A Brief Introduction To English Literature

A Brief Introduction to English Literature Draft Copy @CMK 2014
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A Brief Introduction to English
Literature
By
Charles Mwaura Kamau

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Charles M Kamau
All Rights Reserved

Libra Publishers
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Books by the same author:

1. Foundations of Kenya's Company Law with Cases and Materials. (Amazon)

2. Basic Principles of Criminal Litigation in Kenya (Amazon)

3. Wisdom of Ages: A survival guide to Wealth, Peace & Happiness (Amazon)

4. CHINA: Understanding the Country and its People ( E-book Available at Amazon)

5. Principles of Kenyan Constitutional Law, (forthcoming, LawAfrica Publishers)

6. Mastering English as a Second Language (Amazon)

7. The Art of Great Lawyers (Scribd)

Recommended

Jeff Ramantosh, The People of Kenya: Their Customs, Cultures and Traditions (Amazon)

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Contents
Literature ......................................................................................................................................... 8
Aims and outcomes ......................................................................................................................... 9
Literary criticism ............................................................................................................................ 10
Plot and Structure ..................................................................................................................... 12
Some structural elements of plots ........................................................................................ 12
Examples of plots: ................................................................................................................. 13
Setting ........................................................................................................................................ 16
Examples of setting: .............................................................................................................. 16
Theme ....................................................................................................................................... 17
Examples of Themes ............................................................................................................ 18
Characterisation ......................................................................................................................... 20
Types of characters ............................................................................................................... 20
Narrator ..................................................................................................................................... 22
Examples of Narrators .......................................................................................................... 22
Tone and Style .......................................................................................................................... 24
Stream of consciousness ....................................................................................................... 24
Figurative Language ....................................................................................................................... 27
Simile ......................................................................................................................................... 29
Examples of usage: ................................................................................................................ 29
Metaphor ................................................................................................................................... 31
Epithet ................................................................................................................................... 33
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Allegory...................................................................................................................................... 34
Examples of allegories: ......................................................................................................... 34
Personification ........................................................................................................................... 35
Analogies ................................................................................................................................... 37
Examples of Usage ................................................................................................................ 37
Humour ................................................................................................................................... 38
Example of usage .................................................................................................................. 39
Satire .......................................................................................................................................... 40
Sarcasm ...................................................................................................................................... 43
Example of usage: ................................................................................................................. 43
Irony .......................................................................................................................................... 45
Example of usage .............................................................................................................. 46
Symbolism ................................................................................................................................. 48
Motif .......................................................................................................................................... 52
Paradox ...................................................................................................................................... 53
Imagery ...................................................................................................................................... 55
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Example of usage .................................................................................................................. 55
Anaphora ................................................................................................................................... 57
Idioms ........................................................................................................................................ 59
Examples ............................................................................................................................... 59
Allusions .................................................................................................................................... 64
Examples ............................................................................................................................... 64
Section Summary .......................................................................................................................... 71
Genres ............................................................................................................................................ 72
Identifying a genre ........................................................................................................... 72
Prose .......................................................................................................................................... 74
Selected Excerpts in English ................................................................................................. 75
Poetry ......................................................................................................................................... 99
The purposes of poetic writing ........................................................................................... 100
Why study poetry ................................................................................................................ 101
How to read poetry ............................................................................................................. 102
Poetic forms ............................................................................................................................ 104
The sonnet .......................................................................................................................... 104
The epic .............................................................................................................................. 109
The ode ............................................................................................................................... 110
Elegy .................................................................................................................................... 112
A ballad ............................................................................................................................... 113
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The Song ............................................................................................................................. 115
Dramatic poetry .................................................................................................................. 116
Blank verse .......................................................................................................................... 117
Poetic Prose......................................................................................................................... 118
Tonal devices of poetry ........................................................................................................... 119
Alliteration ............................................................................................................................... 119
Assonance ........................................................................................................................... 119
Rhyme ................................................................................................................................. 119
Onomatopoeia .................................................................................................................... 119
Other literary devices .............................................................................................................. 119
Imagery in poetry .................................................................................................................... 119

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Literary language is commonly
distinguished from the language
of ordinary life by certain
heightening or suppressions. The
novelist or essayist, let us say,
fashions his language more or
less in accordance with his own
mood, with his immediate aim in
writing, with the capacity of his
expected readers. He is
discoursing with a certain real
or imaginary audience. He may
put himself on paper, as
Montaigne said, as if he were
talking to the first man he
happens to meet; or he may
choose to address himself to the
few chosen spirits of his
generation and of succeeding
generations. He trusts the
arbitrary written or printed
symbols of word-sounds to carry
his thoughts safely into the
minds of other men. A study of
Poetry By Bliss Perry
The best moments in reading
are when you come across
something a thought, a feeling,
a way of looking at things
which you had thought special
and particular to you. Now here
it is, set down by someone else, a
person you have never met,
someone even who is long dead.
And it is as if a hand has come
out and taken yours. Hector in
The History Boys (2004), by
Alan Bennett
Literature
Central to the study of literature is the critical analysis of
how language is purposefully and creatively used in texts in
order to create meaning and explore issues or themes.
Through the literary skills of reading and responding
critically and personally to literary texts, you actively
construct meaning and in the process make connections
between the texts, your live and the world around you.
The study of Literature encourages you to enter imagined
worlds and to explore, to examine, and to reflect on both
current and timeless issues, as well as your individuality and
humanity at large.
Therefore, the main rationale for studying Literature is that
it helps you to develop a humanistic outlook on life.
Through a close interaction with literary or creative works
which portray a diverse range of human thought, emotion
and experience, you are able to gain knowledge and
understanding of the nature of human existence and to
develop insights into and an appreciation of the world and
of the society in which you live.
The study of literary texts both sharpens and broadens your
mind.
In addition literature sharpens your critical thinking skills.
It helps you to:
cultivate a questioning mind;
explore personal and social issues; and
Interrogate and manage ambiguities and
multiple perspectives.
This introduction to Literature booklet is aimed at building
the readers socio-cultural sensitivity and awareness. At
broadening your global outlook: this it does by offering you
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Ends of Language
The ends of language are,
first, to make known one
mans thoughts to another;
secondly, to do it with ease
and quickness; and thirdly,
thereby to convey the
knowledge of things. When
language fails in any of
these requisites, it is
abused or deficient.
He who in conversation
uses the words of any
language without distinct
ideas in his mind to which
he applies them, only utters
sounds without
signification, and is in
reality no more advanced
in knowledge than he
would be in learning, who
had in his library the
catalogues of books,
without possessing the
books themselves.
He who has complex ideas,
without particular names
for them, is embarrassed in
his conversation for want
of proper terms to
communicate his complex
ideas, which he is therefore
forced to make known by a
detail of the simple ones
which compose them: and
thus is frequently
compelled to use twenty
words to express what
another more fluent and
ready man signifies by one.
He who annexes not
constantly the same word
to the same idea, but uses
the same word sometimes
in one and sometimes in
another signification,
ought to pass in
conversation for as fair
and candid a man as he
does in the market, who
sells several things by the
same name.
By John Locke
opportunities to explore a wide range of literary texts written
in different contexts and from various parts of the world, and
from different ages and cultures. Above all it aims at
stimulating your thinking about different beliefs and values.
Hopefully, by the end your empathy and understanding of the
other will be stronger.
Aims and outcomes
To develop skills of literary comprehension and
appreciation
to examine and discuss form and content, showing:
comprehension of the thoughts and feelings conveyed in the
texts
To develop critical appreciation of the language,
technique and style through which these thoughts and
feelings are expressed
to demonstrate the ability to compare and contrast
literary or creative texts in terms of themes, characterization,
language, technique and style
to show awareness of the connections between literary
or creative texts and other cultural media (such as paintings,
sculpture, photography)
to apply some of the techniques learnt to ones own
creative work
to develop an interest in following up references and
allusions, and the ability to establish interconnections within
and between texts
to develop a keen interest in reading and viewing
literary or creative works
to gain pleasure and enjoyment from reading and
viewing literary or creative works and to appreciate the
beauty, flexibility and play of language at its best
to gain increased awareness of human relationships and the interaction between the
individual and society and to empathize with others.
to appreciate different cultures, attitudes and belief systems.
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Literary criticism
Strictly defined, literary criticism refers to the act of interpreting and studying literature.
As a literary critic you have to evaluate the worth or quality of a piece of literature as well as
to argue on behalf of an interpretation or understanding of the particular meaning(s) of
literary texts.
The task is to explain and attempt to reach a critical
understanding of what literary texts mean in terms of
their aesthetic, as well as social, political, and cultural
statements and suggestions. As a literary critic you do
more than simply discuss or evaluate the importance
of a literary text; rather, you must seek to reach a
logical and reasonable understanding of not only
what a texts author intends for it to mean but, also,
what different cultures and ideologies render it
capable of meaning.
NOTE:
It is only when students develop the ability to read and view critically and independently that
they apply the ability to select and appreciate literature outside the classroom.

A perfect Judge will read
each Work of Wit With the
same Spirit that its Author
writ, Survey the Whole, nor
seek slight Faults to find
Alexander Pope
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Guidelines for Reading Literature
During the First reading
Determine what is happening, where, what, who is involved, major characters
Make a record of your reactions and responses
Describe characterizations, events, techniques and ideas
During the Second reading
Trace developing patterns
Write expanded notes about characters, situations, actions
Write paragraph describing your reactions and thoughts
Write down questions that arise as you read

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Plot and Structure
Plot is the sequence or order of events that take place in a story, or in a work of art. It is the
structure of the story. Aristotle in poetics says: a plot must have, a beginning, middle, and an
end, and the events of the plot must causally relate to one another as being either necessary
or probable.
The plot has to draw the reader into the characters lives and helps the reader understand the
choices that the characters make.
The plot may be related in different orders: for example, Chronological/Linear (natural
order); in media res (in the middle of things); or begin in the present and return to the past
(for example, through the use of flashbacks).
A plots structure is the way in which the story elements are arranged.
Some structural elements of plots
Exposition and/or Rising Action: how readers learn details previous to the storys beginning,
and then continues toward the climax of the story
Diversion: any episode prior to the climax that does not contribute directly to the rising
action or add to the suspense (example: comic relief in tragedy).
Suspense: A feeling of uncertainty as to the outcome, used to build interest and excitement
on the part of the audience. Related to this is The Hook which refers to the part of the text
that gets people interested in what you have to say. Hooks are well-placed at the beginning
but can be found elsewhere in the plotting as well.
Back-story: this is the background story of the characters. Characters have a past and there
are usually important events that have taken place prior to the story itself, and sometimes
the past will drive the action in the present. This is back-story, also known as what-
happened-before-this-story-took place.
Sub-plots: A story within a story Sub-plots are the little things going on in the background
that often make the main plot more interesting by giving the reader more to think about.
These little events are especially effective when they tie in seamlessly with the main plot.
Exposition: this is the information needed to understand a story.
Complication: this is the catalyst that begins the major conflict.
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Conflict: struggle between or among characters or entities; how characters deal with conflict
helps reader interpret or reconcile characters. It also refers to the internal or external
struggle between opposing forces, ideas, or interests that creates dramatic tension
Climax: this is the turning point in the story that occurs when characters try to resolve the
complication. Climax is usually the moment of greatest emotional intensity.
Dnouement (unknotting) or Falling Action or Resolution: this is the set of events that
bring the story to a close.This is where the unravelling of tensions occurs; where most
questions answered; and where characters are left to deal with consequences of conflicts.
A plot may take one the following types of endings:
Happy ending everything ends well and all is resolved.
Tragic or Unhappy ending many events in life do not end pleasantly, so literary
fiction that emulates life is more apt to have an unhappy conclusion, forcing the
reader to contemplate the complexities of life.
Open-ended/Lack of Resolution/Partial Resolution/Indeterminate no definitive
ending or resolution occurs, leaving the reader to ponder the issued raised by the
story.
NOTE
The Freytag Pyramid is used as a basis for analysing plot.
Climax

Exposition Resolution
Part of plot is how the author chooses to structure time. Many times an author opts to tell a
story out of chronological sequence, perhaps with flashbacks or foreshadowing (which offers
hints to future events.
Examples of plots:
The Chinese classical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which is widely regarded
as one of the greatest works of Chinese literature tells the story of a tumultuous period in
Chinese history, the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD. In the final years of the Han dynasty,
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treacherous eunuchs and incompetent officials deceive the emperor and persecute good
ministers, and the government becomes extremely corrupt on all levels, leading to
widespread deterioration of the empire and the Yellow Scarves rebellion.
As a result of the rebellion (which led to the weakening of the central government), and a
disgruntled peasantry suffering from natural disasters the military leaders and local warlords
became more powerful eventually leading to the collapse of the Dynasty.
Three Kingdoms (part historical, part legend and part myth) recounts the fighting and
scheming of the feudal lords and their retainers after the fall of the Han Dynasty under
Emperor Ling, due to the rebellion. It then tells of the Empire falling and being divided into
the three kingdoms Shu, Wei, and Wu and the reunification of the empire by the Jin
Dynasty.
The first eighty chapters describe in detail the crisis that causes the end of a four-hundred-
year dynasty. For example we learn that, in the final years of the Han Dynasty, those who
held the highest positions in the military were not necessarily men of merit but men with the
correct bloodline. That the main factor to the downfall of the dynasty was jealousy and
rivalry between the ruling eunuchs, families and clans. That in the period before the downfall
of the Dynasty there were many natural disasters.
Later the book tells of how three warlord states emerged victorious from this age of anarchy,
establishing their boundaries from their conquered lands.
The novel also contains numerous secondary stories.
The other example is Franz Kafkas The Trial
The plot starts when an ambitious, young bank official named Josef K. is arrested by two
officers from unspecified state agency, although he has done nothing wrong. K. is indignant
and outraged. Throughout the trial the nature of his crime revealed to him.
After his release K. receives a phone call summoning him to court on the following. However,
no time is set, but the address is given to him, which turns out to be an airless, shabby, and
crowded room located in a huge tenement building. Although K has no idea what he is
charged with, or who authorized the process he makes a long speech denigrating the whole
process.
Later K. is visited by his uncle who introduces him to a lawyer. The lawyer only tells him that
he can prepare a brief for K., but since the charge is unknown and the rules are unknown, it
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is difficult work. He informs K. that the brief may never be read, but it is still very important.
He then confesses that his most important task is to deal with powerful court officials behind
the scenes.
In K.s numerous visits to the lawyer the lawyer impresses on him how dire his situation is
and tells many stories of other hopeless clients and of his behind-the-scenes efforts on behalf
of these clients. He also brags about his many connections. Still, the brief is never complete.
Meanwhile K.s work at the bank deteriorates as he is consumed with worry about his case.
One year later, two officers come again for K. They take him to a quarry outside of town and
kill him in the name of the Law.
In Alexander Dumas The Count of Monte Christo
In the plot the lead character, Edmond Dantes is betrayed during the prime of his life and
career by the jealousy of his friend who wanted to marry the girl that Dantes was engaged to.
The magistrate is corrupted and imprisons Dantes on tramped up charges.
While in prison, in the deepest dungeons of the Chateau DIf, he was determined to escape
and began digging a tunnel in hopes that it would lead to freedom. During this exercise, he
met an elderly inmate named Abbe Faria the mad priest whose attempt to dig his way to his
salvation had led him only to Edmonds cell. The old man taught Edmond history,
economics, mathematics, and languages and many other subjects.
In Edmonds fourteenth year, Faria became mortally ill. Since the two had become like father
and son, the wise elder told Edmond the location of a massive buried fortune. When Faria
died his body was placed in a burial sac and left in his cell. Edmond seized the opportunity of
escaping, he replaced Farias corpse with himself. The Jailers threw the sack into the sea and
that way Dantes escaped. He then found himself in Monte Christo, after recovering the
hidden treasure, where he planned and executed revenge against those who had put him in
prison, including the corrupt magistrate.

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Setting
In simple terms, setting is the time, place, and social reality within which a story takes place.
The setting may be a time in history, a geographical place, or an imaginary location.
In stories in which place is the important element of setting, the writer usually provides
specific, sometimes extended descriptions of the place.
In other stories, the treatment of time is more significant than place. In literature, time
functions in three different ways: the period of time in which a story takes place, how much
time passes during the plot of the story, and how the passage of that time is perceived by the
lead character (such as, if he or she is having fun time goes quickly, but if he/she is lonely or
worried time drags).
Just as important as time and place, is the social context of a story, which is often a product
of time and place.
We must understand enough about the society its customs, values, possibilities to know
what constraints the characters face, what they are free to choose, and what they may not do.
NOTE
You have to understand where the text is based, in which period of time, in which society and
at which level in that society if you are to interpret correctly the other elements in the story.
Examples of setting:
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander takes place during the years after the decline of
Napoleons empire. The story begins in 1815 and ends in 1844. The historical setting is a
fundamental element of the book.
The setting of the novel is all throughout Europe; the novel begins in Marseilles (France),
but then leads to other locations such as Monte Cristo (France), Rome (Italy), and
Constantinople (Greece).

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Theme
The theme of a literary text can be said to be the Message of the text, the fundamental and
often universal ideas explored in a literary work.
The Universal means that although the particulars of the readers experience may be
different from the details of the story, the reader can connect with the general underlying
truths behind the story.
The theme can also be described in terms of a moral, or message, or lesson that the reader
can gain from the piece of literature. The Theme is rarely stated in the text instead, as a
reader you must usually consider the plot, characters, and setting to infer the theme.
Theme can be found in any of these:
Direct statements by the authorial voice. Themes are presented in thoughts and
conversations of the main characters.
Direct statements by a first-person speaker or dramatic statements by characters.
Authors put words in their characters mouths only for good reasons. One of these is
to develop a storys themes. Look for thoughts that are repeated throughout the story.
characters who stand for ideas. The main character usually illustrates the most
important theme of the story. A good way to get at this theme is to ask yourself the
question, what does the main character learn in the course of the story?
The work itself. The actions or events in the story are used to suggest theme. People
naturally express ideas and feelings through their actions. One thing authors think
about is what an action will say. In other words, how will the action express an idea
or theme?
Further suggestions on finding the theme:
Check out the title. Sometimes the title tells you a lot about the theme.
Notice repeating patterns and symbols. Sometimes these lead you to the theme.
Identify the figurative language used and the allusions that are made throughout the story.
Understand the details and particulars of the story. Ask yourself if they may have a greater
meaning.
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Examples of Themes
Aldous Huxleys Brave New World has the following themes:
The use of technology to control society,
the incompatibility of happiness and truth,
the dangers of an all-powerful state.
George Orwells 1984 themes include:
The Dangers of Totalitarianism
Psychological Manipulation by those in power
Control of Information and History by despotic governments
Language as Mind Control
Similarly, Fyodor Dostoevskys, The Brothers Karamazov has the following themes:
The Conflict between Faith and Doubt. Dostoevsky also sets characters in opposing,
contrasting roles, and he pits ideas and philosophies against each other
The Pervasiveness of Moral Responsibility. Dostoevsky states that every man is
partially responsible for the sins of his fellow man.
The Burden of Free Will. The novel challenges the notion that in the absence of moral
laws, man is free to do whatever he chooses.
Lastly, Alan Patons Cry, the Beloved Country tackles the following theme:
Conflict between the Urban and Rural Society. Paton clearly places his sympathy on
the qualities of rural life: rural society comes to represent family, religion, morality
and stability, while the chaotic urban life that Paton describes represents the
breaking up of families, hedonism, and atheism.
NOTE
The moral of a fable is its theme. The theme of a parable is its teaching.
The theme of a piece of fiction is its view about life and how people behave.
Theme is often confused with other literary elements such as Plot or Topic (or Subject).
However, the Theme of a piece of literature is a message about people, life, and the world we
live in that the author wants the reader to understand.
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The Topic, on the other hand, is the main idea or gist of the story.
Exercise
Read Wole Soyinkas A Telephone Conversation and identify its theme.

