Literature

- Imaginative writing
- Writing that uses language n peculiar ways
- A product of subjective evaluation
- Has sense

Prose

- written in paragraph form

- does not have regular rhythm
- not meant to be scanned

Poetry

- make use of figures of speech

- has sense and rhythmic pattern
- has form of stanzas, lines, words, and verses
- does have regular rhythm
- written in verse
- highlighted sense of perception or consciousness (profound meaning, powerful impact)

Poetry has powerful impact because:

- it has five senses

- used figurative speech
- profound words
- flowery and decorated
- different style used by the writer which arouse the interest, emotion, imagination, and
understanding.

An Overview of Literary Elements and Techniques

Treasure

- holds knowledge
- lesson in life; values; insights
- the beauty
- examines and analyses the elements and techniques

Elements of Literature or Literary Texts

1. Meaning
2. Form
3. Voice
4. Tone
5. Character/Characterization
 6. Language Use

Meaning

- The work about (the theme)

- Effects or impressions the words have on the readers
- The argument or summary of the work
- The writer’s intent

Form

- How does the writer organized the literary work to achieve the effect or express the meaning?
- How is the work structured or planned? As prose or poetry? As topics or scenes? As long
narrative, several short stories or episodes?
- Into what genre could the work be place?
- What method of organization or development was used within the structure of the work?

Voice or Tone

- Teller of the story

- Character or characterization revealed by the speaker or narrator (how; by action or
description? Expressed or implied?)
- From perspective Is the story told? By a person outside the story or by someone actually
involved in the narrative?
- Is the speaker (the one telling the story) and the author or the writer of the work the same
person?
- If the writer and the speaker are two different individuals, are their attitudes towards the
subject, events, and readers the same or different?
- What is the authors attitude toward the subject, material, or theme?
- What is the speaker’s attitude (if different from the author) toward the material, subject, or
theme? Toward the reader?
- Is the tone playful, serious, angry, formal, pleading, or joyful?
- What is the atmosphere of the work (the way in which the mood, setting and feeling blend
together to convey the prevailing tone)?

Character/Characterization

- The people in the work

- How do dialogues (what he or he says) and action (what he or she does) reveal a character’s
personality traits?
- Is there a principal character?
- What is the character’s motivation?
- Is the character’s personality revealed directly by the speaker telling the reader or indirectly by
the character’s own words and deeds (requiring the readers to come to conclusions about he
character based on dialogue and action)?
 - In a non-narrative work, how would you characterize the speaker or the writer? How would you
characterize the work itself?

Language (uses and meaning)

- Does the selection any imagery (the use of sensory images to represents someone or
something)?
- What figures of speech does the writer use and effect do they have on their meaning of the
selection?
- How does he writer use diction (word choice) to convey meaning?
- What is the impact of the word, phrases, and lines as they are used in the selection?
- Did the writer intend the words used to convey the meaning normally assigned on those words
(denotation)?
- Did the writer intend that some words would imply additional, associated meanings to the
reader (connotation)?
- What is the significance of those implications to the meaning to the selection and the intent of
the writer?
- How does the used of denotation, connotation, and syntax (how the words are structured and
grouped to form meaningful through units) relate to the style of the selection?
- Does he language of the selection include any elements of propaganda?

Figurative Language

- A type of language that varies from the nouns of the literal language. Also called “ornaments” of
language.

Categories:

1. Figures of thought or Tropes (meaning of a word has other than its literal meaning)
Ex. Simile, metaphor, irony, personification
2. Figures of Speech – intentional deviation from the usual form of expression to make the ideas
concrete, vivid, and forceful.
- Also called rhetorical figures or schemes. Rhetorical figures depart from the literal meaning of
the words but from the standard usage or order of the words, thus, making a special effect.
Ex. Apostrophe, chiasmus, antithesis, rhetorical questions
3. Figures of Sound – include sound effect devices.
Ex. Alliteration, assonance, consonance, onomatopoeia

Analogy – explains or describes the similarity of the relationship of a pair of words to another pair of
words.

Ex. Part:whole – trunk:tree, retina:eye Class:sub-class – amphibian:frog, mamal:whale

Simile

Ex. Writing is like firing a gun.

Her tears like pearls rolled down her cheek.

Metaphor

Ex. You are the sunshine of my life.

The world is a stage where everyone must play a part. - Shakespeare

Personification – an inanimate object, an animal or idea is endowed with human qualities or abilities.

Ex. The leaves are dancing.

Allusion – a reference to, or a representation of people, places, events, literary works, myths, or works
of arts, either directly or by implication.

Ex. I washed my hands of the whole matter. – Pontius Pilate

These projects need Hercules to get going. Hercules-strong man

Don’t be a scrooge to your employees.

Reification – the treatment of something abstract as a material or concrete thing.

Ex. You can’t fool mother nature.

The sea was angry.

Metonymy – a word or a phrase is substituted for another which it is closely associated; also, the
rhetorical strategy of describing something indirectly by referring to things around it.

Ex. He is addicted to the bottle. Bottle-alcoholic, drunkard

Please address the chair.

We are reading George Eliot.

Synecdoche – a part is used for the whole, the whole for a part, the specific for the general, the general
for the specific, or material for the thing made it.

Ex. The nation went to the polls. Polls-voting place or precinct. The nation is having an election.

All hands went down. All hands- the crew in-charge. The crew are all dead.
Symbol – an object or action that means something more than its literal meaning.

