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| Limestone Kish
tablet from Sumer with pictographic writing; may
be the earliest known writing, 3500 BC.
Ashmolean Museum. |
Literature
Literature is a group of works of art made up of words.
Most are written, but some are passed on by word of
mouth. Literature usually means works of poetry and
prose that are especially well written. There are many
different kinds of literature, such as poetry, plays, or
novels. They can also be put into groups through their
language, historical period, origin, genre, and subject.
The word literature comes from the Latin word "learning,
writing, grammar".
Most of the earliest works were epic poems. Epic poems
are long stories or myths about adventures. Ramayana and
Mahabharta, two Indian epics, are still read today.
Odyssey and Iliad are two famous Greek poems by Homer.
They were passed down through speaking and written down
around the 8th century BC.
Literature can also mean imaginative or creative
writing, which is looked at for its artistic value. |
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Major forms
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art which uses aesthetic
and rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meanings in
addition to, or in place of, prosaic ostensible meaning.
Poetry has traditionally been distinguished from prose
by its being set in verse; prose is cast in sentences,
poetry in lines; the syntax of prose is dictated by
meaning, whereas that of poetry is held across meter or
the visual aspects of the poem. Prior to the 19th
century, poetry was commonly understood to be something
set in metrical lines; accordingly, in 1658 a definition
of poetry is "any kind of subject consisting of Rhythm
or Verses". Possibly as a result of Aristotle's
influence (his Poetics), "poetry" before the 19th
century was usually less a technical designation for
verse than a normative category of fictive or rhetorical
art. As a form it may pre-date literacy, with the
earliest works being composed within and sustained by an
oral tradition; hence it constitutes the earliest
example of literature. |
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Prose
Prose is a form of language that possesses ordinary
syntax and natural speech rather than rhythmic
structure; in which regard, along with its measurement
in sentences rather than lines, it differs from poetry.
On the historical development of prose, Richard Graff
notes that "[In the case of Ancient Greece] recent
scholarship has emphasized the fact that formal prose
was a comparatively late development, an "invention"
properly associated with the classical period". |
- Novel: a long fictional prose
narrative. It was the form's close relation to real life
that differentiated it from the chivalric romance; in
most European languages the equivalent term is roman,
indicating the proximity of the forms. In English, the
term emerged from the Romance languages in the late 15th
century, with the meaning of "news"; it came to indicate
something new, without a distinction between fact or
fiction. Although there are many historical prototypes,
so-called "novels before the novel", the modern novel
form emerges late in cultural history—roughly during the
eighteenth century. Initially subject to much criticism,
the novel has acquired a dominant position amongst
literary forms, both popularly and critically.
- Novella: in purely quantitative
terms, the novella exists between the novel and short
story; the publisher Melville House classifies it as
"too short to be a novel, too long to be a short story".
There is no precise definition in terms of word or page
count. Literary prizes and publishing houses often have
their own arbitrary limits, which vary according to
their particular intentions. Summarizing the variable
definitions of the novella, William Giraldi concludes
"[it is a form] whose identity seems destined to be
disputed into perpetuity". It has been suggested that
the size restriction of the form produces various
stylistic results, both some that are shared with the
novel or short story, and others unique to the form.
- Short story: a dilemma in defining
the "short story" as a literary form is how to, or
whether one should, distinguish it from any short
narrative; hence it also has a contested origin,
variably suggested as the earliest short narratives
(e.g. the Bible), early short story writers (e.g. Edgar
Allan Poe), or the clearly modern short story writers
(e.g. Anton Chekhov). Apart from its distinct size,
various theorists have suggested that the short story
has a characteristic subject matter or structure; these
discussions often position the form in some relation to
the novel.
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Drama
Drama is literature intended for performance. The form
is often combined with music and dance, as in opera and
musical theater. A play is a subset of this form,
referring to the written dramatic work of a playwright
that is intended for performance in a theater; it
comprises chiefly dialogue between characters, and
usually aims at dramatic or theatrical performance
rather than at reading. A closet drama, by contrast,
refers to a play written to be read rather than to be
performed; hence, it is intended that the meaning of
such a work can be realized fully on the page. Nearly
all drama took verse form until comparatively recently.
Greek drama exemplifies the earliest form of drama of
which we have substantial knowledge. Tragedy, as a
dramatic genre, developed as a performance associated
with religious and civic festivals, typically enacting
or developing upon well-known historical or mythological
themes. Tragedies generally presented very serious
themes. With the advent of newer technologies, scripts
written for non-stage media have been added to this
form. War of the Worlds (radio) in 1938 saw the advent
of literature written for radio broadcast, and many
works of Drama have been adapted for film or television.
Conversely, television, film, and radio literature have
been adapted to printed or electronic media. |
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 Kiddle: Literature
Wikipedia: Literature |
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