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Characterisation
Characters:
Characters are the people (sometimes animals or ideas) portrayed by the actors in the text. It
is the characters who move the action, or plot, of the play forward. Characters can be
described physically, intellectually, emotionally, socially, or philosophically.
Character Analysis
This is done to identify the sort of characters being portrayed in the text.
The following can assist you in your analysis:
1. The speech and sayings of the person, noting that: what he or she says need not be taken at
face value; the person may be hypocritical, or self-deceived, or biased).
2. The actions of the person.
3. The opinion of others (including the narrator of the story) about the person.
4. The actions of others in relation to the person (their actions may help to indicate what the
person could do but does not do).
5. The appearance of the person including; face, body, clothes (these may help to convey the
personality, or they may in some measure help to disguise it).
6. Determine the characters appearance, personality, and ethical qualities.
7. Sometimes the environment (setting) even functions as a character.
Types of characters
Main Characters
These characters are almost always round or three-dimensional characters. They have good
and bad qualities. Over the course of the story their goals, ambitions and values change.
A dynamic character grows or progresses to a higher level of understanding in the course of
the story.

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Minor Characters
These characters are almost always flat or two-dimensional characters. They have only one
or two striking qualities. Their predominant quality is not balanced by an opposite quality.
They are usually all good or all bad. Such characters can be interesting or amusing in their
own right, but they lack depth.
Flat characters are sometimes referred to as static characters because they do not change in
the course of the story.
Examples of characters
The Count of Monte Christo
Protagonist- that is, the lead or main character in the novel is Edmond Dantes.
Antagonist that is, the character who operates in opposition to the lead character, in the
novel is Fernand who fell in love with Edmond's fiance. He plots for Edmond to be jailed.
Round/Complex character interesting character, cant be second guessed a good example
is; Abbe Faria, he was a priest, a scholar and a political prisoner. While in prison he had
made escape tools, had written a treatise and in stills vengeance in his young protg. He
also had knowledge of where lots of treasure was hidden.
Flat/Simple character this are characters who are not very interesting. An example could
be Eugenie Danglars who was originally set to marry Albert de Morcerf. She later runs away
with her best friend Louise dArmilly.
Dynamic character this is a character who evolves as the story progresses. A good example
is Mercedes or Countess de Morcerf, the fianc of Edmond Dantes, who later married
Ferdinard after caring for Dantes father until his death. She also kept the secret of her sons
true father to herself only revealing it when the son challenges Monte Cristo to a duel for
having destroyed his fathers honour.
Static character stays the same throughout the story an example is Madame Heloise de
Villefort who keeps on poisoning people, in order to secure their inheritance, throughout the
story. At the end she poisons herself.

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Narrator
Refers to speaker, narrator, persona or voice created by the author to tell the story
This may be in,
First person = I, we
Second person = You (uncommon)
Third person = He, she, they (most common)
The Point of view of the narrator may be:
Dramatic/objective = strictly reporting
Omniscient = all-knowing
Limited omniscient = some insight
The narrator is the person who tells the story and the story is told from his/her point of view.
Often the narrator is simply a voice that tells the story in the third person (someone we do
not know and who takes no part in the story). This type of narrator has no personality, but
has the power to know the minds and hearts of all the characters in the novel.
A third person narrator like this knows everything about the characters and events in the
novel. They can follow characters into their homes and into their thoughts, and they are
present to describe all the events that take place. Sometimes the narrator has the voice of the
author and may comment on the action or characters. They may even speak directly to the
reader.
Examples of Narrators
In Two Thousand Seasons Kwame Armar employees the services of an omniscient narrator:
Killers who from the desert brought us in the aftermath of Anoas prophecy a choice of
deaths; death of our spirit, the clogging destruction of our minds with their senseless religion
of slavery. In answer to our refusal of this proffered death of our soul they brought our
bodies slaughter. Killers who from the sea came holding death of the body in their right, the
minds annihilation in their left, shrieking fables of a white god and son unconceived,
exemplar of their proffered, senseless suffering.
Another narrator (Anoa) poses the rhetorical question Slavery-do you know what that is?
then goes on and provides the answer herself:
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Ah, you will know it. Two thousand seasons, a thousand going into it, a second thousand
crawling maimed from it, will teach you everything about enslavement, the destruction of
souls, killing the bodies, the infusion of violence into every breath, every drop, every morsel
of sustaining air, your water, food.
Another narrator Isanusi says:
The first wish of the white men is this: they have our land, of the beauty...These metals it is
the white mens wish to take away from us... This is the white mens second wish, Isanusi
continues They have been told of the forest here and of the grasslands; of the birds and
animals we have roaming the land. It is the white mens wish to have us help them kill these
birds for food. The elephants they say... There is a third wish the white men have made. Land
they want from us, but not the way guests ask the use of land.
Later the narrator continues:
It is our destiny not to flee the predators thrust, not to seek hiding places from the
destroyers left triumphant; but turn against the destroyers, and bending all our soul against
their thrust, turning every stratagem of the destroyers against themselves, destroy them.
That is our destiny: to end destruction utterly; to begin the highest, the profoundest work of
creation, the work that is inseparable from our way, inseparable from the way.
Further examples of narrator
Joseph Conrads Heart of Darkness has two different first person narrators, an anonymous
frame narrator (a member of the company who hears Marlow tell his story), and then
Marlow himself.
Rider Haggards Montezumas Daughter, is narrated by in the first person Thomas
Wingfield.
Aldous Huxleys Brave New World on its part uses a Third-person omniscient narrator,
primarily from the point of view of Bernar or John but also from the point of view of Lenina,
Helmholtz Watson, and Mustapha Mond.
In the Greek epic the Iliad Homer is the narrator.

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Consciousness,
then, does not
appear to itself
chopped up in bits.
Such words as
chain or train do
not describe it fitly
as it presents itself
in the first instant.
It is nothing
jointed: it flows. A
river or a stream
are the metaphors
by which it is most
naturally described.
In talking of it
hereafter, let as call
it the stream of
thought, of
consciousness, or of
subjective life.
William
James,
Principles of
Psychology,
(1890)

Tone and Style
The Tone is the methods by which writers and speakers reveal
their attitudes or feelings towards their audience, characters,
narrator, theme, or subject. Tone can be found or expressed by
diction, word choice, syntax, metaphors, word arrangement,
imagery, appeal to senses, and even words that seem unrelated
in context.
Writers tone can be serious, sarcastic, tongue-in- cheek,
solemn, objective, satirical, solemn, commanding, affectionate,
hostile etc.
The Style is ways in which writers assemble words to tell the
story, to develop an argument, dramatize the play, and
compose the poem. In other words style is the choice of words
in the service of content.
1

The Essential aspect of style is diction. Diction refers to the
word choices a writer makes.
A writers diction may be said to be either, formal (which uses
standard or elegant words), neutral (which uses everyday
standard vocabulary)or informal (which uses colloquial
language or slang).
Stream of consciousness
This is a style of writing in which the thoughts and feelings of
the writer are recorded as they occur.
Stream of consciousness writing allows an author to create the
illusion that the reader is privy to sensations and uncensored thoughts within a characters
mind before the character has ordered them into any rational form or shape, thereby gaining
direct, intimate and unmediated access to their personal, private thoughts.
2

1
Roberts and Jacobs, Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing
2
Dr. Ian Ellis-Jones, James Joyce: Master of Literary Mindfulness
25

Example:
Why Are We So Blest? By Kwame Armah is an example of stream of consciousness.
The author adopts a broken narrative strategy which reflects the minds of the three
protagonists that are in a state of constant agitation. Narrated in fragments, their lives of
dissipation and inaction run as in a whirlpool.
The reader is constantly compelled to go forward and backward in order to fill gaps,
reconstruct a chronology of events, and make a whole of the bits and pieces of their
biographical information scattered haphazardly through the story.
NOTE
Resist the impulse to assess a work after you first read it, even if you have diligently. A
thorough critical analysis cannot be accomplished until youve reread the work.
Critical Thinking analysis of any work of literature requires a thorough investigation of
the who, where, when, what, why, etc. of the work.

26

Exercise:
Choose one literary work novel from any of those which have been given as examples in this
section and critically read it. Then attempt the following criticism.
How would you describe the choice of words and their arrangement (the style) in this work?
Does the author call attention to the way he or she uses words, or is the style inconspicuous?
What are the various connotations (shades of meaning, or emotional suggestions) of key
words in this work?
If dialect or colloquial speech is used, what is its effect? Is the level of language appropriate
for the speaker or characters in the work?
Are there statements or actions in this work that are presented ironically (that is, there is a
discrepancy between appearance and reality, or between what is said and what is intended)?
Is the style consistent throughout the work or does it shift to a different style (more formal or
less formal, for example)?
Is the style suitable for the subject and theme of the work? Does it contribute to the meaning
of the whole or hinder the readers understanding?
If you are reading a translation of a foreign work of literature or a modern translation of an
older English work, what limitations or difficulties are created by your lack of contact with
the authors original language?

**************************************************************************************
The next section deals with different literary techniques that writers employ to convey their
meaning and to achieve their purpose.

27

There is a generally accepted
division of language into literal
and figurative. Language that
is literal uses words in their
accepted and accurate
meaning. Figurative language
employs words with meanings
not strictly literal, but varying
from their ordinary definitions.
The use of figurative language
falls under the ambit of a
writers personal style. This is
the subject of our next study.
Composition and Literature By
W. F. (William Franklin
Proper words in proper places;
make the true definition of
style. Jonathan Swift
The final cause of speech is to
get an idea as exactly as
possible out of one mind into
another. Its formal cause
therefore is such choice and
disposition of words as will
achieve this end most
economically. G. M. Young
Figurative Language
Content helps to determine style. And one of the best ways to palm off inferior goods is to
wrap them up in a respectable-looking package. Anon
Figurative Language is any expression that stretches the
meaning of words beyond their literal meaning. Figurative
language is not intended to be interpreted in a literal sense. It
is language that appeals to the imagination and to the
emotions. It uses devices such as similes, metaphors,
analogies, irony and to describe something. Through use of
such figures of speech the writer describes things through the
use of unusual comparisons, for effect, interest and to make
things clearer.
The opposite if figurative language is literal language which
means exactly what it says. To speak literally all the time
would make language dull and limit your abilities to express
your emotions.
Figurative language provides new ways of looking at the
world. It adds clearness to our speech; it gives it more force;
or it imparts to literature beauty. Figurative language is
often used in speaking and writing to express ideas and
emotions, and to affect the views and attitudes of others.
There are many reasons why you can choose to use figurative
language: to add colour, drama, persuasiveness, beauty,
clarity, and wit. You can also use it to conceal your real
feelings.
Without Figures of Speech your writing would be plodding
and boring. Similarly, some complex ideas can be explained
better through the use of figurative language.
Since use of figurative language is a matter of style, learning
to use figurative language is an important step in developing a mature and rich writing style.
Style in English Literature is the way in which a work is presented through the voice of the
author. Style, as the word is commonly understood, is the choice and arrangement of words
28

in sentences and of sentences in paragraphs in a way that is effective in expressing your
meaning and convincing your readers or hearers. In short, your Style is created by the words
you choose and the way you structure those words into a sentence.
It is important to understand that, style is not fancy or pompous language added to plain
statements of fact. A good style is one that is effective, and a bad style is one which fails of
doing what the writer wishes to do.
Henry David Thoreau was spot on when he said:
Who cares what a mans style is, so it is intelligible, as intelligible as his thought.
Literally and really, the style is no more than the stylus, the pen he writes with; and it is
not worth scraping and polishing, and gilding, unless it will write his thoughts the better
for it. It is something for use, and not to look at.
There are as many ways of expressing ideas as there are ways of combining words and as
many styles as there are writers.
Style is just as essential to a piece of work as plot, setting, theme, and characters.
Now let us look at different figures of speech.
29

Comparison
The principal figures based upon comparison are simile, metaphor, epithet, personification,
apostrophe, allegory, and analogy.
Simile
A simile is one of the simplest figures of speech. It is nothing more or less than a direct
comparison by the use of such words as like and as.
The simile is used to help readers understand something new by comparing it with
something familiar. In other words when a writer compares one thing with another he
confers the qualities of the image upon the subject.
In addition, writers use similes to attract the attention of their readers and appeal directly to
familiar experiences, therefore of making it easier for their imagination to comprehend what
is being communicated.
Example:
Marriage is like a pair of scissors, so joined that they cannot be separated, often moving in
opposite directions, yet always punishing anyone who comes between them.
Examples of usage:
Now an army may be likened to water, for just as flowing water avoids the heights
and hastens to the lowlands, so an army avoids strength and strikes weakness Sun
Tzu The Art of War
They bend their tongue like their bow; Lies and not truth prevail in the land; for they
proceed from evil to evil, and they do not know Me, declares the LORD. (Jeremiah
9:3.)
We all, like sheep have gone astray (Isaiah 53:6).
As Unto the bow the cord is, So unto the man is woman;
Though she bends him, she obeys him, Though she draws him,
yet she follows: Useless each without the other.
The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
30

When I have stopped reading, ideas from the words stay stuck in my mind, like the
sweet smell of butter perfuming my fingers long after the popcorn is finished. (I love
the look of words, Maya Angelo)
Like a gold ring in a pigs snout is a beautiful woman who shows no discretion
(Proverbs. 11:22)
When campaigning, be swift as the wind; in leisurely march, majestic as the forest;
in riding and plundering, like fire; in standing, firm as the mountains. As
unfathomable as the clouds; move like a thunderbolt. (The Art of War, Sun Tzu)

31

But yet, if we would
speak of things as they
are, we must allow, that
all the art of rhetoric,
besides order and
clearness, all the
artificial and figurative
application of words
eloquence has invented,
are for nothing else but
to insinuate wrong
ideas, move the passions,
and thereby mislead the
judgment; and so indeed
are perfect cheats: and
therefore, however
laudable or allowable
oratory may render
them in harangues and
popular addresses, they
are certainly, in all
discourses that pretend
to inform or instruct,
wholly to be avoided;
and where truth and
knowledge are
concerned, cannot but
be thought a great fault,
either of the language or
the person that makes
use of them. John Locke,
An Essay Concerning
Human Understanding
Metaphor
The greatest thing by far is to be master of metaphor. Aristotle poetics
Look at almost any passage, and youll find that a paragraph
has five or six metaphors in it. Its not that the speaker is trying
to be poetic, its just that thats the way language works. Steven
Pinker author
The metaphor is the commonest figure of speech; indeed, it is so
common that figurative language is often called metaphorical
language.
A metaphor is an implied comparison or assumed comparison
between things essentially different, but having some common
quality. Many words in English language have their roots in
metaphor.
In metaphor the words like and as are no not used. However, the
construction of the sentence is such that the comparison is taken
for granted and the thing to which comparison is made is treated
as if it were the thing itself.
Metaphors enable a writer to convey briefly and vividly ideas that
might otherwise need tedious exposition. By use of familiar
images the complex is made comprehensible.
It cannot be overemphasised that in practice we always use
metaphor to give expression to abstract concepts.
Example of metaphors:
Procrastination is the thief of time;
Year after year it steals, till all are fled,
And to the mercies of a moment leaves
32

No man is an island
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main By John
Donne,
Night Thoughts
Be wise to-day; tis madness to
defer; Next day the fatal
precedent will plead. Thus on, till
wisdom is pushd out of life.
Edward Young (1681-1765)
Invictus
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to
pole, I thank whatever gods may
be For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried
aloud. Under the bludgeonings of
chance My head is bloody, but
unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and
tears Looms but the Horror of
the shade, And yet the menace of
the years Finds, and shall find,
me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the
gate, How charged with
punishments the scroll, I am the
master of my fate: I am the
captain of my soul.
William Ernest Henley
The vast concerns of an eternal scene.
If not so frequent, would not this be strange?
That 'tis so frequent, this is stranger still.
John Miltons Paradise lost makes an extensive use of
metaphors, so does Dantes Divine comedy.
An extended metaphor is one where there is a single main
subject to which additional subjects and metaphors are
applied
The Caged Bird by Maya Angelou and Invictus are good
examples of extended metaphors.
NOTE
Metaphors are crucial to our everyday thinking; they are
used as shorthand for complex ideas. However, care should
be taken, so that they are not taken too literally and thus
end up being a hindrance to understanding rather than a
help.
Do not get into trouble by using a mixed metaphor, that is
using two comparisons in the same sentence or paragraph,
one of which contradicts the other.
There are a number of figures that express emotion by
simply changing the normal order of the sentence. Among
these are inversion, exclamation, interrogation, climax, and
irony.
We experience reality metaphorically. What we know, we
know metaphorically.
In fact, the fixed truths of our culture are nothing but
metaphorical understandings that have become
conventionalised to the point where the original metaphor
has been forgotten.
33

Epithet
An epithet is a word, generally a descriptive adjective or a noun, used, not to give
information, but to impart strength or ornament to diction. It is like a shortened metaphor.
In literature, an epithet is a literary device that describes a person, place or thing in such a
way that it brings out or makes prominent the typical characteristic of the person, place or
thing described.
It is very often found in impassioned prose or verse. Notice that in each epithet there is a
comparison; that the figure is based on likeness.
The function of an epithet is to attract full attention of the readers.
Examples of usage:
Leo Tolstoys Anna Karenina
Just think! This whole world of ours is only a speck of mildew sprung up on a tiny planet,
yet we think we can have something great - thoughts, actions! They are all but grains of
sand
Julia Abigail Fletcher Carneys Little Things
Little drops of water,
Little grains of sand,
Make the mighty ocean
And the pleasant land.

Little deeds of kindness,
Little words of love,
Help to make earth happy
Like the Heaven above.
Homers Odyssey and Iliad are full of epithets. The writer describes vividly the
characters, places and things in his literary pieces through epithets.

