Approaches to Literature(week1)

Approaches to Literature(week1)

Plot(narrative)

Plot refers to the sequence of events inside a story which affect other events through the principle of cause and effect. The causal events of a plot can be thought of as a series of sentences linked by "and so". Plots can vary from simple structures such as in a traditional ballad to complex interwoven structures sometimes referred to as an imbroglio. The term plot can serve as a verb and refer to a character planning future actions in the story.In the narrative sense, the term highlights the important points which have important consequences within the story, according to Ansen Dibell. The term is similar in meaning to the term storyline.

>>Freytag

In 1863, Gustav Freytag, a German writer, advocated a model based upon Aristotle's theory of tragedy. This is now called "Freytag's pyramid," which divides a drama into five parts, and provides function to each part. These parts are: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and denouement.

Exposition

The first phase in Freytag's pyramid is the exposition, which introduces the characters, especially the main character, also known as the protagonist. It shows how the characters relate to one another, their goals and motivations, as well as their moral character. During the exposition, the protagonist learns their main goal and what is at stake.

Conflict

Freytag's definition of conflict refers to the second act in a five-act play, a point of time in which all of the major characters have been introduced, their motives and allegiances have been made clear, and they have begun to struggle against one another.

Rising action

Rising action is the second phase in Freytag's five-phase structure. It starts with a conflict, for example, the death of a character. The inciting incident is the point of the plot that begins the conflict. It is the event that catalyzes the protagonist to go into motion and to take action. Rising action involves the buildup of events until the climax.In this phase, the protagonist understands his or her goal and begins to work toward it. Smaller problems thwart their initial success and their progress is directed primarily against these secondary obstacles. This phase demonstrates how the protagonist overcomes these obstacles.

Climax

The climax is the turning point or highest point of the story. The protagonist makes the single big decision that defines not only the outcome of the story, but also who they are as a person. Freytag defines the climax as the third of the five dramatic phases which occupies the middle of the story.At the beginning of this phase, the protagonist finally clears away the preliminary barriers and engages with the adversary. Usually, both the protagonist and the antagonist have a plan to win against the other as they enter this phase. For the first time, the audience sees the pair going against one another in direct or nearly direct conflict.This struggle usually results in neither character completely winning or losing. In most cases, each character's plan is both partially successful and partially foiled by their adversary. The central struggle between the two characters is unique in that the protagonist makes a decision which shows their moral quality, and ultimately decides their fate. In a tragedy, the protagonist here makes a poor decision or a miscalculation that demonstrates their tragic flaw.

Falling action

According to Freytag, the falling action phase consists of events that lead to the ending. Character's actions resolve the problem. In the beginning of this phase, the antagonist often has the upper hand. The protagonist has never been further from accomplishing their goal. The outcome depends on which side the protagonist has put themselves on.

Resolution

In this phase the protagonist and antagonist have solved their problems and either the protagonist or antagonist wins the conflict. The conflict officially ends. Some stories show what happens to the characters after the conflict ends and/or they show what happens to the characters in the future.

Genre (=literary type)

A genre is any form or type of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially-agreed upon conventions developed over time. Genre is most popularly known as a category of literature, music, or other forms of art or entertainment, whether written or spoken, audio or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria, yet genres can be aesthetic, rhetorical, communicative, or functional. Genres form by conventions that change over time as new genres are invented and the use of old ones is discontinued. Often, works fit into multiple genres by way of borrowing and recombining these conventions. Stand alone texts, works, or pieces of communication may have individual styles, but genres are amalgams of these texts based on agreed upon or socially inferred conventions. Some genres may be rigid with strictly adhered to guidelines while others may be very flexible.

Genre began as an absolute classification system for ancient Greek literature. Poetry, prose, and performance each had a specific and calculated style that related to the theme of the story. Speech patterns for comedy would not be appropriate for tragedy, and even actors were restricted to their genre under the assumption that a type of person could tell one type of story best. In later periods genres proliferated and developed in response to changes in audiences and creators. Genre became a dynamic tool to help the public make sense out of unpredictable art. Because art is often a response to a social state, in that people write/paint/sing/dance about what they know about, the use of genre as a tool must be able to adapt to changing meanings.

