Lesson 1

INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE

Literature is defined as:

‘Written works, e.g. fiction, poetry, drama, and criticism that are recognized as having
important or permanent artistic value are referred to as literature.’
Or
‘The body of written works of a culture, language, people, or period of time is called
literature.’

Literature perhaps started with man discovering his ability to create. When this happened, he
realized that he could not only express his emotions in writing but in the process convey
messages of importance to society carefully hidden in beautiful words. He decided that he
could play with words to entertain people who would read them. In the olden days, distance
was of course a problem and so maintaining a history of world literature was impossible. The
flip side is that we have a wide range of literature to read from. People in different parts of
the world, using different languages and writing in different periods of time tackled literature
differently. This has left us with books and creations that enrich our society, our heritage as a
race and us. Even the most voracious reader can never hope to read all the books out there.

Literature and writing, though obviously connected, are not synonymous. Every piece of
writing is not literature. The definition of literature is mainly personal and scholars have a
disagreement regarding when written record-keeping became more like "literature".
Another important fact to consider is that the historical development of literature was not
even-paced across the globe. The main hurdle in creating a uniform world history of literature
is the disappearance of many texts over the millennia, either intentionally, by accident, or by
the total vanishing of the originating culture. The earliest forms of English literature, like the
earliest forms of other national literatures, have perished.

Literature includes both written and spoken material. On a broader level, ‘Literature’ includes
anything from creative writing to more technical or scientific works, but most commonly the
term refers to works of the creative imagination, i.e. poetry, drama, prose and novel.

Literature is almost similar to art, what is true in painting is true in literature. ‘A novel is not
an imitation or an exact copy of life as we live it; it is rather a selection of characters and
events drawn from reading, observation, and experience, and woven into an entirely new
story.’ (p.20, How to Study English Literature by T. Sharper Knowlson)

Ezra Pound says, "Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost
possible degree."
The above statement from Pound tells us that great literature leaves us with some meaning.
Meaning to what? To life. Thus literature gives answers to our questions about life. It tells us
that in the journey of life, only we are not the fighters. There are millions out there striving
like us to carry on with the flow of life; feeling different shades of life; enjoying life in its
fullest and suffering the deepest of miseries. Literature helps us identify with others in the
globe, strengthens and unites us with the rest of mankind. Reading Literature books gives us
maturity and may solve the unsolved mysteries of life.
Literature helps us create an interest in life as we see it. It helps us experience life in all its
colors and vastness. In our journey of exploring different literary texts, we meet different
interesting characters that teach us many things; alleviate our sorrows; elevate our spirit at
different levels. Humanity in all its shades is encompassed in literature: sorrows, happiness,
wars, birth, death etc. Literature enriches personal experiences and adds wisdom to even
ordinary events. Literary texts can even revolutionize our life by helping us grow through our
literary journey and enabling us to see everyday events in a new light.

Literature portrays a culture more elaborately than historical or cultural artifacts do because it
deals directly with language and people. The author’s message is interpreted differently by
different people. The decoding of the text varies according to use of different literary theories
using a mythological, sociological, psychological, historical, or any other approach.
Whatever critical standard we use for critical analysis of the literary texts, an artistic quality
to the works always remains. Literature is never confined to a single culture or country. It
speaks to us regardless of our race, culture or country.
English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literary works in
English by writers not just from England but also from other countries. The famous writer
Joseph Conrad was born in Poland, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Dylan
Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, V.S. Naipaul was born in Trinidad, and
Vladimir Nabokov was Russian. English literature is as diverse as the varieties and dialects of
English spoken around the world. Despite the variety of authors of English literature, the
works of William Shakespeare remain paramount in all literary circles.

Literature has two major aspects, one is of simple enjoyment and aesthetic appeal to the
senses, and other is of analysis and exact description of the prevailing condition of society in
general and man in particular. So, studying literature with these two aspects provides us an
opportunity to experience entirely new worlds. Like when a song appeals to the ear or a noble
book to the heart, we discover a new world for the moment, at least, a completely new world
which is very different from our own world and it seems that we are in a place of dreams and
magic.

Every time we read literature, we gain something from it that we did not have before. Even
reading the same text at different stages in our life offers us meanings we missed the first
time. Literature is a true and beautiful expression of life; it is the written record of a person’s
thoughts, emotions, feelings and experiences which would never fade.

