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This introduction to literary aesthetics will help students understand and apply key terms in their discussions and essays. Explore various aesthetics and define your own notion of beauty. Take notes and enhance your understanding of literature!
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Terms Literature Students Should Know Take Notes!!
Introduction • English 150 Literary Terms • You’ll see these on exams. • You should be able to put these terms to use in discussions and essays. Take Notes!!
Your text works with literary terms as they apply to various genres – Fiction, Poetry, Drama. The terms I’ll be sharing in these short presentations are more general terms that literary scholars employ in their discussions of how people use literature and other arts in their “regular” lives. Take Notes!!
Aesthetic • Aesthetic -- – relating to the beautiful as distinguished from the moral or the useful and utilitarian. Each of us constructs our own aesthetic, or notion of the beautiful, though, of course, it is shaped by prevailing “norms.” Take Notes!!
Define Beautiful • Take a few minutes and define “Beautiful.” Describe a beautiful scene, your favorite piece of art, a book or poem you would consider beautiful. What are the elements that make up your definition of beauty. For example, harmony, balance, color coordination, smoothness of sound, ability to provoke thought, presentation of something new . . . Take Notes!!
What is central to your aesthetic? Take Notes!!
Is This Beautiful? Why or Why Not? Take Notes!!
Is This Beautiful?Why or Why Not? Take Notes!!
Is this Beautiful? Why or Why Not? Take Notes!!
Various Aesthetics • It should be pretty obvious that we each have our own aesthetic. It’s also, true, however, that our idea of what’s beautiful is shaped by the people we live with. Often, people who live together will develop similar definitions of the beautiful. In literary studies, we label or categorize different definitions of the aesthetic. So, for example, we might talk about the “black aesthetic” or the “post-modern aesthetic” or the “romantic aesthetic.” Take Notes!!
For example . . . • A good example of how these aesthetics develop is to think about what people find attractive in landscapes. People from the east coast miss trees and green when they come to the desert. People from the west value the gold and rust and green of the rocks, more than the vivid green of the trees of the east. Take Notes!!