Genre suffers from the same ills of any classification system. Genre is to be reassessed and scrutinized, and to weigh works on their unique merit. It has been suggested that genres resonate with people because of the familiarity, the shorthand communication, as well as the tendency of genres to shift with public mores and to reflect the zeitgeist. While the genre of storytelling has been relegated as lesser form of art because of the heavily borrowed nature of the conventions, admiration has grown. Proponents argue that the genius of an effective genre piece is in the variation, recombination, and evolution of the codes.

   

Rhyme Scheme

A rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhymes at the end of each line of a poem or song. It is usually referred to by using letters to indicate which lines rhyme; lines designated with the same letter all rhyme with each other.

Bid me to wee While I have eyes to see And having none, yet I will keep A heart to weep for thee

a b a b

Rhyme scheme is as integral to the structure of a text as rhythm, meter and length of phrase. Yet the way this happens seems more ambiguous than the way rhythm shapes a text, for example. Even some seasoned writers have difficulty understanding precisely how the organization of rhyme contributes to the architecture of a poem or a song.Basically, like the other elements of writing, rhyme scheme is used to manage flow, create and relieve tension & balance, and to highlight important ideas.

Writers may choose rhyme schemes in order to:

• Control the speed & flow of the structure
• Take control of the audience's expectations
• Communicate an idea in the most effective way

Instead of choosing rhyme schemes haphazardly, writers can deliberately design the structure of rhyme to support their ideas.

Rhymes accelerate a text. The more times a line rhymes, the smoother the flow, and the faster it goes.

Take the most basic "AAAA" rhyme scheme for example:

There was a cat,
His name was Pat,
Outside, he sat,
And boy was he fat!

When each line ends the same way, it is smooth, and can be read quickly. Because every line rhymes, the reader doesn't slow down anywhere when they read it. If the last line was supposed to be the punchline of the poem, so to speak, then it didn't really work, because the AAAA pattern kept them reading too fast to stop at the end.

A basic distinction is between rhyme schemes that apply to a single stanza, and those that continue their pattern throughout an entire poem (see chain rhyme). There are also more elaborate related forms, like the sestina – which requires repetition of exact words in a complex pattern.

In English, highly repetitive rhyme schemes are unusual. English has more vowel sounds than Italian, for example, meaning that such a scheme would be far more restrictive for an English writer than an Italian one – there are fewer suitable words to match a given pattern. Even such schemes as the terza rima ("aba bcb cdc ded..."), used by Dante Alighieri in The Divine Comedy, have been considered too difficult for English.

Shakespeare Sonnet 18 
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st;
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. 

>>analysis
In the sonnet, the speaker compares his beloved to the summer season, and argues that his beloved is better. He also states that his beloved will live on forever through the words of the poem. Scholars have found parallels within the poem to Ovid's Tristia and Amores, both of which have love themes.

Prefix, root, suffix

chrono-: before vowels chron-, word-forming element meaning "time," from Latinized form of Greek khrono-, comb. form of khronos "time, a defined time, a lifetime, a season, a while," which is of uncertain origin.

chronological: "arranged in order by time," 1610s, from chronology + -ical. Chronological order is attested by 1754. Related: Chronologic (1610s); chronologically.


chronograph: "precise time-measuring device," 1868, from chrono- "time" + -graph "instrument for recording; something written." Compare Greek khronographos "recording time and events" (adj.); "a chronicler" (n.).


chronicle: c. 1300, cronicle, from Anglo-French cronicle, from Old French cronique "chronicle" (Modern French chronique), from Latin chronica (neuter plural mistaken for fem. singular), from Greek ta khronika (biblia) "the (books of) annals, chronology," neuter plural of khronikos "of time, concerning time," from khronos "time" (see chrono-). Ending modified in Anglo-French, perhaps by influence of article. Old English had cranic "chronicle," cranicwritere "chronicler." The classical -h- was restored in English from 16c.

syn-: word-forming element meaning "together with, jointly; alike; at the same time," also sometimes completive or intensive, from Greek syn (prep.) "with, together with, along with, in the company of," from PIE *ksun- "with" (source also of Russian so- "with, together," from Old Russian su(n)-). Assimilated to -l-, reduced to sy- before -s- and -z-, and altered to sym- before -b-, -m- and -p-. Since 1970s also with a sense of "synthetic."

