UNIT 37. LITERARY LANGUAGE. LITERARY GENRE. LITERARY CRITICISM
0. INTRODUCTION
1. LITERARY LANGUAGE
1.1 Definition of lit.. Literary lang vs ordinary lang
1.2 Literary stylistics. Literary devices
2. LITERARY GENRES
ANOTHER division follows a classical tradition & focuses on form of the work: poetry, narrative fiction & drama
2.3 Drama
3. LITERARY CRITICISM
3.1 History
3.2 Different schools:
TEXT-CENTRED APPROACHES
AUTHOR-ORIENTED APPROACHES
READER-ORIENTED APPROACHES
CONTEXT-ORIENTED APPROACHES
4. CONCLUSION
5. BIBLIOGRAPHY
OVERVIEW:
1) What literary language is.
2) Distinction between ordinary lang & literary lang.
3) Criteria for literary genres & main features (form, technique & content) &
4) Literary criticism - definition + most popular schools & theoretical trends
Lit. 1st discussed Ancient Greece (Aristotle: “Literature is a special use of language”).
But definition of what lit. is = not easy & has changed over time.
David Crystal: what counts as lit. = topic of debate for critics, authors & cultural historians, syllabus designers & others. Spread of Eng globally has made it even more complex.
For linguists: problems of definition & identity prove uniqueness of this area of language use
Chap 8 “Literary language” in “The Cambridge History of the Eng Lang” (Malcolm R. Godden):
Before 1100 ‘literature’, meant ‘all that is written down’ BUT ∴ excludes poetry (oral). Also, if taken literally it includes too much.
However, more restricted definition (eg imaginative composition) risks excluding other things.
Godden: ‘literary language’ to cover lang of all verse and prose which was concerned with the '*selection & use of lang*'.
Present-day theories: literary language = special or specific language (literary or poetic) whose main aim is to produce an aesthetic effect.
Jakobson's com. functions (emotive, conative, poetic, referential, metalingual & phatic) = essential in study of literary lang as establish the typology of literary genres.
Stated that in lit. the primary emphasis = the message & main function linked to the message is the POETIC one. Wording takes precedence over all other considerations.
Sometimes lit. uses a special “literary lang” eg instead “roseate dawn” (sunrise). So expression = most important thing. Most commonly found in poetry.
Literary lang also connotative with layers of meaning so open to interpretation (unlike eg scientific writing - v denotative).
Also characterised by ‘literary devices’ (symbols, metaphors, parallelisms etc) - transform usual lang into literary lang (eg JJ)
What is imp = the signified thing, what the word used represents. SO imp characteristic of literary lang = suggestive value, the expressive potential of the sounds the writer uses.
Definition of style - not easy!
Eg: ‘some or all of the language habits of one person’ - eg Shakespeare', or JJ or Dickensian.
OR: some/all the lang habits shared by a group of people at one time, eg Augustan poets/style of Old Eng “heroic” poetry.
Leech: Style = choices & the way in which lang is used.
Stylistics = study of style. Goal = explaining relation between lang & artistic function.
Different Qs:
Literary critic’s: ”how is X aesthetic effect achieved through lang? (analysed more later).
Linguist’s: why does author here choose this form of expression?
Literary devices = techniques / structures used to convey writer's message. 2 aspects:
Literary Elements = crucial in a literary piece e.g. plot, setting, mood, narrative structure, tone
Literary techniques = words / phrases the writer uses for artistic ends & to improve understanding eg metaphors, simile, alliteration, hyperbole, symbolism etc.
AKA stylistic devices / figurative lang. (Closely connected with poetry but not exclusively)
Discussions on genre probably began in ancient Greece (Aristotle).
Eg: Dickens (descriptive lang, symbolism eg London bridge in OT) / Virginia Woolf- style described as poetic as many vivid metaphors & lots of symbolism eg waves, sea, coast
What is it? : Practice of distinguishing kinds of texts from each other.
Some linguists use ‘genre’ to mean text type while others make a distinction.
One way:
Genre = based on external, non-linguistic, criteria eg purpose/topic (Biber 1988)
Text type = based on internal, linguistic characteristics + the structure, GSP etc..
In same genre (eg journalistic) can have linguistically distinct texts (eg narrative & colloquial vs informational - formal) AND linguistically similar texts can belong to different genres (eg narrative in novels & journalistic.
