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Introduction to Literature
Doc. PhDr. Stanislav Kolář
The course deals with literary theory with respect to British and American literature. The students are introduced to various literary terms whose knowledge will be useful for them in their courses of British and American literature. The purpose of the course is improvement of students' abilities of literary analysis.
The concept of literature. What is literature. Functions of literature. Analysis of literary work. Literary studies.
The basic elements of fiction. Plot. Character. Setting. Point of view. Theme.
Narrative genres.
Fiction: analysis of literary text.
The basic elements of poetry. What is poetry. Figurative language. Denotation and connotation.
Poetry: Symbol, Allegory, Allusion, Speaker, Tone.
Poetry: Repetition, Rhythm, Rhyme.
Poetry: Basic Stanza Forms
The basic elements of drama.
Drama: major genres.
Non-Fiction (Faction). Essayism.
Literary criticism - I.
Literary criticism - II. Literary canon.
Literature: G. H. Holman, W. Harmon: A Handbook to Literature. New York: 1986. Š. Franko: Theory of Anglophonic Literatures. Prešov: Slovacontact, 1994. J. Culler: Literary Theory. A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000. T. Eagleton: Literary Theory: An Introduction. Minneapolis : 1983. R. Wellek, A. Warren: Theory of Literature. London: Penguin, 1993.
Anthologies: e.g Alice S. Landy: The Heath Introduction to Literature. Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath, 1988.
Laurence Perrine: Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974. X. J. Kennedy: Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Boston: Little, Brown, 1983.
The concept of literature. What is literature. Functions of literature.
Analysis of literary work. Literary Studies.
Wendy Cope English Weather
January's grey and slushy, February's chill and drear, March is wild and wet and windy, April seldom brings much cheer. In May, a day or two of sunshine, Three or four in June, perhaps. July is usually filthy, August skies are open taps. In September things start dying, Then comes cold October mist. November we make plans to spend The best part of December pissed.
Britain has a temperate, humid climate. Its characteristic features are mild winters (Britain has warmer winters than any other country in the same latitude), not very hot summers, no extremes of temperature, abundant rain all the year round, frequent changes of the weather. The most important factor influencing Britain's climate is the prevalence of south-westerly winds. Blowing from the Atlantic, they are mild in winter, cool in summer, and always heavily charged with moisture. The mild climate is also partly due to the warm Gulf Stream flowing from the Gulf of Mexico to western Europe. But occasional easterly winds in winter may bring a cold, dry, continental type of climate. Karel Veselý: The English Speaking Countries
Analysis of a poem:
- Author and title; date of publication
- Speaker
- Occasion of the poem
- Setting
- Formal structure
- Image patterns
- Symbols
- Theme
- Other noteworthy elements
- Evaluation
Analysis of a play:
A
- The playwright's name, nationality, and dates
- The title of the play and the date of its first performance
- The central character, with a brief description that includes leading traits
- Other characters, also described
- The scene or scenes and, if the play does not take place in the present, the time of its
action
- The major dramatic question (some conflict whose outcome we wonder about, some
uncertainty to whose resolution we look forward)
- A brief summary of the play's principal events, in the order the playwright presents them
(in each act or scene)
- The tone of the play, playwright's apparent feelings toward the characters or what
happens to them
- The language spoken in the play (does language indicate a character's background or
place of birth?; brief quotations will be valuable)
- In a sentence, try to sum up the play's central them (but plays often contain more
themes than one)
- Any symbols you notice, and believe to matter. What do they suggest?
- A concise evaluation of the play; what do you think of it?
B
- Author and title; date of publication
- Name of central character and character's important traits
- Other important characters
- Setting, place and time
- Summary of plot
- Nature of conflict
- Style
- Central event(s)
- Theme
- Evaluation
The basic elements of fiction: Plot. Character. Setting. Point
of view. Theme.
Text: Ernest Hemingway – A Clean, Well-Lighted Place (short story)
http://ee.1asphost.com/shortstoryclassics/hemingwaycleanplace.html
The old man looked at him. "Another brandy," he said.
"You'll be drunk," the waiter said. The old man looked at him. The waiter went away.
"He'll stay all night," he said to his colleague. "I'm sleepy now. I never get into bed before three o'clock. He should have killed himself last week."
The waiter took the brandy bottle and another saucer from the counter inside the cafe and marched out to the old man's table. He put down the saucer and poured the glass full of brandy.
"You should have killed yourself last week," he said to the deaf man. The old man motioned with his finger. "A little more," he said. The waiter poured on into the glass so that the brandy slopped over and ran down the stem into the top saucer of the pile. "Thank you," the old man said. The waiter took the bottle back inside the cafe. He sat down at the table with his colleague again.
