The 3rd part on the basics of English literature consists of some important terms. When we study literature, we come across different types of technical terms which are relevant to our studies. These terms are mandatory for deeper understanding of texts and references by your teachers.
Drama → A literary form intended to be performed on stage using physical movements and dialogues. It consists of three parts – exposition, climax and denouement.
Comedy → Comedy is one kind of light or amusing plays with a happy ending. Its aim is to correct the follies and frivolities of the individuals of a particular society through laughter and ridicule.
Comedy of Manners → Comedy of manners is a one kind of drama that flourished in the restoration period. It makes fun of individual human beings as well as social groups and their fashionable manners. It is more or less satirical and represents affection, artificial love, immorality, faithlessness, jealousy, intrigue etc. of the so-called aristocratic society. Example – The Way of the World by William Congreve.
Comedy of Humors → A comedy in which characters behave according to their respective humors – the 5 fluids of human body. Example – Every man in his humor.
Romantic Comedy → A form of comedy which deals with love, often love at first sight as its main theme. It starts with some problems that make the union of the lovers difficult but ends with their happy union. Example – William Shakespeare’s As You Like It.
Melodrama → A kind of drama that provides sensational entertainment. It impersonates excessive virtue of exceptional evil and presents horror and bloodshed, thrill, and violence, witches and vampires on stage,
Tragedy → Tragedy is a serious play with an unhappy ending and emotional appeal. In a tragedy, the hero or the heroine of the both suffer tremendously for their hamartia (tragic flaw) and ultimately die.
Heroic Tragedy → A kind of drama written in grand and lofty style to show a disastrous end of a conflict between love and honor of love and duty. Example – Dryden’s All for Love.
Senecan Tragedy → A form of tragedy that consists the use of chorus sensational themes, ghost like characters, use of hyperbole, much use of philosophic soliloquies. Example – Spanish Tragedy.
Revenge tragedy → A kind of tragedy which is based on revenge motives. The presences of ghosts, adultery, suicide, insanity, horrible incident like murder etc are the main themes of revenge tragedy. Example – Hamlet.
Poetry → Poetry is a metrical composition that conveys certain meaning or meanings. Poetry is also called verse. William Wordsworth says, “Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling, recollected in tranquility.” Mathew Arnold defines, “Poetry is a criticism of life. The middle age Poetry was used to mean literature.”
Epic → Epic is a long narrative poem that tells in grand style the history and aspiration of a national hero. The term epic comes from the Greek word ‘epos’, which means narrative poetry, celebrating heroic incidents or achievement. There are two divisions of epic poetry — Primary and Secondary.
Ballad → Ballad is a long narrative poem that tells a grave story through action and dialogue. S. T. Coleridge’s The Rime of The Ancient Mariner is a famous literary ballad.
Lyric → Lyric is a kind of short poem, expressing subjective or personal thought and feelings of a single speaker. The word ‘lyric’ comes from the Greek word ‘lyre’. Lyre is a musical instrument used in ancient Greek.
Sonnet → A sonnet is a poem of fourteen iambic pentameter lines. There are three types of sonnet — Petrarchan, Shakespearean, Spenserian. Milton and Wordsworth have followed Petrarchan form in their sonnets.
Elegy: A lyric poem mourning for the death of an individual or lamenting over a tragic event. The famous English elegies are Milton’s Lycidas, Shelley’s Adonais, Tennyson’s In Memoriam, Arnold’s Thyrsis and Thomas Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.
ODE → An Ode is a an exalted lyric that begins with an address to some one expressing grief or agony but ends with consolation. It deals with a serious theme. For example — Shelley’s Ode to the West Wind.
The characteristics of an Ode are —
1. Exalted theme
2. High seriousness
3. Rhyme and rhythm
4. Philosophical thoughts (philosophy of life, love and nature)
5. Glorification
6. Musical appearance
7. Selected diction
8. Conveying
Dramatic Monologue → Dramatic monologue is a kind of lyric poem in which a speaker expresses his thoughts and feelings to a silent listener. Robert Browning was famous for his dramatic monologues such as ‘My Last Duchess’, ‘The Last Ride Together’.
Mock Epic → A narrative poem which aims at mockery and laughter by using almost all the characteristic features of an epic but for trivial subjects. Pope’s ‘The Rape of the Lock’ is a famous mock epic.
Metaphysical Poetry → The word metaphysical can be interpreted as beyond (Meta), physical (nature). It is a type of poetry which deals with abstract philosophical subjects. The characteristics of metaphysical poetry imply of complexity, intellectual tones, argumentative tone, conceit, dramatic tone, and philosophy or reflected elements.
