Literary Text Analysis: Characteristics, Genres, and Narrative Elements
Literary Text: Aesthetic Purpose and Characteristics
Rhetoric in literary text: pursues an aesthetic purpose. Its characteristics differentiate it from other types of text because the language is not primarily functional or communicative.
- Sender: Expresses their personality as an author, as a creator. Themes are often subjective, generally real but sometimes fantastic, and personally interpreted.
- Receiver: The public reader. Reading is a personal opinion and appreciation of the text.
- Message: The result of an aesthetic elaboration that relates content with the way the message is expressed (rhetorical figures, metrics, topic, etc.)
- Code: All lexical, syntactic, phonetic, or semantic resources. These vary in different kinds of texts.
- Context: Apart from the historical context, literary works create their own context.
- Channel: Can be cultured oral or written, or popular.
The Short Story and Narration
The short story is a short narrative created to be heard or read. It tells a concise history based on a schematic plot, featuring few characters who do not have much psychological depth. It often has moral or didactic aims, seeking to reflect on the reader.
Structure of a Short Story
- Approach: Exposition of space, time, action, and introduction of the protagonist.
- Development: Followed by the protagonist’s adventures.
- Denouement: Resolution of the conflict, sometimes with an explicit moral lesson.
Types of Stories
The author of the folk story is unknown. It is oral, for a public audience, and has an educational purpose (starting in the 19th century).
Various Types of Stories:
- Fable: Similar to a folk story, but characterized by animal or human characters from popular culture.
- Legend: Differs from a short story by giving a reason for natural or historical realities.
- Literary Cult Tale: Adopts the structure of a popular story, but is modified according to the author’s interests. It has a known author and addresses philosophical or psychological concerns. There are varied themes.
The Novel: A Long and Complex Narrative
The novel is a long and complex narrative, a fictional account but sometimes based on facts or historical events.
Elements of a Novel
- Story: A set of facts in history that are explained.
- Plot: The order in which the narrative unfolds, which can be chronological or modified (with anticipations, retrospections, etc.).
- Characters: Individuals who carry out the actions of the story. They have names, physical and psychological descriptions, biographical backgrounds, and ways of acting and speaking. Characters may be presented directly (by themselves) or indirectly (through other people).
Character Types According to Function:
- Flat Characters: Do not evolve.
- Round Characters: Evolve significantly.
Space and Time
Coordinates in which the action lies, including setting, time, and place. Can be detailed, realistic, or fantastic. There can be an open or closed relationship between the landscape and the mood of the characters. Examples include historical novels, contemporary novels, and science fiction novels.
Narrative Standpoint
The perspective from which the facts are related: internal (first-person narrator who is also the protagonist) or external (third-person narrator who recounts the facts, can be objective or omniscient, knowing everything).
Episode
A narrative unit that includes action, space, time, and characters.
Discourse
Representation of thoughts or words of one or more characters, more or less directly. Three types: dialogue, monologue, and interior monologue.
Conjunctions and Interrogatives
That: Conjunction, exclamatory value when it reinforces a question. In subject or subordinate clauses, it functions as a direct object or circumstantial complement.
Why: Interrogative value, equivalent to ‘the thing which’ (relative pronoun when preceded by a preposition).
What, Where, Who, and Whom: Equivalent to ‘the one that’, ‘those that’.