Literature

Literature is also a form of time travel that helps put today in context. All those apocalyptic lamentations about how "things used to be so much better" are controverted in literature of the last...

The poem “Identity” by Julio Noboa Polanco is an unrepentant celebration of individuality. Asserting himself against other people, whom he contemptuously likens to well-fed, well-watered flowers,...

Literature is one way for us to hear the voices of the past and work with the present. It is a way for the present to connect to the possible future. Story telling is one way for humans to reach...

A primary difference between academic and non-academic texts involves audience, which also speaks to purpose. An academic, nonfiction text will be based on research methods that can be replicated....

A novel is a book-length fictional prose narrative that contains six primary elements: character, plot, point of view, setting, style, and theme. Let's look at these six through a sample novel,...

The basic elements of prose are: character, setting, plot, point of view, and mood. Character refers to: biographical information; personality traits; social roles, and psychological factors such...

"Olden days" is a fairly relative phrase. Some younger students might consider olden days any time before Instagram existed. They can't fathom a world that existed before cell phones and texting,...

A literary convention is: A customary feature of a literary work, such as the use of a chorus in Greek tragedy, the inclusion of an explicit moral in a fable, or the use of a particular rhyme...

Dictionary.com defines myth this way: A traditional or legendary story, usually concerning some being or hero or event, with or without a determinable basis of fact or a natural explanation,...

The main difference between the different forms of literature is the purpose and the way words are arranged. The main difference between prose and poetry is how the words are used. In prose we...

Haldane begins his essay by saying that he has to accept the universe as it is. He cannot require the impossible. He then sets out a few of the things which he personally wants out of life:...

In examining the terms "traditional" and "modern," literary scholars will differ on the defining time periods or characteristics which qualify those classifications. The following are provided as a...

Medieval literature extends over a wide geographic area and a long span of time, so it is difficult to identify characteristics that apply to all or even most literature of the Middle Ages. That...

The main theme of Coolie is the exploitation of the poor by the rich in early twentieth century India and the human suffering that this brings about. In his descriptions of Munoo’s experiences...

The primary similarities between a novel and a drama are that they both have plots, complete with rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution; they both have conflicts, characters, and...

Drama is a broad category and includes plays as a macro category or can be a portion of a work in a sub heading. Whether discussed in the macro or micro realms, drama has some definite...

Figures of speech enhance the author's creation. This is true of any genre and any form of writing. The effective use of figures of speech brings to life what would have been mere words, phrases...

The simplest and most obvious point is that "humble" is an adjective or a verb, whereas "humility" is a noun. More significantly, however, "humble" is often used refer to social status, in phrases...

Certainly, one theme of the story is that we must be wary of strangers. Little Red Riding Hood meets the wolf in the forest, "but as she did not know what a bad sort of animal she was, she did not...

In the science fiction short story "The Wretched and the Beautiful" by E. Lily Yu, an alien spaceship lands on a popular tourist beach. Inside are strangely shaped alien refugees (the wretched) who...

Gynocriticism is a late-twentieth century feminist reframing of literary criticism. It began in the 1970s, and its aims include focusing on literature as understood wholly from a woman's...

Este cuento, "Los Bomberos" de Mario Benedetti, depende mucho de la ironía. El cuento se trata de un hombre llamado Olegario, quien tiene un don de premonición. Olegario ha ganado bastante fama y...

Poetry is a form of writing in verse, which usually has a musical quality obtained through the specific use of literary elements such as meter and rhyme, and literary devices such as alliteration,...

Mahesh Dattani’s play Tara starts with a card game. A brother, Chandan, and sister, Tara, are playing cards, and Tara is winning. While things are going well for her in the card game, her life is...

The relationship between history and literature is complex and multifaceted. First, literature often presents historical people, places, and events in story form. Think, for instance, of the...

The basic characteristics of African English Literature are: 1) Written in both African and European languages. The predominant African languages used are Amharic, Zulu, Hausa, and Swahili. 2)...

Novels were a new literary form in the eighteenth century, and in many ways, they were a reaction against earlier tales called romances that featured grand adventures, noble characters, and...

It sounds like what you may be referring to is, as the other instructor has pointed out, a frame story. Such stories start at the ending and then flash back in time to demonstrate how this pivotal...

Prose refers to written or spoken language that is not in poetic form, whether in rhythm, rhyme, or structure. Drama is a performing art in which actors use dialogue and actions to tell a story or...

You will recognize a simile (take care spelling simile as there is no extra i) when you see a comparison using the word "like" or a description of something using as....as when those two things...

A biography is the true story of a person's life. An autobiography is the true story of a person's life when it is written by that person. The author writes about him- or herself in an...

Formalism, structuralism, and new criticism are all theories of literary criticism. Literary criticism is “the reasoned consideration of literary works and issues” (Encyclopedia Britannica). This...

One the most general level, most literature portrays people engaging in social interactions. Thus literature gives an image of society in words just as your bathroom mirror gives a reflected visual...

In the short story "The Rain Came" by Grace Ogot, customs and traditional beliefs leave Oganda having to face death for her people to have rain. Oganda is to be sacrificed in order to end the...

When linguists say that language is "rule-governed behavior," they mean it has a grammar, or a set of conventions that organizes its "proper" use. These rules set boundaries around the meaning of...

The Chosen One is a common trope in speculative fiction, though the roots of it as a concept are ancient in nature. The term refers to a character who is "chosen" by God, the gods, or fate itself...

As graphic novels are by their very definition a blend of writing and illustration, it goes without saying that they will achieve a level of descriptiveness that a traditional novel will fall short...

Sometimes I think you can learn more from short stories than novels, simply because the author gets to his/her point much quicker and is more concise with descriptions. Authors don't write just to...

The purpose of literary criticism likely depends on who’s answering the question. A person with a conservative philosophy could answer that studying literary criticism is nefarious and subversive....

As was mentioned in the previous post, the central themes throughout the short story examine justice, responsibility, discernment, and friendship. Both characters, Jumman Shaikh and Algu Chowdhry,...

The main difference between Victorian and Modernist literature is the shift towards questioning the omniscient narrator. There was a shift from an objective (all knowing) to a subjective...

A winter's dayIn a deep and dark December This is an example of alliteration due to the repeated letter d. The same technique is used in a subsequent line—"On a freshly fallen, silent shroud of...

Boiled down to its most basic definition, style refers to the way in which an author uses language in order to create the mood and meaning of a text. This could include his or her word choice,...

This ancient Navajo proverb has begun to circulate recently as an inspirational quote. It is often used on online memes and printed on tote bags and so on. It can be interpreted in several ways,...

When you use a specific style of criticism to approach a piece of literature, you are looking for ways the story relates to your style. In other words, when you use Approach X, you read the story...

"By Any Other Name" is the story of two young Indian sisters who start attending an Anglo-Indian school, having been taught up to this point by their mother. In summarizing this story, you'd need...

The Romantics didn't see the world in the same way as thinkers and artists of the Enlightenment. The latter tended to see the world as an object to be measured, studied, observed, and controlled...

Early on, especially after the United States broke away from England, it began to self-consciously develop a literature different from the European tradition, one that emphasized American values to...

One of the most important skills in summarizing any piece of text is to read actively. This means taking notes as you read. You should not attempt to write your summary after reading the text only...

In general, we read stories to learn about life, about the world around us, and about how people in the world react to their circumstances and experiences. Characters in stories help us see how...