34

Allegory
An Allegory is a figure of speech in which abstract ideas and principles are described in terms
of characters, figures and events. The purpose of allegories is normally to teach a certain
lesson or explain a complex idea.
Generally, in an allegory material things and circumstances are used to illustrate and enforce
high spiritual truths. It can be said to be a continued personification.
Unlike symbolism an allegory is a complete narrative which involves characters, and events
that stand for an abstract idea or an event. A symbol, on the other hand, is an object that
stands for another object giving it a particular meaning.
Writers use allegory to add different layers of meanings to their works. Thus, for instance an
allegorical story might be enjoyed by both children and adults but at different levels, each
enjoying it from their own understanding.
Examples of allegories:
Platos Cave
In Platos Republic Socrates gives the following allegory:
Imagine this: People live under the earth in a cave like dwelling. Stretching a long way up
toward the daylight is its entrance, toward which the entire cave is gathered. The people have
been in this dwelling since childhood, shackled by the legs and neck. Thus they stay in the
same place so that there is only one thing for them to look that: whatever they encounter in
front of their faces. But because they are shackled, they are unable to turn their heads
around.
Some light, of course, is allowed them, namely from a fire that casts its glow toward them
from behind them, being above and at some distance. Between the fire and those who are
shackled [i.e., behind their backs] there runs a walkway at a certain height. Imagine that a
low wall has been built the length of the walkway, like the low curtain that puppeteers put
up, over which they show their puppets.
So now imagine that all along this low wall people are carrying all sorts of things that reach
up higher than the wall: statues and other carvings made of stone or wood and many other
artefacts that people have made. As you would expect, some are talking to each other [as they
walk along] and some are silent.
35

What do you think? From the beginning people like this have never managed, be they on
their own or with the help of others, to see anything besides the shadows that are,
continually, projected on the wall opposite them by the glow of the fire.
And what do they see of the things that are being carried along [behind them]? Do they not
see simply these [namely the shadows]?
Now if they were able to say something about what they saw and to talk it over, do you not
think that they would regard that which they saw on the wall as beings?
And now what if this prison also had an echo reverberating off the wall in front of them [the
one that they always and only look at]? Whenever one of the people walking behind those in
chains (and carrying the things) would make a sound, do you think the prisoners would
imagine that the speaker were anyone other than the shadow passing in front of them?
All in all those who were chained would consider nothing besides the shadows of the
artefacts as the unhidden.
Personification
Sometimes the metaphor consists in speaking of inanimate things or animals as if they were
human. Thus human qualities are given to an animal, an object, or an idea. This is called the
figure of personification.
One of the best allegorical works which uses personification is George Orwells Animal farm.
Examples of usage:
Kahlil Gibran on Love
When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams
as the north wind lays waste the garden.

The following poem by David Diop also employs the literary device of personification.

36

The Fiftieth Birthday of
Agassiz by Longfellow.
And Nature, the old Nurse, took
The child upon her knee,
Saying, Here is a story book
Thy father hath written for thee.

Come wander with me, she said,
Into regions yet untrod,
And read what is still unread
In the Manuscripts of God.

And he wandered away and away
With Nature, the dear old Nurse,
Who sang to him night and day
The rhymes of the universe.

The Honest Dealer by
Anon
All of us know that money talks
Throughout our glorious nation;
But money whispers low compared to
Business reputation:
Pull off no slick nor cooked deal
For pennies or for dollars
God! Think of all the trade
Youll lose if just one sucker hollers!
Africa by David Diop
Africa, my Africa
Africa of proud warriors in ancestral savannahs
Africa of whom my grandmother sings

On the banks of the distant river
I have never known you
But your blood flows in my veins
Your beautiful black blood that irrigates the fields
The blood of your sweat
The sweat of your work
The work of your slavery
Africa, tell me Africa
Is this you, this back that is bent
This back that breaks
Under the weight of humiliation
This back trembling with red scars
And saying yes to the whip under the midday sun
But a grave voice answers me
Impetuous child that tree, young and strong
That tree over there
Splendidly alone amidst white and faded flowers
That is your Africa springing up anew
Springing up patiently, obstinately
Whose fruit bit by bit acquires
The bitter taste of liberty.

37

The City of God
The world is a book and
those who do not travel
read only one page.
Justice removed, then, what are
kingdoms but great bands of
robbers? What are bands of
robbers themselves but little
kingdoms? The band itself is
made up of men; it is governed by
authority of a ruler; it is bound
together by a pact of association;
and the loot is divided according
to agreed law. If, by the constant
addition of desperate men, this
scourge grows to such a size that
it acquires territory, establishes a
seat of government, occupies cities
and subjugates peoples, it
assumes the name of kingdom
more openly. For this name is
now manifestly conferred upon it
not by the removal of greed, but
by the addition of impunity. It
was a pertinent and true answer
which was made to Alexander
the Great by a pirate whom he
had seized. When the king
asked him what he meant by
infesting the sea, the pirate
defiantly replied: The same as
you do when you infest the whole
world; but because I do it with a
little ship I am called a robber,
and because you do it with a
great fleet, you are an emperor.
Augustine of Hippo,

The world is a book
and those who do
not travel read only
one page.
Justice removed,
then, what are
kingdoms but great
Analogies
I especially love analogies, my most faithful masters,
acquainted with all the secrets of nature Johannes Kepler
Analogy is comparison of two things, which are alike in
several respects, for the purpose of explaining or clarifying
some unfamiliar or difficult idea or object by showing how the
idea or object is similar to some familiar one. While
metaphors and analogy often overlap, the metaphor is
generally a more artistic likening, done briefly for effect and
emphasis, while analogy serves the more practical end of
explaining a thought process or a line of reasoning or the
abstract in terms of the concrete, and may therefore be more
extended.
When we think of analogies, we often imagine cases where
drawing on complex concepts from one domain helps to
extend our comprehension of concepts from a different
domain.
As such, the use of analogies is often associated with creativity
and problem-solving.
Examples of Usage
Shakespeares Macbeth, Act V:
Lifes but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

NOTE
Analogical reasoning is fundamental to human thought and
expression. Analogous language can be particularly useful in
38

Sydney J. Harris, What True
Education Should Do:
Pupils are more like oysters than
sausages. The job of teaching is not to
stuff them and then seal them up, but to
help them open and reveal the riches
within. There are pearls in each of us, if
only we knew how to cultivate them with
ardour and persistence.
Henry Van Dyke:
Time is too slow for those who wait
Too swift for those who fear,
Too long for those who grieve
Too short for those who love, time is
Eternity.
Saint Augustine, Bad
Company
Bad company is like a nail driven into a
post, which, after the first and second
blow, may be drawn out with little
difficulty; but being once driven up to the
head, the pincers cannot take hold to
draw it out, but which can only be done
by the destruction of the wood.
explain scientific and mathematical concepts which may be hard to explain in ordinary
language.
Sometimes the point of an analogical argument is just to persuade people to take an idea
seriously. Therefore, analogies provide plausible conjectures, not infallible deductions.
Inferences generated by analogy must always be tested to
see if theyre actually helpful.
To propose an analogy, or simply to understand one, we
must take a kind of mental leap. Like a spark that jumps
across a gap, an idea from the source analog is carried over
to the target. The two analogs may initially seem unrelated,
but the act of making an analogy creates connections
between them.
All the above figures of speech are varieties of metaphor. In
them there is always an implied, if not an expressed,
comparison.
Effect
Humour
People who never love
Can never be taken seriously Seneca
Wisdom sometimes is seen in folly Horace
Humour is what makes us laugh. There are two very
different kinds of humour: one producing comedy, the other
producing satire. Comic humour presents the absurdity of
life without judgement, whereas satiric humour is directed
to attacking the follies or vices of mankind.
Humour works chiefly by stressing the contrast between the
ideal and the real.
Humour is a thing that can be cultivated, even learned; and it is one of the most important
things in the whole art of writing.
39

The master of humour can draw upon the riches of his own mind, and thereby embellish and
enliven any subject he may desire to write upon.
Ridicule
Humour used to win one at the expense of another is called satire and sarcasm.
Ridicule, satire, and sarcasm are suitable for use against an open enemy, such as a political
opponent, against a public nuisance which ought to be suppressed, or in behalf of higher
ideals and standards.
The one thing that makes this style of little effect is anger or morbid intensity. While some
thing or someone is attacked, perhaps with ferocity, results are to be obtained by winning the
reader. Good-natured humour is an essential element in really successful ridicule. If intense
or morbid hatred or temper is allowed to dominate, the reader is repulsed and made
distrustful, and turns away without being affected in the desired way at all.
Example of usage
The following, which opens a little known essay of Edgar Allan Poes, is one of the most
perfect examples of simple ridicule in the English language.
NOTE
Humour, and especially good humour, is indispensable to the most successful works of
fiction. Above all other kinds of writing, fiction must win the heart of the reader. And this
requires that the heart of the writer should be tender and sympathetic.

40

(Satire) has a social
function that places it on a
level with Religion, Law,
and Government. Though
its tone may be light, its
function is wholly serious;
and as for passion, it is
actuated by a fierce and
strenuous moral and
intellectual enthusiasm, the
passion for order, justice,
and beauty. . . . It keeps the
public conscience alert, it
exposes absurdity for what
it is and makes those
inclined to adopt foolish or
tasteless fashions aware that
they are ridiculous. It shows
vice its own feature and
makes it odious to others. . .
. Satire is an aristocratic
art. It is not afraid to tell
unpopular truths, but its
habit is to tell them with the
assurance and detachment of
ridicule, and ridicule is the
weapon of contempt...
Alexander Pope

Satire
He that hath a satirical vein, as maketh others afraid of his wit, so he need be afraid of
others memory. Lord Bacon
Satire is a literary technique of writing or art (for example
cartoons) which principally ridicules its subject (individuals,
organisations, states etc.) often as an intended means of
provoking or preventing change.
A satire, either in prose or in poetic form, holds prevailing
vices or follies up to ridicule: it employs humour and wit to
criticize human institutions or humanity itself, in order that
they might be remodelled or improved.
Satirists main motivation is to inspire change through
laughter rather than to tear down. As a writer you should
refrain from using abusive language in the guise of satire.
In the words of Roscommon:
You must not think, that a satiric style allows of scandalous
and brutish words.
The formula for satire is one of honey and medicine.
3
The best
satire does not seek to do harm or damage by its ridicule,
unless we speak of damage to the structure of vice, but rather
it seeks to create a shock of recognition and to make vice
repulsive so that the vice will be expunged from the person or
society under attack or from the person or society intended to
benefit by the attack (regardless of who is the immediate
object of attack); whenever possible this shock of recognition
is to be conveyed through laughter or wit.
Far from being simply destructive, unhelpful and malicious,

3
Robert Harris The Purpose and Method of Satire

41

As with a moral View designd To
cure the Vices of Mankind: His
vein, ironically grave, Expos'd
the Fool, and lash'd the Knave. . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Yet, Malice never was his Aim;
He lashd the Vice but spard the
Name. No Individual could
resent, Where Thousands equally
were meant. His Satyr points at
no Defect, But what all Mortals
may correct Verses on the
Death of Dr. Swift

Perfection, of a kind, was what
he was after,
And the poetry he invented was
easy to understand;
He knew human folly like the
back of his hand,
And was greatly interested in
armies and fleets;
When he laughed, respectable
senators burst with laughter,
And when he cried the little
children died in the street.
W. H. Auden verse in Epitaph on
a Tyrant.

satire purpose is correction. This view was held by Jonathan Swift, one of the best satirists in
English Literature.
Examples of usage:
Mark Twains in Huckleberry Finn uses satire as a tool to
share his ideas and opinion on slavery, human nature.
Jonathan Swifts Gullivers Travels, A tale in a tub and a
Modest Proposal are excellent examples of satirical works.
For example In Part Four of Gullivers Travels; the
character of Gulliver is that of a patriotic Englishman,
decent and practical but at the same time stupid and
gullible (as his name suggests). Wherever Gulliver goes, he
is always eager to show his devotion to his country and
benefits of civilization to other less enlightened peoples. In
the fourth voyage, the land of Houyhnhnms, a highly
civilized race of horses who keep their savage and filthy
domestic animals called Yahoos, which bear strange
resemblances to human beings, he is surprised at his host's
ignorance of the art of war as practiced in "civilized
countries".
I could not forbear shaking my head and smiling a little at
his ignorance. And, being no stranger to the art of war, I
gave him a description of cannon, culverins, muskets,
carbines, pistols, bullets, powder, swords, bayonets,
battles, sieges, retreats, attacks, undermines,
countermines, bombardments, sea-fights; ships sunk with
a thousand men, twenty thousand killed on each side;
dying groans, limbs in the air; smoke, noise, confusion,
trampling to death under horses' feet...
Without doubt, the Houyhnhnms were horrified that ' a
creature pretending to reason could be capable of such
enormities.'
42

He further writes that:
in some fields of his country there are certain shining stones of several colours, whereof
the Yahoos are violently fond, and when part of these stones are fixed in the earth, as it
sometimes happenth, they will dig with their claws for whole days to get them out, carry
them away, and hide them by heaps in their kennels; but still looking round with great
caution, for fear their comrades should find out their treasure.
Concluding that:
as those countries which I have described do not appear to have any desire of being
conquered and enslaved, murdered, or driven out by colonies; nor bound either in gold,
silver, sugar, or tobacco; I did humbly conceive they were by no means proper objects of
our zeal, our valour, or our interest.
In a modest proposal Jonathan Swifts s rage against mans inhumanity to man and
concentrates all his indignation at the terrible poverty he saw everywhere in his home
country; it is a cold sort of indignation, and all the more fearful for that. Swifts cure for
poverty is simple: it is that the children of the poor should be killed and eaten. It is difficult
to find anything to equal the anger one feels hidden under the cool and detached prose of
this pamphlet: I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in
London, that a young, healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing,
and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled...
He continues:
I think it is agreed by all parties, that this prodigious number of children in the arms, or on
the backs, or at the heels of their mothers, and frequently of their fathers, is in the present
deplorable state of the kingdom, a very great additional grievance; and therefore whoever
could find out a fair, cheap and easy method of making these children sound and useful
members of the common-wealth, would deserve so well of the publick, as to have his statue
set up for a preserver of the nation.
Other satirical literature texts are: The Peoples Bachelor by Austin Bukenya, The Divorce, by
Wale Ogunyema and The Blinkards by Kobina Sekyi and The Wizard of the Crow by Ngugi
wa Thiongo.
American TV shows, The Daily Show and the Simpsons are great examples of modern satire.
The Chinese historical novel Journey to the West also makes use of satire.
43

Let it be first
provided that this
figure (sarcasmus)
be not used without
some great cause
which may well
deserve it, as
arrogancie, insolent
pride, wilfull folly,
shamefull lecherie,
ridiculous avarice,
or such like, for it is
both folly and
rudenesse to use
derision without
cause: but to mocke
silly people,
innocents, or men in
misery, or the poore
in distresse, argueth
both the pride of the
mind, and the
crueltie of the heart.
Henry Peachums
The Garden of
Eloquence

Sarcasm
Sarcasm: the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people when the Privacy of their
soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded. Fyodor
Dostoyevsky
Sarcasm is a literary and rhetorical device that is meant to
mock with often satirical or ironic remarks with a purpose to
amuse and hurt someone or some section of society.
Sarcasm is used when bitterness is hard to express in a
pleasant way or the objective is to say something without
hurting somebody directly. What is said often differs
fundamentally from what is meant.
Sarcasm almost always takes the form of surface praise that is
actually meant to be insulting.
As a writer when you sarcasm cleverly, you can make a serious
point in a light-hearted way.
Example of usage:
Mark Twain when he said:
suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a
member of congress. But I repeat myself.
Or when George Carlin said:
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large
groups.
Or when George Murray said:
If its a good idea, go ahead and do it. Its much easier to
apologise than it is to get permission.
In Shakespeares Julius Caesar, Julius Caesar has been
murdered. His close friend Mark Antony, in danger himself, wanted to revenge Caesars
death. He was able to convince Brutus, one of the conspirators, that they mustnt fear him.
He got the permission to speak in public the memorial speech for Caesar.
44

The following is his speech which uses sarcasm especially note the use of honourable men:
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answerd it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest--
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men--
Come I to speak in Caesars funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.
Sarcasm is a literary
device that depends on
the tone of voice.
Therefore, this is mostly a
verbal literary devise.
45

Irony
We cannot use language maturely until we are spontaneously at home in irony. Kenneth
Burke
Irony involves a difference or contrast between appearance and reality - that is a discrepancy
between what appears to be true and what really is true. Irony is a figure in which one thing
is said and the opposite is meant.
Irony exposes and underscores a contrast between:
what is and what seems to be
what is and what ought to be
what is and what one wishes to be
what is and what one expects to be

Common types of irony in literature
Verbal irony
This occurs when people say the opposite of what they mean. This is perhaps the most
common type of irony.
The reader knows that a statement is ironic because of familiarity with the situation or a
description of voice, facial, or bodily expressions which show the discrepancy.
There are two kinds of verbal irony. These are understatement and overstatement.
Understatement occurs when one minimises the nature of something.
Overstatement occurs when one exaggerates the nature of something.
Irony is often more emphatic than a point-blank statement of the truth. Sometimes, the
opposite is shown as a point of comparison.
Verbal irony in its most bitter and destructive form becomes sarcasm. This occurs especially
when, someone is condemned by a speaker under the guise of praising him or her.
46

Example of usage
Harper Lee employs the effects of irony in To Kill a Mockingbird as a way to criticize the
deficiency of public education. Now tell your father not to teach you anymore. Its best to
begin reading with a fresh mind. Instead of praising Scouts ability to read at an advanced
level, Miss Caroline discourages it.
This ironic example set by Miss Caroline seems to demonstrate the inadequate training that
she had received for her occupation. Miss Caroline seems to have been instructed upon a
strict standard on how her students are expected to behave, but when she encounters
something different, such as Scouts advanced ability to read, she does not know the
appropriate way to react.
Situational irony
In situational irony, the situation is different from what common sense indicates it is, will be,
or ought to be.
Situational irony is often used to expose hypocrisy and injustice.
For example in Shakespeares Othello, Othello spends a considerable amount of time setting
up the picture of himself that he wants the council to see, noting with an air of self-
deprecation, that he is rude . . . in my speech, / And little blessed with the soft phrase of
peace (8182). Besides setting up an air of modesty (appropriate when one is speaking in
front of the citys most powerful citizens who have the power to end his life at their will),
Othello also adds a touch of irony to the situation. Of all the people we meet in the councils
chambers, he is the one least likely to be rough in his speech.
Dramatic irony
Dramatic irony occurs when a character states something that they believe to be true but that
the reader knows is not true.
The key to dramatic irony is the readers foreknowledge of coming events. Soliloquies are
useful in creating dramatic irony. The audience is then able to anticipate what may happen,
even though the characters onstage are taken by surprise.
Further, second readings of stories often increase dramatic irony because of the knowledge
that might have been missed during the first reading.
47

In Othello, The devilish Iago, always playing the role of the saint in public, tries to sooth
upset Othello. It is deeply ironic that the man who the audience knows to be the most
morally bankrupt character to preach doctrine. For example, Iago tries to defend
Desdemona, saying that even though she may be lying in bed with Cassio, if nothing happens
tis a venial slip meaning a pardonable sin as opposed to a mortal sin.

