INTRODUCTION TO

LITERATURE
DEFINITION
SOME DEFINITIONS OF LITERATURE
• Literature has been defined in different ways by various scholars.
Therefore, we do not have a definition but definitions of the subject
and the best one can do is to try and understand literature instead of
looking for the perfect definition on it.
• To the poet Ezra Pound, “literature is the news that stays news.” When
Pound makes such a statement, he has in mind the freshness of the
message and the style of literature. It is the relevance of the message
and the unique style of presentation that make works of literature to
preserve their continuous appeal to readers for ages. Simply put, it is
the literary value of such pieces of work that makes them to appeal to
readers on a timeless basis, and to some extent, on a universal basis.
Some definitions of literature
• According to J. A. Cuddon, the term “literature” is used to describe
works or writings that have superior qualities, works that are “well
above the ordinary run of written works.” (Cuddon, 1998:472) Such
works are described as being well above the ordinary because of the
“excellence of their writing, their originality and their general
aesthetic and artistic merits.” (Cuddon, 1998:472) Excellence of
writing comes from style and originality comes from imagination,
creativity, novelty, and relevance of the message. These are the
aspects of literary works that imbue them with their general aesthetic
appeal.
Some definitions
• To Kofi Agyekum, “literature is the artistic, imaginative and creative
expression of individual and group experiences, nature and values of
a group of people over a certain period of time by medium of
language, written or oral. It is a representation of life experience and
reality of the world through linguistic creativity and imagination.”
(Agyekum: 2007: pp 1-2) This definition of Agyekum stresses the link
between literature and experience or reality on the one hand, and the
link between literature and the society on the other hand. Literature
is born out of individual or collective experiences and since literature
germinates from such a source, then it also means that literature is
meant to serve the individual, the society and the world at large.
Basic principles underlying definitions of lit.
• Literature can be written or oral
• Literature relies on the medium of language to communicate its message
• Literature is an art; it involves imagination, creativity, originality
• Literature has relevance to the individual, a group of people or the world at
large
• The value of literature is intrinsic; it goes beyond its immediate appeal
• Literature can be based on fiction or reality
• Literature uses language in a special way
• Literature appeals to our emotions and imaginations
•
Relevance of literature
• Literature is important to the individual and the society at large in
several ways. The first two areas of relevance of the subject to man
has to do with entertainment and enlightenment
• Besides this, language which is the cloth of literature is better learnt,
preserved and created through literature. As such, literature does not
only educate us on issues we know nothing about but it also affords
us the opportunity to study and use language in a way that is
acceptable and unique to us. It delights us and calm down our nerves.
• One other area of the relevance of literature is that it shapes us.
Certain literary works we study make a lasting impression on us.
Major Divisions in literature
• The first two major divisions of literature are oral and written
literature
• While the oral is composed in performance, the written is composed
for performance
• Again the written one is transmitted through the written word while
the other is transmitted by word of mouth from generation to
generation
• The older of the two is of course, the oral one since speech preceded
writing in human civilization
Major divisions in literature
• Literature can also be divided into works of fiction and biographical
works
• Works of fiction are purely creative and imaginative while
biographical works are written based on true life. Biographical works
include writings that are based on diaries and memoirs
• Both the oral and written versions of literature are further divided
into poetry, drama and prose
Content of Engl 263
• Engl 263 normally concentrates on poetry and drama .
Some definitions of Poetry
•

The kind of thing poets write (Robert Frost)

•The spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings (William Wordsworth)

•The recollection of an emotion, which causes a new emotion (William

Wordsworth)
•Poetry teaches the enormous forces of a few words (R.W. Emerson)

•Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth by calling imagination to

help reason (Samuel Johnson)

•Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest
and best mind (Percey Bysche Shelley)
•Poetry is feeling confessing itself to itself, in moments of solitude (John
Stuart Mill)

•When we read a poem something happens within us. They bring to life a
group of images, feelings, and thoughts (Stageberg & Anderson)