Main criteria for the classification of genre:
Classical guidelines determined by Aristotelian typology = lyric, epic & drama. STILL relevant today (lyric, narrative & drama)
1904 Rules for a Dictionary Catalogue, Cutter: makes a division into fiction & non-fiction.
Fiction inc drama, fable, short story, tales etc
Non-fiction inc biographies, essay & speech etc.
Classification is flexible. Important as concept of genre is dynamic - new types or hybrids (eg non-fiction novel/prose poem) can easily be incorporated.
This division allows us to group work by form, technique & content:
1) Fiction genre:
According to form of the work: 1) poetry, 2) drama, 3)Prose narrative
According to technique (layout): 1) traditional(?), 2) picture books, 3)’ game books’ (interactive elements)
According to content and theme:
Adventure stories
Science fiction
Fantasy
Crime & mystery
Horror
Romance
Historical fiction
Fable
Fairy tale
Humour
Legend
Mythology
2) Non-fiction genre:
(Auto)biographies, Essays, informational texts with a real life subject eg news, reports…
3) Hybrids
non-fiction novel, prose poem...
2.1 Poetry
= the art of rhythmical composition (written or spoken)
Written in metrical form so generally has some type of structure
Follows a meter & rhythm (Tempo, pause, intonation) and different phonetic & phonological features
EG: Alliteration; assonance (great, fail) consonance: (great, meat);
Chiming (2 words connected by similarity of sound - like interior rhyming. Most striking when also semantic contrast e.g. Fail is foul and foul is fair)
Onomatopoeia (Poe ‘The Bells’: How they clang, and clash, and roar!),
Semantic oddities:
Pleonasm - more words than necessary - my female grandmother
Tautology - words that repeat elements of meaning - Philatelists collect stamps
Oxymoron - deafening silence, living death
Paradox - contradiction: war is peace, freedom is slavery
Other figures of speech include:
Synecdoche - word for part to apply to whole - new wheels or Marc Antony in JC: Friends! Countrymen! Lend me your ears
Also vice-versa - *the US won a gold meal” (a specific American team).
Metonymy- use of attribute in place of whole - the Crown (monarchy). Places too if v associated with an industry eg Wall St (finance industry).
Poetry can be subdivided into 3 main poetic forms:
1) Lyric emotional writing focusing on thought & emotion. Subdivisions:
Elegy- poem of mourning/reflection on death of an individual.
Ode - pays homage to a thing or person - Ode to a Nightingale (Keats)
Sonnets - 14 lines, 10 syllables each - Shakespeare’s 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate
2) Narrative poetry - tells a story. Subdivisions:
Epic - long story, heroic ideas -Iliad, Odyssey & Beowulf.
Ballad- popular poem narrating a folk story, intended to be sung while dancing
Narrative poems examples: TCT The Divine Comedy Dante or The Raven- Poe.
3) Dramatic poetry - any drama written in prose which is meant to be spoken. Most is written in blank verse (regular metrical but unrhymed lines). Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe etc
2.2 Narrative fiction
2.2.1 Fables, parable and allegory.
Imaginative with hidden meanings
Fables - simple, often with animals, convey a moral lesson
Parables - simple with mysterious tone - often found in rel. texts eg bible
Allegory - events/elements/characters symbolise abstract ideas/moral qualities. Multiple layers of meaning eg Animal Farm
2.2.2 Romance
Dates from mid-12th C France
(aristocratic genre), characterised by treatment of chivalry. Written in vernacular (not Latin). The Tales of Arthurian Legend & life of Charlemagne.
2.2.3 Saga
Narrative telling adventures of a hero / family (originally the story of the families that settled Iceland). From 12th - 14 Cs. Ideals of heroism & loyalty very important & revenge often features. Hence: names of J Galsworthy's The Forsyte Saga
2.2.4 NOVEL
A narrative work of prose fiction. Must:
1) Be written in prose, not verse. 2) Have narrators (may have different degrees of knowledge /points of view)
3) Be considerable length (no specific word count but often 80,000ish - much shorter = novella, even shorter = short story)
4) Fictional content. Semi-fictionalized novels (eg historical works inspired by true events/people) exist, but pure non-fiction not classed as a novel.
5) Individualism, on page & for intended audience.
Often narrate: individual experiences of characters & world they live in. Inner feelings etc explored (more so in novels than in other forms of lit.).
Generally meant to be read individually rather than in public (epics etc).
