Chapter 7: Literature

What did Ezra Pound once say? What must writers do to make their work of art work?

"Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree." -First, writers need to attend to the basic elements of literature because, like architecture, a work of literature, in one sense, a construction of separable elements. The details of a scene, a character or event, or a group of symbols can be conceived of as the bricks in the wall of a literary structure. If one of these details is imperfectly perceived, our understanding of the function of that detail - and, in turn, of the total structure- will be incomplete

Denotation

-A literal level where words mean what they obviously say -When we are being denotative, we say the rose is sick and mean nothing more than that.

Connotation

-A subtler level where words mean more than they obviously say. -If we are using language connotatively, we might mean any of several things by the statement "the rose is sick." When the poet William Blake says the rose is sick, he is describing a symbolic rose, something very different from a literal rose. Blake may mean that the rose Is morally sick, spiritually defective, and that in some ways we are like the rose.

Image (pg. 205) EX: Joseph Conrad's "youth" prose EX: Poem by T.S. Eliot "Preludes"

-Amy Lowell was on of the Imagist School of poets. Imagists relied less on the kind of discourse (speak or write authoritatively about a topic) that John Masefield employed and more on the effort to paint a picture. (pg 187) -Image demands visualization on the part of the reader. -An image in language asks us to imagine or "picture" what is referred to or being described. -An image appeals essentially to our sense of sight, but sound, taste, odor, and touch are sometimes involved. -Because of its tendency toward the brief, poetry usually contains stronger images than prose, and poetry usually appeals more to our senses. -In the early years of the twentieth century the imagist school of poetry developed, with the intention of writing poems that avoided argument and tried to say everything only in images (EX FROM EZRA POUND'S POEM IS ONE OF THE BEST EXAMPLES OF THAT APPROACH) (pg.206)

Diction (pg. 211)

-Diction refers to the choice of words. Words chosen especially carefully for their impact.

The Iliad and the Odyssey

-Homer's great epics -They may date from 800 BCE or earlier. -They were memorized by poets, who sang the epics to the plucking of a harplike instrument while entertaining royalty at feasts.

Irony (pg.210)

-Implies contradiction of some kind. It may be a contradiction of expectation or a contradiction of intention. -Much sarcasm is ironic. -Irony can be one of the most powerful of devices.

Details in Literature

-It is helpful to think of literature as works composed of elements that can be discussed individually in order to gain a more thorough perception of them. -It is equally important to realize that the discussion of these individual elements leads to a fuller understanding of the whole structure. Details are organized into parts, and these, in turn, are organized into structure

Metaphor (pg. 206) The Chinese poet wang -ling, a major T'ang dynasty poet, shows the power of the metaphor in a poetic tradition very different from that of the west in "So-fei Gathering Flowers". (pg. 207) PERCEPTUAL METAPHOR: -metaphor that tends to evoke an image and involves us mainly on a perceptual level- because we perceive in our imaginations something of what we would perceive were we there. For example, to see So-fei as sister to the flowers in her garden we need the description of the blossoms. CENCEPTUAL METAPHOR: -Metaphor that tends to evoke ideas, gives us information that is mainly conceptual. For example, as the flower blooms for only a short time, are we to think that the poet is fearful that So-fei's beauty may fade quickly?

-Metaphor helps writers intensify language. -Metaphor is a comparison designed to heighten our perception of the things compared. -The standard definition of the metaphor is that it is a comparison made without any explicit words to tell us a comparison is being made. -The Simile is the kind of comparison that has explicit words: "like," "as," "than," "as if," and a few others. We have no trouble recognizing the simile -Poetry in general tends to have a higher metaphoric density than other forms of writing, partly because poetry is somewhat distilled and condensed to begin with.

Lyric (Part of the 5 Literary Structures) T.S. Eliot speaks of an objective correlative EXAMPLE IS USED IN TEXTBOOK: John Keats (1795-1821), an English poet of the Romantic period, died of tuberculosis. The following sonnet is grounded in his awareness of early death. Keats interprets a terrible personal feeling. he realizes he may die before he can write his best poems. (pg 199-200) ANOTHER EXAMPLE IS BY JOHN DONNE'S "DEATH BE NOT PROUD" a seventeenth-century poem by one of England's greatest churchmen. By personifying death, Donne is able to comment on its power and the company it keeps. This is an example of a wire poem- wit being the imaginative power that find the comparisons here: of death and sleep, death as a slave to fate, death as yielding to resurrection."