•Poetry is simply the most beautiful, impressive, and widely effective mode
of saying things (Mathew Arnold)
WHAT IS POETRY
• Poetry could be defined as a form of art that has a message and uses a
specific medium to communicate that message. Usually, the medium used by
poetry to communicate its message is language. The message could be
about deaths, births, festivals, acts of bravery, mysterious events or whatever
brought man both pain and joy. A poem could therefore be described as a
unique way of telling a story, expressing our emotions or giving our opinion
on any issue that is of relevance to us. The language of poetry is compact; it
condenses the message of poetry into few words making every word, every
sound, every punctuation mark and every line of the poem to carry weight
and meaning in the analysis of the poem. The pleasure of poetry comes from
the sounds of the words and the meanings of the individual words as well as
the imagery that help create mental pictures in the minds of readers
WHAT IS POETRY
• One other way of defining poetry is to say that it uses language to
condense experience into an intensely concentrated package, with
each sound, each word, each image and each line carrying great
weight.
Features of poetry
• It is written in lines, not sentences
• The lines could be end stop or run-on lines
• It is not written in paragraphs but stanzas
• The persona is different from the poet
• There are few poems that have fixed forms like the sonnet, haiku,
limerick, villanelle, etc but majority of them do not have a fix form
• Every poem has ELEMENTS such a subject matter, theme,
language(imagery, diction) structure, setting, tone, etc
• Rhyming and rhyming scheme are present in varying degrees in different
poems
Types of Poetry
•lyric

•Narrative

•dramatic.

Classifications of this kind are not exclusive. Poems in each of these

categories may have elements or characteristics of the other.
TYPES OF POETRY
• Lyric poetry____ usually brief, used to express emotions or opinion and
highly rhythmic. Derived its name from the lyre, a musical instrument
that was performed to accompany poetry performance. Example of lyric
poetry include pastoral poem, the dirge, elegy, ode, occasional poem, etc
• –pastoral poem: a poem telling about life in the countryside such as of
shepherds, cattle, hills, and mountains.

• –ode: a lyric poem of praise that expresses a noble feeling with dignity.

• –elegy: a poem of lamentation

•Narrative poetry_____ used to recount stories. Two major types
of narrative poems are the epic and the ballad.

An epic is a long verse narrative on a serious subject, told in a

formal and elevated style, and centred on a heroic or quasi-divine
figure on whose actions depends the fate of a tribe, a nation or
the human race. Examples of epics include the epic of Sundiata
Keita, Odyssey, Beowulf, Chanson de Roland

A ballad is a poem that is sung. Ballads have strong rhythms

rhymes repetition of key phrases tells a story
Types of poetry
• Dramatic poetry is the third type of poetry. It usually involves a
dialogue between the persona and another person being addressed.
There is usually and element of surprise and the dialogue
•poetry often requires a regular beat, an appropriate speed and
expressiveness of delivery just like music

•these help the poet convey the meanings of their words or facilitate the
readers’ understanding of the ideas, the emotions the poets communicate
through their words.

•the analysis of a poem’s prosodic technique cannot be separated from that

of its content
LANGUAGE OF POETRY
• Verse is the language of poetry. Verse is any arrangement of words to
produce a regular effect through metre, (the basic rhythmic structure of
a line within a work of poetry) rhythm, and or rhyme.
• Consequently, all poetry is supposed to be written or composed in
verse, but not all poems have the attributes of metre, rhythm and
rhyme as well.
• Blank verse has all the features of poetry except, in most cases, rhyme.
In most of the Shakespearean plays, almost all the noble characters
speak in blank verse whereas villains and common characters speak in
prose. Blank verse is usually in iambic pentameter, the nearest pattern
to human speech.
• Free verse is a kind of arrangement of words that does not give much
attention to metre or rhyme, or even rhythm. Its distinctive feature as
poetry derives from the sequence or iteration of ideas than anything
else; it is therefore very much like prose arranged in shorter lengths to
give the visual shape or structure as that of the verse. Metre, rhythm,
and rhyme are therefore incidental to free verse. The poetry of T. S.
Eliot and most other 20th century poets is largely free verse.
Stanzaic Forms
•a stanza is a group of lines in a poem
•ordinarily, each stanza follows a particular rhyme scheme

Spenserian stanza Edmund Spenser

–9 lines; the first eight are iambic pentameter followed by a single alexandrine,
a twelve-syllable iambic line. –the final line typically has a caesura, or break,
after the first three feet–the stanza rhymes ababbcbcc–the Spenserian stanza is
regarded as "one of the most remarkably original metric innovations in the
history of English verse" (Preminger 807)
Some common stanzaic forms:
•Couplet: a stanza of two lines which usually rhymes

•Triplet/tercet a stanza of three lines

•Quatrain:a stanza of four lines

•Sestet:a stanza of six lines

•Rhyme royal: a stanza of seven lines written in iambic pentameter and rhyming
ababbcc

•Octave :a stanza of eight lines

•Sonnet: a stanza of 14 lines.

