Introduction to Literary Arts

Posted on Oct 12, 2024 in Latin

Item 1: Literature

1) Definition

Literature is a fine art that uses words as its primary tool, distinguishing it from other art forms like music.

Literature, like other arts, is a historical product. Understanding a novel, play, or poem requires knowledge of the historical context in which it was created, reflecting the mentality and ideas of its time. It’s also helpful to understand preceding works, as new texts may follow, modify, or oppose them.

Literary works are often categorized by language, nationality, or cultural region.

Purpose of Literature

Literature serves a dual function: didactic instruction and entertainment. Other important functions include the creation of beauty, social critique, and bearing witness to individual or collective existential experiences. Literature reveals profound realities—feelings and emotions—that are difficult to access otherwise.

2) Literary Genres

Literary works can be categorized into three major groups:

  • Lyrics: Expresses emotions and feelings.
  • Narrative: A narrator recounts events that happen to characters.
  • Drama: Presents action and dialogue directly to the viewer/reader, without a narrator.
Lyric Genres
  • Ode: A poem of elevated style and significant length (e.g., “Ode to Withdraw from Life” by Fray Luis de León).
  • Elegy: Expresses grief over a personal or collective misfortune (e.g., “Verses on the Death of His Father” by Jorge Manrique).
  • Song: Lyrical compositions of varying length, often about love, intended to be sung (e.g., Galician-Portuguese Cantigas de Amigo).
  • Eclogue: Idealized shepherds express their love amidst idyllic nature (e.g., “Eclogues” by Garcilaso de la Vega).
  • Other lyric genres include: Romance, Sonnet, and Anacreontic poetry.
Narrative Genres
  • Epic: A long narrative poem recounting heroic deeds of ancient peoples (e.g., “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey”).
  • Medieval Epic Poem: Chronicles the exploits of a hero (e.g., “Cantar del mio Cid”).
  • Novel: Complex and lengthy narratives, often focusing on a central character in conflict with their surroundings (e.g., “Lazarillo de Tormes”).
  • Short Story: Brief, concentrated narrative with a surprising or striking ending (e.g., “The Story of the Fennel Stalk”).
  • Apologue: Short story with a moral purpose (e.g., “Count Lucanor”).
  • Fable: Apologue featuring animals as protagonists (e.g., “The Lion and the Mouse”).
Drama Genres
  • Tragedy: Explores conflicts involving a hero facing a superior force or destiny, leading to disaster (e.g., works by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides).
  • Comedy: Presents everyday conflicts and customs in a lighthearted manner, with a happy ending (e.g., “The Girls” by Leandro Fernández de Moratín).
  • Drama (Tragicomedy): Presents serious action and conflict, often blending tragic and comic elements (e.g., “La Celestina”).
Other Genres
  • Autobiography: An author’s account of their own life.
  • Epistolary Genre: Written in letter form.
  • Aphorisms: Brief judgments with didactic or moral intent.

3) Literary Figures

Literary figures draw the reader’s attention, enhance beauty, and enrich the meaning of texts.

Figures Based on Repetition
  • Alliteration: Repetition of similar sounds.
  • Anaphora: Repetition of elements at the beginning of successive lines or syntactic groups.
  • Parallelism: Repetition of similar structures in two or more verses or syntactic groups.
  • Polysyndeton: Insistent repetition of conjunctions.
Figures Based on Contrast
  • Antithesis: Opposition of words or syntactic groups with opposite meanings.
  • Paradox: Union of seemingly incompatible ideas that are nonetheless true.
  • Paronomasia: Placement of words with similar sounds but different meanings next to each other.
  • Chiasmus: Use of the same syntactic structure, but in reverse order.
Figures Based on Omission
  • Asyndeton: Omission of conjunctions, creating a sense of speed or urgency.
  • Ellipsis: Omission of obvious elements.
Other Figures
  • Gradation: Enumeration following a specific order.
  • Hyperbole: Exaggeration.
  • Hyperbaton: Significant alteration of the usual word order.
  • Rhetorical Question: A question asked for effect, not requiring an answer.
  • Pleonasm: Use of redundant words to intensify an idea.
Figures Based on Replacement
  • Irony: Saying the opposite of what is meant, allowing the reader to understand the true intention.
  • Metaphor: Replacing a real term with an imaginary one that shares a similarity.
    • Pure Metaphor: Only the imaginary term is used.
  • Metonymy: Replacing a term with another real term that has a close relationship.
  • Personification: Attributing human qualities to inanimate or irrational things.
  • Simile: Comparison of one element to another.