Novel → Novel is a long narrative fiction where we see a complete picture a particular society. Narrative means the chronological order of events.
Simile → Simile is a figure of speech which indicates explicit or direct comparison between two unlike things. For example, ‘Your face is like the full moon’.
Metaphor → Metaphor is a figure of speech that indicates implicit or indirect comparison between two unlike things. For example, ‘Saiful is a tiger’.
Personification → Personification is a figure of speech in which lifeless objects are given life. For example, ‘Joy whose hands is ever at his lips’ (John Keats).
Hamartia → Hamartia is an error or a flaw for which the hero of a tragedy falls from the zenith of his success to the nadir of misery. It is also called tragic flaw. For example, Dr. Faustus, King Lear.
Oxymoron → Oxymoron is a figure of speech in which two contradictory words are put together. For example, ‘I fear and hope, I burn and freeze in ice’.
Essay → A short composition in prose which analyses a subject often to make a view point for general people. It defers from a short story. For example, ‘The Future of Mankind’.
Poetic Justice → The natural judgment which gives the wicked his due punishment and the virtuous his due reward.
Irony → A statement of a situation or action which actually means the opposite of its surface meaning. It is a contrast between saying and action, between what one says and what one believes. An often quoted example of irony is ‘Brutus is an honorable ma’ from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.
Romance → A form of medieval narrative in which a brave and chivalric Knight moves from to place to place in search of extravagant adventures and finally wins the favor of a country lady. It may be in verse or in prose. Sir Thomas Mallory’s Le Morte d’Arthur is a famous romance in prose.
Allegory → A literary form in which one story is told in the guise of another story. In other words an allegory is a story of double meaning. Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress is a well known allegory in prose which deals with Christian notion of a soul’s salvation.
Paradox → Paradox is a figure of speech that seems false apparently but actually indicates the truth. For instance, ‘Nine soldiers out of ten are cowards’ (G. B. Shaw).
Conceit → Conceits are similes or similarity between the two dissimilar things or objects drawn from the two different sources. Metaphysical poets, mainly Donne, were fond of using conceits. For example, Donne, in ‘Canonization of Love’, compares the souls of the poets and his beloved’s with the legs of compass.
Blank Verse → Poetry consisting of iambic pentameter lines without rhyme at the end. An iambic pentameter line is a verse line of five iambic feet.
Literature → Literature is nothing but the reflection of human characters. It is the criticism and interpretation of life through verbosity and ornamental languages which evokes deep feelings. Literature mirrors the true or realistic picture of the society and is particularly pleasure.
Pantheism → Pantheism is a new philosophy or ideology developed in the Romantic Era by William Wordsworth. It indicates the existence of God in every part of nature. Pantheism is an intuitive, transcendental belief in the unity of God. Actually we can say, God is all and all is God.
Romanticism → The term ‘romanticism’ is the new philosophy developed in the later part of 18th century and continued till 1st half of the 19th century. Deep feeling and imagination, escapism, subjectivity, worship of nature are the striking aspects of Romanticism.
Classicism → Classicism is a doctrine of art and literature which was followed by the ancient Greeks and Romans. It is opposite to romanticism. Restraint, clarity, simplicity, balance, respect for tradition etc. are the main features of Classicism.
Escapism → Escapism means aloofness from the hard reality of life. It means an attempt to escape into a world of imagination or imagery ideal world. Critics have called Keats an escapist. Keats’ escapism is based on not only his fear for the hard realities of the life but his longing for the dreamy world of permanent happiness of the joyous world.
Victorian Spirit → After coming in power the dynamic queen Victoria, the Victorian Spirit got its radical changes in all sections of society. Industrialization, urbanization, renaissance spirit, scientific progress, Victorian literature emancipation etc. are the outstanding progress in the Victorian Era. In short, the indomitable thrust for knowledge and remarkable development are the Victorian Spirit.
Renaissance Spirit → Renaissance means rebirth. It indicates rediscovery of ancient civilization of Greek and Rome. It refers the consciousness of mind. Freedom and thought was the chief traits of renaissance. The renaissance came to England in the 16th century and it flourished in the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. Marlowe’s tragic heroes are the reprehensive of the renaissance spirit.
Hellenism → The word ‘Hellenism’ is derived from Greek word Helene. Hellenism therefore symbolizes Greek culture and spirit.
Modernism → Modernism is the outburst of extra-ordinary advancement, state of the art technology, industrial revolution, indomitable thirst for knowledge, Skepticism, doubt, lack of emotion, felling, love for others etc.
