Characteristic Features of Literary Language & Genres

Posted on Oct 9, 2024 in Latin

Characteristic Features of Literary Language

1. Deviation from the Standard

Forms deviate from common usage, employing unexpected or surprising language. This includes unusual word order, repetitions of sounds that mimic the phrase or expression, repetition of links, words or structures, suspension linkages, or words, and associations of meanings.

2. Connotative Language

The Lyric

The writer expresses their subjectivity, feelings, or thoughts. The lyric is in the first person (the author’s ego expresses their inner world), often expressed in verse, but not always. Lyrical compositions are the source where the author’s voice is met and transmitted through writing and popular tradition, often created to be sung.

Lyrical Compositions of Cultured Tradition

  • The Ode: Expresses enthusiasm, admiration, or love.
  • The Love Poem: Cultured theme of love.
  • The Elegy: Expresses personal and collective pain.
  • Eclogue: Dialogues between shepherds in an idealized rural setting.
  • The Satire: Ridicules and criticizes actions or persons.
  • The Epistle: Letter-shaped composition.
  • The Epigram: Short poem with a festive character.

Lyrical Forms of Folk Tradition

  • Zejel: Lyrical composition of Arabic origin, combines a chorus, a mudaza, and a refrain.
  • Carol: Traditional composition with a chorus and verses in the form of a quatrain, themes are diverse but often include Christmas.
  • Lyrical Ballads: The prevailing theme is love.

Narrative

Recounts events external to the author, creates a fictional world with characters and events. It is typically in the third person and has the referential function of language.

Forms of Narrative

  • The Heroic: Extensive narrative recounting the exploits of a hero.
  • The Epic: Classic epic featuring gods and heroes.
  • The Epic Poems: Medieval epic narratives chronicling the adventures of a hero representing popular sentiment (e.g., The Song of the Cid), possibly derived from songs and old romances.
  • The Novel: Extensive and complex literary form with narrative techniques significantly renewed in the 20th century.
  • The Short Story: Short, simple, and linear narrative. Some are of popular origin (author unknown), others from cultured tradition.

The Theater

Aims for stage representation before an audience, combining literary features with elements of the show. Primarily expressed through dialogue, with the appellative function predominating.

Theatrical Forms

  • The Tragedy: The protagonist faces an adverse fate, without comic elements or vulgar characters.
  • The Comedy: Aims to amuse and entertain, often depicting daily life situations with a happy ending. Comedy flourished in ancient Rome.
  • The Drama: Combines features of tragedy and comedy, potentially blending a painful conflict with comic elements, offering a more realistic vision than purely tragic or comic works.

Minor Theatrical Genres

  • The Auto Sacramental: Short religious-themed work with allegorical characters.
  • The Appetizer, the Interlude, and the Farce: Short plays performed before comedies, with a cheerful and popular character.
  • Lyrical Genres: Combine music and text, including opera (sung texts often based on literary works, with composers like Wagner) and zarzuela (a Hispanic form of opera combining sung and spoken dialogue).

Other Genres

  • The Didactic Genre: Aims to teach.
  • The Essay: The author presents their personal view on a literary, scientific, or historical subject.
  • Newspaper Article: Short text where a writer or journalist comments on a current issue.
  • Fable: Short story featuring animals with human behavior, conveying a moral or teaching.
  • Epistle: Composition in the form of a letter addressed to a real or imaginary recipient.

Traditional Lyric

Anonymous songs transmitted orally, often themed around love. Oral poetry becomes traditional when transmitted by the community.

Structure

Based on the chorus and rhythmic structures of parallelism, suggesting that the lyric was not only sung but also danced.

Theme

The main theme is love, potentially more abundant in female perspectives.

Style

Simple and condensed, generally short poems with intense emotion.

Metrics

Minor art poems with assonance and rhyme.

Cultured Lyric

Copyrighted poem transmitted through writing, appearing later than traditional lyric. The first cultured lyric was the Provençal lyric, where the poet (troubadour) wrote the lyrics and music, sometimes leaving the singing to a professional minstrel.

Hispanic Lyric

Four major centers of lyric:

1. Mozarabic Lyric

The jarchas are short poems (3-5 verses) written in Mozarabic, addressing the theme of love from a female perspective, lamenting the absence of a lover. Dating from the 11th century, they were found at the end of Arabic and Hebrew poems called muwassaha.

2. Portuguese-Galician Lyric: The Ballads

Reached significant development with three types of ballads:

  • Cantigas de amigo: Deal with love, the “friend” is the beloved. Often a girl’s love complaint, confiding in nature, mothers, or sisters. These compositions have a parallelistic structure.
  • Cantigas de amor and Cantigas de escarnio: In cantigas de amor, the author regrets unrequited love. Cantigas de escarnio are satirical poems directed against other poets and courtiers.

These three types of cantigas were collected in songbooks in the 13th century.