Myriad of structure. Chronological most commo but sometimes includes flashbacks/forwards to maintain suspense etc. Also sometimes can different types of narrators / points of view - eg Mrs Dalloway - 1 type of narrator (3rd per. om.) but many perspectives - Clarissa, Richard (husband) Septimus (WW1 veteran)
History of novel:
No consensus over 1st novel (many think Don Quixote de la Mancha). Certainly influential in dev. of novel
By early 18th C England novel firmly est. as genre - DD, SR, HF…. More focused on characters and their circumstances (eg SR in Pamela)
1750 - 1900: huge ↑ in literacy & related explosion in novel publication (printing press + more m/c people with time/money).
Women writers in 19C gained prominence.
New novels reflected evolving concerns & used innovative styles & structures. New literary movements and new sub-genres:
Picaresque novel (Peregrine Pickle)
Romance novel (The 3 Musketeers)
Gothic novel (The Italian - Ann Radcliff)
Slave narrative (Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass)
Historical novel (Waverly -Walter Scott
Detective novel (Poe - Murders in the Rue Morgue)
Local colour writing (Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer) depicts the distinctive characteristics of a particular region –dialect, dress, culture…
20th C- modernism - novels became ↑ diverse. Many adapted conventions of realism to represent new literary subjects eg E.M. Forster (colonisation in Passage to India) S Fitzgerald (roaring 20s in TGG), D.H. Lawrence (sexual relationships in Lady Chatterley’s Lover) but some v modernist writers (JJ, VW, WFaulker) ignored conventions & experimented with style, structure & subject (eg stream of c).
Novel continues developing - most popular & widespread genre in contemporary literature.
2.2.5 Short Story
Brief fictional work, usually prose. Poe said 1,600 - 20,000 words. Single subject/theme, few characters & begin & end abruptly. No extended developments
Composition in verse / prose presenting a story in dialogue. (Here we consider composition in prose). Classic subgenres:
Comedy - Light tone, happy conclusion. Aim: audience laugh.
Egs: romantic – AMND; satiric –Volpone (Ben Johnson); comedy of manners – The importance of being Earnest (Oscar Wilde - satirises the upper class by showing them to be shallow, judgmental, and having the wrong priorities); theatre of the absurd – Waiting for Godot (Samuel Beckett)
Tragedy- darker themes- disaster, pain, death. Protagonists often have tragic flaw eg Hamlet
Farce – Nonsensical - slapstick humour, overacting etc. Eg The Comedy of Errors or (more recent) The Play That Goes Wrong.
Melodrama – exaggerated & sensational, appeals directly to the senses of the audience. One dimensional, stereotyped characters. Eg Pygmalion by Jean Jacques Rousseau (1st ex. of genre)
Newer genres: eg realism - subdivides into kitchen sink drama 1950s (portrays lives of ordinary British ppl) eg Shelaigh Delayaney’s A Taste of Honey (1958) or Road Jim Cartwright
END of genre?
Signs of a backlash vs genre. Many authors don’t like to be pigeon-holed! And many books span 2 or more genres! Guardian article (nov 2023) - genre helps publishers sell books but doesn’t tell us about how authors write or how readers read.
Eg - Is 2022 Booker prize winner, Shehan Karunatilaka’s The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, a ghost story (central character is dead), a thriller (he has to work out who has murdered him), a historical novel (set during Sri Lankan civil war), or speculative fiction (contains scenes of the afterlife?)
Lit criticism studies defining, classifying, analysing, interpreting, & evaluating works of literature
No agreement - source of endless speculation & debate
Many schools / types exist
What a critic says about a text depends on their critical approach
Can focus on: lang, history, context, reader’s responses etc.
Different kinds inc: contextual (criticism), cultural, deconstruction, feminist, Marxist, textual, pragmatic, rhetorical criticism, structuralist ETC
HISTORY of criticism
Critical tradition started in classical Greece, focused on poetry & drama (Aristotle - wrote The Poetics - est. ideas that were influential for many Cs)
Medieval Europe - criticism concerned with moral value of text (Classical authors distrusted due to paganism)
In the Renaissance (1450-1650) - revived interest in classics.
First approach in Eng - 17C. Most critics were also writers. Eg: Jonathan Swift (The Battle of the Books) & Samuel Johnson with his Lives of the English Poets.
Romantic critics include WW or S.T.C who est. principles of writing rather than judge others’ writing - anticipated some of the lit criticism of 20th C.
20thC - shift from emphasis on author to emphasis on text, then again to the reader
1) Russian Formalism (Russia, 1915)
Focused on the form rather than content/context - deliberately neglected historical, sociological, biographical dimensions.