Ex. Snake-evil, owl-wisdom, pig-greed or filth

Synesthesia – a description of one kind of sense impression by using words that normally describe
another.

Ex. His words cut he air like a dagger.

His voice is like wine to me.

My nostrils see her breath burn like a bush.

Figures of Speech Based on Rhetoric

In its broadest sense, rhetoric relates directly to the use of language for the purpose of persuading the
readers or hearers.

Rhetoric, traditionally, has three main categories or types: deliberate, forensic, and epideictic rhetoric.

Deliberate – aimed at moving the hearers or readers to some action either pro or con about some public
policy.

Forensic – aimed at proving someone’s guilt or innocence.

Epideictic – aimed at displaying rhetorical skills at some special occasion by praising (or perhaps
condemning a person or group).

Rhetorical Question – a question that is asked not ot get an answer, but to emphasize a point.

Ex. Are you crazy?

Are you out of your mind?

Anachronism – an error of chronology or timeline in a literary piece. In other words, anything that is out
of time and out of place.

Ex. A 19th century poet is composing lyrics in a word processor.

Don Quixote, a 17th century character, assumes the chivalrous behavior of the 12th century.

Litotes – an ironical understatement in which affirmative is expressed by the negation of the opposite.

Ex. Thank you for insult.

She’s no mean actress.

When you are hurt by someone: It’s alright.

Hyperbole – an exaggeration of ideas for the sake of emphasis.

Ex. My hair has grown white waiting for you.

I almost died laughing.

Meiosis – a deliberate underlying or undervaluing of a thing and mutes the expression of an emotion,
idea or situation.

Ex. He is shriek. Shriek instead psychiatrist

He is a slasher. (surgeon)

Short-order chef. (morgue worker)

Paradox – a statement that is self-contradicting because it often contains two statements that are both
true, but in general, cannot both be true at the same time.

Ex. Wider knowledge, but narrow view point.

You could conquer outer space but not inner space.

We spend more, have less time.

We had more degrees but less sense.

We had more knowledge but less judgements.

We have more medicine but less wellness.

We have multiplied our possession but reduced value.

Irony – a situation that may end up in quite a different way than what is generally anticipated. In simple
words, it is the difference between the appearance and the reality.

Ex. I surely love my enemies.

Brutus is an honorable man.

It is very kind of you to remind me of my humiliation.

Figures of Speech Based on Syntax

Syntax is a set of rules in a language. It dictates how words from different parts of speech are put
together in order to convey a complete thought. The general word order of an English sentence is
“subject+verb+object.” In poetry, however, the word order may be shifted to achieve certain artistic
effects such as producing rhythm or melody in the lines, achieving emphasis, heightening connection
between two words, etc. the unique syntax used in poetry makes it different from prose.

Antithesis – the juxtaposition of contrasting ideas in balanced phrases or clauses.

Ex. An empty wallet is a heavy burden to carry.

The hardest thing to do is to do nothing.

Apostrophe – someone absent or non-existing person or thing is addressed as if present and capable of
understanding or replying.

Ex. Ambition, you have been a cruel master.

Asyndeton – the deliberate omission of conjunctions from a series of related clauses.

Ex. I came, I saw, I conquered. – Alexander the great

Chiasmus – two or more clauses are related to each other through a reversal structures in order to make
a larger point; that is, the clauses display inverted parallelism.

Ex. The heart of education is the education of the heart.

While it is nice to be important, it is more important to be nice.

Oxymoron – two opposite ideas are joined to create an effect.

Ex. I have to be cruel in order to be kind.

Pun – a play on words, sometimes on different senses of the same word and sometimes on the similar
sense or sound of different words.

Ex. Santa’s helpers are known as subordinate clauses.

A boiled egg every morning is hard to beat.

A chicken crossing a street is truly poultry in motion.

A true friend is a friend forever.

Figures of Sound

The poet, unlike the person who uses language to convey only information, chooses words for sound as
well as for meaning, and uses the sound as a means of reinforcing meaning. Figures of sound or sound
effect devices or verbal music is one of the important resources that enable the part to do something
more than communicate mere information. The poet may indeed sometimes preserve verbal music for
its own sake; more often, at least in first rate poetry, it is adjunct to the total meaning or communication
of the poem.

Alliteration – the repetition of usually initial consonant sounds in two or more neighboring words or
syllables. It is also called “head rhyme, initial rhyme”

Ex. Full fathom five my father lies.

Break, break, break at the foot of Crags, O sea!

Wild and woolly; threatening throngs; babbling brook

Anaphora – repetition of a word or expression at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses,

sentences, or verses especially for rhetorical of poetic effect.

Ex. Judge not, be not judged.

A true friend is a friend forever.

We cannot dedicate- we cannot consecrate- we cannot hallow- this ground. – Lincoln

Assonance – repetition of vowels without repetition of consonants used as alternative to rhyme in verse.

Ex. Men sell the wedding bells.

Stony and holy

Summer fun; rise high in the bright sky

Cacophony – harshness in the sound of words or phrases.

Ex. They cleave the gloom of dreams a blinking flame, clanging, clanging, upon the heart as upon an evil.

Consonance – recurrence or repetition of consonants especially at the end of stressed syllables without
the similar corresponding of vowels.

Ex. O stroke and luck.

Euphony – a harmonious succession of words having a pleasing sound.

Ex. Once I had a lover bright like running water. His face was laughing like the sky, open like the sky.