48

O human race, how many
storms and misfortunes and
shipwrecks must toss you
about while, transformed
into a many-headed beast,
you strive after conflicting
things. You are sick in your
intellects (theoretical and
practical), and in your
affections; you do not
nurture your higher intellect
with inviolable principles,
nor your lower intellect with
the lessons of experience, nor
your affections with the
sweetness of divine counsel,
when it is breathed into you
by the trumpet of the holy
spirit: Behold how good and
how pleasant it is for
brethren to dwell together in
unity Dante Alighieri
Monarchy
Symbolism
A symbol is a term, a name, or even a picture that may be familiar in daily life, yet
that possesses specific connotations in addition to its conventional an obvious
meaning. Carl Jung
Symbols are images that have meaning beyond themselves. In a short story, a symbol is a
detail, a character, or an incident that has meaning beyond its
literal role in the narrative.
Symbolism is like metaphor in the way that it represents a
difficult, complicated or abstract idea through a commonplace
object.
A symbol is an image that is not presented for its own sake.
Imaginative literature involves us in sensory, sensuous
experience that often seems richer than what our blunted
senses take in from day to day.
As we read, the minds eye takes in images -vividly imagine
details, shapes and textures. But often we sense that there is
more there than meets the eye.
A literary symbol is something which means more than what
it is. It is an object, a person, a situation, an action, or some
other item, which has a literal meaning in the story but
suggests or represents other meanings as well.
Examples of usage:
In A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens uses symbolism of
wine spilling in the streets to symbolise the blood that spill
from the guillotine (since the book is set against the
background of the French Revolution).
The people who drank the wine with great thirst are the same
people that become thirsty for the blood of the aristocrats. Their poverty drives them to both
drink wine from the muddy ground and kill in hopes of gaining equality.
Another example is the poem the Road not taken.
49

The road not taken by Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to
way,
I doubted if I should ever come
back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

One way of interpreting the symbolism of this poem is an example of the difficult but
necessary process of making choices in life.
It is difficult to make a choice that will affect the outcome of ones life, and human nature
lends to curiosity.
What could have been?
What opportunities were gained, and what opportunities were lost by the choice made?
As a reader you have to decode, interpret, and put into words
what the images seem to tell you. Responding to symbols is a
way of reading between the lines.

50

In the Healers Kwame Armar writes:
When different groups within what should be a natural community clash against each
other that is also a disease. That is why healers say that our people, the way we are now
divided into petty nations, are suffering from a terrible disease.
Here disease symbolises tribalism.
The novels This Earth, My Brother By Kofi Awoonor and The Concubine by Elechi Amandi
also make very good use of symbolism. So does the American novels To kill a mockingbird
by Harper Lee and Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger.
NOTE
When you interpret the language of symbols, you should keep the following in mind:
Some symbols come into a story from a shared language of symbols (Much in human
experience has traditional symbolic associations: for example, the dawn with hope,
Light is often the symbol for
knowledge, for enlightenment.)
some symbols have a special
personal meaning for the writer
and their meaning may come
into focus as they return again
and again in the writers words
literary symbols are rich in associations; but they do not merely signal one short
message.
symbols acquire their full meaning in the context of the story
to be called a symbol, an item must suggest a meaning different in kind from its
literal meaning; a symbol is something more than the representative of a class or type
symbols may be ambiguous
Exercise:
Identify the symbolism in Song of Chicken by Jack Mapanje
Master, you talked with bows,
Arrows and catapults once
Your hands steaming with hawk blood
To protect your chicken.
A symbol is like a pebble cast into a pond: It sends out
ever widening ripples of meaning.

51

Why do you talk with knives now,
Your hands teeming with eggshells
And hot blood from your own chicken?
Is it to impress your visitors?

And in the poem, The Weaver bird by Kofi Awoonor:

The weaver bird built in our house
And laid its eggs on our only tree
We did not want to send it away
We watched the building of the nest
And supervised the egg-laying.
And the weaver returned in the guise of the owner
Preaching salvation to us that own the house

52

Motif
A motif is an image, sound, action or other figures that have a symbolic significance and
contributes toward the development of the central theme. Motifs are recurring structures,
contrasts, and literary devices that can help to develop and inform the texts major themes.
Examples of usage:
In Mark Twains The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn the motif of childhood gives the novel
a lighter tone and makes it enjoyable to read despite its grave central idea i.e. slavery and
racism. Both Huck and Tom are young and flexible enough to undergo a moral education
and thus are more open-minded than adults. Another obvious motif in the narrative is
superstitions. Jim appears silly to believe in all sorts of signs and omens but interestingly
predicts the coming event.
In Kafkas Metamorphosis you find the motif of Sleep and Rest. References to sleep and rest,
as well as the lack of sleep and rest, recur throughout the book. The story opens, for instance,
with Gregor waking from sleep to discover his transformation, and Part 2 of the story begins
with Gregor waking a second time, in this instance late in the day after the incident in which
his father drove him back into his room.
Joseph Conrads Heart of Darkness on its part, contains a motif of observation and
eavesdropping. Marlow, the main character, gets information about the world either by
observing his surroundings or listening to the conversation of others. Similarly, there is
another evident motif of a comparison between the exterior and the interior. Initially,
Marlow is a person who keenly observes things and people from the surface but as he
continues his journey into the heart of darkness, he gains an insight into his deeper nature as
well as that of others.

53

Paradox
At the most basic level, a paradox is a statement that is self-contradictory because it often
contains two statements that are both true, but in general, cannot both be true at the same
time.
The value of paradox is its shock value. Because its seeming impossibility startles the reader
into attention by the fact of its apparent absurdity and significance is not revealed at first
glance, but upon deeper reflection it provides astonishing insight.Therefore, a paradox is not
just a witty or amusing statement but a statement carrying a profound truth.
Examples of usage:
What a pity that youth must be wasted on the young. George Bernard Shaw
We must all be slaves to the law if we are to be free Cicero
I can resist anything but temptation. Oscar Wilde
We live in an age when unnecessary
things are our only necessities. Oscar
Wilde
Whatever you do will be insignificant,
but it is very important that you do it.
Mahatma Gandhi
In The Healers Kwame Armar presents the following paradox:
Suppose a man turns killer. Is he not more like a beast then? Or if he invades your house
flashing a weapon? Densu asked.
As one learning to be a healer, Damfo asked, what would you do in such a case?
...
How can you kill out of respect for life?
If what I kill destroys life, Densu answered.
Joseph Hellers Catch-22, presents the following paradox:
A condensed form of paradox is known as
an oxymoron. For example ignorance is
knowledge
54

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that concern for one's
own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a
rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon
as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be
crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he
flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to.
Examples of paradoxes from Leo Tolstoys War and Peace:
We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human
wisdom.
You can love a person dear to you with a human love, but an enemy can only be loved with
divine love.
Human science fragments everything in order to understand it, kills everything in order to
examine it.
In George Orwells satire The Animal Farm, the first commandment of the animals
commune is revised into a witty paradox:
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
NOTE
The purpose of a paradox is to arrest attention and provoke fresh thought.
Paradoxes are also used to undermine the arguments of ones opponents.

55

The Man In The
Arena
It is not the critic who
counts; not the man who
points out how the strong
man stumbles, or where
the doer of deeds could
have done them better.
The credit belongs to the
man who is actually in
the arena, whose face is
marred by dust and
sweat and blood; who
strives valiantly; who
errs, who comes short
again and again, because
there is no effort without
error and shortcoming;
but who does actually
strive to do the deeds;
who knows great
enthusiasms, the great
devotions; who spends
himself in a worthy
cause; who at the best
knows in the end the
triumph of high
achievement, and who at
the worst, if he fails, at
least fails while daring
greatly, so that his place
shall never be with those
cold and timid souls who
neither know victory nor
defeat.
Excerpt from the
speech Citizenship
in a Republic By
Theodore Roosevelt
Imagery
Imagery is our senses in words
Imagery is the use of words to generate and evoke a vibrant and
graphic presentation of objects, places, actions and ideas.
Virtually any description of something that, in real life, could be
seen, heard, smelled, touched, or tasted can be called an image.
Imagery can come in the form of direct description or figurative
language.
NOTE
Imagery is everywhere in writing. Almost all literary texts evoke
some physical object or scene.
When reading a text try to ask yourself what sorts of images an
author is filling your mind with as you.
Example of usage
Prisoner by Mutabaruka:
You ask me
If I have ever been to prison
Been to prison
Your world
Of murderers and thieves
Of hatred and jealousy
Of death
And you ask me
If I have ever been to prison

I answer, yes
I am still there
Tryin to escape
56

In Harper Lees To Kill a Mockingbird also uses imagery, for example:
In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop; grass grew on the sidewalks, the courthouse
sagged in the square. Somehow, it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on summers day;
bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on
the square.
Here the author use imagery to tell the reader about the setting of the novel and about the
size, location, age, appearance, and the economic status of the town of Maycomb.
The Telephone Conversation by Wole Sonyika is also a poem full of imagery.
Exercise:
Find a poem or paragraph that is rich in imagery. Read the poem or paragraph and write an
essay in which you not only discuss the various types of imagery the writer uses in the piece.
Be sure to be specific. Cite actual words and phrases from the poem or paragraph as
examples to support your opinions and conclusions.

57

Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of
the Human Future in Space
From this distant vantage point, the
Earth might not seem of any
particular interest. But for us, it's
different. Consider again that dot.
That's here, that's home, that's us.
On it everyone you love, everyone you
know, everyone you ever heard of,
every human being who ever was,
lived out their lives. The aggregate of
our joy and suffering, thousands of
confident religions, ideologies, and
economic doctrines, every hunter and
forager, every hero and coward, every
creator and destroyer of civilization,
every king and peasant, every young
couple in love, every mother and
father, hopeful child, inventor and
explorer, every teacher of morals,
every corrupt politician, every
"superstar," every "supreme leader,"
every saint and sinner in the history
of our species lived thereon the
mote of dust suspended in a
sunbeam. Carl Sagan

The Art of War
If wise, a commander is able to
recognise changing circumstances and
to act expediently. If sincere, his men
will have no doubt of the certainty of
rewards and punishments. If
humane, he loves mankind,
sympathises with others, and
appreciates their industry and toil. If
courageous, he gains victory by seizing
opportunity without hesitation. If
strict, his troops are disciplined
because they are in awe of him and
are afraid of punishment.
Plans and projects for harming the
enemy are notconfined to any one
method. Sometimes entice his wise
and virtuous men away so that he
has no counsellors. Or send
treacherous people to his country to
wreck his administration. Sometimes
use cunning deception to alienate his
ministers from the sovereign. Or send
skilled craftsmen to encourage his
people to exhaust their wealth. Or
present him with licentious musicians
and dancers to change his customs.
Or give him beautiful women to
bewilder him. Sun Tzu
Anaphora
This means a repetition of the initial words. The words,
though they are simple become effective because of the
repetition. The repetition can be as simple as a single word or
as long as an entire phrase.
Anaphora is used to give prominence to ideas, it is also used
in literature to add rhythm and thus, making passages more
pleasurable to read and easier to remember. As a literary
device, anaphora serves the purpose of furnishing artistic
effect to the passages of prose and poetry. As a rhetorical
device, it is used to appeal to the emotions of the audience in
order to persuade, inspire, motivate and encourage them.
Examples of usage:
The Book of Ecclesiastes makes an excellent use of this
literary device. Chapter 3:3-8 in the King James Version Bible
is a good example:
To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose
under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a
time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a
time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a
time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones
together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from
embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to
cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and
a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time
of peace

58

Another example is Charles Dickens A Tale of Two Cities which starts with following lines:
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age
of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of
Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of
despair.
Exercises
Identify the Anaphora in the following sentences by Sun Tzu.
1. And therefore I say: Know the enemy, know yourself; your victory will never be
endangered. Know the ground, know the weather; your victory will then be total.

2. What is called fore-knowledge cannot be elicited from spirits, nor from gods, nor by
analogy with past events, nor from calculations. It must be obtained from men who
know the enemy situation.

3. Among the official class there are worthy men who have been deprived of office;
others who have committed errors and have been punished. There are sycophants
and minions who are covetous of wealth. There are those who wrongly remain low in
office; those who have not obtained responsible positions, and those whose sole
desire is to take advantage of times of trouble to extend the scope of their own
abilities. There are those who are two-faced, changeable, and deceitful, and those
who are always sitting on the fence. As far as all such are concerned you can secretly
inquire after their welfare, reward them liberally with gold and silk, and so tie them
to you. Then you may rely on them to seek out the real facts of the situation in their
country, and to ascertain its plans directed against you. They can as well create
cleavages between the sovereign and his ministers so that these are not in
harmonious accord. Sun Tzu

59

The most powerful
and the most perfect
expression of
thought and feeling
through the medium
of oral language
must be traced to the
mastery of words.
Nothing is better
suited to lead
speakers and
readers of English
into an easy control
of this language
than the command
of the phrase that
perfectly expresses
the thought.
Greenville Kleiser,
Fifteen Thousand
Useful Phrases
Idioms
An idiom is a combination of words that has a meaning that is different from the meanings
of the individual words themselves. It can have a literal meaning in one situation and a
different idiomatic meaning in another situation. It is a phrase which does not always follow
the normal rules of meaning and grammar.
When you learn English idioms, you take English out of
textbook and into the real world. The English language can be
considered as being made up of two components: Textbook
English and Natural English.
The textbook form of English is composed using proper
English vocabulary, while strictly adhering to the rules of
English grammar. The sentences in textbook English are
necessarily grammatically correct and complete in all
respects.
The natural form of English, on the other hand, allows liberal
use of slang, jargon, phrases and idioms, lending a colourful
hue to the language. Natural English is spoken at an informal
level, and it is the idioms in the language that give it a natural,
conversational and creative feel.
Examples
A fool and his money are soon parted this idiom
means that people who aren't careful with their money spend
it quickly. 'A fool and his money are easily parted' is an
alternative form of the idiom.
Abide by a decisionmeaning you accept the decision and
comply with it, even though you might disagree with it.
Above board means to make political decisions or carry out business matters in a legal
and proper manner.
All talk and no trousers- Someone who is all talk and no trousers, talks about doing big,
important things, but doesn't take any action.
60

At loggerheads If people are at loggerheads, they are arguing and can't agree on
anything
Babe in the woods A babe in the woods is a naive, defenceless, young person.
Back the wrong horseIf you back the wrong horse, you give your support to the losing
side in something.
Backseat driver A backseat driver is an annoying person who is fond of giving advice to
the person performing a task or doing something, especially when the advice is either wrong
or unwelcome.
Barking up the wrong treeif you are barking up the wrong tree, it means that you have
completely misunderstood something or are totally wrong.
Be that as it may an expression which means that, while you are prepared to accept that
there is some truth in what the other person has just said, it's not going to change your
opinions in any significant manner.
Beyond our ken if something's beyond your ken, it is beyond your understanding
Bite off more than you can chewmeans to take on more responsibilities than you can
manage. Dont bite off more than you can chew is often used to advise people against
agreeing to more than they can handle.
By the skin of your teethIf you do something by the skin of your teeth, you only just
manage to do it and come very near indeed to failing.
Brush under the carpet If you brush something under the carpet, you are making an
attempt to ignore it, or hide it from others
Close the stable door after the horse has bolted to try to fix something after the
problem has occurred.
Cloud cuckoo land to have ideas or plans that are completely unrealistic: such a person
is said to be living on cloud cuckoo land.
Clutch at straws If someone is in serious trouble and tries anything to get out of it, even
though their chances of success are probably nil, they are said to be clutching at straws.
Comfort zone means a place where people feel comfortable, where they can avoid the
worries of the world. It can be physical or mental.
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Cut and dried If something is cut and dried, then it means all has already been decided
and, in the case of an opinion, might be predictable.
Devils advocate If someone plays Devils advocate in an argument, it means they adopt
a position they dont believe in, just for the sake of the argument.
Dont hold your breath If you are told not to hold your breath, it means that you
shouldn't have high expectations about something.
Double-edged sword If someone uses an argument that could both help them and harm
them, then they are using a two-edged sword; it cuts both ways.
Every trick in the book this means to try every possible way, including dishonesty and
deceit, to get what you want.
Flogging a dead horse If someone is trying to convince people to do or feel something
without any hope of succeeding, theyre said to be flogging a dead horse. This is used when
someone is trying to raise interest in an issue that no-one supports anymore; beating a dead
horse will not make it do any more work.
From the horses mouthmeans to hear something directly from the person who is
concerned or responsible.
Give someone a piece of your mindto criticize someone strongly and angrily. To tell
them what you really think.
Go against the grainA person, who does things in an unconventional manner,
especially if their methods are not generally approved of, is said to go against the grain. Such
an individual can be called a maverick.
Have a trick up your sleeve to have a secret strategy to use when the time is right
Head is in the clouds If a person has their head in the clouds, they have unrealistic,
impractical ideas.
Just deserts If a bad or evil person gets their just deserts, they get the punishment or
suffer the misfortune that it is felt they deserve.
Keep your ear to the groundtry to keep informed about something, especially if there
are rumours or uncertainties.
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Keep your head above water if you are just managing to survive financially, you are
keeping your head above water
Keep your nose clean to stay out of trouble by not getting involved in any sort of
wrong-doing.
Keep your shirt on!used to tell someone to calm down.
Keeping your options opendo not restrict yourself or rule out any possible course of
action
Know the ropes Someone who is experienced and knows how the system works knows
the ropes.
Know which side ones bread is buttered on If you know which side one's bread is
buttered on, you know where your interests lie and will act accordingly to protect or further
them.
More than one string to their bowa person who has more than one string to their
bow has different talents or skills to fall back on. One more trick up their sleeve
Muddy the waters if somebody muddies the waters, he or she makes the situation more
complex or less clear.
My hands are ties If your hands are tied, you are unable to act for some reason
One-man bandIf one person does all the work or has all the responsibility somewhere,
then they are a one- man band.
Pull someones legto tease someone, but not maliciously
Pull the wool over someones eyes to deceive or cheat someone
Putting the cart before the horsedoing something the wrong way round
Red tape this is a negative term for the official paperwork and bureaucracy that we have
to deal wit
Ruffle a few feathers to annoy some people when making changes or improvements
Saved by the bell saved from a danger or a tricky situation just in time
Under the tableBribes or illegal payments are often described as money under the table.
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Under the weather If you are feeling a bit ill, sad or lack energy, you are under the
weather.
Under false colourssomeone pretending to be something they are not in order to
deceive people so that they can succeed.
Under your breathIf you say something under your breath, you whisper or say it very
quietly.
Under your noseIf something happens right in front of you, especially if it is surprising
or audacious, it happens under your nose.
Up in the airIf a matter is up in the air, no decision has been made and there is
uncertainty about it.
Upper hands have the advantage.
Virgin territory something that hasnt been explored before
Wash your hands of somethingdisassociate yourself and accept no responsibility for
what will happen.
Wet blanketa wet blanket is someone who tries to spoil other peoples fun.
Window dressingIf something is done to pretend to be dealing with an issue or
problem, rather than actually dealing with it, it is window dressing.
With a heavy handIf someone does something with a heavy hand, they do it in a strict
way, exerting a lot of control.
You cant have your cake and eat itmeans that you can't have things both ways
You cant make an omelette without breaking eggsmeans that in order to achieve
something or make progress; there must be losers in the process. collateral damage