Claimed each writer has distinctive devices/techniques - makes work unique.
Viewed lit. lang. as different from everyday speech.
Considerable influence, especially R.Jakobson.
2) New Criticism (USA 1930s)
Author’s intentions, context etc not considered. Personal reactions excluded.
Text understood as an autonomous verbal structure. No separation between form & content. Should examine: connotative & denotative values of words, ambiguities, functions of grammatical categories, rhythm and harmony, rhetorical procedures, etc.
3) Structuralist criticism (France 1950s, Europe/USA 1960s).
Influenced by Swiss linguist Saussure’s linguistic theory. Main figure: Roland Barthes.
Encouraged interest in structures that underlie texts.
Rejected term ‘work’ in favour of ‘text’ to highlight that all lit. is subject to set of codes .
Rejected idea that text is a representation of reality - believed all signification is arbitrary
4) Semiotics & Deconstruction (1970s/80s)
Text as system of signs & symbols with multiple interpretations (not objective).
Challenges traditional notions of meaning/interpretation by examining inherent contradictions & oppositions present in texts. Focuses on gaps & ambiguities.
Aims to expose limitations of traditional interpretative frameworks.
Despite complexity, 1 of most influential trends 1970s - 80s.
Psychoanalytic Criticism (1909 - 1949)
Established link between text & biography of author.
I.A. Richards, Kenneth Burke - influential subscribers.
Also aims to illuminate psychological aspects in a text that do not necessarily relate to the author. Eg characters like Hamlet can be analysed.
Also aims to explore the nature of creative process AND/OR reflect on the psychological effects on readers.
Reader –Response criticism (1960s) Focuses on reader's point of view - responses, interpretations, feelings, experiences etc - can there be many or is one ‘correct’/more valid?
Stanley Fish 1970: literature exists when it is read.
Also examines readership of a text (who?) & investigates why, where & when it's read, + reading practices of specific social, ethnic, or national groups
A heterogeneous group of schools & methodologies which do not regard literacy texts as self-contained, independent but try to place them with a larger context.
Feminist and gender criticism - most imp. 1960s/70s.
VW’s A Room of One’s Own (1928) 1st exponent, but mainly 70s.
Argues for a gender-oriented perspective (neglected in patriarchal society).
Early attempts concentrated on stereotypes/distorted portrayals of women in a literary tradition dominated by men.
Mid-70s - attention drawn to neglected female authors. Not enough to be just classified as a woman - need further differentiation! ALSO African American, Lesbian, Muslim etc.
Around 1985 began to give way to gender studies.
Gender studies: Not woman centred, makes distinction between gender & sex. Says it's gender not sex which determines certain behaviours. Backlash from many feminist groups.
Gave rise to gay & lesbian criticism and queer theory - emphasis on how sexual identity is repressed by society.
Marxist criticism
Places literary works in context of larger socio-political background. Includes race and attitudes but esp. CLASS STRUGGLE.
A text often (re)enforces the prevailing ideology. Eg - saw dev of novel in 18th C as a consequence of new economic conditions for writers/readers and innovations of printing.
Critics include Bertolt Brecht, Georg Lukács, Theodor Adorno & Lucien Goldmann. Eg Goldmann rejected the idea of individual genius, choosing to see works as “collective” products
Has now (since 1980s) largely become New Historicism. Analysing texts whilst considering historical / political context. V influenced by Fr philosopher/historian Michel Foucault.
Summary lit. criticism:
Metalanguage of criticism has added new terms to the lang of literary theory: Narratology (analysis of structural components – Structuralist criticism)
Intertextuality (New Historicism)
Foregrounding (Russian formalism)
End 20th C - present predominance of rejection of idea that white, heterosexual Western culture is the yardstick by which experience can/should be judged.
Decolonization literary criticism - ↑ important - part of process of revealing & dismantling colonialist power & giving voice to those traditionally oppressed.
Overview: have looked at what literary language, genres & criticism are.
Study of what makes a text literary or non-literary led to genres & then to critical analysis
Application to classroom: Teacher's knowledge of different approaches useful in helping students develop a critical attitude towards texts, - not blindly accept everything a text says but Q & seek to understand it.
Benefits of using lit -motivates, + variety, integrates skills work, revision of vocab, bridges intercultural gaps
LEECH, G. & SHORT, M. 1981 Style in Fiction
TRAUGOTT & PRATT 1980. Linguistics for Students of Literature
An Introduction to Literary Studies, 2nd edition, Mario Klarer. 2004