Literature: its Features and Periods
The word Literature is derived from the Latin "litteraturae" meaning "writing". "Literature" is commonly used since the eighteenth century to designate fictional and imaginative writings (poetry, prose, fiction, and drama). In expanded use, it designates that works have some essential qualities such as Artistic, Universality, Emotion, Imagination, and Permanence.
Characteristics of literature:-
Artistic- It is a significant quality of all literature. All art is an expression of life in the form of truth and beauty. Which remain unnoticed until brought to our attention by some sensitive human soul.
Suggestive- It is the second quality. Its appeal to our emotions and imagination. e.g.- When Faustus in the presence of Helen asks, "was this the face that launched a thousand ships"? He does not state a fact rather he opens a door of our imagination that enters in a new world- a world of love, music, beauty, and heroism.
Permanent- The third characteristic of literature, arising directly from, artistic and suggestiveness, is its permanence. It is determined by UNIVERSALITY and STYLE.
Universality is the appeal to the widest human interest and simplest human emotions. Good literature has these qualities and it knows no nation or boundary. It is equipped with elementary passion and emotions,- love and hate, joy and sorrow, fear and faith- which are an essential part of human nature.
Style is a purely personal one. In a deeper sense, style is the unconscious expression of the writer's own personality.
It has two types:-
1. Prose- It is an inclusive terms for all discourse, spoken or written which is not patterned into lines either of matric verse or of free verse.
2. Poetry- It is a piece of literature that evokes a concentrated imagination, awareness or specific emotional responses through language chosen and arranged for its meaning, sound, and rhythm.
The prose is divided into -
Drama- The piece of work that written to be enacted or performed in the theatre in which actors play their own role, do action, and utter written dialogue. The alternative name of drama is Play.
Novel- The term novel is applied to a great variety of writing that have in common only the attribute of being an extended work of fiction written in prose. Its magnitudes permit a great variety of of characters, great complication of plot, ampler development of milieu etc.
Short story- A short story is a brief work of prose fiction. Like a novel- it organizes the action, thought and dialogue of its characters into the artful pattern of a plot directed toward a particular effect on an audience.
Latter- A latter is a written message conveyed from one person or group of persons to another through a medium.
Essay- Any short composition in prose that undertakes to discuss a matter, and express a point of view.
Satire- It can be described as the literary art of diminishing or derogating a subject by making it ridiculous, scorn, and indignation.
Poetry is divided into -
Balled- It is a poem in short stanzas narrating a popular story, and simple diction and the situation are elementary. Originally, it is a dance song. It deals with a variety of subjects such as- love, both happy and tragic, old time magic etc.
Lyrics- It is a short poem uttered by single speaker who express a state of mind or a process of perception, thought and feeling.
Epic- It is a long verse narration on a serious subject, told in a formal and elevated style, and centered on a heroic figure on whose action depends the fate of a tribe, a nation, and the human race.
Odes- It denotes a long lyrical poems that is serious in subject, and treatment, elevated in style, and elaborate in its stanzaic structure.
Sonnet- A poem of a single stanza of fourteen lines, having iambic pentameter.
Elegy- It is a lyrical piece of poetry for the dead.
Drama- It is a story in the form of prose or poetry meant for the stage. The story is told through dialogue, supported by customs, gestures and music.
Satire- It is a kind of didactic poetry which points out the faults of individuals or communities.