素材Module 3 文本 Literature 外研.docx

1、素材Module 3 文本 Literature 外研LiteratureOld book bindings at the Merton College library.Literature is the art of written works. Literally translated, the word means acquaintance with letters (from Latin littera letter). In Western culture the most basic written literary types include fiction and non-fi

2、ction.DefinitionsLiteratureMajor formsNovel Poem DramaShort story NovellaGenresEpic Lyric DramaRomance SatireTragedy ComedyTragicomedyMediaPerformance (play) BookTechniquesProse PoetryHistory and listsBasic topics Literary termsHistory Modern historyBooks WritersLiterary awards Poetry awardsDiscussi

3、onCriticism Theory MagazinesThe word literature has different meanings depending on who is using it. It could be applied broadly to mean any symbolic record, encompassing everything from images and sculptures to letters. In a more narrow sense the term could mean only text composed of letters, or ot

4、her examples of symbolic written language (Egyptian hieroglyphs, for example). An even more narrow interpretation is that text have a physical form, such as on paper or some other portable form, to the exclusion of inscriptions or digital media. The Muslim scholar and philosopher Imam Jafar al-Sadiq

5、 (702-765 AD) defined Literature as follows: Literature is the garment which one puts on what he says or writes so that it may appear more attractive.1 added that literature is a slice of life that has been given direction and meaning, an artistic interpretation of the world according to the percipi

6、ents point of views. Frequently, the texts that make up literature crossed over these boundaries. Russian Formalist Roman Jakobson defines literature as organized violence committed on ordinary speech, highlighting literatures deviation from the day-to-day and conversational structure of words. Illu

7、strated stories, hypertexts, cave paintings and inscribed monuments have all at one time or another pushed the boundaries of literature.People may perceive a difference between literature and some popular forms of written work. The terms literary fiction and literary merit often serve to distinguish

8、 between individual works. For example, almost all literate people perceive the works of Charles Dickens as literature, whereas some criticscitation needed look down on the works of Jeffrey Archer as unworthy of inclusion under the general heading of English literature. Critics may exclude works fro

9、m the classification literature, for example, on the grounds of a poor standard of grammar and syntax, of an unbelievable or disjointed story-line, or of inconsistent or unconvincing characters. Genre fiction (for example: romance, crime, or science fiction) may also become excluded from considerati

10、on as literature.HistoryOne of the earliest known literary works is the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, an epic poem dated around 2700 B.C., which deals with themes of heroism, friendship, loss, and the quest for eternal life. Different historical periods have emphasized various characteristics of liter

11、ature. Early works often had an overt or covert religious or didactic purpose. Moralizing or prescriptive literature stems from such sources. The exotic nature of romance flourished from the Middle Ages onwards, whereas the Age of Reason manufactured nationalistic epics and philosophical tracts. Rom

12、anticism emphasized the popular folk literature and emotive involvement, but gave way in the 19th-century West to a phase of realism and naturalism, investigations into what is real. The 20th century brought demands for symbolism or psychological insight in the delineation and development of charact

13、er.PoetryA poem is defined as a composition written in verse (although verse has been equally used for epic and dramatic fiction). Poems rely heavily on imagery, precise word choice, and metaphor; they may take the form of measures consisting of patterns of stresses (metric feet) or of patterns of d

14、ifferent-length syllables (as in classical prosody); and they may or may not utilize rhyme. One cannot readily characterize poetry precisely. Typically though, poetry as a form of literature makes some significant use of the formal properties of the words it uses the properties attached to the writt

15、en or spoken form of the words, rather than to their meaning. Metre depends on syllables and on rhythms of speech; rhyme and alliteration depend on wordsPoetry perhaps pre-dates other forms of literature: early known examples include the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh (dated from around 2700 B.C.), part

16、s of the Bible, the surviving works of Homer (the Iliad and the Odyssey), and the Indian epics Ramayana and Mahabharata. In cultures based primarily on oral traditions the formal characteristics of poetry often have a mnemonic function, and important texts: legal, genealogical or moral, for example,