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Well, the first great man who ever wrote
me a letter was our guestOliver Wendell
Holmes. He was also the first great literary
man I ever stole anything fromand that
is how I came to write to him and he to me.
When my first book was new, a friend of
mine said to me, The dedication is very
neat. Yes, I said, I thought it was. My
friend said, I always admired it, even
before I saw it in The Innocents Abroad.
I naturally said: What do you mean?
Where did you ever see it before? Well, I
saw it first some years ago as Doctor
Holmess dedication to his Songs in Many
Keys.
Of course, my first impulse was to prepare
this mans remains for burial, but upon
reflection I said I would reprieve him for a
moment or two and give him a chance to
prove his assertion if he could: We stepped
into a book-store, and he did prove it. I
had really stolen that dedication, almost
word for word. I could not imagine how this
curious thing had happened; for I knew one
thingthat a certain amount of pride
always goes along with a teaspoonful of
brains, and that this pride protects a man
from deliberately stealing other peoples
ideas. That is what a teaspoonful of brains
will do for a manand admirers had often
told me I had nearly a basketfulthough
they were rather reserved as to the size of
the basket.
However, I thought the thing out, and
solved the mystery. Two years before, I had
been laid up a couple of weeks in the
Sandwich Islands, and had read and re-
read Doctor Holmess poems till my mental
reservoir was filled up with them to the
brim. The dedication lay on the top, and
handy, so, by-and-by, I unconsciously stole
it. Perhaps I unconsciously stole the rest of
the volume, too, for many people have told
me that my book was pretty poetical, in one
way or another. Well, of course, I wrote
Doctor Holmes and told him I hadn't
meant to steal, and he wrote back and said
in the kindest way that it was all right and
no harm done; and added that he believed
we all unconsciously worked over ideas
gathered in reading and hearing, imagining
they were original with ourselves.
He stated a truth, and did it in such a
pleasant way, and salved over my sore spot
so gently and so healingly, that I was rather
glad I had committed the crime for the sake
of the letter. I afterward called on him and
told him to make perfectly free with any
ideas of mine that struck him as being good
protoplasm for poetry. He could see by that
that there wasnt anything mean about me;
so we got along right from the start
On Plagiarism: By Mark Twain
Allusions
Sometimes a metaphor consists in a reference or allusion to
a well-known passage in literature or a fact of history.
An Allusion is a reference to an outside work, a statement, a
person, a place, or an event from literature, history, religion,
mythology, philosophy politics, sports, or science. An
illusion relies on the reader being familiar to the item being
alluded to. The audience must figure out and understand the
original source.
Recognizing and understanding allusions can make reading
more interesting and enjoyable because you connect your
knowledge of the reference to the text, respond emotionally
to the reference and connect those emotions to the text.
To fully understand an allusion and how it relates to the
text, you may need to do some additional research. For
example, check for footnotes that contain more information
about the allusion, Refer to dictionaries, encyclopaedias, or
other reference books or ask others such as teachers,
librarians, family, and friends.
Examples
The Emperors (new) clothes- used to describe a
persons imaginary quality whose fictitiousness other people
refrain from pointing out.
The story is told of an emperor who loved beautiful new
clothes so much that he spent all his money on being finely
dressed. His only interest was in going to the theatre or in
riding about in his carriage where he could show off his new
clothes.
One day two swindlers came to the emperors city. They said
that they were weavers, claiming that they knew how to
make the finest cloth imaginable. And that the clothes they
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will make, will be invisible to anyone who was incompetent or stupid.
The Emperors ministers could not see the clothes, but for fear of being branded stupid, they
pretended to see them. When the Emperor was asked to remove his old clothes and put on
his invincible clothes, he complied, even though he himself could not see them. Soon
everyone in the kingdom joined in on the pretence. Until one child, too young to understand
the desirability of keeping up the pretence, blurted out that the Emperor had no clothes,
bringing everyone back to their senses.
Gentlemans Agreement- This means an agreement not enforceable at law and only
binding as a matter of honour.
The case of Bloom v. Kinder [1958] was more cynically, but closer to reality:
A gentlemens agreement is an agreement which is not an agreement, made between two
persons, neither of whom is a gentleman, whereby each expects the other to be strictly
bound without himself being bound at all.
See also Faustian pact: Meaning, an agreement with Evil, in the form of the Devil, with
the paradoxical intention of achieving a higher Good that is otherwise obstructed.
A pact with the Devil is a dangerous thing, for the only thing the Devil is said to want is the
persons soul, and that he will do anything to get it: he will lie, trick and cheat.
For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or
what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?... in the Bible, Mark 8 34:38.
The allusion has its roots in the legend of Faust told in Christopher Marlowes The Tragical
History of Doctor Faustus.
In the legend Faust has studied for years without satisfactory progress, losing his faith and
his idealism. In frustration he becomes a black-magic sorcerer and summons the Devil. The
demon Mephistopheles (or Mephisto) appears. Together they make a pact in which
Mephistopheles offers to serve Faust for a period of time, at the cost of Fausts eternal soul.
Today, the term faustian has come to mean a tarnished deal for worldly power or knowledge
at the expense of a higher (spiritual) value or reward.
Beware of the Greeks bearing gifts - A warning against trickery by people who pretend
to give free gifts or aid. The phrase originates from Homers The Iliad.
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When the Greeks gave a wooden horse to their enemies (the Trojans) in the war of Troy,
Aeneid the Laocoon, a priest of Poseidon tells his countrymen.
Do not trust the horse, Trojans! Whatever it is, I fear the Greeks, even bearing gifts.
The Trojans failed to heed the warning, which proved to be their undoing, since it later
transpired that the Greek had hidden some warriors in the bowels of the wooden horse. At
night the warriors came out and opened the city gates, letting all the other Green warriors
into the city.
The green-eyed monster- this alludes to jealousy. This originates from Shakespeares
Othello.
Iago tells Othello:
O, beware jealousy!
It is the green-eyd monster, which doth mock
That man it feeds on.

Othello did not heed the warning. Mistakenly believing his wife had cheated on him, he let
jealousy consume him, ultimately leading him to the murder of his wife.
The haves and the have-nots- The phrase refers to the rich and the poor of the society.
In Don Quixote Safire says to Sancho Panza:
There are only two families in the world, the haves and the have-nots.
Make an offer that cant refuse- giving someone an option of two choices, one of
which being not an option at all. The phrase was popularised by Mario Puzo in The
Godfather.
I never promised you a rose garden- the phrase means that expectations need to be
lowered, since things are not always smooth all the way, especially in Politics and in
Marriage.
It was popularised by Fernando Collor de Mello, president of Brazil in the 1990s. When the
citizens started to complain when things got hard, he told them:
I never promised you a rose garden following the example of developed countries, we
are also cutting state funding.
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To live in an ivory tower- It means to live secluded from the harsh realities of life.
In 1914, an English translation of Henri Bergsons work on laughter noted:
Each member [of society] must be ever attentive to his social surroundings; he must model
himself on his environment; in short, he must avoid shutting himself up in his own peculiar
character as a philosopher in his ivory tower.
Keep up with the Joneses- means trying to compete with the neighbours and striving to
own everything that the neighbours own.
Mark Twain in the essay, Corn Pone Opinions, wrote:
Our table manners, and company manners, and street manners change from time to
time, but the changes are not reasoned out; we merely notice and conform. We are
creatures of outside influences; as a rule we do not think, we only imitate. We cannot
invent standards that will stick; what we mistake for standards are only fashions, and
perishable
The outside influences are always pouring in upon us, and we are always obeying their
orders and accepting their verdicts. The Smiths like the new play; the Joneses go to see it,
and they copy the Smith verdict.
Lame duck- Means a person or thing that finds himself or herself less capable, and
currently disabled, helpless, ineffective, or inefficient.
Originally, lame duck was a business term used in the eighteenth century to describe
anyone who was bankrupt or behind on their debt payments...
In 1847, William Thackeray in a novel Vanity Fair wrote:
and thats flatunless I see Amelias ten thousand down you dont marry her. Ill have no
lame ducks daughter in my family. Pass the wine, siror ring for coffee.
The phrase is now used in reference to politicians who have lost their power to effect any
meaningful policy.
The land of milk and honey- refers to an imaginary place that has everything one would
want.
The origin of the idiom is the Bible, Exodus 3:8:
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So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up
out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey
Let them eat cake- Used ironically to describe a leader who is not in touch or cares little
about the problems facing the common people.
The phrase can be traced to Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Confessions, written in 1770. In Book
6, He wrote:
At length I recollected the thoughtless saying of a great princess, who, on being informed
that the country people had no bread, replied, Then let them eat pastry!
Megaphone Diplomacy- Refers to a political dialogue which consists of sloganeering
rather than a genuine search for solutions.
If negotiations between countries or parties are held through press releases and
announcements, this is megaphone diplomacy, aiming to force the other party into adopting
their favoured position.
The phrase can be compared to brinkmanship diplomacy which the philosopher
Bertrand Russell termed as a game of chicken.
The game of chicken, also known as the hawk-dove game or snowdrift game, is an influential
model of conflict for two players in game theory. The principle of the game is that while each
player prefers not to yield to the other, the worst possible outcome occurs when both players
do not yield.
The name chicken has its origins in a game in which two drivers drive towards each other
on a collision course: one must swerve, or both may die in the crash, but if one driver
swerves and the other does not, the one who swerved will be called a chicken, meaning a
coward.
No such thing as a free lunch- the phrase means you don't get anything for nothing.
That is, whatever goods and services are provided they must be paid for by someone.
The phrase was popularised by the American economist Milton Friedman a staunch
supporter of capitalism and author of Free to Choose and Capitalism and Freedom.
One Step Forward, Two Steps Back- the idiom means, when progress is being made in
a particular situation something bad happens that causes the situation to revert to a worse
situation that it was before.
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It was popularised by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin book title One Step Forward Two Steps Back
(The Crisis in Our Party) and who also authored Imperialism the highest form of
Capitalism.
To pass the buck- means to avoid responsibility by blaming it on someone else.
The best-known use of buck in this context is by US President Harry S. Truman who put the
sign the buck stops here on his desk, to remind himself and his electors that he bore the
ultimate responsibility to all political decisions and policies.
To open Pandoras Box- to let all sorts of uncontrollable issues loose.
Once upon a time, there were two brothers. One was called Prometheus, because he always
looked before him, and boasted that he was wise beforehand. The other was called
Epimetheus, because he always looked behind him, and did not boast at all; but said humbly,
that he had sooner prophesy after the event.
On day there came to the two brothers the most beautiful creature that ever was seen,
Pandora by name; which means, all the gifts of the Gods. But because she had a strange box
in her hand, this fanciful, forecasting, suspicious, prudential, theoretical, deductive,
prophesying Prometheus, who was always settling what was going to happen, would have
nothing to do with pretty Pandora and her box.
But Epimetheus took her and it, as he took everything that came; and married her for better
for worse, as every man ought, whenever he has even the chance of a good wife. And they
opened the box between them, of course, to see what was inside: for, else, of what possible
use could it have been to them?
And out flew all the ills which flesh are heir to; all the children of the four great bogies, greed,
Ignorance, Fear, and corruptionfor instance: Diseases, Famines, Quacks, Unpaid bills,
Idols, Wars, Despots, tribalism, Demagogues, etc. But one thing remained at the bottom of
the box, and that was, Hope.
So Epimetheus got a great deal of trouble, as most men do in this world: but he got the three
best things in the world into the bargaina good wife, and experience, and hope.
4

4
Adopted from The Water-Babies, by Charles Kingsley
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The pen is mightier than the sword- it means, changes brought about by changing
peoples perception, through writing and persuasion, is more effective and real, than changes
brought through violence. The other meaning is that, violence cannot stop an idea whose
time has come.
The origin of the phrase was used by Edward Bulwer-Lytton in his play Richelieu; Or the
Conspiracy, 1839:
In the play, the cardinal says:
True, This!
Beneath the rule of men entirely great,
The pen is mightier than the sword. Behold
The arch-enchanters wand! - itself a nothing!
But taking sorcery from the master-hand
To paralyse the Caesars, and to strike
The loud earth breathless! - Take away the sword
States can be saved without it!
From the sublime to the ridiculous-The allusions means moving from something that
is very good or very serious to something that is very bad or silly
Tom Paine the author of Common Sense, The Age of Reason as well as The Rights of Man
wrote:
The sublime and the ridiculous are often so nearly related that it is difficult to class them
separately. One step above the sublime makes the ridiculous, and one step above the
ridiculous makes the sublime again.
NOTE
Allusions can, admittedly, be a bit frustrating when youre still in the earlier stages of your
serious reading career, since you have to constantly google. But the more you read, the more
literary allusions youll recognize, and the more depth and richness of meaning theyll add to
your reading experience.

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Section Summary
Much of the English language is figurative.
There are many writing techniques that anyone can employ to improve their written work.
Remember; always put your reader first. Figures of speech (and writing) enable you to add
colour and variety so that you keep your reader engrossed. Through their use your writing
can be both entertaining and educating. However, when a figure suggests itself, it must be so
clearly seen that there can be no mixing of images.
In most cases figures are ornaments of literature; it must be remembered that ornament is
always secondary, and that no ornament is good unless it is in entire harmony with the thing
it is to beautify.
The above definitions and illustrations are for reference. You do not need to know the names
of any of these figures in order to use them, and it is altogether probable that learning to
name and analyse them will to some extent make us too self-conscious to use them at all. At
the same time, they will help us to explain things that otherwise might puzzle us in our study.
Exercises:
Choose a text from any of those referenced in the examples and attempt the following
exercises.
Does the author create analogies, like similes or metaphors?
Does the author use personification?
Does the text use unusual images or patterns of imagery?
Is there deliberate hyperbole or understatement in the passage?
What part do rhythm and sound devices such as alliteration or onomatopoeia play in the
passage?
Does the author employ paradox or oxymoron to add complexity?
What purpose do the figures of speech serve, and what effect do they have on the text?
What seems to be the speakers attitude in the text?

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Genres
Merriam Websters Dictionary defines a genre as a category of artistic, musical, or literary
composition characterized by a particular style, form, or content
Literary genres are categories into which similar literary works may be grouped.
According to Wikipedia:
A genre is a vague term with no fixed boundaries in that while literary works within genres
hold characteristics in common such as style, structure and use of literary devices, they may
also differ considerably or even cross over into multiple genres. These categories can be
further subdivide into sub-genres,
There are three broad types of genres in English literature. However, drama may fall into
either of the other two. These genres are:
Prose, for example: Myths, parables, romances, biographies, novels, short stories, News
reports, feature articles, essays, editorials, textbooks and other academic works etc.
Poetry which is brief, intense, and patterned when compared with prose. Poetry relies on
imagery, figurative language and sound. Examples include: epic, lyric, and dramatic
Drama which is made up of dialogue and set direction and is designed to be performed.
Examples include: comedy, tragedy, and melodrama.
Identifying a genre
As we have seen, Literature comes in a very wide variety of forms, and how we approach and
comprehend each piece of literature depends to some extent on what form the literature
takes. Therefore, the first thing you should do when reading a text is to determine its genre.
Your first approach in the identification process is to read any background information on
the written text. This background information usually comes before the reading as an
introduction. This information may include the time period it was from, what part of the
world, the targeted audience and the aims and purposes of the text. All of this information
helps you to figure out how to interpret the text.
The original context is very important in determining how to understand the text and its
intended meaning.
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Non-Fiction
Biography:
This is a story of a persons life written by someone other than the subject (person about
whose life is being written).
Authorized biography is written with the subjects help.
Unauthorised biography is written without the subjects help.
Autobiography:
Refers to a persons story of his/her own life written by himself/herself.
Fiction
Historical fiction
This is a story which is made up but is set in a specific and recognizable historical period.
.These novels and stories often include characters and places which are historically accurate,
others include documents as well.
Documentary fiction
This is a made up story which uses a collage of documents, such as actual news stories,
letters, diaries, etc, in addition to dialogue and narration, to help to tell a story.
Science fiction
Originally, this is a story which used the science of the future as a major element of plot or
setting.
Mystery
A mystery novel contains a puzzle and challenges the reader to join the detective character
who eventually solves the puzzle
Oral literature
This are oral tradition stories, which are memorised and passed from person to person
through the telling, these tend to have messages for the listener to decipher and definite
similarities in plot, characters, and settings.
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Folklores from Kenya
A husband once told his wife
that he was a cleverer than his
father-in-law.
The wife laughed loudly and
replied that her husband was
not serious. My father had an
idea of high tricks long before
your mother was born, so you
cannot be cleverer than him.
she said
The young man did not argue
with his wife. He rather chose
to test his father-in-law in
order to prove his mettle in
high tricks.
One day he sent an empty pot
through his wife to the father-
in-law, asking him to fill it
with the sweetest wine
imaginable. The wine, he
warned, must neither be native
palm wine nor the imported
wine. He requested that as
soon as the pot was filled, the
father-in-law should inform
him.
This young man, of course,
thought that it would take his
father-in-law a long time to
find the sort of wine he had
requested.
However, to his great surprise,
the young mans father-in-law
lost no time, but sent a
messenger to let his son-in-law
know that the wine in question
was ready.
The message said: Your wine
is ready. You must send
someone who is neither a man
nor a woman to carry it to
you.
On receipt of this surprising
message from his father-in-law,
the young man knew that it
was not possible for him to
have the wine, as there was no
such person in the world.
So, his father-in-law, without
doubt, was a cleverer person in
high tricks than he.
Young men think that old men
are fools, but old men know
that young men are fools.
A myth- This is a story about a god or goddess. Myths often
explain where things come from.
A tall tale is a story wild wildly exaggerated or made up
characters and events.
A legend is a story that may be partially or completely true
about a hero or heroine.
An anecdote is a very short story that is told to make a point. It
is usually an interesting or funny incident that happened to
someone. It is usually true.
A folk tale is a story that was passed down from grandparents to
grandchildren for hundreds of years. These tales were not written
down until recently.
A fable is a short story that has animals as the main characters.
It is told to make a point about how people should treat each
other.
Examples:
Aesops Tales and Jeff Ramantoshs Folklores from Kenya
Prose
a page of good prose is where one hears the rain. A page of
good prose is when one hears the noise of battle.... A page of
good prose seems to me the most serious dialogue that well-
informed and intelligent men and women carry on today in
their endeavour to make sure that the fires of this planet burn
peaceably. John Cheever
In its broadest sense the term prose is applied to all forms of
written or spoken expression not having a regular rhythmic
pattern.
In prose, Ideas are contained in sentences that are arranged into
paragraphs.
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The practise of storing the
mind with choice passages
from the best prose writers
and poets, and thus
flavouring it with the
essence of good literatures,
is one which is commended
both by the best teachers
and by the example of some
of the most celebrated
orators, who have adopted
it with signal success.
Anon

Selected Excerpts in English

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Self-Reliance
By Ralph Waldo Emerson
To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for
all men,that is genius. Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense; for
always the inmost becomes the outmostand our first thought is rendered back to us by the
trumpets of the Last Judgment.
Familiar as the voice of the mind is to each, the highest merit we ascribe to Moses, Plato and
Milton is that they set at naught books and traditions, and spoke not what men, but what they
thought. A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his
mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses
without notice his thought, because it is his.
In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a
certain alienated majesty. Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this. They
teach us to abide by our spontaneous impression with good-humoured inflexibility then most
when the whole cry of voices is on the other side. Else to-morrow a stranger will say with
masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced
to take with shame our own opinion from another.
There is a time in every mans education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance;
that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion; that though
the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his
toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in
him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know
until he has tried
We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents.
A man is relieved and happy when he has put his heart into his work and done his best
Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has
found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have
always done so and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, ... And we are now
men, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not pinched in a
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corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but redeemers and benefactors, pious aspirants
to be noble clay under the Almighty effort let us advance on Chaos and the Dark.

Do not think the youth has no force, because he cannot speak to you and me. Hark! in the next
room who spoke so clear and emphatic? Good Heaven! it is he! it is that very lump of
bashfulness and phlegm which for weeks has done nothing but eat when you were by, and now
rolls out these words like bell-strokes. It seems he knows how to speak to his contemporaries.
Bashful or bold then, he will know how to make us seniors very unnecessary.
... Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his
bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most
request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names
and customs.