Some of the major genres of English Literature are as under:

1. Poetry
2. Drama
3. Novel
4. Prose

Poetry
The term poetry is hard to define but we can say that poetry is an imaginative awareness of
experience, expressed through meaning, sound, and rhythmic language and evokes an
emotional response. Poetry mostly employs meter and rhyme, but this is not necessary.
Poetry is an old form and has gone through numerous and drastic reinvention over time.
Poetry includes whatsoever of painting can be made visible to the mind’s eye, and
whatsoever of music can be conveyed by sound and proportion without singing or
instrumentation.

Prose
Prose is distinguished from poetry because of its complete lack of any metrical structure and
variety of rhythm and has a closer correspondence to the patterns of everyday speech.

Drama
Drama is a prose or verse composition, especially one that tells a serious story, intended for
representation by actors who mimic the characters and perform the dialogues and actions of
the written narrative.
A drama is the imitation of a complete action, adapted to the sympathetic attention of man,
developed in a succession of continuously interesting and continuously related incidents,
acted and expressed by means of speech and the symbols, actualities, and conditions of life.

Novel
A novel is a fictional prose narrative of significant length, typically having a plot that is
unfolded by the actions, speech, and thoughts of the characters.

Why do we study Literature?

1. Literature always reflects human ideas, beliefs, and societies.

2. Literature helps us to discover ordinary human ways of understanding life.
3. While reading literature, we explore significant differences and this allows us to even
experience perspectives of those separated from us by time and social barriers.
4. Getting to know the human psyche would help us discover pride in our own culture,
gain respect for others, and be humble.
5. We find different human responses and reactions in poems, essays, diaries, narratives,
and in the characters of narratives. Exposure to such varied responses helps us gain a
greater knowledge of the human psyche and at the same time, we are familiarized
with a greater knowledge of ourselves and our own responses because we surely
compare our lives to those in literature.
6. We learn about the good and evil forces; experience the injustices prevalent in this
world and it cultivates a sense of wisdom in us. Good literature assists us in becoming
a better person.
7. Literature provides us with a worldview of things and gives us a mature perspective of
things.
8. Literature serves as an entertainment .It also introduces us to the literary figures,
movements and multi-dimensional characters.

Role of Language in Literature:

In the creation of a work of art, three main things count:

1. The writer
2. The reader
3. Language

It is impossible to pass over the subject of literature in silence. Literature cannot be

segregated from language. Language is the only widely-accepted form of communication and
all feelings, emotions and opinions in a piece of literature are transferred through it. The
knowledge sharing in literature is done through various linguistic features. Texts have been
written and frequently translated into common international languages, to be passed on to the
international communities and to future generations.

In order to affect their readers, the authors play with language to create unusual new
meanings and utterances. Both classic and contemporary poets, playwrights and novelists, use
language play to cast a spell on readers’ imagination. While writing a piece of literature, a
huge emphasis is paid on imagery and it breaks the monotony of a text. Creating imagery also
spares writers the trouble of writing long boring descriptions.
A separate branch of linguistics – stylistics - deals with the relationship of language and
literature. The methodology of this type of study is determined by the subject’s distinct
nature. Literary language is language in the usual sense of the term, and style determines the
artistic functions of language in literature.

The stylistics of literature explains the methods of using language in literature and of
combining aesthetic and communicative functions in language. Stylistics of literature
explains the means by which language becomes a work of art within literature. Researchers in
the field of literary stylistics analyze various types of authorial narration; discuss various
linguistic devices used in famous speeches of different literary characters; distinguish literary
language from the ordinary one.

English Literature:
The mere acquisition of knowledge of literature is not what we mean by the study of
literature. Pure literature addresses the soul as well as the mind. If we wish to partake of its
benefits, we must pursue it according to a definite plan, i.e. by studying different ages
systematically.

English Literature was produced in England from the introduction of Old English by the
Anglo-Saxons in the 5th century to the present. This is the first period in the history of
English literature. The works of those Irish and Scottish authors who are closely identified
with English life and letters are also considered part of English literature.
This period extends from about 450 to 1066, the year of the Norman-French conquest of
England. The Germanic tribes from Europe who overran England in the 5th century, after the
Roman withdrawal, brought with them the Old English, or Anglo-Saxon language, which is
the basis of Modern English.

