Renaissance Literature in Europe is discussed in detail here including notable works by famous authors specifically William Shakespeare
Tag Archives: literature
History of Greek Literature
Few literary traditions have been as influential to Western society as Greek literature. From the works of Homer to the musings of Aristotle, ancient Greek literature forms the foundation of Western thought. Greek literature and thought has continued to influence Western society, as the conquests of Alexander the Great and the Roman Empire spread Greek thinking throughout the Western world. The Greek literary tradition is deep and rich, with a profound impact felt throughout all civilization.
Definition of Literature
lit·er·a·ture
noun \ˈli-tə-rə-ˌchu̇r, ˈli-trə-ˌchu̇r, ˈli-tə(r)-ˌchu̇r, -chər, -ˌtyu̇r, -ˌtu̇r\
1
archaic : literary culture
2
: the production of literary work especially as an occupation
3
a (1) : writings in prose or verse; especially : writings having excellence of form or expression and expressing ideas of permanent or universal interest (2) : an example of such writings <what came out, though rarely literature, was always a roaring good story — People>
b : the body of written works produced in a particular language, country, or age
c : the body of writings on a particular subject <scientific literature>
d : printed matter (as leaflets or circulars) <campaign literature>
4
: the aggregate of a usually specified type of musical compositions
From Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Literature comes from the Latin word “LITERA” which literally means an acquaintance with letters. It is a body of literary productions, either oral, written or visual, containing imaginative language that realistically portrays thoughts, emotions, and experiences of the human condition.
Literature is a product of particular culture that concertizes man’s array of values, emotions, actions and ideas. It is therefore a creation of human experience that tells about people and their world.
Literature is an art that reflects the works of imagination, aesthetics, and creative writing which are distinguished for the beauty of style or expression as in fiction, poetry, essay, drama, in distinction from scientific treatises and works which contain positive knowledge.
Romance of the Three Kingdoms
Written by Luo Guanzhong in the 14th century, is a Chinese historical novel based upon events in the turbulent years near the end of the Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdoms era of China, starting in 169 and ending with the reunification of the land in 280.
It is acclaimed as one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature, with a grand total of 800,000 words, nearly a thousand characters, most of them historical, in 120 chapters.
In 2013, there are a dozen materials such as video games (see Dynasty Warriors) animes and movies paying homage to this literary classic.
Additional References:
Trailer of John Woo’s Red Cliff
Additional Download Links:
Word Document (detailed summary)
Approaches to Literary Criticism
1. Formalistic or Literary Approach
Literature is viewed intrinsically independent of the author, age, or any other extrinsic factor. The study of the selection is more or les based on the so-called “literary elements.”
This approach regards literature as “a unique form of human knowledge that needs to be examined on its own terms.” All the elements necessary for understanding the work are contained within the work itself. Of particular interest to the formalist critic are the elements of form—style, structure, tone, imagery, etc.—that are found within the text. A primary goal for formalist critics is to determine how such elements work together with the text’s content to shape its effects upon readers.
2. Moral or Humanistic Approach
Literature is viewed to discuss man and its nature. It presents man as esentially rational, endowed with intellect and free will.
3. Historical Approach
Literature is seen both as reflection and product of the times and circusmstances in which it was written. It operates on the premise that the history of a nation has telling effects on its literature and that the piece can be better understood and appreciated if one knows the times surounding its creation.
This approach “seeks to understand a literary work by investigating the social, cultural, and intellectual context that produced it—a context that necessarily includes the artist’s biography and milieu.” A key goal for historical critics is to understand the effect of a literary work upon its original readers.
4. Sociological Approach
Literature is viewed as the expression of man within a given social situation which is reduced to discussions on economics, in not, thus passing into “proleterian approach” which tends to underscore the conflict between two classes.
5. Cultural Approach
Literature is seen as one of the manifestations and vehicles of a nation’s or race’s culture and tradition. It includes the entire complex of what goes under “culture” The thrust is to make full use of the reciprocal function between culture and literature. The approach is one of the richest ways to arrive at the culture of people and one of the most pleasurable ways of appreciating literature of people.
6. Psychological Approach
Literature is viewed as the expression of “personality,” of “inner drives,” of “neurosis.” It includes the psychology of the author, of the characters, and even, the psychology of creation.