"He's drunk now," he said.
"He's drunk every night."
"What did he want to kill himself for?"
"How should I know."
"How did he do it?"
"He hung himself with a rope."
"Who cut him down?"
"His niece."
"Why did they do it?"
"Fear for his soul."
"How much money has he got?"
"He's got plenty."
"He must be eighty years old."
"Anyway I should say he was eighty."
"I wish he would go home. I never get to bed before three o'clock. What kind of hour is that to go to bed?"
"He stays up because he likes it."
"He's lonely. I'm not lonely. I have a wife waiting in bed for me."
"He had a wife once too."
"A wife would be no good to him now."
"You can't tell. He might be better with a wife."
"His niece looks after him. You said she cut him down."
"I know."
"I wouldn't want to be that old. An old man is a nasty thing."
"Not always. This old man is clean. He drinks without spilling. Even now, drunk. Look at him."
"I don't want to look at him. I wish he would go home. He has no regard for those who must work."
The old man looked from his glass across the square, then over at the waiters.
"Another brandy," he said, pointing to his glass. The waiter who was in a hurry came over.
"Finished," he said, speaking with that omission of syntax stupid people employ when talking to drunken people or foreigners. "No more tonight. Close now."
"Another," said the old man.
"No. Finished." The waiter wiped the edge of the table with a towel and shook his head.
The old man stood up, slowly counted the saucers, took a leather coin purse from his pocket and paid for the drinks, leaving half a peseta tip.
The waiter watched him go down the street, a very old man walking unsteadily but with dignity.
"Why didn't you let him stay and drink?" the unhurried waiter asked.
confidence although those things are very beautiful. Each night I am reluctant to close up because there may be some one who needs the cafe."
"Hombre, there are bodegas open all night long."
"You do not understand. This is a clean and pleasant cafe. It is well lighted. The light is very good and also, now, there are shadows of the leaves."
"Good night," said the younger waiter.
"Good night," the other said. Turning off the electric light he continued the conversation with himself. It is the light of course but it is necessary that the place be clean and pleasant. Certainly you do not want music. Nor can you stand before a bar with dignity although that is all that is provided for these hours. What did he fear? It was not a fear or dread. It was a nothing that he knew too well. It was all a nothing and a man was nothing too. It was only that and light was all it needed and a certain cleanness and order. Some lived in it and never felt it but he knew it all was nada y pues nada y nada y pues nada. Our nada who art in nada, nada be thy name thy kingdom nada thy will be nada in nada as it is in nada. Give us this nada our daily nada and nada us our nada as we nada our nadas and nada us not into nada but deliver us from nada; pues nada. Hail nothing full of nothing, nothing is with thee. He smiled and stood before a bar with a shining steam pressure coffee machine.
"What's yours?" asked the barman.
"Nada."
"Otro loco mas," said the barman and turned away.
"A little cup," said the waiter.
The barman poured it for him.
"The light is very bright and pleasant but the bar is unpolished," the waiter said.
The barman looked at him but did not answer. It was too late at night for conversation.
"You want another copita?" the barman asked.
"No, thank you," said the waiter and went out. He disliked bars and bodegas. A clean, well-lighted cafe was a very different thing. Now,
without thinking further, he would go home to his room. He would lie in the bed and finally, with daylight, he would go to sleep. After all, he said to himself, it's probably only insomnia. Many must have it.
Narrative genres
Texts: from L. Perrine’s anthology Literature, Structure, Sound, and Sense (p. 175-179)
Jerome Klapka Jerome – Three Men in a Boat (Chapter III – an extract)
http://www.authorama.com/three-men-in-a-boat-3.html
Three Men in a Boat By Jerome K. Jerome
Chapter III.
ARRANGEMENTS SETTLED. – HARRIS’S METHOD OF DOING WORK. –
HOW THE ELDERLY, FAMILY-MAN PUTS UP A PICTURE. – GEORGE
MAKES A SENSIBLE, REMARK. – DELIGHTS OF EARLY MORNING
BATHING. – PROVISIONS FOR GETTING UPSET.
SO, on the following evening, we again assembled, to discuss and arrange our plans. Harris said:
“Now, the first thing to settle is what to take with us. Now, you get a bit of paper and write down, J., and you get the grocery catalogue, George, and somebody give me a bit of pencil, and then I’ll make out a list.”
And, when half an hour had been spent in tying up his finger, and a new glass had been got, and the tools, and the ladder, and the chair, and the candle had been brought, he would have another go, the whole family, including the girl and the charwoman, standing round in a semi-circle, ready to help. Two people would have to hold the chair, and a third would help him up on it, and hold him there, and a fourth would hand him a nail, and a fifth would pass him up the hammer, and he would take hold of the nail, and drop it.