-Most lyric poetry was intended to be spoken aloud, and few poems invite recitation more than John Masefield's 1902 poem, "Cargoes:" Masefield, the poet laureate of Great Britain much of his life, has many opportunities to hear English schoolchildren recite his poem for him. -The lyric is usually a poem. It primarily reveals a limited but deep feeling about something or event. -The lyric is often associated with the feelings of the poet, although it is not uncommon for poets to create narrators distinct from themselves and do explore hypothetical feelings, as in Tennyson's "Ulysses." -If we participate, we find ourselves caught up in the emotional situation of the lyric. -It seems clear that the lyric has feeling- emotion, passion, or mood- as basic in its subject matter. -The word "lyric" implies a personal statement by an involved writer who feels deeply. -In a limited sense, lyrics are poems to be sung to music. Most lyrics before the seventeenth century were set to music- in fact, most medieval and Renaissance lyrics were written to be sung with musical accompaniment. And the writers who composed the words were usually the composers of music- at least until the seventeenth century, when specialization began to separate those functions. -Numerous lyric poems have inspired paintings and pieces of music (pg. 200)

Ulysses

-Poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (Narrative poem) -The narrator is Ulysses, the hero of Homer's Odyssey -For Ulysses the question is whether he can find a way to make life worth living. Do you admire Ulysses for demanding that he go off again on an adventure. or do you think he should stay at home with his wife, who waited 20 years for him? (pg. 190)

Literary Details (pg. 204-205)

-So far we have been analyzing literature with reference to structure, the overall order. But within every structure are details that need close examination in order to properly perceive the structure. -Literature uses language to reveal meanings that are usually absent from daily speech. -Our examination of detail will include: image, metaphor, symbol, irony, and diction. They are central to literature of ALL GENRES.

Narrator (Part of the 5 Literary Structures)

-Sometimes the narrator is a character in the fictional sometimes the narrator pretends an awareness of an audience other than reader. However, the author controls the narrator; and the narrator controls the reader.

Literature

-The basic medium of literature is spoken language -Eons (long period of time) before anyone thought to write it down, literature was spoken and sung aloud -The tradition of memorizing and reciting such immense works survived into the twentieth century -Literature- like music, dance, film, and drama- is a serial art (systematic process). In order to perceive it, we must be aware of what is happening now, remember what happened before, and anticipate what is to come. This is not so obvious with a short lyric poem because we are in the presence of something that is in similar character to a painting: it seems to be all there in front of us all at once. But one word follows another: one sentence, one line, or one stanza after another. There is no way to perceive the all-at-onceness of a literary work as we sometimes perceive a painting, although short lyrics come close.

Theme

-The main idea -The theme of a literary work usually involves a structural decision, comparable to an architectural decision about the kind of space being enclosed.

Narrative (Part of the 5 Literary Structures)

-The narrative is a story told to an audience by a teller controlling the order of events and the emphasis those events receive -Most narratives concentrate upon the events. But some narratives have little action: They reveal depth of a character through responses to action.

Symbol (pg. 208) WILLIAM BLAKE: THE SICK ROSE

-The symbol is a further use of metaphor. Being a metaphor, it is a comparison between two things, but unlike most perceptual and conceptual metaphors, only one of the things compared is clearly stated. The symbol is clearly states but what it is compared with (sometimes a very broad range of meanings) is only hinted at. -Perhaps the most important thing to remember about the symbol is that it implies rather than explicitly states meaning. -We sense that we are dealing with a symbol in those linguistic situations in which we believe there is more being said than meets the eye. Most writers are quite open about their symbols.

Episodic Narrative (Part of the 5 Literary Structures) (pg. 190)