–Italian sonnet: an octave (rhyming abba,abba) and a sestet (rhyming cde,

cde(or its variations) or cd,cd,cd).
the octave presents an idea and the sestet presents the example
octave poses a problem, the sestet, the solution

–English/Shakespearian sonnets:
3 quatrains and 1 couplet (abab, cdcd, efef, gg).
3 arguments concerning its theme in the three quatrains and draws a
conclusion in the couplet
•Onomatopoeia

–a blend of consonant and vowel sounds designed to imitate or suggest a

situation or action–the use of word which sound suggests its meaning
Eg. buzz, crackle, hum, etc.
•Blank verse
–unrhymed iambic pentameter–Shakespeare’s plays and Milton’s Paradise Lost
Alliteration
–the identical consonant sounds that start several words that are close to each
other

For winter's rains and ruins are over,

And all the season of snows and sins;
The days dividing lover and lover,
The light that loses, the night that wins;
(Swinburne, Chorus from Atalanta)
Rhyme
•the identical final syllables of words
•may appear in two successive lines, in alternating lines, or at intervals
of four, five, or more lines
•if rhyming sounds are too far away from each other, they lose their
immediacy and effectiveness.
•Rhyme is determined by sound, not spelling.

•Which of these two pairs of words rhyme?

puff / enough
through / though
•Functions:
–delight–strengthens a poem’s psychological impact
–support memorization on the poem

•How to describe rhyme scheme:

–the first sound at the end of a line is “a”,
–the next different sound is “b”, then “c”, “d”, and so on.–when a sound
reappears, use the same letter to label that sound
End-stopped line:
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun.
Coral is far more red than her lips red. (Shakespeare, Sonnet 130)

Run-on lines:
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds
Or bends with the remover to remove. . . . (Shakespeare, Sonnet 116)
End-stopped line
•A line of poetry that naturally pauses at the end of the line (when it
shows a complete clause or sentence)

•It is the opposite of run-on line, where readers should not stop but read
through to the next line.
Rhythm
•created by the pattern of repeated sounds
—in terms of both duration and quality—and ideas
•a combination of vocal speeds, rises and falls, starts and stops, vigour and
slackness, and relaxation and tension
•Rhythm is significant because poets “invite” the readers to change speeds while
reading—to slow down and linger or pass rapidly over some words and sounds
or to give more or less vocal stress or emphasis on certain syllables.

•All these are related to emotions that are charged in the poem.
WHAT IS DRAMA
• Drama is a piece of literary work that has to do with people engaged
in talking and acting on stage. Indeed, Abrams would put it as “the
form of composition designed for performance in the theatre, in
which actors take the roles of the characters, perform the indicated
actions, and utter the written dialogue.” (Abrams, 2005: 69) The
common term that is normally used to describe a dramatic
composition is a play. Drama represents or imitates life, it tells a story
about life through action and not through words alone. Drama does
not, therefore, technically imitate people but it imitates life and that is
why action or plot is more important in drama than character
MAJOR TYPES OF DRAMA
• Tragedy
• Comedy
• Tragicomedy
• Miracle plays
• Morality plays
• Theatre of the absurd, etc
Features of drama
• The writer of the play is a playwright or dramatist
• The play most of the time, is divided into acts and scenes
• It has stage directions
• It has a set of actors or dramatis personae
• The playwright is different from actors
• It thrives on dialogue
• Plays have elements such a subject matter, theme, plot, character,
setting, atmosphere, language, dramatic techniques, etc
Features of drama
• Every play presents a conflict but may not provide answers to the
problem it dramatizes
• The action of most plays can be divided into exposition, rising action,
climax, falling action and the resolution or denouement
• Dramatic techniques such as flashback, dramatic irony, aside,
soliloquy, the presence of a chorus, humour, wit, etc are normally
used to resolve the conflict in the play
• A play may have a prologue and an epilogue
• Metre is the basic rhythmic structure of a line within a work of poetry
consists of two components
• the number of syllables
• the pattern of emphasis on those syllables
• When we speak our syllables are either stressed or unstressed. In
poetry two or three syllables is called foot a specific type of foot is
called iamb a foot ia iam when it contains one stressed and followed
by one unstressed syllable