17、 may appear first in verse form.Some poetry uses specific forms: the haiku, the limerick, or the sonnet, for example. A traditional haiku written in Japanese must have something to do with nature, contain seventeen onji (syllables), distributed over three lines in groups of five, seven, and five, an

18、d should also have a kigo, a specific word indicating a season. A limerick has five lines, with a rhyme scheme of AABBA, and line lengths of 3,3,2,2,3 stressed syllables. It traditionally has a less reverent attitude towards nature. Poetry not adhering to a formal poetic structure is called free ver

19、seLanguage and tradition dictate some poetic norms: Persian poetry always rhymes, Greek poetry rarely rhymes, Italian or French poetry often does, English and German can go either way (although modern non-rhyming poetry often, perhaps unfairly, has a more serious aura). Perhaps the most paradigmatic

20、 style of English poetry, blank verse, as exemplified in works by Shakespeare and by Milton, consists of unrhymed iambic pentameters. Some languages prefer longer lines; some shorter ones. Some of these conventions result from the ease of fitting a specific languages vocabulary and grammar into cert

21、ain structures, rather than into others; for example, some languages contain more rhyming words than others, or typically have longer words. Other structural conventions come about as the result of historical accidents, where many speakers of a language associate good poetry with a verse form prefer

22、red by a particular skilled or popular poet.Works for theatre (see below) traditionally took verse form. This has now become rare outside opera and musicals, although many would argue that the language of drama remains intrinsically poetic.In recent years, digital poetry has arisen that takes advant

23、age of the artistic, publishing, and synthetic qualities of digital media.ProseProse consists of writing that does not adhere to any particular formal structures (other than simple grammar); non-poetic writing, perhaps. The term sometimes appears pejoratively, but prosaic writing simply says somethi

24、ng without necessarily trying to say it in a beautiful way, or using beautiful words. Prose writing can of course take beautiful form; but less by virtue of the formal features of words (rhymes, alliteration, metre) but rather by style, placement, or inclusion of graphics. But one need not mark the

25、distinction precisely, and perhaps cannot do so. One area of overlap is prose poetry, which attempts to convey using only prose, the aesthetic richness typical of poetry.EssaysAn essay consists of a discussion of a topic from an authors personal point of view, exemplified by works by Francis Bacon o

26、r by Charles Lamb.Essay in English derives from the French essai, meaning attempt. Thus one can find open-ended, provocative and/or inconclusive essays. The term essays first applied to the self-reflective musings of Michel de Montaigne, and even today he has a reputation as the father of this liter

27、ary form.Genres related to the essay may include: the memoir, telling the story of an authors life from the authors personal point of view the epistle: usually a formal, didactic, or elegant letter. FictionNarrative fiction (narrative prose) generally favours prose for the writing of novels, short s

28、tories, graphic novels, and the like. Singular examples of these exist throughout history, but they did not develop into systematic and discrete literary forms until relatively recent centuries. Length often serves to categorize works of prose fiction. Although limits remain somewhat arbitrary, mode

29、rn publishing conventions dictate the following: A Mini Saga is a short story of exactly 50 words A Flash fiction is generally defined as a piece of prose under a thousand words. A short story comprises prose writing of between 1000 and 20,000 words (but typically more than 5000 words), which may or

30、 may not have a narrative arc. A story containing between 20,000 and 50,000 words falls into the novella category. A work of fiction containing more than 50,000 words falls squarely into the realm of the novel. A novel consists simply of a long story written in prose, yet the form developed comparat

31、ively recently. Icelandic prose sagas dating from about the 11th century bridge the gap between traditional national verse epics and the modern psychological novel. In mainland Europe, the Spaniard Cervantes wrote perhaps the first influential novel: Don Quixote, the first part of which was publishe

32、d in 1605 and the second in 1615. Earlier collections of tales, such as the One Thousand and One Nights, Boccaccios Decameron and Chaucers The Canterbury Tales, have comparable forms and would classify as novels if written today. Other works written in classical Asian and Arabic literature resemble even more strongly the novel as we now think of it for example, works such as the Japanese Tale of Genji by Lady Murasaki, the Arabic Hayy ibn Yaqdhan by Ibn Tufail, the Arabic Theologus Autodida