Fundamentals of Literary Language and Poetic Devices
Fundamentals of Literary Language
Metrical Scheme
It consists in assigning a number to the number of syllables and a letter to each of the rhymes.
Stanzas
A set of several verses with a metric structure is predefined by the transition.
Poems
Poems are complex behaviors that can be formed by one or more stanzas.
Sonnets
Sonnets are poems consisting of 14 verses; the rhyme is always consonant.
Linguistic Aspects of Literary Language
Phonic Resources
- Alliteration: Repeating a sound or sounds.
- Onomatopoeia: Alliteration occurs when the sounds or noises imitate reality.
- Paranomasia: Using words with very similar pronunciation.
Morphosyntactic Resources
- Anaphora: Repetition of one or more words at the beginning of a verse.
- Anadiplosis: Repeating a word at the end of a verse and the beginning of the next.
- Asyndeton: The deliberate omission for rhythmic and aesthetic purposes.
- Ellipsis: Suppression of elements of a sentence.
- Enumeration: Accumulation of words to describe a place or object.
- Epanadiplosis: This involves the repetition of a word at the beginning and end of one verse.
- Hyperbaton: This involves the alteration of the normal order of a sentence.
- Parallelism: Repetition of a syntactic structure along two or more verses.
Semantic Lexical Resources
- Antithesis or Contrast: Consists of two contrasting words or ideas with contrary meanings.
- Apostrophe: Invoking a person or an inanimate being.
- Comparison or Simile: Listing the resemblance between a real and an imaginary term.
- Hyperbole: It is the exaggeration of reality intended to enlarge or diminish the concept expressed.
- Irony: Saying the opposite of what is meant.
- Metaphor: Identification of two terms, one real and one imaginary.
- Paradox: Formulation of an apparent contradiction.
Semantic
Refers to aspects of meaning, interpretation of the meaning of a particular element, symbol, word, expression, or formal representation.
Morpheme
The part of the word that varies. The part that is added to the lexeme to complete its meaning and to form new words.
Lexeme
The part of the word unchanged. Uses its meaning.
Adequacy
Is the text property based on compliance with the rules relating to the sender, recipient, subject and situation, which affects the constitution of a text.
Meanings
One or each of the meanings given to a word or phrase.
Transitive Verb
It is the prayer that requires the existence of an active subject who performs the action expressed by the verb and the existence of a direct object that directly receives the same action.
Intransitive Verb
Intransitive verbs are those that can be alone in a predicate phrase.
Linguistic Elements
- Expressing quantity.
- Expression of the facts.
- Expression of consequence.
- Expression of contrast.
- Expression of quality.
- Doubtfully.
Poetic Devices
The poetic devices correspond to the poet’s intention to express feelings in a personal way that the words we use in ordinary language do not work:
- Antithesis: It is the juxtaposition of two words or phrases. Widely used by poets to express the contradictory feelings that love produces.
- Metaphor: The substitution of one word for another because there is a similarity between the referents of both.
- Comparison: It differs from metaphor because one term is replaced by another, but two expressions are listed explicitly referred to things that are alike.
- Hyperbole: An exaggeration.
- Metonymy: The substitution of one term for another because there is a relationship of proximity between the referents of the two.
- Paradox: An apparent contradiction.
Fundamentals of Literary Language: Literature as a Functional Unit of Language
It is both a creative art done with words and a special type of communication. Literature presents two main features:
- Tries to endure over time and move on to the literary tradition.
- Looks for originality and is literal, meaning the literary text can be neither copied nor changed.
Literary Communication
Consists of the following items:
- Issuer: The author can be individual or collective.
- Receiver: The readers or listeners are usually collective and liabilities.
- Message: The text, the work, the poem, the novel.
- Channel: If a written text, the book is the channel; if an oral text, the voice is the channel.
- Code: In literary communication, two codes are involved: the general code of the language in which you write the text and the literary code, which consists of a series of rules and special characters.
Structural Aspects of the Literary Text
Literary Genres and Forms of Expression (Poetry and Prose)
In ancient times, there were three genres: lyric, epic, and dramatic. Currently, there are four genres:
Lyric
Expresses feelings through a physical reality. Writing in verse. Repetitive language. The center of the poem is in the intimacy of the poet, their tastes, and emotions.
Subgenres of Lyric:
- Oda: Poem of a certain area devoted to the exaltation of a person or thing.
- Elegy: Composition manifesting a sense of regret for an individual or collective misfortune.
- Eclogue: The poet puts their feelings of love in the mouths of pastors that they confide in.
- Epigram: Composition in verse or prose that censures individual or collective defects.
Narrative Genre
These are works that tell a story and have an artistic dimension.
Narrative Subgenres:
- Epic: It is usually written in verse and literature developed during the Greek, Roman, and Middle Ages. It can be distinguished as:
- Epic Poem: It tells the adventures of an individual hero.
- Epic: Tells the adventures of a collective village.
- Epic Poem: Relates the adventures of a medieval hero.
- Narrative: There are new stories to fit any kind of story: humorous, loving, adventures. The two most important genres of the narrative are:
- Novel: Narrative, more or less extensive, that can be real or fictitious. Events occur to characters in a given place and time, counted from a particular point of view.
- Story or Narrative: A short story concentrated in a particular story with the same elements as the novel.
Training Genre
Tries to instruct and teach and can be written in prose or verse. Its most important forms are:
- Essay: Work in prose dealing with personal opinions on different topics.
- Letter: It is a work in prose or verse framed as a letter in which an issuer develops a political, social, or moralizing message.
- Fable: These are short stories that tell a little story normally starring animals.
Prose and Verse
Verse differs from prose in that it adopts a peculiar way of writing:
- In writing: Each verse occupies part of a line; prose takes up the entire line.
- In orality: The verse is a phonetic unit composed of a certain number of syllables with some accents of intensity.