Prose → The term prose is divided from Latin ‘prosa’ or ‘proversa oratio’ which means straight forward discourse. It has thereby come to include a direct unadorned form of language, written or spoken, used in everyday life. Prose is divided into two parts – ① Fiction and ② Non-fictional.
Fictional → Novel ⚪ Tale of Adventure and Romance ⚪Horror tale ⚪Detective tale ⚪ Short story
Non-fictional → Essay ⚪ Literary criticism ⚪Biography and autobiography ⚪Chronicle and History ⚪ Social, historical and political treatise ⚪Journalistic writing
Plot → The plan, design or pattern of event of a literary product. In other words, the planned is serious of interpreted incident that make up the story being told. It is the logically arrangement of events designed to excite curiosity or suspense. It is the structure or scheme of a literary work.
Character → The plots of a literary work relate the chain of events or episode leading sad, happy, or even in conclusion. But such a chain of events or episodes is related to some persons or people. A literary work deals with the story of their life and death, love and hate, success and suffering. Without such materials of human life it remains incomplete. This person or people are caller character.
Theme → Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.
Motif → One of the dominant ideas in a work of literature. It is recurring structure, contrasts, or literary devices that can helps to develop and inform the texts major themes.
Symbol → Symbols are objects, characters figures or colors used to present abstract ideas or concepts.
A dramatic technique of speaking alone on the stage. It is a dramatic convention of exposing to the audience the intention, thoughts and feelings of a character who speaks to himself while no one remains on the stage. For example, Hamlet’s ‘To be, or not to be: that is the question.’
A mode of expression in which the writer’s personal life remains absent from his writing. Homer, Virgil, and Shakespeare are famous objective writers because no information about their lives or their likes and dislikes is found in their writings.
A mode of expression in which information about the writer’s personal life find place. In this type of writings, the writer’s likes and dislikes are given importance. It is opposite to objectivity.
A very short, allegorical story of animal characters which teaches a moral for human beings. Aesop’s fables are best examples.
The sound pattern made by the rise and fall of the stresses in speech.
A piece of literature which has, for its excellence, lived through out the history. As for example paradise lost. The term is also used to mean all the literary products of Greece and Rome.
The peak of importance in a play or in a story. It is the point at which the rise of action ends and the fall of action begins. The climax of Macbeth, for example, is the point at which, so far ambitious and brave, Macbeth first gets afraid at the appearance of Banquo’s ghost. It is the turning point of his fall. A statement may also have a climax.
The selection of words in a writings or speech. A particular writer chooses a particular type of words and phrases. For example, Milton uses unusual, allusive words but Orwell uses simple, lucid, and common words. So the words chosen by a writer is called his diction.
In this part of our journey of the basics of English literature, we covered some important interview questions and topics that people come across during job interviews and competitive exams. In our previous posts, we presented some lists. However, this post will prove beneficial to those who are preparing for job interviews and yearly exams in English department.
Table of Contents
1. Why are we interested in reading literature ?
➼ Literature is mainly meant for giving pleasure. Pleasure and profit are two motives of reading of literature. Reading of literature may be profitable only when it is done properly. We can get immense pleasure from reading of literature. For these reasons we are very much interested to read literature.
2. Literature and linguistics, which one is more important? Why?
➼Both the fields of knowledge are important in the present world. Undoubtedly, literature seems to be food of our soul and provides immense pleasure. But in the third world country like Bangladesh, the study of linguistics is much more emphasized because almost everybody gets educated in order to get jobs and for commercial purpose.
Abbreviated Name | Elaborated Name |
---|---|
P B Shelley | Percy Bysshe Shelley |
W B Yeats | William Butler Yeats |
T S Eliot | Thomas Sterns Eliot |
H G Wells | Herbert George Wells |
S T Coleridge | Samuel Taylor Coleridge |
G B Shaw | George Barnard Shaw |
R K Narayan | Rashipuram Krisnaswami Narayan |
Life is a tale told by an idiot full of fury,
As You Like It
Signifying nothing
To be or not to be that is the question.
Hamlet
Have more than thou showest
King Lear
Speak less than thou knowest
Lend less than thou owest
Ride more than thou goest
All the world’s stage
As You Like It
And all the men and women are merely players
To err is human, to forgive divine.
An Essay on Criticism
A little learning is a dangerous thing.
An Essay on Criticism
Charms strikes the sight
Rape of The Lock
but merit wins the soul.