“There!” he would say, in an injured tone, “now the nail’s gone.”
And we would all have to go down on our knees and grovel for it, while he would stand on the chair, and grunt, and want to know if he was to be kept there all the evening.
The nail would be found at last, but by that time he would have lost the hammer.
“Where’s the hammer? What did I do with the hammer? Great heavens! Seven of you, gaping round there, and you don’t know what I did with the hammer!” 15
We would find the hammer for him, and then he would have lost sight of the mark he had made on the wall, where the nail was to go in, and each of us had to get up on the chair, beside him, and see if we could find it; and we would each discover it in a different place, and he would call us all fools, one after another, and tell us to get down. And he would take the rule, and re-measure, and find that he wanted half thirty-one and three-eighths inches from the corner, and would try to do it in his head, and go mad.
And we would all try to do it in our heads, and all arrive at different results, and sneer at one another. And in the general row, the original number would be forgotten, and Uncle Podger would have to measure it again.
He would use a bit of string this time, and at the critical moment, when the old fool was leaning over the chair at an angle of forty-five, and trying to reach a point three inches beyond what was possible for him to reach, the string would slip, and down he would slide on to the piano, a really fine musical effect being produced by the suddenness with which his head and body struck all the notes at the same time.
And Aunt Maria would say that she would not allow the children to stand round and hear such language.
At last, Uncle Podger would get the spot fixed again, and put the point of the nail on it with his left hand, and take the hammer in his right
hand. And, with the first blow, he would smash his thumb, and drop the hammer, with a yell, on somebody’s toes. 20
Aunt Maria would mildly observe that, next time Uncle Podger was going to hammer a nail into the wall, she hoped he’d let her know in time, so that she could make arrangements to go and spend a week with her mother while it was being done.
“Oh! you women, you make such a fuss over everything,” Uncle Podger would reply, picking himself up. “Why, I LIKE doing a little job of this sort.”
And then he would have another try, and, at the second blow, the nail would go clean through the plaster, and half the hammer after it, and Uncle Podger be precipitated against the wall with force nearly sufficient to flatten his nose.
Then we had to find the rule and the string again, and a new hole was made; and, about midnight, the picture would be up – very crooked and insecure, the wall for yards round looking as if it had been smoothed down with a rake, and everybody dead beat and wretched – except Uncle Podger.
“There you are,” he would say, stepping heavily off the chair on to the charwoman’s corns, and surveying the mess he had made with evident pride. "Why, some people would have had a man in to do a little thing like that!” 25
Harris will be just that sort of man when he grows up, I know, and I told him so. I said I could not permit him to take so much labour upon himself. I said:
“No; YOU get the paper, and the pencil, and the catalogue, and George write down, and I’ll do the work.”
Literary interpretation of prose. An analysis of short story.
Text: James Joyce – Araby (short story)
http://www.readprint.com/work-875/James-Joyce
point at which our ways diverged, I quickened my pace and passed her. This happened morning after morning. I had never spoken to her, except for a few casual words, and yet her name was like a summons to all my foolish blood. 4
Her image accompanied me even in places the most hostile to romance. On Saturday evenings when my aunt went marketing I had to go to carry some of the parcels. We walked through the flaring streets, jostled by drunken men and bargaining women, amid the curses of labourers, the shrill litanies of shop-boys who stood on guard by the barrels of pigs' cheeks, the nasal chanting of street-singers, who sang a come-all- you about O'Donovan Rossa, or a ballad about the troubles in our native land. These noises converged in a single sensation of life for me: I imagined that I bore my chalice safely through a throng of foes. Her name sprang to my lips at moments in strange prayers and praises which I myself did not understand. My eyes were often full of tears (I could not tell why) and at times a flood from my heart seemed to pour itself out into my bosom. I thought little of the future. I did not know whether I would ever speak to her or not or, if I spoke to her, how I could tell her of my confused adoration. But my body was like a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires. 5
One evening I went into the back drawing-room in which the priest had died. It was a dark rainy evening and there was no sound in the house. Through one of the broken panes I heard the rain impinge upon the earth, the fine incessant needles of water playing in the sodden beds. Some distant lamp or lighted window gleamed below me. I was thankful that I could see so little. All my senses seemed to desire to veil themselves and, feeling that I was about to slip from them, I pressed the palms of my hands together until they trembled, murmuring: "O love! O love!" many times. 6
At last she spoke to me. When she addressed the first words to me I was so confused that I did not know what to answer. She asked me was I going to Araby. I forgot whether I answered yes or no. It would be a splendid bazaar, she said she would love to go. 7
"And why can't you?" I asked. 8
While she spoke she turned a silver bracelet round and round her wrist. She could not go, she said, because there would be a retreat that week in her convent. Her brother and two other boys were fighting for their caps and I was alone at the railings. She held one of the spikes, bowing her head towards me. The light from the lamp opposite our door caught the white curve of her neck, lit up her hair that rested there and, falling, lit up the hand upon the railing. It fell over one side of her dress and caught the white border of a petticoat, just visible as she stood at ease. 9
"It's well for you," she said. 10
"If I go," I said, "I will bring you something." 11
What innumerable follies laid waste my waking and sleeping thoughts after that
evening! I wished to annihilate the tedious intervening days. I chafed against the work of school. At night in my bedroom and by day in the classroom her image came between me and the page I strove to read. The syllables of the word Araby were called to me through the silence in which my soul luxuriated and cast an Eastern enchantment over me. I asked for leave to go to the bazaar on Saturday night. My aunt was surprised and hoped it was not some Freemason affair. I answered few questions in class. I watched my master's face pass from amiability to sternness; he hoped I was not beginning to idle. I could not call my wandering thoughts together. I had hardly any patience with the serious work of life which, now that it stood between me and my desire, seemed to me child's play, ugly monotonous child's play.