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Meaning of Education
By Thomas Henry Huxley From A Liberal Education; and Where to Find it, (1868)
What is education? Above all things, what is our ideal of a thoroughly liberal education?of that
education which, if we could begin life again, we would give ourselvesof that education which,
if we could mould the fates to our own will, we would give our children? Well, I know not what
may be your conceptions upon this matter, but I will tell you mine, and I hope I shall find that
our views are not very diverse.
Suppose it was perfectly certain that the life and fortune of every one of us would, one day or
other, depend upon his winning or losing a game of chess. Dont you think that we should all
consider it to be a primary duty to learn at least the names and the moves of the pieces; to have a
notion of a gambit, and a keen eye for all the means of giving and getting out of check? Do you
not think that we should look with a disapprobation amounting to scorn, upon the father who
allowed his son, or the state which allowed its members, to grow up without knowing a pawn
from a knight?
Yet it is a very plain and elementary truth, that the life, the fortune, and the happiness of every
one of us, and, more or less, of those who are connected with us, do depend upon our knowing
something of the rules of a game infinitely more difficult and complicated than chess. It is a
game which has been played for untold ages, every man and woman of us being one of the two
players in a game of his or her own. The chess-board is the world To the man who plays well,
the highest stakes are paid ... And one who plays ill is checkmatedwithout haste, but without
remorse
Well, what I mean by Education is learning the rules of this mighty game. In other words,
education is the instruction of the intellect in the laws of Nature, under which name I include
not merely things and their forces, but men and their ways; and the fashioning of the affections
and of the will into an earnest and loving desire to move in harmony with those laws. For me,
education means neither more nor less than this. Anything which professes to call itself
education must be tried by this standard, and if it fails to stand the test, I will not call it
education, whatever may be the force of authority, or of numbers, upon the other side.
...
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Those who take honours in Natures university, who learn the laws which govern men and
things and obey them, are the really great and successful men in this world. The great mass of
mankind is in the Poll, who pick up just enough to get through without much discredit. Those
who wont learn at all are plucked; and then you cant come up again. Natures pluck means
exterminationIgnorance is visited as sharply as wilful disobedienceincapacity meets with the
same punishment as crime.
The object of what we commonly call educationthat education in which man intervenes and
which I shall distinguish as artificial educationis to make good these defects in Natures
methods And a liberal education is an artificial education which has not only prepared a man
to escape the great evils of disobedience to natural laws, but has trained him to appreciate and to
seize upon the rewards, which Nature scatters with as free a hand as her penalties.
That man, I think, has had a liberal education who has been so trained in youth that his body is
the ready servant of his will, and does with ease and pleasure all the work that, as a mechanism, it
is capable of; whose intellect is a clear, cold, logic engine, with all its parts of equal strength, and
in smooth working order; ready, like a steam engine, to be turned to any kind of work, and spin
the gossamers as well as forge the anchors of the mind; whose mind is stored with a knowledge
of the great and fundamental truths of Nature and of the laws of her operations; one who, no
stunted ascetic, is full of life and fire, but whose passions are trained to come to heel by a
vigorous will, the servant of a tender conscience; who has learned to love all beauty, whether of
Nature or of art, to hate all vileness, and to respect others as himself.
Such one and no other, I conceive, has had a liberal education; for he is, as completely as a man
can be, in harmony with Nature. He will make the best of her, and she of him. They will get on
together rarely; she as his ever beneficent mother; he as her mouthpiece, her conscious self, her
minister and interpreter.

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Knowledge and Learning
By John Henry Newman in The Idea of a University, (1852)
I suppose the prima-facie view which the public at large would take of a university, considering
it as a place of education, is nothing more or less than a place for acquiring a great deal of
knowledge on a great many subjects.
Memory is one of the first developed of the mental faculties; (a students) business when he goes
to school is to learn, that is, to store up things in his memory. For some years his intellect is little
more than an instrument for taking in facts, or a receptacle for storing them; he welcomes them
as fast as they come to him; he lives on what is without; he has his eyes ever about him; he has a
lively susceptibility of impressions; he imbibes information of every kind; and little does he make
his own in a true sense of the word, living rather upon his neighbours all around him. He has
opinions, religious, political and literary, and, for a (student), is very positive in them and sure
about them; but he gets them from his schoolfellows, or his masters, or his parents, as the case
may be.
Geography, chronology, history, language, natural history, he heaps up the matter of these
studies as treasures for a future day. there is exercise for his argumentative powers in the
elements of mathematics, and for his taste in the poets and orators, still, while at school, or at
least, till quite the last years of his time, he acquires, and little more; and when he is leaving for
the university, he is mainly the creature of foreign influences and circumstances, and made up of
accidents, homogeneous or not, as the case may be.
Moreover, the moral habits, which are a (students) praise, encourage and assist this result; that
is, diligence, assiduity, regularity, despatch, and persevering application; for these are the direct
conditions of acquisition, and naturally lead to it.
It requires a great deal of reading, or a wide range of information, to warrant us in putting forth
our opinions on any serious subject; and without such learning the most original mind may be
able indeed to dazzle, to amuse, to refute, to perplex, but not to come to any useful result or any
trustworthy conclusion. There are indeed persons who profess a different view of the matter,
and even act upon it. Every now and then you will find a person of vigorous or fertile mind, who
relies upon his own resources, despises all former authors, and gives the world, with the utmost
fearlessness, his views upon religion, or history, or any other popular subject. And his works may
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sell for a while; he may get a name in his day; but this will be all. His readers are sure to find on
the long run that his doctrines are mere theories, and not the expression of facts, that they are
chaff instead of bread, and then his popularity drops as suddenly as it rose.
Knowledge then is the indispensable condition of expansion of mind, and the instrument of
attaining to it; this cannot be denied, it is ever to be insisted on; I begin with it as a first principle;
however, the very truth of it carries men too far, and confirms to them the notion that it is the
whole of the matter. A narrow mind is thought to be that which contains little knowledge; and
an enlarged mind, that which holds a great deal; and what seems to put the matter beyond
dispute is, the fact of the great number of studies which are pursued in a university, by its very
profession.
Lectures are given on every kind of subject; examinations are held; prizes awarded. There are
moral, metaphysical, physical professors; professors of languages, of history, of mathematics, of
experimental science. Lists of questions are published, wonderful for their range and depth,
variety and difficulty; treatises are written, which carry upon their very face the evidence of
extensive reading or multifarious information; what then is wanting for mental culture to a
person of large reading and scientific attainments? What is grasp of mind but acquirement?
where shall philosophical repose be found, but in the consciousness and enjoyment of large
intellectual possessions?
And yet this notion is, I conceive, a mistake and that the end of a liberal education is not mere
knowledge, or knowledge considered in its matter
In like manner, we sometimes fall in with persons who have seen much of the world, and of
the men who, in their day, have played a conspicuous part in it, but who generalise, nothing, and
have no observation, in the true sense of the word. They abound in information in detail, curious
and entertaining, about men and things; and, having lived under the influence of no very clear or
settled principles, religious or political, they speak of everyone and everything, only as so many
phenomena, which are complete in themselves, and lead to nothing, not discussing them, or
teaching any truth, or instructing the hearer, but simply talking. No one would say that these
persons, well informed as they are, had attained to any great culture of intellect or to philosophy.
The case is the same still more strikingly where the persons in question are beyond dispute men
of inferior powers and deficient education. Perhaps they have been much in foreign countries,
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and they receive, in a passive, otiose, unfruitful way, the various facts which are forced upon
them there.
Instances, such as these, confirm, by the contrast, the conclusion I have already drawn from
those which preceded them. That only is true enlargement of mind which is the power of
viewing many things at once as one whole, of referring them severally to their true place in the
universal system, of understanding their respective values, and determining their mutual
dependence. Thus is that form of universal knowledge, of which I have on a former occasion
spoken, set up in the individual intellect, and constitutes its perfection.

Nay, self-education in any shape, in the most restricted sense, is preferable to a system of
teaching which, professing so much, really does so little for the mind. Shut your college gates
against the votary of knowledge, throw him back upon the searchings and the efforts of his own
mind; he will gain by being spared an entrance into your babel. Few indeed there are who can
dispense with the stimulus and support of instructors, or will do anything at all, if left to
themselves. And fewer still (though such great minds are to be found), who will not, from such
unassisted attempts, contract a self-reliance and a self-esteem...
Yet such is the better specimen of the fruit of that ambitious system which has of late years been
making way among us: for its result on ordinary minds, and on the common run of students, is
less satisfactory still; they leave their place of education simply dissipated and relaxed by the
multiplicity of subjects, which they have never really mastered, and so shallow as not even to
know their shallowness.
How much better, I say, it is for the active and thoughtful intellect, where such is to be found, to
eschew the college and the university altogether, than to submit to a drudgery so ignoble, a
mockery so contumelious! How much more profitable for the independent mind, after the mere
rudiments of education, to range through a library at random, taking down books as they meet
him, and pursuing the trains of thought which his mother wit suggests! How much healthier to
wander into the fields, and there with the exiled prince to find tongues in the trees, books in the
running brooks!

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The Art of reading
By Frederic Harrison From The Choice of Books, (1891)
It is the fashion for those who have any connection with letters to expatiate on the infinite
blessings of literature, and the miraculous achievements of the press: to extol, as a gift above
price, the taste for study and the love of reading. Far be it from me to gainsay the inestimable
value of good books, or to discourage any man from reading the best; but I often think that we
forget that other side to this glorious view of literaturethe misuse of books, the debilitating
waste of brain in aimless, promiscuous, vapid reading, or even, it may be, in the poisonous
inhalation of mere literary garbage and bad mens worst thoughts.
What are the subjects, what are the class of books we are to read, in what order, with what
connection, to what ultimate use or object? Even those who are resolved to read the better
books are embarrassed by a field of choice practically boundless. The longest life, the greatest
industry, joined to the most powerful memory, would not suffice to make us profit from a
hundredth part of the world of books before us.
If the great Newton said that he seemed to have been all his life gathering a few shells on the
shore, whilst a boundless ocean of truth still lay beyond and unknown to him, how much more
to each of us must the sea of literature be a pathless immensity beyond our powers of vision or
of reachan immensity in which industry itself is useless without judgment, method, discipline;
where it is of infinite importance what we can learn and remember, and of utterly no importance
what we may have once looked at or heard of.
Alas! the most of our reading leaves as little mark even in our own education as the foam that
gathers round the keel of a passing boat! For myself, I am inclined to think the most useful help
to reading is to know what we should not read, what we can keep out from that small cleared
spot in the overgrown jungle of information, the corner which we can call our ordered patch
of fruit-bearing knowledge. The incessant accumulation of fresh books must hinder any real
knowledge of the old; for the multiplicity of volumes becomes a bar upon our use of any
Thus the difficulties of literature are in their way as great as those of the world, the obstacles to
finding the right friends are as great, the peril is as great of being lost in a Babel of voices and an
ever-changing mass of beings. Books are not wiser than men, the true books are not easier to
find than the true men, the bad books or the vulgar books are not less obtrusive and not less
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ubiquitous than the bad or vulgar men are everywhere; the art of right reading is as long and
difficult to learn as the art of right living. Those who are on good terms with the first author they
meet, run as much risk as men who surrender their time to the first passer in the street; for to be
open to every book is for the most part to gain as little as possible from any. A man aimlessly
wandering about in a crowded city is of all men the most lonely; so he who takes up only the
books that he comes across is pretty certain to meet but few that are worth knowing.
...Now this danger is one to which we are specially exposed in this age. Our high-pressure life of
emergencies, our whirling industrial organisation or disorganisation have brought us in this (as in
most things) their peculiar difficulties and drawbacks. In almost everything vast opportunities
and gigantic means of multiplying our products bring with them new perils and troubles which
are often at first neglected. Our huge cities, where wealth is piled up and the requirements and
appliances of life extended beyond the dreams of our forefathers, seem to breed in themselves
new forms of squalor, disease, blights, or risks to life such as we are yet unable to master. So the
enormous multiplicity of modern books is not altogether favourable to the knowing of the
best The Nile is the source of the Egyptians bread, and without it he perishes of hunger. But
the Nile may be rather too liberal in his flood, and then the Egyptian runs imminent risk of
drowning
Every book that we take up without a purpose is an opportunity lost of taking up a book with a
purposeevery bit of stray information which we cram into our heads without any sense of its
importance, is for the most part a bit of the most useful information driven out of our heads and
choked off from our minds. It is so certain that information, i.e., the knowledge, the stored
thoughts and observations of mankind, is now grown to proportions so utterly incalculable and
prodigious, that even the learned whose lives are given to study can but pick up some crumbs
that fall from the table of truth. They delve and tend but a plot in that vast and teeming
kingdom, whilst those whom active life leaves with but a few cramped hours of study can hardly
come to know the very vastness of the field before them, or how infinitesimally small is the
corner they can traverse at the best.
We know all is not of equal value. We know that books differ in value as much as diamonds
differ from the sand on the seashore, as much as our living friend differs from a dead rat. We
know that much in the myriad-peopled world of booksvery much in all kindsis trivial,
enervating, inane, even noxious. And thus, where we have infinite opportunities of wasting our
efforts to no end, of fatiguing our minds without enriching them, of clogging the spirit without
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satisfying it, there, I cannot but think, the very infinity of opportunities is robbing us of the
actual power of using them. And thus I come often, in my less hopeful moods, to watch the
remorseless cataract of daily literature which thunders over the remnants of the past, as if it were
a fresh impediment to the men of our day in the way of systematic knowledge and consistent
powers of thought, as if it were destined one day to overwhelm the great inheritance of mankind
in prose and verse
And so, I say it most confidently, the first intellectual task of our age is rightly to order and
make serviceable the vast realm of printed material which four centuries have swept across our
path. To organise our knowledge, to systematise our reading, to save, out of the relentless
cataract of ink, the immortal thoughts of the greatestthis is a necessity, unless the productive
ingenuity of man is to lead us at last to a measureless and pathless chaos
The Choice of Books is really the choice of our education, of a moral and intellectual ideal, of
the whole duty of man. But though I shrink from any so high a theme, a few words are needed
to indicate my general point of view in the matter.
In the first place, when we speak about books, let us avoid the extravagance of expecting too
much from books, the pedants habit of extolling books as synonymous with education. Books
are no more education than laws are virtue; and just as profligacy is easy within the strict limits of
law, a boundless knowledge of books may be found with a narrow education. A man may be, as
the poet saith, deep versd in books, and shallow in himself. We need to know in order that we
may feel rightly and act wisely. The thirst after truth itself may be pushed to a degree where
indulgence enfeebles our sympathies and unnerves us in action. Of all men perhaps the book-
lover needs most to be reminded that mans business here is to know for the sake of living, not
to live for the sake of knowing.
A healthy mode of reading would follow the lines of a sound education. And the first canon of a
sound education is to make it the instrument to perfect the whole nature and character. Its aims
are comprehensive, not special; they regard life as a whole, not mental curiosity; they have to give
us, not so much materials, as capacities. So that, however moderate and limited the opportunity
for education, in its way it should be always more or less symmetrical and balanced, appealing
equally in turn to the three grand intellectual elementsimagination, memory, reflection: and so
having something to give us in poetry, in history, in science, and in philosophy.
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And thus our reading will be sadly one-sided, however voluminous it be, if it entirely close to us
any of the great types and ideals which the creative instinct of man has produced, if it shut out
from us either the ancient world, or other poetry, as important almost as our own. When our
reading, however deep, runs wholly into pockets, and exhausts itself in the literature of one
age, one country, one type, then we may be sure that it is tending to narrow or deform our
minds. And the more it leads us into curious byways and nurtures us into indifference for the
beaten highways of the world, the sooner we shall end, if we be not specialists and students by
profession, in ceasing to treat our books as the companions and solace of our lifetime, and in
using them as the instruments of a refined sort of self-indulgence.
A wise education, and so judicious reading, should leave no great type of thought, no dominant
phase of human nature, wholly a blank. Whether our reading be great or small, so far as it goes, it
should be general. If our lives admit of but a short space for reading, all the more reason that, so
far as may be, it should remind us of the vast expanse of human thought, and the wonderful
variety of human nature. Be it imagination, memory, or reflection that we addressthat is, in
poetry, history, science, or philosophy, our first duty is to aim at knowing something at least of
the best,

87

On writing stories
Preface to Call to Arms by Lu Hsun also known as Zhou Shuren (The Chief Commander of
Chinas Modern Cultural Revolution)
When I was young I, too, had many dreams. Most of them came to be forgotten, but I see
nothing in this to regret. For although recalling the past may make you happy, it may sometimes
also make you lonely, and there is no point in clinging in spirit to lonely bygone days. However,
my trouble is that I cannot forget completely, and these stories have resulted from what I have
been unable to erase from my memory
I believe those who sink from prosperity to poverty will probably come, in the process, to
understand what the world is really like. I wanted to go to the K school in N perhaps
because I was in search of a change of scene and faces. At that time the proper thing was to
study the classics and take the official examinations. Anyone who studied foreign subjects was
looked down upon as a fellow good for nothing, who, out of desperation, was forced to sell his
soul to foreign devils.
I went to N and entered the K school; and it was there that I heard for the first
time the names of such subjects as natural science, arithmetic, geography, history, drawing and
physical training. They had no physiology course, but we saw woodblock editions of such works
as A New Course on the Human Body and Essays on Chemistry and Hygiene. Recalling the talk and
prescriptions of physicians I had known and comparing them with what I now knew, I came to
the conclusion those physicians must be either unwitting or deliberate charlatans; and I began to
sympathize with the invalids and families who suffered at their hands.
From translated histories I also learned that the Japanese Reformation had originated, to a great
extent, with the introduction of Western medical science to Japan. These inklings took me to a
provincial medical college in Japan. I dreamed a beautiful dream that on my return to China I
would cure patients like my father, who had been wrongly treated, while if war broke out I would
serve as an army doctor, at the same time strengthening my countrymens faith in reformation.
This was during the Russo-Japanese War, so there were many war films ... It was a long time
since I had seen any compatriots, but one day I saw a film showing some Chinese, one of whom
was bound, while many others stood around him. They were all strong fellows but appeared
completely apathetic. According to the commentary, the one with his hands bound was a spy
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working for the Russians, who was to have his head cut off by the Japanese military as a warning
to others, while the Chinese beside him had come to enjoy the spectacle.
Before the term was over I had left for Tokyo, because after this film I felt that medical science
was not so important after all. The people of a weak and backward country, however strong and
healthy they may be, can only serve to be made examples of, or to witness such futile spectacles;
and it doesnt really matter how many of them die of illness. The most important thing,
therefore, was to change their spirit, and since at that time I felt that literature was the best
means to this end, I determined to promote a literary movement. after discussion our first
step, of course, was to publish a magazine, the title of which denoted that this was a new birth.
As we were then rather classically inclined, we called it Xin Sheng (New Life).
When the time for publication drew near, some of our contributors dropped out, and then our
funds were withdrawn, until finally there were only three of us left, and we were penniless. Since
we had started our magazine at an unlucky hour, there was naturally no one to whom we could
complain when we failed; but later even we three were destined to part, and our discussions of a
dream future had to cease. So ended this abortive New Life.
Only later did I feel the futility of it all; at that time I did not really understand anything. Later I
felt if a mans proposals met with approval, it should encourage him; if they met with opposition,
it should make him fight back; but the real tragedy for him was to lift up his voice among the
living and meet with no response, neither approval nor opposition, just as if he were left helpless
in a boundless desert. So I began to feel lonely.
And this feeling of loneliness grew day by day, coiling about my soul like a huge poisonous
snake. Yet in spite of my unaccountable sadness, I felt no indignation; for this experience had
made me reflect and see that I was definitely not the heroic type who could rally multitudes at his
call.
However, my loneliness had to be dispelled, for it was causing me agony. So I used various
means to dull my senses, both by conforming to the spirit of the time and turning to the past.
Later I experienced or witnessed even greater loneliness and sadness, which I do not like to
recall, preferring that it should perish with me. Still my attempt to deaden my senses was not
unsuccessfulI had lost the enthusiasm and fervour of my youth.
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In S Hostel there were three rooms where it was said a woman had lived who hanged
herself on the locust tree in the courtyard. Although the tree had grown so tall that its branches
could no longer be reached, the rooms remained deserted. For some years I stayed here, copying
ancient inscriptions. I had few visitors, ...
The only visitor to come for an occasional talk was my old friend Chin Hsin-yi. He would put his
big portfolio down on the broken table, take off his long gown, and sit facing me, looking as if
his heart was still beating fast after braving the dogs.
What is the use of copying these? he demanded inquisitively one night, after looking through
the inscriptions I had copied.
No use at all.
Then why copy them?
For no particular reason.
I think you might write something. . . .
I understood. They were editing the magazine New Youth, but hitherto there seemed to have
been no reaction, favourable or otherwise, and I guessed they must be feeling lonely. However I
said:
Imagine an iron house without windows, absolutely indestructible, with many people fast asleep
inside who will soon die of suffocation. But you know since they will die in their sleep, they will
not feel the pain of death. Now if you cry aloud to wake a few of the lighter sleepers, making
those unfortunate few suffer the agony of irrevocable death, do you think you are doing them a
good turn?
But if a few awake, you cant say there is no hope of destroying the iron house.
True, in spite of my own conviction, I could not blot out hope, for hope lies in the future. I
could not use my own evidence to refute his assertion that it might exist. So I agreed to write,
and the result was my first story, A Madmans Diary. From that time onwards, I could not stop
writing, and would write some sort of short story from time to time at the request of friends,
until I had more than a dozen of them.

