

Significance of Poem in Literature

There is a wide variety of written works which qualify as poems, and thus it can be
difficult to say exactly what a poem “is” or what it does. However, most people do not
struggle to identify that an example of a poem is, indeed, a poem. There are certain
conventions in poetry that distinguish it, especially the visual look of a poem upon a
page with its lines that form stanzas rather than paragraphs (though there is a
recent genre in poetry called prose poetry, which mixes these two forms).

Cultures from around the world and throughout generations have generated poetry for
many different purposes. There are religious scriptures which are written as poetry,
poems that are meant to convey profound yet secular truths about the world, and light
poetry which is meant to be humorous.
Prose

consists of writing that does not adhere to any particular formal structures (other than
simple grammar). It is spoken or written language without metrical structure as
distinguished from poetry or verse.

Normal everyday speech is spoken in prose, and most people think and write in prose
form. Prose comprises of full grammatical sentences, which consist of paragraphs, and
forgoes aesthetic appeal in favor of clear, straightforward language. It can be said to be
the most reflective of conversational speech. Some works of prose do have
versification, and a blend of the two formats that is called “prose poetry.

While there have been many critical debates over the correct and valid construction of
prose, the reason for its adoption can be attributed to its loosely-defined structure,
which most writers feel comfortable using when expressing or conveying their ideas and
thoughts.

It is the standard style of writing used for most spoken dialogues, fictional as well as
topical and factual writing, and discourses. It is also the common language used in
newspapers, magazines, literature, encyclopedias, broadcasting, philosophy, law,
history, the sciences, and many other forms of communication.

End of Week 1

English Class
World Literature.