The Study of Literature

Module I

Pramod Subedi
M.A.& [Link]. (English), L.L.B.
Teaching Assistant
Mid-Western University
(Bageshwari Multiple Campus, Kohalpur)
[Link]. (English Education) Scholar
Nepal Open University
NELTA Life member and Executive member
(NELTA, Banke)
Former Access Instructor (English Access Micro-scholarship Program)
Alumni facilitator (AE E-Teacher Course)
Module I
Ways of studying literature
The study of poetry
-Subjective and objective poetry
- Poetical types (lyric, ode, sonnet, elegy,
idyll, epic, ballad, satire)
- Stanza forms (heroic couplet, terza rima,
Chaucerian stanza or rhyme royal, ottava rima,
Spenserian stanza)
Ways of studying literature

Pleasure
Knowledge
Language Skills

Studying surface for understanding

Study for the theme/ideas
Studying the prevalent literary elements
Studying or analyzing critically
Poetry
Definition/ Introduction
‘Poetry is simply the most beautiful, impressive, and widely effective
mode of saying things, and hence its importance.' -Matthew Arnold

'Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its

origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.' -William Wordsworth

Poetry is one of the oldest literatures - oral poetry existed before

written literature. The Greek root of the word ‘poetry’ is poësis,
meaning ‘a making’ and a ‘poet’ is ‘a maker’ (English word Wright (a
maker, a craftsperson) as used in ‘playwright’).