90

On Referencing
Preface to Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
My wish would be simply to present it to thee plain and unadorned, without any
embellishment of preface or uncountable muster of customary sonnets, epigrams, and eulogies,
such as are commonly put at the beginning of books. For I can tell thee, though composing it
cost me some labour, I found none greater than the making of this Preface thou art now reading.
Many times did I take up my pen to write it, and many did I lay it down again, not knowing what
to write. One of these times, as I was pondering with the paper before me, a pen in my ear, my
elbow on the desk, and my cheek in my hand, thinking of what I should say, there came in
unexpectedly a certain lively, clever friend of mine, who, seeing me so deep in thought, asked the
reason; to which I, making no mystery of it, answered that I was thinking of the Preface I had to
make for the story of Don Quixote, which so troubled me that I had a mind not to make any at
all, nor even publish the achievements of so noble a knight.
For, how could you expect me not to feel uneasy about what that ancient lawgiver they call the
Public will say when it sees me, after slumbering so many years in the silence of oblivion, coming
out now with all my years upon my back, and with a book as dry as a rush, devoid of invention,
meagre in style, poor in thoughts, wholly wanting in learning and wisdom, without quotations in
the margin or annotations at the end, after the fashion of other books I see, which, though all
fables and profanity, are so full of maxims from Aristotle, and Plato, and the whole herd of
philosophers, that they fill the readers with amazement and convince them that the authors are
men of learning, erudition, and eloquence. And then, when they quote the Holy Scriptures!-
anyone would say they are St. Thomases or other doctors of the Church...
Of all this there will be nothing in my book, for I have nothing to quote in the margin or to note
at the end, and still less do I know what authors I follow in it, to place them at the beginning, as
all do, under the letters A, B, C, beginning with Aristotle and ending with Xenophon, or Zoilus,
or Zeuxis, though one was a slanderer and the other a painter.
Also my book must do without sonnets at the beginning, at least sonnets whose authors are
dukes, marquises, counts, bishops, ladies, or famous poets. Though if I were to ask two or three
obliging friends, I know they would give me them, and such as the productions of those that
have the highest reputation in our Spain could not equal.
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In short, my friend, I continued, I am determined that Senor Don Quixote shall remain
buried in the archives of his own La Mancha until Heaven provide some one to garnish him with
all those things he stands in need of; because I find myself, through my shallowness and want of
learning, unequal to supplying them, and because I am by nature shy and careless about hunting
for authors to say what I myself can say without them. Hence the cogitation and abstraction you
found me in, and reason enough, what you have heard from me.
Hearing this, my friend, giving himself a slap on the forehead and breaking into a hearty laugh,
exclaimed, Before God, Brother, now am I disabused of an error in which I have been living all
this long time I have known you, all through which I have taken you to be shrewd and sensible
in all you do; but now I see you are as far from that as the heaven is from the earth. It is possible
that things of so little moment and so easy to set right can occupy and perplex a ripe wit like
yours, fit to break through and crush far greater obstacles? By my faith, this comes, not of any
want of ability, but of too much indolence and too little knowledge of life. Do you want to know
if I am telling the truth? Well, then, attend to me, and you will see how, in the opening and
shutting of an eye, I sweep away all your difficulties, and supply all those deficiencies which you
say check and discourage you from bringing before the world the story of your famous Don
Quixote, the light and mirror of all knight-errantry.
Say on, said I, listening to his talk; how do you propose to make up for my diffidence, and
reduce to order this chaos of perplexity I am in?
To which he made answer, Your first difficulty about the sonnets, epigrams, or complimentary
verses which you want for the beginning, and which ought to be by persons of importance and
rank, can be removed if you yourself take a little trouble to make them; you can afterwards
baptise them, and put any name you like to them, fathering them on Prester John of the Indies
or the Emperor of Trebizond, who, to my knowledge, were said to have been famous poets: and
even if they were not, and any pedants or bachelors should attack you and question the fact,
never care two maravedis for that, for even if they prove a lie against you they cannot cut off the
hand you wrote it with.
As to references in the margin to the books and authors from whom you take the aphorisms
and sayings you put into your story, it is only contriving to fit in nicely any sentences or scraps of
Latin you may happen to have by heart, or at any rate that will not give you much trouble to look
up; so as, when you speak of freedom and captivity, to insert Non bene pro toto libertas venditur auro;
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(Liberty is not well sold for all the gold) and then refer in the margin to Horace, or whoever said
it; or, if you allude to the power of death, to come in with- Pallida mors Aequo pulsat pede pauperum
tabernas, Regumque turres (Pale Death, with impartial foot, knocks at the cottages of the poor and
the palaces of kings)
If it be friendship and the love God bids us bear to our enemy, go at once to the Holy
Scriptures, which you can do with a very small amount of research, and quote no less than the
words of God himself:
Ego autem dico vobis: diligite inimicos vestros. (But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those
who persecute you)
If you speak of evil thoughts, turn to the Gospel:
De corde exeunt cogitationes malae.(For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries,
fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemie)
If of the fickleness of friends, there is Cato, who will give you his distich:
Donec eris felix multos numerabis amicos,
Tempora si fuerint nubila, solus eris.
(As long as you are fortunate, you will have many friends; if the weather has become cloudy, you
will be alone.)
With these and such like bits of Latin they will take you for a grammarian at all events, and that
now-a-days is no small honour and profit.
With regard to adding annotations at the end of the book, you may safely do it in this way. If
you mention any giant in your book contrive that it shall be the giant Goliath, and with this
alone, which will cost you almost nothing, you have a grand note, for you can put- The giant
Golias or Goliath was a Philistine whom the shepherd David slew by a mighty stone-cast in the
Terebinth valley, as is related in the Book of Kings- in the chapter where you find it written.
Next, to prove yourself a man of erudition in polite literature and cosmography, manage that
the river Tagus shall be named in your story, and there you are at once with another famous
annotation, setting forth- The river Tagus was so called after a King of Spain: it has its source in
such and such a place and falls into the ocean, kissing the walls of the famous city of Lisbon,
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Ovid will furnish you with Medea; if with witches or enchantresses, Homer has Calypso, and
Virgil Circe; if with valiant captains, Julius Caesar himself will lend you himself in his own
Commentaries, and Plutarch will give you a thousand Alexanders. If you should deal with love,
with two ounces you may know of Tuscan you can go to Leon the Hebrew, who will supply you
to your hearts content; or if you should not care to go to foreign countries you have at home
Fonsecas Of the Love of God, in which is condensed all that you or the most imaginative mind
can want on the subject.
In short, all you have to do is to manage to quote these names, or refer to these stories I have
mentioned, and leave it to me to insert the annotations and quotations, and I swear by all thats
good to fill your margins and use up four sheets at the end of the book.
Now let us come to those references to authors which other books have, and you want for
yours. The remedy for this is very simple:
You have only to look out for some book that quotes them all, from A to Z as you say yourself,
and then insert the very same alphabet in your book, and though the imposition may be plain to
see, because you have so little need to borrow from them, that is no matter; there will probably
be some simple enough to believe that you have made use of them all in this plain, artless story
of yours. At any rate, if it answers no other purpose, this long catalogue of authors will serve to
give a surprising look of authority to your book.
Besides, no one will trouble himself to verify whether you have followed them or whether you
have not, being no way concerned in it; especially as, if I mistake not, this book of yours has no
need of any one of those things you say it wants, for it is, from beginning to end, an attack upon
the books of chivalry, . It has only to avail itself of truth to nature in its composition, and the
more perfect the imitation the better the work will be.
And as this piece of yours aims at nothing more than to destroy the authority and influence
which books of chivalry have in the world and with the public, there is no need for you to go a-
begging for aphorisms from philosophers, precepts from Holy Scripture, fables from poets,
speeches from orators, or miracles from saints; but merely to take care that your style and diction
run musically, pleasantly, and plainly, with clear, proper, and well-placed words, setting forth
your purpose to the best of your power, and putting your ideas intelligibly, without confusion or
obscurity.
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Strive, too, that in reading your story the melancholy may be moved to laughter, and the merry
made merrier still; that the simple shall not be wearied, that the judicious shall admire the
invention, that the grave shall not despise it, nor the wise fail to praise it. Finally, keep your aim
fixed on the destruction of that ill-founded edifice of the books of chivalry, hated by some and
praised by many more; for if you succeed in this you will have achieved no small success.

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On Good Behaviour
By Ralph Waldo Emerson from The Conduct of Life,
There is always a best way of doing everything, if it be to boil an egg. Manners are the happy
ways of doing things; each once a stroke of genius or of love,now repeated and hardened into
usage. They form at last a rich varnish, with which the routine of life is washed, and its details
adorned. If they are superficial, so are the dew-drops which give such a depth to the morning
meadows. Manners are very communicable: men catch them from each other. They stereotype
the lesson they have learned into a mode.
The power of manners is incessant,an element as unconcealable as fire. The nobility cannot in
any country be disguised, and no more in a republic or a democracy than in a kingdom. No man
can resist their influence. There are certain manners which are learned in good society, of that
force, that, if a person has them, he or she must be considered, and is everywhere welcome,
though without beauty, or wealth, or genius
We talk much of utilities,but tis our manners that associate us. In hours of business, we go to
him who knows, or has, or does this or that which we want, and we do not let our taste or
feeling stand in the way. But this activity over, we return to the indolent state, and wish for those
we can be at ease with; those who will go where we go, whose manners do not offend us, whose
social tone chimes with ours.
When we reflect on their persuasive and cheering force; how they recommend, prepare, and
draw people together; how, in all clubs, manners make the members; how manners make the
fortune of the ambitious youth; that, for the most part, his manners marry him, and, for the most
part, he marries manners; when we think what keys they are, and to what secrets; what high
lessons and inspiring tokens of character they convey; and what divination is required in us, for
the reading of this fine telegraph; we see what range the subject has, and what relations to
convenience, power, and beauty.
Their first service is very low,when they are the minor morals; but tis the beginning of
civility,to make us, I mean, endurable to each other. We prize them for their rough-plastic,
abstergent force; to get people out of the quadruped state; to get them washed, clothed, and set
up on end; to slough their animal husks and habits; compel them to be clean; overawe their spite
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and meanness, teach them to stifle the base, and choose the generous expression, and make
them know how much happier the generous behaviours are.
Bad behaviour the laws cannot reach. Society is invested with rude, cynical, restless, and
frivolous persons who prey upon the rest, and whom a public opinion concentrated into good
manners, forms accepted by the sense of allI have seen men who neigh like a horse when you
contradict them, or say something which they do not understand;then the overbold, who
make their own invitation to your hearth; the persevering talker, who gives you his society in
large, saturating doses; the pitiers of themselves,a perilous class; in short, every stripe of
absurdity;these are social inflictions which the magistrate cannot cure or defend you from, and
which must be intrusted to the restraining force of custom, and proverbs, and familiar rules of
behaviour impressed on young people in their school-days
... Wise men read very sharply all your private history in your look and gait and behaviour. The
whole economy of nature is bent on expression The face and eyes reveal what the spirit is
doing, how old it is, what aims it has. The eyes indicate the antiquity of the soul, or through how
many forms it has already ascended.
Manners have been somewhat cynically defined to be a contrivance of wise men to keep fools at
a distance. Fashion is shrewd to detect those who do not belong to her train, and seldom wastes
her attentions. Society is very swift in its instincts, and, if you do not belong to it, resists and
sneers at you; or quietly drops you. People grow up and grow old under this infliction and
never suspect the truth, ascribing the solitude which acts on them very injuriously to any cause
but the right one.
Manners require time, as nothing is more vulgar than haste. Friendship should be surrounded
with ceremonies and respects, and not crushed into corners. Friendship requires more time than
poor busy men can usually command.
Manners impress as they indicate real power. A man who is sure of his point, carries a broad
and contented expression, which everybody reads. And you cannot rightly train one to an air and
manner, except by making him the kind of man of whom that manner is the natural expression.
Nature for ever puts a premium on reality. What is done for effect, is seen to be done for effect;
what is done for love, is felt to be done for love. A man inspires affection and honour, because
he was not lying in wait for these. The things of a man for which we visit him, were done in the
dark and the cold. A little integrity is better than any career.
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On Toleration in Religion
By John Locke
(Toleration is the chief characteristic mark of the true religion). For whatsoever some people
boast of the antiquity of places and names, or of the pomp of their outward worship; others, of
the reformation of their discipline; all, of the orthodoxy of their faiththese things, and all
others of this nature, are much rather marks of men striving for power and empire over one
another.
Let anyone have never so true a claim to all these things, yet if he be destitute of charity,
meekness, and good-will in general towards all mankind, even to those that are not (of his
religion), he is certainly yet short of being a true (man of God) himself....The business of true
religion is quite another thing. It is not instituted in order to the erecting of an external pomp,
nor to the obtaining of ecclesiastical dominion, nor to the exercising of compulsive force, but to
the regulating of mens lives, according to the rules of virtue and piety.
Now, I appeal to the consciences of those that persecute, torment, destroy, and kill other men
upon pretence of religion, whether they do it out of friendship and kindness towards them or
no?...
That any man should think fit to cause another manwhose salvation he heartily desiresto
expire in torments, and that even in an unconverted state, would, I confess, seem very strange to
me, and I think, to any other also. But nobody, surely, will ever believe that such a carriage can
proceed from charity, love, or goodwill. (men ought not to be compelled by fire and sword to
profess certain doctrines, and conform to this or that exterior worship, without any regard had
unto their morals)
The toleration of those that differ from others in matters of religion is so agreeable to to the
genuine reason of mankind, that it seems monstrous for men to be so blind as not to perceive
the necessity and advantage of it in so clear a light.

Nobody, therefore, in fine, neither single persons nor churches, nay, nor even commonwealths,
have any just title to invade the civil rights and worldly goods of each other upon pretence of
religion. Those that are of another opinion would do well to consider with themselves how
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pernicious a seed of discord and war, how powerful a provocation to endless hatreds, rapines,
and slaughters they thereby furnish unto mankind.
No peace and security, no, not so much as common friendship, can ever be established or
preserved amongst men so long as this opinion prevails, that dominion is founded in grace and
that religion is to be propagated by force of arms.
seeing one man does not violate the right of another by his erroneous opinions and undue
manner of worship, nor is his perdition any prejudice to another mans affairs, therefore, the care
of each mans salvation belongs only to himself. But I would not have this understood as if I
meant hereby to condemn all charitable admonitions and affectionate endeavours to reduce men
from errors... Any one may employ as many exhortations and arguments as he pleases, towards
the promoting of another mans salvation. But all force and compulsion are to be forborne.

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The genesis of a poem
The poet concentrates his
thought on some concrete piece of
life, on some incident, character,
or bit of personal experience;
because of his emotional
temperament, this concentration
of interest stirs in him a quick
play of feeling and prompts the
swift concurrence of many images.
Under the incitement of these
feelings, and in accordance with
laws of association that may at
least in part be described, these
images grow bright and clear,
take definite shapes, fall into
significant groupings, branch and
ramify, and break into sparkling
mimicry of the actual world of
the sensesall the time
delicately controlled by the poet's
conscious purpose and so growing
intellectually significant, but all
the time, if the work of art is to
be vital, impelled also in their
alert weaving of patterns by the
moods of the poet, by his fine
instinctive sense of the emotional
expressiveness of this or that
image that lurks in the
background of his consciousness.
For this intricate web of images,
tinged with his most intimate
moods, the poet through his
intuitive command of words finds
an apt series of sound-symbols
and records them with written
characters. And so a poem arises
through an exquisite distillation
of personal moods into imagery
and into language, and is ready
to offer to all future generations
its undiminishing store of
spiritual joy and strength.
Lewis E. Gates, Studies and
Appreciations

Poetry
I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely
definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose is words in
their best order; and poetry is the best words in the best
order. COLERIDGE, Table Talk.
Poetry is prose in slow motion. The language of poetry
tends to be more expressive or decorated, with
comparisons, rhyme, and rhythm contributing to a
different sound and feel.
People most often express themselves in poetry when
they have an experience or feeling that seems too strong
for ordinary prose, most often experiences of love, death,
disaster, beauty, happiness, horror or shock.
Poetry is a way of concentrating on and encapsulating a
moment or experience, of remembering it, or sometimes of
working through it.
If the normal time in a football match is the prose then a
penalty shoot-out is the poetry.
Even though Poetry deals with serious subjects, it appeals to
the feelings rather than to the reason, it employs beautiful
language. Poetry is music, the tempos and tones of life, the
beat of language enacted. It is the human voice singing its joys
and grief. It is movement. It is voice and dance.
Poetry is language, the structures, grammar, syntax,
etymologies. It is metaphor, and the rhythms of persuasion. It
is precision and concision. Poetry is pictures painted with
words.
According to Bliss Perry in A Study Of Poetry: Poetry is the
universal voice, the human spirit calling across boundaries of
time, geography, culture, age, race, gender, experience.
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Out of the quarrel with others
we make rhetoric;
Out of the quarrel with ourselves
we make poetry. W.B. Yeats
The essence of poetry is
invention; such invention as, by
producing something
unexpected, surprises and
delights. Samuel Johnson in
Lives of the Poets
Poetry is the school I will never
graduate from because no
matter how hard I try
I will never tell it all the secret
way of its patterns
And how the same letters form
different syllables to form
different words,
And how they fall in front or
behind one another, and if re -
arranged would create a whole
different story...
It is how emotions run
High Low Calm Serene
Vivacious, like the sun at noon,
surreal like the fantasy it
promises
You never know when poetry
goes subtle or quiet.
How even when there, It grows
deep like a river that bleeds
when the dry earth has sucked
out her waters...poetry Lilian
A. Aujo The Eye of Poetry
Through it we learn about each other and about ourselves.
The purposes of poetic writing
Poetic writing is used to express feelings and emotions,
describe experiences and tell stories.
Poetic writing includes both prose and poetry.
Prose uses sentences and paragraphs and is used for short
stories, personal letters and descriptions of people and
places.
Poetry is usually written in lines, often using verses or
stanzas The lines may rhyme, or they may be in free verse
(where they do not rhyme, but each line is about an idea or
thought)
In Midsummer Nights Dream, v, i, Shakespeare writes:
The lunatic, the lover and the poet
Are of imagination all compact;
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,
That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helens beauty in a brow of Egypt:
The poets eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poets pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
Such tricks hath strong imagination,
That, if it would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy;
Or in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush supposed a bear!
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A poem is not primarily a series of printed word-signs addressed to the eye; it is a series of
sounds addressed to the ear.
Why study poetry
Poetry acknowledges something deep within our naturean urge to name, say, sing, grieve,
praise, out of our solitariness, to another person. It
makes words into a material thing, hard and solid as
a table, dense with significance
Poetry is a source of hope. Like music poetry is also
good for purely aesthetic pleasure.
Poetry is also a witness to human cruelty.
Poetry instructs us to look for the structure in any
written piece. Poetry teaches us the principles of
interpretation, because such questions naturally arise
in the discussion of a poem. Poetry reminds us that
the metaphor is the basic way of knowing the
unknown and that we often describe one thing in
terms of another. Poetry gives us images to cherish and to invigorate our daily experience.
Poetry encourages an economy and precision in language.
Research indicates that:
Poetry awakens our senses, helps us make connections to others, and leads us to think in
synthesizing ways, as required by the use of metaphor.
Paying attention to the language and rhythms of poetry helps build oral language skills.
Children with well-developed oral language skills are more likely to have higher achievement
in reading and writing.
5

5
Poetry: A Powerful Medium for Literacy and Technology Development By Dr. Janette Hughes
Poetry may make us from
time to time a little more
aware of the deeper
unnamed feelings which
form the substratum of our
being, to which we rarely
penetrate; for our lives are
mostly a constant evasion
of ourselves. T.S. Eliot
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When I Was One-
And-Twenty
When I was one-and-twenty
I heard a wise man say,
Give crowns and pounds
and guineas
But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
But keep your fancy free.
But I was one-and-twenty,
No use to talk to me.