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever
Endymion
Beauty is truth, truth is beauty
Ode On a Grecian Urn
If winter comes can spring be far behind
Ode to The West Wind
Our sweetest songs are those that tells of saddest thought
To a Skylark
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Ode to The West Wind
Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth
Haunted me like passion; the tall rock,
Tintern Abbey
The mountain, and the deep and the gloomy wood,
Their colours and their forms, were then to me
An appetite.
Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; it takes it’s origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.
Preface to The Lyrical Ballads
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
Tintern Abbey
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and my soul
Of all moral
Nature never did betray the heart that loved her.
Tintern Abbey
I may assert Eternal providence,
Paradise Lost (Book I)
And justify the ways of God to men.
For books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life.
Areopagitica
To live a life half dead, a living death.
Samson Agonistes
For God’s sake hold your tongue and let me love.
The Canonization
Love all alike, no season know, nor clime,
The Sun Rising
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.
Busy old fool unruly Sun,
The Sun Rising
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains call on us?
Must to thy motions, lovers’ seasons run?
A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure.
Of Truth
Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability.
Of Studies
Wives are young men’s mistresses, companions for middle ages, and old men’s nurse.
Of Marriage and Single Life
Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.
Of Studies
At the immortal touch of thy hands my little heart
Gitanjali
Loses it’s limit in joy and gives birth to utterance ineffable.
I touch by the edge of the far-speeding wings of my
Gitanjali
Song thy feet which I could never aspire to reach.
Life of my life, I shall ever try to keep my body pure,
Gitanjali
Knowing that thy living touch is upon all my limbs.
In this final episode of our posts on English literature, we will go through some short notes on some legends like John Donne, William Shakespeare, William Wordsworth, Matthew Arnold, John Dryden.
Table of Contents
John Donne is a contemporary writer of Marlow and Shakespeare, shares with them the spirit and the quality of the renaissance. John Donne was born in 1572. After receiving education privately, Donne matriculated at Oxford in 1584. He was admitted as a law student to Lincolns Ill in May in 1592. He wrote of songs elegies and satires before his twenty fifth years. He got married to Anne More, daughter of Sir George More. Donne’s conversation of Anglicanism Donne had two love poetry.
1. The mistress of his youth.
2. Divinity or love for God.
John Donne died in London in 31 March, 1631.
Seven characters of Faerie Queen with allegorical meaning —
1. The Red Cross Knight symbolizes Holiness.
2. Una symbolizes Truth.
3. Archimago symbolizes the vices of hypocrisy.
4. Duessa symbolizes falsehood or duplicity.
5. Sansfoy represents faithlessness.
6. Lucifer represents pride or arrogance.
7. Sons joy, represent joylessness.
Shakespeare means a virtuous writer, legend dramatist, a consummate poet and a good performer on the stage, who remains as a glittering star in the sky not only in English literature but also in the world literature. He was born about the 23rd April in 1564,at Stratford on Avon, Warwickshire. In his 19th year he married Anne Hathaway, a woman eight year senior to him. As you like it, Hamlet, Macbeth, king Lear, Othello, Julius Caesar, Tempest are well known creation of Shakespeare. His famous remark is, ‘ all’s well that ends well’. He is famous for the objective presentation of his deep knowledge about human psychology. He wrote 37 plays, 154 sonnets, and 3 narrative poems. He died in 23rd April, 1616.
William Wordsworth was born in 7th April, at Cockermouth, Cumberland, 1770.He is a romantic poet of all romantic poet of nature. He was the worship of nature. He enjoyed nature, felt nature, and found divinity in nature. He is a spokesman of pantheism. He believes that there is a divine spirit pervading all the objects of nature. So his view is ‘God is all and all is God’. This believes finds a complete expression in Tintern Abbey. The solitary Reaper, Tintern Abbey, Michael, Prelude, Lyrical Ballads are his remarkable creation. He wrote about 500 sonnets. He died in 1850.
Wordsworth is the high priest of nature. According to him nature can dominate the mind of human being. But according to Coleridge nature has no color and power to dominate that mind of human being. In other words if we are happy, nature looks happy too and if we are dejected, nature also looks dejected. Nature therefore has no moods and feelings of her own. We receive from nature only that which we give to her.
Dover Beach is one of the greatest short poems of Mathew Arnold. This poem reflects the lost hope, faith, and devotion to God. He rightly mentions —
Oh, the sea of faith
Was once at the full
Dover Beach, Mathew Arnold
Here the poet laments over the loss of faith on God as well as human beings.
A Short Note on John Dryden
Characteristics of Romanticism