synchronous: 1660s, "existing or happening at the same time," from Late Latin synchronus "simultaneous," from Greek synkhronos "happening at the same time," from syn- "together" (see syn-) + khronos "time" (see chrono-). Meaning "recurring at the same successive instants of time" is attested from 1670s. Related: Synchronously.

synopsis: 1610s, "a general view, an outline," from Late Latin synopsis "a synopsis," from Greek synopsis "a general view," literally "a seeing altogether, a seeing all at once," from syn- "together" (see syn-) + opsis "sight, appearance," from PIE *okw- "to see" (see eye (n.)).


synod: late 14c., "ecclesiastical council," from Late Latin synodus, from Greek synodos "assembly, meeting; a coming together, conjunction of planets," from syn- "together" (see syn-) + hodos "a travelling, journeying; a manner or system (of doing, speaking, etc.); a way, road, path," from PIE root *ked-"to go, yield" (see cede). Earlier in English as sinoth (early 12c.). Used by Presbyterians for "assembly of ministers and other elders" from 1593 to c. 1920, when replaced by General Council.

-pathy: word-forming element meaning "feeling, suffering, emotion; disorder, disease," from Latin -pathia, from Greek -patheia "act of suffering, feeling" (see pathos). Meaning "system of treatment of disease" is abstracted from homeopathy (q.v.).

homeopathy: 1830, from German Homöopathie, coined 1824 by German physician Samuel Friedrich Hahnemann (1755-1843) from Greek homoios "like, similar, of the same kind" (see homeo-) + -patheia "disease," also "feeling, emotion" (see -pathy). Greek homoiopathes meant "having like feelings or affections, sympathetic."

allopathy: 1836, "treatment of disease by remedies that produce effects opposite to the symptoms," from German Allopathie (Hahnemann), from Greek allos"other" (see alias (adv.)) + -patheia, "suffering, disease, feeling" (see -pathy). The term applied by homeopathists to traditional medicine; the formation is much-criticized by purists; the equivalent Greek compound had a different sense and was used in grammar, etc.

telepathy: 1882, coined (along with telæsthesia) by English psychologist Frederic Myers (1843-1901), literally "feeling from afar," from tele- + -pathy. The noun telepath is an 1889 back-formation.

a-: prefix meaning "not, without," from Greek a-, an- "not" (the "alpha privative"), from PIE root *ne "not" (source also of Latin nil, English un- (q.v.)). In words from Greek, such as abyssmal, adamant, amethyst; also partly nativized as a prefix of negation (asexual, amoral, agnostic). 

adamant: It is perhaps literally "invincible, indomitable," from a- "not" (see a- (3)) + daman "to conquer, to tame," from PIE root *deme- "to constrain, force, break (horses)" (see tame (adj.)). "But semantically, the etymology is rather strange," according to Beekes, who suggests it might be a foreign word altered in Greek by folk etymology, and compares Akkadian (Semitic) adamu. 

amethyst: violet-colored quartz, late 13c., amatist, from Old French ametiste (12c., Modern French améthyste) and directly from Medieval Latin amatistus, from Latin amethystus, from Greek amethystos "amethyst," noun use of an adjective, literally "not intoxicating; not drunken," from a- "not" + methyskein "make drunk," from methys "wine," from PIE root *medhu- "honey; mead" (see mead (n.1)). 

acolyte: early 14c., "inferior officer in the church," from Old French acolite or directly from Medieval Latin acolytus (Late Latin acoluthus), from Greek akolouthos "following, attending on," as a noun, "a follower, attendant," literally "having one way," from a- "together with," copulative prefix (see a-(3)), + keleuthose "a way, road, path, track," from PIE *qeleu- (source also of Lithuanian kelias "way"). The word was in late Old English as acolitus, a Latin form; in early modern English a corrected form acolythe was used.

dis-: (assimilated as dif- before -f-, to di- before most voiced consonants), word-forming element meaning 1. "lack of, not" (as in dishonest); 2. "do the opposite of" (as in disallow); 3. "apart, away" (as in discard), from Old French des- or directly from Latin dis- "apart, in a different direction, between," figuratively "not, un-," also "exceedingly, utterly," from PIE *dis- "apart, asunder" (source also of Old English te-, Old Saxon ti-, Old High German ze-, German zer-). 