12
On Saturday morning I reminded my uncle that I wished to go to the bazaar in the evening. He was fussing at the hallstand, looking for the hat-brush, and answered me curtly: 13
"Yes, boy, I know." 14
As he was in the hall I could not go into the front parlour and lie at the window. I left the house in bad humour and walked slowly towards the school. The air was pitilessly raw and already my heart misgave me. 15
When I came home to dinner my uncle had not yet been home. Still it was early. I sat staring at the clock for some time and. when its ticking began to irritate me, I left the room. I mounted the staircase and gained the upper part of the house. The high cold empty gloomy rooms liberated me and I went from room to room singing. From the front window I saw my companions playing below in the street. Their cries reached me weakened and indistinct and, leaning my forehead against the cool glass, I looked over at the dark house where she lived. I may have stood there for an hour, seeing nothing but the brown-clad figure cast by my imagination, touched discreetly by the lamplight at the curved neck, at the hand upon the railings and at the border below the dress. 16
When I came downstairs again I found Mrs. Mercer sitting at the fire. She was an old garrulous woman, a pawnbroker's widow, who collected used stamps for some pious purpose. I had to endure the gossip of the tea-table. The meal was prolonged beyond an hour and still my uncle did not come. Mrs. Mercer stood up to go: she was sorry she couldn't wait any longer, but it was after eight o'clock and she did not like to be out late as the night air was bad for her. When she had gone I began to walk up and down the room, clenching my fists. My aunt said: 17
"I'm afraid you may put off your bazaar for this night of Our Lord." 18
At nine o'clock I heard my uncle's latchkey in the halldoor. I heard him talking to himself and heard the hallstand rocking when it had received the weight of his overcoat. I could interpret these signs. When he was midway through his dinner I asked him to give me the money to go to the bazaar. He had forgotten. 19
"Yes. I heard her." 31
"O, there's a ... fib!" 32
Observing me the young lady came over and asked me did I wish to buy anything. The tone of her voice was not encouraging; she seemed to have spoken to me out of a sense of duty. I looked humbly at the great jars that stood like eastern guards at either side of the dark entrance to the stall and murmured: 33
"No, thank you." 34
The young lady changed the position of one of the vases and went back to the two young men. They began to talk of the same subject. Once or twice the young lady glanced at me over her shoulder. 35
I lingered before her stall, though I knew my stay was useless, to make my interest in her wares seem the more real. Then I turned away slowly and walked down the middle of the bazaar. I allowed the two pennies to fall against the sixpence in my pocket. I heard a voice call from one end of the gallery that the light was out. The upper part of the hall was now completely dark. 36
Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger. 37
The basic elements of poetry. What is poetry. Figurative
language. Denotation and connotation.
Archibald MacLeish (1892 - 1982)
Ars Poetica
A poem should be palpable and mute As a globed fruit,
Dumb As old medallions to the thumb,
Silent as the sleeve-worn stone Of casement ledges where the moss has grown-
A poem should be wordless As the flight of birds.
A poem should be motionless in time As the moon climbs,
Leaving, as the moon releases Twig by twig the night-entangled trees,
Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves, Memory by memory the mind-
A poem should be motionless in time As the moon climbs.
A poem should be equal to: Not true.
For all the history of grief An empty doorway and a maple leaf.
For love The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea-
A poem should not mean But be.