7. Impressionistic Approach
Literature is viewed to elucidate “reaction-response” which is considered as something very personal, relative, and fruitful. Unconditioned by explanations and often taking the impact of the piece as a whole, it seeks to see how the piece has communicated.
8. Gender Approach
This approach “examines how sexual identity influences the creation and reception of literary works.” Originally an offshoot of feminist movements, gender criticism today includes a number of approaches, including the so-called “masculinist” approach recently advocated by poet Robert Bly. The bulk of gender criticism, however, is feminist and takes as a central precept that the patriarchal attitudes that have dominated western thought have resulted, consciously or unconsciously, in literature “full of unexamined ‘male-produced’ assumptions.” Feminist criticism attempts to correct this imbalance by analyzing and combatting such attitudes—by questioning, for example, why none of the characters in Shakespeare’s play Othello ever challenge the right of a husband to murder a wife accused of adultery. Other goals of feminist critics include “analyzing how sexual identity influences the reader of a text” and “examine(/ing) how the images of men and women in imaginative literature reflect or reject the social forces that have historically kept the sexes from achieving total equality.”
9. Mythological Approach
This approach emphasizes “the recurrent universal patterns underlying most literary works.” Combining the insights from anthropology, psychology, history, and comparative religion, mythological criticism “explores the artist’s common humanity by tracing how the individual imagination uses myths and symbols common to different cultures and epochs.” One key concept in mythological criticism is the archetype, “a symbol, character, situation, or image that evokes a deep universal response,” which entered literary criticism from Swiss psychologist Carl Jung. According to Jung, all individuals share a “‘collective unconscious,’ a set of primal memories common to the human race, existing below each person’s conscious mind”—often deriving from primordial phenomena such as the sun, moon, fire, night, and blood, archetypes according to Jung “trigger the collective unconscious.” Another critic, Northrop Frye, defined archetypes in a more limited way as “a symbol, usually an image, which recurs often enough in literature to be recognizable as an element of one’s literary experience as a whole.” Regardless of the definition of archetype they use, mythological critics tend to view literary works in the broader context of works sharing a similar pattern.
10. Reader-Response Criticism
This approach takes as a fundamental tenet that “literature” exists not as an artifact upon a printed page but as a transaction between the physical text and the mind of a reader. It attempts “to describe what happens in the reader’s mind while interpreting a text” and reflects that reading, like writing, is a creative process. According to reader-response critics, literary texts do not “contain” a meaning; meanings derive only from the act of individual readings. Hence, two different readers may derive completely different interpretations of the same literary text; likewise, a reader who re-reads a work years later may find the work shockingly different. Reader-response criticism, then, emphasizes how “religious, cultural, and social values affect readings; it also overlaps with gender criticism in exploring how men and women read the same text with different assumptions.” Though this approach rejects the notion that a single “correct” reading exists for a literary work, it does not consider all readings permissible: “Each text creates limits to its possible interpretations.”
11. Deconstructionist Criticism
This approach “rejects the traditional assumption that language can accurately represent reality.” Deconstructionist critics regard language as a fundamentally unstable medium—the words “tree” or “dog,” for instance, undoubtedly conjure up different mental images for different people—and therefore, because literature is made up of words, literature possesses no fixed, single meaning. According to critic Paul de Man, deconstructionists insist on “the impossibility of making the actual expression coincide with what has to be expressed, of making the actual signs [i.e., words] coincide with what is signified.” As a result, deconstructionist critics tend to emphasize not what is being said but how language is used in a text. The methods of this approach tend to resemble those of formalist criticism, but whereas formalists’ primary goal is to locate unity within a text, “how the diverse elements of a text cohere into meaning,” deconstructionists try to show how the text “deconstructs,” “how it can be broken down … into mutually irreconcilable positions.” Other goals of deconstructionists include (1) challenging the notion of authors’ “ownership” of texts they create (and their ability to control the meaning of their texts) and (2) focusing on how language is used to achieve power, as when they try to understand how a some interpretations of a literary work come to be regarded as “truth.”
From:
Literary Models
The study of Literature appeals in different aspects and importance. Some of the noted ones include:
1. Cultural Model
– literature aims to understand and appreciate cultures and ideologies different from one’s own time and space.
2. Language Model
– literature aims to promote language development like vocabulary and structure.
3. Personal Growth
– literature aims to help one achieve lasting pleasure and deep satisfaction in reading.
From
World Literature 