Anglo-Norman period extends from 1066-1350. The Normans were the first to bring the
culture and the practical ideals of Roman civilization to home of the English people; and this
at a critical time, when England had produced her best, and her own literature and civilization
had already begun to decay. They brought to England the wealth of a new language and
literature, and English gradually absorbed both. Besides these greater works, an enormous
number of fables satires appeared in this age, copied or translated from the French, like the
metrical romances.
The age of Chaucer extends from 1350-1400. The age was one of unusual stir and progress.
The five main writers of this age are: Langland, Wyclif, Gower, Mandeville and above all
Chaucer.

The fourth period is the revival of learning extending from 1400-1500, and it denotes, in its
broadest sense, the gradual enlightenment of the human mind after the darkness of the Middle
Ages. The names ‘Renaissance’ and ‘Humanism’ are often applied to the same movement.
The term Renaissance is used to denote the whole transition from the Middle ages to the
modern world, and is more correctly applied to the revival of art resulting from the discovery
and imitation of classic models in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

The Elizabethan Age ranging from 1550-1620. The main characteristic of the age was the
comparative religious tolerance. The age of Elizabeth was a time of intellectual liberty, of
growing intelligence and comfort among all classes, of unbounded patriotism, and of peace at
home and abroad.

Edmund Spencer, Thomas Sackville, Philip Sidney, George Chapman, Michael Drayton,
Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher and
Thomas Dekker are the minor and major writers of Elizabethan age.

William Shakespeare (baptized 26 April 1564; died 23 April 1616) was an English poet and
playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's
pre-eminent dramatist. His works consist of about 38 plays, sonnets, two long narrative
poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living
language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.
The Puritan Age extends from 1620-1660. The Puritan movement may be regarded as a
second and greater Renaissance, a rebirth of the moral nature of man following the
intellectual awakening of Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Samuel Daniel, John
Donne, Herbert, Waller, Denham, Cowley, Vaughan, Davenant, Marvell and Crawshaw are
writers of this age.

The Restoration Period ranges from 1660-1700.Next comes Eighteenth Century literature
which extends from 1600-1780. The major writers of this age are Pope, Swift and Daniel
Defoe.

The age of Romanticism extends roughly from 1780-1850. The most famous poets of this age
are William Wordsworth, S.T.Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, Byron.
After Romanticism comes the Victorian age Victorian literature, produced during the reign of
Queen Victoria (1837-1901). This age forms a link and transition between the writers of the
romantic period and the next different literature of the 20th century.

The 19th century saw the novel become the leading form of literature in English. The works
by pre-Victorian writers such as Jane Austen and Walter Scott showed social satire and
adventure stories. These popular works increased the trend of novel reading amongst the
public.
Significant Victorian novelists and poets include: Matthew Arnold, the Bronte sisters (Emily,
Anne and Charlotte Bronte), Robert Browning, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Joseph Conrad,
Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling, Robert Louis Stevenson,
Bram Stoker, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Philip Meadows Taylor, Alfred Lord Tennyson,
William Thackeray, Anthony Trollope, George MacDonald, and Oscar Wilde.

Lastly comes the Modern Age and Post-Modernism. Modernism as a literary movement
reached its height in Europe between 1900 and the middle 1920s.The term postmodern
literature is used to describe certain characteristics of post-World War II literature.
Activities:

1. Define literature.
2. Come up with your own definition of literature.
3. How far do you agree that literature helps in your real life?
4. Can literature exist without language?
5. Give any five reasons for studying literature.
6. What is the role of literature in a society?
7. Is literature universal or is it affected by social norms?
8. Can literature help us in solving real-life problems?
9. Consult dictionary of literary terms and find out meanings and details of these terms.
Poetry, Drama, Novel, Prose, Short Story, Epic, Sacred Scriptures, Narrative,
Linguistic, Monologue, Tone, Rhyme, Imagery, Metaphor, Symbols,

10. Choose the correct option from the following:

Literature is almost similar to _____.

1. Experience
2. Art
3. Events
4. Imitation

Charles Dickens is the writer of ________.

1. Restoration Age
2. Romanticism
3. Victorian Age
4. None of the above

________ is a branch of linguistics that deals with the relationship of language and literature.

1. Stylistics
2. Syntax
3. Phonetics
4. Morphology

Anglo-Saxon age extends from ______ to _____.

1. 550, 1050
2. 450, 1050
3. 550, 1066
4. 450, 1066

"Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree", is a
saying of:

1. Shakespeare
2. Chaucer
3. Ezra Pound
4. Wordsworth
The most characteristic feature of the Elizabethan age was

1. comparative religious tolerance

2. intellectual liberty
3. growing intelligence
4. unbounded patriotism