dissident: 1530s, from Latin dissidentem (nominative dissidens), present participle of dissidere "to be remote; disagree, be removed from," literally "to sit apart," from dis- "apart" (see dis-) + sedere "to sit" (see sedentary).

dissimilitude: early 15c., from Latin dissimilitudo, from dissimilis, from dis- "not" (see dis-) + similis "like" (see similar).

disquisition: c. 1600, "subject for investigation," also "systematic search," from Latin disquisitionem (nominative disquisitio) "an inquiry, investigation," noun of action from past participle stem of disquirere "inquire," from dis- "apart" (see dis-) + quaerere "seek, ask" (see query (v.)). Sense of "long speech" first recorded 1640s.

im-: variant of in- before -b-, -m-, -p- in the sense of "not, opposite of" (immobile, impersonal; see in- (2)) as well as "in, into" (implant, impoverish; see in- (1)). In some English words it alternates with em- (1).

impartible: late 14c. as "indivisible, incapable of being parted," from Medieval Latin impartibilis; see im- "not, opposite of" + part (v.). From 1630s as "capable of being imparted," from impart (v.) + -ible. Now little used in either sense.

immeasurable: late 14c., immesurable, from im- + measurable. It could alternate with immensurable. Related: Immeasurably.


impanel: "to fit with panels," 1570s; see im- "in" + panel (n.). Related: Impanelled. Also empanel.

mort-: note sounded on a horn at the death of the quarry, c. 1500, from French mort "dead," from Latin mortem (source of Spanish muerte, Italian morte), accusative of mors "death" (see mortal (adj.)). Or from French mort "dead," from Vulgar Latin *mortus, from Latin mortuus.

mortgage: late 14c., morgage, "conveyance of property as security for a loan or agreement," from Old French morgage (13c.), mort gaige, literally "dead pledge" (replaced in modern French by hypothèque), from mort "dead" (see mortal (adj.)) + gage "pledge" (see wage (n.)). So called because the deal dies either when the debt is paid or when payment fails. Old French mort is from Vulgar Latin *mortus "dead," from Latin mortuus, past participle of mori "to die" (see mortal (adj.)). The -t- restored in English based on Latin.

mortify: late 14c., "to kill," from Old French mortefiier "destroy, overwhelm, punish," from Late Latin mortificare "cause death, kill, put to death," literally "make dead," from mortificus "producing death," from Latin mors (genitive mortis) "death" (see mortal (adj.)) + root of facere "to make" (see factitious). Religious sense of "to subdue the flesh by abstinence and discipline" first attested early 15c. Sense of "humiliate" first recorded 1690s (compare mortification). Related: Mortified; mortifying.

mortuary: early 14c., from Anglo-French mortuarie "gift to a parish priest from a deceased parishioner," from Medieval Latin mortuarium, noun use of neuter of Late Latin adjective mortuarius "pertaining to the dead," from Latin mortuus, past participle of mori "to die" (see mortal (adj.)). Meaning "place where bodies are kept temporarily" first recorded 1865, a euphemism for earlier deadhouse.

-cracy: word-forming element forming nouns meaning "rule or government by," from French -cratie or directly from Medieval Latin -cratia, from Greek -kratia"power, might; rule, sway; power over; a power, authority," from kratos "strength," from PIE *kre-tes- "power, strength," suffixed form of root *kar-/*ker-"hard" (see hard (adj.)). The connective -o- has come to be viewed as part of it. Productive in English from c. 1800.

psephocracy: "government formed by election by ballot," from Greek psephizein "to vote" (properly "to vote with pebbles," from psephos "pebble") + -cracy.


timocracy: 1580s, from Middle French tymocracie, from Medieval Latin timocratia (13c.), from Greek timokratia, from time "honor, worth" (related to tiein "to place a value on, to honor," from PIE *kwi-ma-, suffixed form of root *kweie- (1) "to value, honor") + -kratia "rule" (see -cracy). In Plato's philosophy, a form of government in which ambition for honor and glory motivates the rulers (as in Sparta). In Aristotle, a form of government in which political power is in direct proportion to property ownership. Related: Timocratic; timocratical.


stratocracy: "government by the army, military government," 1650s, from Greek stratos "army, encamped army" (see strategy) + -cracy.