-all or most of the parts are loosely interrelated -An episodic narrative describes one of the oldest kinds of literature, embodied by epics such as Homer's Odyssey. We are aware of the overall structure of the story centering on the adventures of Odysseus, but each adventure is almost a complete entity in itself. We develop a clear sense of the character of Odysseus as we follow him in his adventures, but this does not always happen in episodic literature. The adventures sometimes are not only completely disconnect from one another, but the threat is intended to connect everything- the personality of the protagonist (the main character)- also may not be strong enough to keep things together. Sometimes the character may even seem to be a different person from one episode to the next. This is often the case in oral literature, compositions by people who told or sang traditional stories rather than by people who wrote their narratives. In oral literature, the tellers or singers may have gathered adventures from many sources and joined them in one long narrative. The likelihood of disconnectedness in such a situation is quite high. But disconnectedness is sometimes desirable. It may offer compression, speed of pacing, and variety of action that sustains attention. -The most famous episodic narratives are novels: 1.) Fielding's "Tom Jones" 2.) Defoe's "Moll Flanders" 3.) Saul Bellow's "The Adventures of Augie March" THE EXAMPLE IN THE BOOK IS AN excerpt (a short part of the text) is an episode from Miguel de Cervante's " Don Quixote" He called this episode the seventh in the first book of "The Igenious Gentleman Don Quixote de La Mancha", "The Terrifying Adventure of the Windmill." (pg. 191-192). The episodic narrative works best when the character of the protagonist is clearly portrayed and consistent throughout. Don Quixote is such a character, so clearly portrayed he has become a part of folklore.

"Cargoes"

-is structured into three stanzas representing three historical eras. 1.) Nineveh , a city in ancient Assyria older than the Bible, incredible wealth and beauty period 2.) The Spanish Galleon, sixteenth century, when gold was brought from the new world to the kings and queens of Spain. 3.) The modern age is represented by a "Dirty British coaster" sailing ins with a cargo of "pig lead" and "cheap tin trays." -Masefield appears to be looking backward to periods of past flory against which the modern age looks tawdry

Organic Narrative (Part of the 5 Literary Structures) (pg 192)

-the parts are tightly interrelated. -The term organic implies a close relationship of all the details in a narrative. Unlike episodic narratives, the organic narrative unifies both events of the narrative and the nature of the character or characters in it. -Everything related to the center of the narrative in a meaningful way so there is a consistency to the story that is not broken into separable. -An organic narrative can be a narrative poem or a prose narrative (a definite story through actions) of any length, so long as the material in the narrative coheres and produces a sense of unity. EXAMPLE IN BOOK: a short story by Maxim Gorky called "Her Lover" is the first-person (Writing in first person means writing from the author's point of view or perspective) narration, in which the narrative is limited to what the unnamed narrator has been told by a friend, who, essentially, is also an unnamed narrator. The student tells us the story he heard about teresa, an unfortunate woman living alone and friendless In the same kind of simplicity as the narrator. In the course of the story the narrator reveals that his sense of class superiority is slowly challenged when he understands the complete dimension of the circumstances of Teresa's life and her need for love. As you Read, consider how the characters relate to one another and how Gorky uses the details of the narrative to build sympathy for Teresa's situation.

What are the main details of literary language that will be examine and are all found in poetry, fiction, drama, and even the essay?

1.) Image 2.) Metaphor 3.) Symbol 4.) Irony 5.) Diction (word choices)

Literature and Architecture relation.

Decisions about the sound of the language, the characters, the events, the setting are comparable to the decisions regarding the materials, size, shape, and landscape of architecture

"La belle Dame Sans Merci"

EXPERIENCING pg. 203

Objective Correlative (Under the lyric section pg. 199) T.S. Eliot

If we participate in the lyric, we find ourselves caught up in the emotional situation of the lyric. It is usually revealed to us through a recounting of the circumstances the poet reflects on. -T.S. Eliot speaks of an OBJECTIVE CORRELATIVE: an object that correlates with the poet's feeling and helps express that feeling. Eliot has said that poets must find the image, situation, object, event, or person that "shall be the formula for that particular emotion" so that readers can comprehend it.

Quest Narrative (Part of the 5 Literary Structures) (pg. 197) MOBY DICK by Herman Melville INVISIBLE MAN by Ralph Ellison (Ellison is showing us that invisibility is in all of us) Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, is one of the most important examples in American Literature (episodic quest narrative) (pg.198) (Huck is an adolescent, and so his quest is for knowledge of who he is and can be.)

The quest narrative is simple enough on the surface: A protagonist sets out in search of something valuable that must be found at all cost. Such, in simple terms, is the plot of almost every adventure yarn and adventure film ever written. However, the quest narrative has more virtues than this. -The quest narrative is central to American culture.

Protagonist

main character in a literary work (this definition was provided under the episodic narrative section)

Emily Dickinson "I Taste a Liquor Never Brewed" pg. 203-204

pg 203-204

Summary pg.215-216

pg. 215-216