The word poetry is so respected that the study of the principles of

literature, as well as the study of principles of poetry, is still called
poetics by many in the field of English
Characteristics
 Elements of Poetry include structure of
the poem, imagination, emotions,
meter, rhythm, poetic diction, figures
of speech, and human appeal along
with many other things.
 Deviated or defamiliarization of language
 Creativity and artistic expression
 Meditation
 three great classes of poetry : Lyrical,
Narrative, and Descriptive (Dramatic?)
1. Lyric Poetry: It is any poem with one speaker
(not necessarily the poet) who expresses strong
thoughts and feelings. Most poems, especially
modern ones, are lyric poems.
2. Narrative Poem: It is a poem that tells a story;
its structure resembles the plot line of a story [i.e.
the introduction of conflict and characters, rising
action, climax and the denouement].
3. Descriptive Poem: It is a poem that describes
the world that surrounds the speaker. It uses
elaborate imagery and adjectives. While emotional,
it is more "outward-focused" than lyric poetry,
which is more personal and introspective.
The Subjective and Objective Poetry
BASIS OBJECTIVE SUBJECTIVE
Meaning Objective refers to Subjective means
neutral statement something which does
which is completely not show clear picture
true, unbiased and or it is just a person's
balanced. outlook or expression
of opinion.
Based on Factual and Assumptions, beliefs,
observational opinions are prominent
Truth Provable Subject relative.
Verification Verified Non-verified
Lyric poetry takes various forms, according to the nature of the
emotion which inspires it. The various forms of lyric can be
differentiated by the matter and the treatment in which that feeling.
is expressed. The following are the chief forms of the lyric:
(i) The Lyrics of Religious Emotion, or Hymns:
These are the outpourings of the poet’s soul not
towards man but towards God and the supernatural.
(ii) Patriotic Songs: Akin to religious lyrics are patriotic
or heroic songs. In these are sung the praises of
national heroes, their warlike exploits and other great
achievements, or the glory of ones native land.
National songs are to be found among all peoples. A
patriotic song may breathe the spirit not of the author
alone but of an entire nation, as in the case of the
French national anthem.
(iii) Love Lyrics : These are the outpouring of the
sentiment of love, its bliss and tragedy, its joys, its hopes,
and its disappointments. The lyrics so inspired are very
“numerous, and every literature, particularly, perhaps,
English literature, is rich in them.
(iv) Elegies : Elegy is derived from a Greek word for a
song of mourning or a lament : it is a mournful or a
plaintive lyric. It has no set metric or stanzaic pattern, but it
usually begins by reminiscing about the dead person, then
laments the reason for the death, and then resolves the
grief by concluding that death leads to immortality. It often
uses "apostrophe" (calling out to the dead person) as a
literary technique. It can have a fairly formal style, and
sound similar to an ode.
 Poetical Types
Ode: It is usually a lyric poem of moderate length, with a
serious subject, an elevated style, and an elaborate stanza
pattern.
 The author addresses a person or thing in his ode. The poet
has conversation with somebody or maybe something.
 It has solemn and serious tone. Each and every ode is
extremely serious poem. There is absolutely no room for
humor or petty and frivolous things.
 the ode possesses an exceptionally sublime and grand style
 Its theme bears wide-ranging significance. It may not be
limited simply to the personality of the poet, rather; it’s is
universal.
 catharsis of emotion
 Uniform metrical scheme is a salient feature of an ode.
Sonnet: It is a lyric poem consisting of 14 lines and, in
the English version, is usually written in iambic pentameter.
There are two basic kinds of sonnets: the Italian (or
Petrarchan) sonnet and the Shakespearean (or
Elizabethan/English) sonnet. The Italian/Petrarchan sonnet
is named after Petrarch, an Italian Renaissance poet. The
Petrarchan sonnet consists of an octave (eight lines) and a
sestet (six lines). The Shakespearean sonnet consists of
three quatrains (four lines each) and a concluding couplet
(two lines). The Petrarchan sonnet tends to divide the
thought into two parts (argument and conclusion); the
Shakespearean, into four (the final couplet is the summary).
1. Italian - abba abba cde cde
2. Shakespearean - abab cdcd efef gg
3. Spenserian - abab bcbc cdcd ee
Ballad: It is a narrative poem that has a musical rhythm and
can be sung. A narrative poem, usually simple \and fairly short,
originally designed to be sung. Ballads often begin abruptly,
imply the previous action, utilizing simple language, tell the
story tersely through dialogue and described action, and make
use of refrains. The literary ballad, consciously created by a
poet in imitation of the folk ballad, makes use of many of its
devices and conventions. Coleridge’s Rhime of the Ancient
Marinermis a literary ballad.
The chief quality of the genuine old ballads is their ‘simplicity
and their artlessness—plainness of thought, plainness of
diction and within their compass, nobility. In a ballad no moral
is drawn, no analysis of feeling attempted, no detailed
ornament introduced. It appeals by its rapidity of rhythm, its
plainness of thought and diction and its inherent feeling of
nobility.
Epic: It is a long narrative poem in elevated
style recounting the deeds of a legendary or
historical hero. It is a narrative poem of great
scope; dealing with the founding of a nation or
some other heroic theme requires a dignified
theme requires an organic unity requires
orderly progress of the action always has a
heroic figure or figures involves supernatural
forces written in deliberately ceremonial style.
The epic poet adopts a style, dignified,
elaborate and exalted, suitable to his theme.
Characteristics (Epic)
 An epic is a narrative poem.
 It is supposed to have a divine inspiration.
 It deals with a subject of great and momentous importance for
mankind.
 The characters of the story are partly human and partly divine.
 An epic poem must contain some one personage, distinguished
above all the rest, who is regarded as the hero of the tale. When
there is one principal figure who is the centre of the various
activities and enterprises, the unity of the action or plot is
rendered more perceptible.
 The epic action must have a beginning, a middle and an end, and
to ensure this the author must either relate the whole story in his
own person, or introduce some of his characters who will narrate
to us the events that precede the opening of the poem. He must
satisfy our curiosity in every detail.
Mock Epic : If a long narrative poem should
satisfy all the tests of epic poetry, but if the
subject which it celebrates be of a trivial
nature, like the cutting off of a lock of a
woman’s hair, which is the story that is related
in Pope’s Rape of the Lock, then such a poem is
called a Mock Epic. In a mock epic the poem is
supposed to be the inspiration of a Muse, the
characters are partly human and partly divine,
and the language is stilted and grandiose, but
the subject is of a very frivolous and
unimportant character.
Idylls
 A terms used loosely in modern literary criticism to denote the
same kind of Pastoral Poem.
 Idyll comes from a Greek word which signifies a descriptive piece
or little picture.
 An Idyll is a short poem of pastoral or rural character, which aims
at depicting the simple incidents in the life of simple country-
folks—the loves and jealousies of shepherds.
 Tennyson in his Idylls of the King has used the word in a different
sense. He used it to denote not a poem dealing with pastoral or
rural life but a picture-poem, which gives an elaborate and com-
plete representation of any scene of life, and which contains one
leading idea.
 “Idyllic” in English generally suggests a pastoral or rural setting.
We may speak of Goldsmith’s The Vicar of Wakefield or of
Hardy’s Under the Greenwood Tree as idyllic novels, because
they paint the simple life of the country-side.
Satire
 Classic humorous and funny poems using irony, exaggeration and
ridicule, to expose and criticize stupidity and vices of an idea, a
person or type of person, or even mankind.
 It intends to improve humanity by criticizing its follies and foibles.
 Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock is an example of poetic
satire in which he has satirized the upper middle class of
eighteenth century England. It exposes the vanity of young
fashionable ladies and gentlemen, and the frivolity of their actions.
 Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver Travels is one of the finest satirical works
in English Literature. Swift relentlessly satirizes politics, religion,
and Western culture of that time.
 The role of satire is to ridicule or criticize those vices in society for
the betterment of humanity and civilization. Therefore, the
function of satire is not to make others laugh at persons or ideas
they make fun of. It intends to warn the public, and to change
people’s opinions about the prevailing corruption and conditions in
society.
Allegory
 Allegory is an extended narrative which carries a second meaning
along with its surface story.
 Generally, the characters in an allegory do not have individual
psychologies but are incarnation of abstract ideas and may bear such
names as Lechery, Pride, Meekness, etc.
 An allegory may be prose narrative, such as Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s
Progess, a poem, such as Spenser’s Faerie Queene, or a play, such
as Everyman.
 Allegory is classified into three categories.
Religious: Pilgrim’s Progress is the greatest example in the prose form of the
religious or spiritual allegory.
Poetic: Dryden’s allegory Absalom and Achitophel is an example of political
allegory in verse.
Social:
Parable
 It is a form of allegory, is a short tale or story, the incidents of which are taken from
everyday experience, and are intended to suggest a moral or spiritual meaning e.g.,
the parable of the Sower, or that of the Prodigal Son, in the Bible .
Stanza Types
Stanzas are a series of lines grouped together and separated by an empty line from
other stanzas. They are the equivalent of a paragraph in an essay. One way to identify
a stanza is to count the number of lines. Thus:
couplet (2 lines)
tercet (3 lines)
quatrain (4 lines)
cinquain (5 lines)
sestet (6 lines) (sometimes it's called a sexain)
septet (7 lines)
octave (8 lines)
Couplets are a unit of verse consisting of two successive lines, usually rhyming and
having the same meter and often forming a complete thought, as in an epigram.
Couplets are used to end Shakespearean Sonnets and often form the basis of longer
poems. Examples of poems using couplets include “The Tyger” by William Blake and
Andrew Marvell’s “To his Coy Mistress.”
Heroic couplets are rhyming pairs of verse in iambic pentameter.
They're called heroic because in the old days of English poetry they were used to talk
about the trials and adventures of heroes. Heroic couplets totally ruled the poetry
scene for a long time, especially in the 17th and 18th centuries, when a dude
named Alexander Pope was rocking the neoclassical world with works like "Sound and
Sense," which just so happens to be written in heroic couplets.
Stanza Types
Stanzas are a series of lines grouped together and separated by an empty line from
other stanzas. They are the equivalent of a paragraph in an essay. One way to identify
a stanza is to count the number of lines. Thus:
couplet (2 lines)
tercet (3 lines)
quatrain (4 lines)
cinquain (5 lines)
sestet (6 lines) (sometimes it's called a sexain)
septet (7 lines)
octave (8 lines)
Couplets are a unit of verse consisting of two successive lines, usually rhyming and
having the same meter and often forming a complete thought, as in an epigram.
Couplets are used to end Shakespearean Sonnets and often form the basis of longer
poems. Examples of poems using couplets include “The Tyger” by William Blake and
Andrew Marvell’s “To his Coy Mistress.”
Heroic couplets are rhyming pairs of verse in iambic pentameter.
They're called heroic because in the old days of English poetry they were used to talk
about the trials and adventures of heroes. Heroic couplets totally ruled the poetry
scene for a long time, especially in the 17th and 18th centuries, when a dude
named Alexander Pope was rocking the neoclassical world with works like "Sound and
Sense," which just so happens to be written in heroic couplets.
Stanza Types
 Terza Rima is a three line stanza with the following rhyme
scheme: a b a b c b c d c. “Acquainted with the Night” by Robert
Frost is a good example of a poem written in terza rima.
 Quatrains are a popular stanza form, the most popular being
the ballad stanza, containing an a b a b rhyme scheme with
alternating lines of iambic tetrameter. Examples include “She
Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways” by William Wordsworth.
 Cinquains are quatrains with an additional line. Robert Frost’s
“The Road Not Taken” is the most famous.
 Other stanza forms include Rhyme Royal, a seven-line stanza
written in iambic pentameter, rhyme scheme a b a b b c
c; ottava rima, an eight line stanza of iambic pentameter, rhyme
scheme a b a b a b c c; and a Spenserian stanza, a nine-line
poem whose first eight lines are iambic pentameter and ninth
line is an Alexandrine, rhyme scheme a b a b b c b c c.
FIGURATIVE/CONNOTATIVE DEVICES
1. Simile is the rhetorical term used to designate the most
elementary form of resemblances: most similes are
introduced by "like" or "as." These comparisons are usually
between dissimilar situations or objects that have something
in common, such as "My love is like a red, red rose."
2. A metaphor leaves out "like" or "as" and implies a direct
comparison between objects or situations. "All flesh is grass."
For more on metaphor, click here.
3. A symbol is like a simile or metaphor with the first term left
out. "My love is like a red, red rose" is a simile. If, through
persistent identification of the rose with the beloved woman,
we may come to associate the rose with her and her
particular virtues. At this point, the rose would become a
symbol.
FIGURATIVE/CONNOTATIVE DEVICES
4. Allegory can be defined as a one to one correspondence between a
series of abstract ideas and a series of images or pictures presented in the
form of a story or a narrative. For example, George Orwell's Animal Farm is
an extended allegory that represents the Russian Revolution through a
fable of a farm and its rebellious animals.
5. Personification occurs when you treat abstractions or inanimate objects
as human, that is, giving them human attributes, powers, or feelings (e.g.,
"nature wept" or "the wind whispered many truths to me").
6. Irony takes many forms. Most basically, irony is a figure of speech in
which actual intent is expressed through words that carry the opposite
meaning.
Paradox: usually a literal contradiction of terms or situations
Situational Irony: an un-mailed letter
Dramatic Irony: audience has more information or greater perspective than the
characters
Verbal Irony: saying one thing but meaning another
Overstatement (hyperbole)
Understatement (meiosis)
Sarcasm
RHYTHM AND METER
Meter: the systematic regularity in rhythm; this systematic rhythm (or
sound pattern) is usually identified by examining the type of "foot" and
the number of feet.
1. Poetic Foot: The traditional line of metered poetry contains a number of
rhythmical units, which are called feet. The feet in a line are distinguished
as a recurring pattern of two or three syllables("apple" has 2 syllables,
"banana" has 3 syllables, etc.). The pattern, or foot, is designated according
to the number of syllables contained, and the relationship in each foot
between the strong and weak syllables. Thus:
__ = a stressed (or strong, or LOUD) syllable
U = an unstressed (or weak, or quiet) syllable
In other words, any line of poetry with a systematic rhythm has a certain
number of feet, and each foot has two or three syllables with a constant
beat pattern .
a. Iamb (Iambic) - weak syllable followed by strong syllable. [Note that the
pattern is sometimes fairly hard to maintain, as in the third foot.
U / U / U / U / U /
Iambic ( U / ): The woods decay, the woods decay and fall
b. Trochee (Trochaic): strong syllable followed by a weak syllable.
Trochaic ( / U ): Tiger! tiger! burning bright
In the forest of the night
c. Anapest (Anapestic): two weak syllables followed by a strong
syllable. e.g.
Anapestic (U U / ): In the park, there is lark, but a dark
d. Dactyl (Dactylic): a strong syllable followed by two weak syllables.
Dactylic ( / U U): Beautiful women are wonderful

