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TOPIC 37. LITERARY LANGUAGE. LITERARY GENRES. LITERARY CRITICISM, There…
TOPIC 37. LITERARY LANGUAGE. LITERARY GENRES. LITERARY CRITICISM
1. LITERARY LANGUAGE
STYLISTIC APPROACHES
Predilection for authors who make
use of deviant features of language
2 approaches for literary text's analysis
Top down
approach
begins with the broadest possible statements about an author's style and then studies particular aspects of the language in detail
Bottom up
approach
begins by identifying the smallest features felt to be distinctively used in a work and then proceeding to build up more complex patterns of use
FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE
Words and phrases used for special effects
and which do not have their usual or literal meaning
Figures of speech
or
tropes
Deviations from the ordinary or
principal meaning of a word
Tropes that make reference to one thing as another (comparisons)
Metaphor
word or expression which in literal usage denotes one meaning that is applied to a different thing or concept but without asserting a comparison :pencil2:
This is the heart of the matter
Analogy
an extended metaphor that cannot stand alone and requires several sentences or paragraphs
Simile
a comparison of two things that asserts that one is like the other by means of connectives (
like, as
) or verbs (
seem, appear
) :pencil2:
As bold as brass
Personification
when human qualities are attributed to inanimate objects or abstractions :pencil2:
Flames eat hungrily
Synecdoche
when a whole is represented by naming one of its parts :pencil2:
using 'ten hands' to refer to 'ten workmen'
Tropes as word-plays or puns
Onomatopoeia
use of words whose sound correspond with their semantic value :pencil2:
buzz, click
Paronomasia
play on words wherein a words is used to convey two meanings at the same time :pencil2:
Why do we wait until a pig is dead tu cure it?
Tropes that involve an overstatement or exaggeration; or understatements
Hyperbole
exaggeration :pencil2:
I have done this a thousand times
Litotes
understatement :pencil2:
The hurricane disrupted traffic
Tropes that imply semantic inversions
Irony
discrepancy between a speaker's literal statements and his attitude :pencil2:
Getting soaked to the skin in that rain storm was just great
Oxymoron
when placing two ordinarily opposing terms adjacent to one another :pencil2:
Cold fire
Paradox
an apparently contradictory statement that nonetheless expresses a truth :pencil2:
Tomorrow has another name - yesterday
Rhetorical figures
Deviations from the ordinary arrangement of words
Alliteration
Anaphora
Antithesis
Ellipsis
Parallelism
similarity of structure in a pair of series of related words, phrases or clauses :pencil2:
The bigger they are, the harder they fall
an omission of a words or words readily implied by context :pencil2:
The American soldiers killed eight civilians and the French six
juxtaposition of contrastive ideas, often in parallel structure :pencil2: Neil Armstrong's famous words
One small step for a man, a gian leap for all mankind
repetition of the same word or group of words at the beginning of successive clauses in order to create an artistic effect :pencil2: Churchill's speech
We shall not flag or fail, we shall go to the end, we shall fight in France...
repetition of initial or medial consonants in two or more adjacent words
Some examples:
2. LITERARY GENRES
POETRY
Poetic language
= intensely rhythmical in some additional linguistic way as distinct from the 'practical or prosaic' language with its mere articulation into sentences
Poetry
= fiction in verse
Main unit of rhytm = a
line
:arrow_right: can consist of smaller regular units =
hemistich, feet, syllabes
Groups of lines can form larger units or
stanzas
Lyrical works
From the point of view of the subject :arrow_right: from the personal and private vision of human beings
often written in first person
tend to have their manner of expression written as verse
Most characteristic lyrical forms and trends in history of English literature:
Elegy
:arrow_right: lyrical descriptions of the up and down fortunes of life
The song
Sonnets
(outstanding examples of which were written by Shakespeare)
Hymns
Odes
Epitaphs
All of them were specially predominant
during the Elizabetahn times
NARRATIVE
Epic
= any literary narrative where, through the use of a narrator, a series of fictional events carried out by one or more characters is objectively presented
Differences with drama and lyric:
Presence of the narrator
Ability to present objective external worlds
Several genres, as long as they tell fictional non-dramatic and non-lyrical events:
The epic poem
:pencil2:
The Iliad
The tale
:pencil2: Grimm Brothers' and Andersen's works
The romance
:pencil2:
Le Morte d'Arthur
by Thomas Mallory
The ballad
:pencil2:
Lyrical Ballads
by Wordsworth and Coleridge
The novel
Appears in English in the 18th century as a
prose story
of a certain length, in which a
narrator
presents the
events
of a number of
human characters
developed in a
realistic setting
Romanticism brought a new subgenre :arrow_right:
the historic novel
DRAMA
Intended to be enacted, to be
performed on the stage
rather than read
Alternative name for a dramatic composition =
play
Tends to create friction as a result of the
interrelationship
between a few
characters
The resulting conflict occurs
without the author having presented or described
them and
without saying what they do or feel
Characters
simply talk among themselves and just do things at certain moments
Three main genres
Tragedy
a representation of
serious and important actions
of
high standing people
, which as a general rule eventually spell
disaster for the main protagonist
and in which there is
divine intervention
:pencil2:
Oedipus Rex
Drama
similar to tragedy = great deal of conflict caused by
high passions
. Differences: does
not include
such
an intense
fight
,
nor
is it always
fatal for the main character
. Also
lack of divine intervention
Comedy
already common in Greek and Roman times.
Humorous
and sometimes ridiculous
parodies
of
customs
,
day to day events, conflicts, people
or
situations
3. LITERARY CRITICISM
Criticism
= the study of works of literature, their comparison, analysis, interpretation and evaluation
Works of literature are influenced by
many factors
:
author's environment
whether a
social or historical context
.
To understand a work of literature, it is necessary for the context to be first fully understood
Context
is comprised of things such as
genres
,
themes
, and
the general build up of forms
Some of the most relevant schools of literary criticism
Formalism
modern criticism was born with the Russian formalists in the first third of the 20th century
interested in how language works in literature, how literary texts function as system
views literary language as
self-focused
= its
function
is not to make extrinsic references but to draw
attention
to its
formal features
among the linguistic signs
Structuralism
asserts that literary texts are constituted by other
conventions and texts
rather than being a reflection of reality
takes for granted that a
literary text
is a
system of structures
that refers to a
variety of codes
and
cultural sub-codes
Feminist criticism
early exponent was
Virginia Woolf's
A room for one's own
principal lines
=
women's freedom
to write equally with men and to
give full expression
to their
distinctive experience
against a
traditional predominance in the literature
of a
male view of women
feminist critics consider that
literary language
has
expressed the dominance of patriarchal society
that shaped it and that
traditional criticism
has neglected
female insights
Others:
new criticism, post-structuralism, new historics, existentialism, surrealism, etc.
There are tons of both of them, and here only a brief review of those most common and representative