THE STUDY OF LITERATURE

1. THE STUDY OF LITERATURE DR. HUSNIAH SAHAMID FACULTY OF EDUCATIONAL STUDIES UNIVERSITY PUTRA MALAYSIA

2. Why Study iterature • "You look for your own story in literature; it's one of the best mechanisms you have to convince yourself you're not alone." • [Glenn Schaeffer, founder of the International Institute of Modern Letters, UNLV Magazine]

3. "[L]iterature is an art, and . . . as an art it is able to enlarge and refine our understanding of life." [Robertson Davies, Reading and Writing 2-3 (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, special ed., 1993) (1992)]

4. "Students are formed by the reading they do, by the views of self and world such reading presents." [Parker J. Palmer, To Know as We Are Known 19 (New York: Harper & Row, 1983)]

5. Learn language aspects: vocabulary items, grammatical structures • aesthetic purposes • take us beyond our limited experience of life • show us lives of other people/culture at other times.

6. stir us intellectually and emotionally, • deepen understanding of our history, our society, our own individual lives • learn truths about human life • Insight into characters

7. Classification: Literary Genres • Works classified according to what they have in common, • either in formal structures, • treatment of subject matter • A literary genre is a category of literary composition.

8. GENRES • Genre - French term • derived from Latin genus, generis • meaning "type," "sort," or "kind."

9. Literary Genre - can be determined by • literary technique, • tone, • content, • or even (as in the case of fiction) length

10. Genre vs category • should not be confused with age category, • adult, young adult, children General genres in literature: • epic, • tragedy, • comedy, • novel, • short story, • creative nonfiction

11. Grouping works • orderly way to talk about a LARGE number of literary texts: • have a better idea of its intended overall structure and/or subject. • deepen sense of the value of any single text • view it comparatively, - alongside texts of its type

12. In US /different countries • literary genre might be differently grouped/classified • loosely classified eg Library: Dewey System • Fiction & Non Fiction

13. Non- Fiction • “informational” material. • These types of books provide information that is factual. • Nothing is make-believe in these types of materials. • More specific examples of this type of genre would be . . .

14. Biographies: A true account of a person's life written, composed, or produced by another. Autobiographies: The biography of a person written by that person.

15. Fiction • author can make up whole story. can also choose to include : • factual information in a made-up story.

16. Sub - genres • often divided into sub-genres : Eg. 3 basic kinds of literature • the classic genres of Ancient Greece – • poetry, drama, and prose.

17. Tragedy: A Genre Historically: Greek Tragedy: Aristotle's Poetics Medieval Tragedy and the Wheel of Fortune   Elizabethan or Shakespearean Tragedy The Problem Play or Drama of Ideas

18. Poetry : sub-genre Example: subdivided into • epic, • lyric, • dramatic

19. Historical • 450-1066 Old English. (Anglo-Saxon) Period • 1066-1500 Middle English Period • 1500-1660 The Renaissance   • 1558-1603 Elizabethan Age   • 1603-1625 Jacobean Age   • 1625-1649 Caroline Age   • 1649-1669 Commonwealth Period • 1660-1785 The Neoclassical Period   • 1660-1700 The Restoration   • 1700-1745 The Augustan Age. (Age of Pope)   • 1745-1785 The Age of Sensibility. (Age of Johnson) • 1785-1830 The Romantic Period • 1832-1901 The Victorian Period   • 1848-1860 The Pre-Raphaelites   • 1880-1901 Aestheticism and Decadence • 1901-1914 The Edwardian Period • 1910-1936 The Georgian Period • 1914- The Modern Period

20. End of Notes