The Number of Feet: The second part of meter is the number

of feet contained in a line.
one foot=monometer
two feet=diameter/ dimeter
three feet=trimeter
four feet=tetrameter
five feet=pentameter
six feet=hexameter (when hexameter is in iambic rhythm, it is called an alexandrine)
4. Blank Verse: Any poetry that does have a set metrical pattern
(usually iambic pentameter), but does not have rhyme, is blank
verse. Shakespeare frequently used unrhymed iambic pentameter
in his plays; his works are an early example of blank verse.

5. Free Verse: Most modern poetry no longer follows strict rules of

meter or rhyme, especially throughout an entire poem. Free verse,
frankly, has no rules about meter or rhyme whatsoever! [In other
words, blank verse has rhythm, but no rhyme, while free verse
has neither rhythm nor rhyme.] So, you may find it difficult to find
regular iambic pentameter in a modern poem, though you might
find it in particular lines. Modern poets do like to throw in the
occasional line or phrase of metered poetry, particularly if they’re
trying to create a certain effect. Free verse can also apply to a lack
of a formal verse structure.
WORD SOUNDS
Another type of sound play is the emphasis on individual sounds and
words:
 Alliteration: the repetition of initial sounds on the same line or
stanza - Big bad Bob bounced bravely.
 Assonance: the repetition of vowel sounds (anywhere in the middle
or end of a line or stanza) - Tilting at windmills
 Consonance: the repetition of consonant sounds (anywhere in the
middle or end of a line or stanza) - And all the air a solemn stillness
holds. (T. Gray)
 Onomatopoeia: words that sound like that which they describe -
Boom! Crash! Pow! Quack! Moo!Caress...
 Repetition: the repetition of entire lines or phrases to emphasize key
thematic ideas.
 Parallel Structure: a form of repetition where the order of verbs and
nouns is repeated; it may involve exact words, but it more
importantly repeats sentence structure - "I came, I saw, I conquered".