When I was one-and-twenty
I heard him say again,
The heart out of the bosom
Was never given in vain;
Tis paid with sighs a-plenty
And sold for endless rue.
And I am two-and-twenty,
And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.
By A. E. Housman
How to read poetry
Learn to read closely, listen to the sounds and rhythms, look
at the patterns which create these, hear the language of the
poem intensely, see if you can put yourself into the physical
environment that the poet is creating. Start with questions
that you might ask yourself about a poem. Discipline yourself
to look at the images, to hear the sounds working together, to
think about the subject the poet has introduced. Ask yourself
if you have read anything else which would comment upon
this idea. Link what is in front of you to your experience both
in books and in life.
Dr. Chris Koenig-Woodyard in A Guide to Interpreting
Poetry offers the following suggestion to reading poetry:
The Stages of Reading
First reading: read straight throughignoring line and stanza
breaksas though you were reading prose (full sentences).
Second reading: read out loud, paying attention to line breaks,
and punctuation.
Third reading: circle/underline words and phrases that you
dont understand.
Fourth Reading: circle/underline words and phrases that you
do understand, and that you feel help you to understand the
poem. Maybe the key word or phrase embodies a theme of the
poem.
Fifth (and subsequent readings): interact with the poem. Read out loud, again. Sound out
individual words and lines repeatedly, trying to gain a sense of rhythm (stress and accents),
the sound of letters (hard/soft). Mark up the page(s)and if you do not want to write in your
book, photocopy the page(s)writing down thoughts and questions; recording definitions of
words from your third reading, when you noted words that you didnt understand.
Reverse Reading: To be performed after your first reading. As you read, and an idea enters
your head (you have a sense of the big picture of a poem, its theme), STOP reading! and
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began moving backward through the poem, trying to locate the word, image, line that
triggered your idea. If you cant find a specific triggermake a note in the margin.
Look up words in a dictionary, the ones you dont know but even the ones you do to see if
there are nuances you might be missing. See how the rhymed words make suggestions about
what the poem is saying.
NOTE: Unlike Prose, Poetry uses all of its lines and spaces to create meaning.
104

The Character Of A Happy Life by Sir
Henry Wotton
How happy is he born or taught,
That serveth not anothers will;
Whose armour is his honest thought,
And simple truth his highest skill;

Whose passions not his masters are;
Whose soul is still prepar'd for death
Untied unto the world with care
Of princes' grace or vulgar breath;

Who envies none whom chance doth raise,
Or vice; who never understood
The deepest wounds are given by praise,
By rule of state, but not of good;

Who hath his life from rumours freed;
Whose conscience is his strong retreat;
Whose state can neither flatterers feed,
Nor ruins make accusers great;

Who God doth late and early pray,
More of his grace than goods to send,
And entertains the harmless day
With a well-chosen book or friend.

This man is free from servile bands
Of hope to rise or fear to fall;
Lord of himself, though not of lands;
And having nothing, yet hath all.
Poetic forms
Poetry has been divided into three great classes: narrative,
lyric, and dramatic.
The lyric is a short poem expressing the thoughts and
feelings of a single speaker. It originally referred to a poem
sung to the music of a lyre. Lyric poetry finds its source in
the authors feelings and emotions. The lyric adopts any
verse that suits the emotion. The principal classes of lyric
poetry are the song, the ode, the elegy, and the sonnet.
The narrative relates a series of events or tells a story.
Narrative poems find their material in external events and
circumstances. Narrative poetry deals with events, real or
imaginary. It includes, among other varieties, the epic, the
metrical romance, the tale, and the ballad.
The dramatic Presents the voice of an imaginary character
(or characters) speaking directly, without any additional
narration by the author.
The sonnet
The word Sonnet originally meant Little Song.
The sonnet is fourteen-line poem with a single theme. The
lines are written in iambic pentameter. This means that
they alternate soft and strong syllables (iambic) and are five
beats long (pentameter).
There are two types of sonnet: the Italian and the
Shakespearean.
The two parts of the Italian or Petrarchan sonnet work
together.
The octave raises a question, states a problem, or presents a
brief narrative; the sestet answers the question, solves the
problem, or comments on the narrative.
105

Most of the Shakespearean sonnets are grouped into three "quatrains" (groups of four lines)
followed by a rhyming couplet (two lines).
Each of the quatrains of the English or Shakespearean sonnet usually explores one aspect of
the main idea stating a problem, raising a question, and/or presenting a narrative
situation. The final couplet presents a startling or
seemingly contrasting concluding statement. The
couplet nearly always rings with finality, a truth or
certainty the completion of argument, an assertion,
a refutation.
NOTE
A sonnet is a lyric that deals with a single thought,
idea, or sentiment in a fixed metrical form. The
sonnet always contains fourteen lines. It has, 286 too,
a very definite rhyme scheme.
Examples
If We Must Die
By Claude McKay
If we must dielet it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursed lot.
If we must dieoh, let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
Oh, Kinsmen! We must meet the common foe;
Though far outnumbered, let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

In poetry you have a form
looking for a subject and a
subject looking for a form.
When they come together
successfully you have a
poem. Brooks and Warren
in Understanding Poetry
106

Sonnet 116
By William Shakespeare
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no; it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Personal Talk
By William Wordsworth
I AM not One who much or oft delight
To season my fireside with personal talk.--
Of friends, who live within an easy walk,
Or neighbours, daily, weekly, in my sight:
And, for my chance-acquaintance, ladies bright,
Sons, mothers, maidens withering on the stalk,
These all wear out of me, like Forms, with chalk
Painted on rich mens floors, for one feast-night.
Better than such discourse doth silence long,
Long, barren silence, square with my desire;
To sit without emotion, hope, or aim,
In the loved presence of my cottage-fire,
And listen to the flapping of the flame,
Or kettle whispering its faint undersong.
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Sonnet
By John Masefield From Good Friday and Other Poems
Is there a great green commonwealth of Thought
Which ranks the yearly pageant, and decides
How Summers royal progress shall be wrought,
By secret stir which in each plant abides?
Does rocking daffodil consent that she,
The snowdrop of wet winters, shall be first?
Does spotted cowslip with the grass agree
To hold her pride before the rattle burst?
And in the hedge what quick agreement goes,
When hawthorn blossoms redden to decay,
That Summers pride shall come, the Summers rose,
Before the flower be on the bramble spray?
Or is it, as with us, unresting strife,
And each consent a lucky gasp for life?

Sonnet 129
By William Shakespeare
The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,
Enjoyd no sooner but despised straight,
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had
Past reason hated, as a swallowd bait
On purpose laid to make the taker mad;
Mad in pursuit and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

108

NOTE
In the first twelve lines note the rhyming last words in alternate lines.
The last words in the last lines (the couplet) also rhyme.
Unrhymed iambic pentameter is called blank verse.

109

The epic
The epic is a narrative poem of elevated character telling generally of the exploits of heroes.
The conventions of this genre are several, for example:
It is a long narrative about a serious or worthy traditional subject. The epic is usually
of a narrative build.
Its diction is elevated in style. It employs a formal, dignified, objective tone and many
figures of speech.
The narrative focused on the exploits of an epic hero or demigod who represents the
cultural values of a race, nation, or religious group.
The heros success or failure determines the fate of an entire people or nation.
The action takes place in a vast setting; it covers a wide geographic area.
Examples:
The Iliad and the odyssey of the Greeks, Paradise Lost of the English, the Songs of
Lawino By Okot Bitek, Emperor Shaka the Great: A Zulu Epic by Mazisi Kunene, and
Tragedy of White Injustice By Marcus Mosiah Garvey are good examples of the epic.
The metrical romance is any fictitious narrative of heroic, marvellous, or supernatural
incidents derived from history or legend, and told at considerable length. The Idylls of the
King by Alfred Tennyson are examples of this genre.
The tale is but little different from the romance. It leaves the field of legend and occupies the
place in poetry that a story or a novel does in prose.

110

The ode
This is a lyrical poem of some length on a single subject, generally in praise or celebration of
an object, a place or an experience. The word ode comes from the Greek word oide
meaning to sing or chant.
Most contemporary amateur poets use the Irregular ode an ode without any
predetermined topic or structure. This form may be written with or without rhyme, may be
short or long, may be serious or silly, and may meditate on the huge and fantastic or the
small and simple.
NOTE
An ode is a lyric expressing exalted emotion; it usually has a complex and irregular metrical
form. Collinss The Passions, Wordsworths Intimations of Immortality, and Lowells
Commemoration Ode, are good examples.
Example
The Ship of State
By Horace
O ship the fresh tide carries back to sea again.
Where are you going! Quickly, run for harbour.
Cant you see how your sides
have been stripped bare of oars,

how your shattered masts and yards are groaning loudly
in the swift south-westerly, and bare of rigging,
your hull can scarce tolerate
the overpowering waters?

You havent a single sail thats still intact now,
no gods, that people call to when theyre in trouble.
Though youre built of Pontic pine,
a child of those famous forests,

though you can boast of your race, and an idle name:
the fearful sailor puts no faith in gaudy keels.
111

You must beware of being
merely a plaything of the winds.

You, who not long ago were troubling weariness
to me, and now are my passion and anxious care,
avoid the glistening seas
between the shining Cyclades.

From Hymn to Earth the Mother of All
By Homer (7th century B.C.)
O universal mother, who dost keep
From everlasting thy foundations deep,
Eldest of things, Great Earth, I sing of thee!
All shapes that have their dwelling in the sea,
All things that fly, or on the ground divine
Live, move, and there are nourishedthese are thine;
These from thy wealth thou dost sustain; from thee
Fair babes are born, and fruits on every tree
Hang ripe and large, revered Divinity!

112

Elegy
An elegy is a serious poem pervaded by a feeling of melancholy. It is generally written to
commemorate the death of some friend.
NOTE
The elements of a traditional elegy mirror three stages of loss. First, there is a lament, where
the speaker expresses grief and sorrow, then praise and admiration of the idealized dead,
and finally consolation and solace.
Example
O Captain! My Captain! By Walt Whitman
O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weatherd every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up--for you the flag is flung--for you the bugle trills; 10
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths--for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head;
It is some dream that on the deck,
You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchord safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
113

But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
A ballad
A ballad is a short narrative poem, generally rehearsing but one incident. It is usually
vigorous in style, and gives but little thought to elegance.
The word Ballad originally derived from an Old French word meaning dancing song.
There are two types of ballads.
Folk ballads and literary ballads
Ballads are often written in ballad stanzas, rhyme scheme.
Example
Imagination
(From New Years Eve)
By John Davidson

There is a dish to hold the sea,
A brazier to contain the sun,
A compass for the galaxy,
A voice to wake the dead and done!

That minister of ministers,
Imagination, gathers up
The undiscovered Universe,
Sir, a ballad-singer is a higher man, for he does two things;
he repeats and he sings: there is both recitation and musick in
his performance. . . . Samuel Johnson
114

Like jewels in a jasper cup.

Its flame can mingle north and south;
Its accent with the thunder strive;
The ruddy sentence of its mouth
Can make the ancient dead alive.

The mart of power, the fount of will,
The form and mould of every star,
The source and bound of good and ill,
The key of all the things that are,

Imagination, new and strange
In every age, can turn the year;
Can shift the poles and lightly change
The mood of men, the worlds career.

115

The Song
The song is a short poem intended to be sung. It has great variety of metres and is generally
divided into stanzas.
The use of songs, dance, and mime accompanied by drum-beating enables the dramatist to
compress many ideas precisely and effectively.
Example:
The Lion and the Jewel,
By Wole Soyinka
The test uses the following song:
Whenever I have three pence
Whenever I have sixpence
It is always palm wine I would have been married by now
But for the palm wine gourel.

A special feature of the mime is dialogues or speeches between the shift of scenes.
Example:
They marked the route with stakes, ate
Through the jungle and began the tracks. Trade,
Progress, adventure, success, civilization,
Fame, international conspicuousity...it was
All within the grasp of Ilujinle...

116

Dramatic poetry
Dramatic poetry presents a course of human events, and is generally designed to be spoken
on the stage. Because such poetry presents human character in action, the term dramatic
has come to be applied to any poetry having this quality.
In the first sense of the word, dramatic poetry includes tragedy and comedy.
Tragedy is a drama in which the diction is dignified, the movement impressive, and the
ending unhappy.
Comedy is a drama of a light and amusing character, with a happy conclusion to its plot.

117

Blank verse
A blank verse is a verse that does not rhyme. It is iambic pentameter,the most common
verse in great English poetry
Example
The following is verse from Bryant, William Cullen. The Poetical Works of William Cullen
Bryant is an example of a blank verse.
Two brothers had the maiden, and she thought,
Within herself: I would I were like them;
For then I might go forth alone, to trace
The mighty rivers downward to the sea,
And upward to the brooks that, through the year,
Prattle to the cool valleys. I would know
What races drink their waters; how their chiefs
Bear rule, and how men worship there, and how
They build, and to what quaint device they frame,
Where sea and river meet, their stately ships;
What flowers are in their gardens, and what trees
Bear fruit within their orchards; in what garb
Their bowmen meet on holidays, and how
Their maidens bind the waist and braid the hair.

118

Poetic Prose
The prose poem essentially appears as prose, but reads like poetry.
While it lacks the line breaks associated with poetry, the prose poem maintains a poetic
quality, often utilizing techniques common to poetry, such as fragmentation, compression,
repetition, and rhyme. The prose poem can range in length from a few lines to several pages
long, and it may explore a limitless array of styles and subjects.

Return to My Native Land
By Aim Csaire

my negritude is not a stone
nor a deafness flung against the clamor of the day
my negritude is not a white speck of dead water
on the dead eye of the earth
my negritude is neither tower nor cathedral

it plunges into the red flesh of the soil
it plunges into the blaxing flesh of the sky
my negritude riddles with holes
the dense affliction of its worthy patience.

NOTE
Poetry is poetic whether it is put in simple language
or freely adorned with images and rich phrases.
Exercise
Critically read the poem the Wasteland by T. S Elliot then attempt the following questions:
1. Under which form would you classify the poem?
2. Identify any symbols, themes, and other literary devices used in the poem.

For poetic effect rely wholly on the
power of your substance, the magic of
rhythm and the sincerity of your
expression. Write always from the inner
heart of emotion and vision.
Similarly, Avoid frequent inversions or
turns of language that belong to the past
poetic styles. Modern English poetry uses
a straightforward order and a natural
style, not different in vocabulary, syntax,
etc., from that of prose. An inversion can
be used sometimes, but it must be done
deliberately and for a distinct and
particular effect. Sri Aurobindo,
Letters on Poetry and Art

119

An image is a complex
emotional unit, involving the
whole of the readers mind. It
compels attention by its sound
as well as its visual element. It
conjoins thought and emotion,
making a unified impression.
In the very best poems, images
lodge deep in the mind, where
they cannot be easily
removed. Jay Parini, In the
introduction to the
Wadsworth Anthology

Tonal devices of poetry
Poetry is made to be spoken. It is essentially an oral kind of literature, and even in written
form the sound of poetry is a very important part of its meaning.
Alliteration
The repetition of the same consonantal sound in several words placed close together or
stressed syllables eg on the same line of a poem, to create an image and sound effect, either
gentle or harsh.
Assonance
The echoing or repetition of vowel sounds a e i o u (rather than consonants) to create an
image.
The creation of a sound effect by combinations of vowel sounds.
Rhyme
This is repetition of the final sound of a word. This can be at
the end of a line or within the line.
Onomatopoeia
Sound is matched to meaning of the words. The word sounds
like the action resembles the sound it describes.
In other word this are, Words which imitate natural sounds.
Other literary devices
Imagery in poetry
The linking of the strange with the familiar through the
image or even through well-placed line breaks is perhaps what makes poetry so powerful.
Images express one thing in the terms of another thing. The art of poetry appeals to our
bodies most directly when it uses images to cause us to see, touch, taste, hear, and smell the
world with which the speaker of the poem would like to bring us into contact.
120

Poetry is the language of emotion. Under the heat and pressure of emotion, things alter their
shape and size and quality, ideas are transformed into concrete images, diction becomes
impassioned, plain speech tends to become metaphorical.
every man who uses metaphors is for the moment talking like a poetunless, as too often
happens both in prose and verse, the metaphor has become conventionalized and therefore
lifeless. The poet has to think in figures, in pictured language.

For example
In the poem The Eagle Tennyson instead of describing an eagle, as a: A rapacious bird of
the falcon family, remarkable for its strength, size, graceful figure, and extraordinary
flight represents these facts by making a picture:
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.

NOTE
The use and the effectiveness of figures depend primarily upon the mood and intentions of
the writer.

I wish to end this book with what I consider to be among one of the greatest inspirational
poem of all time. It is a poem that has been my companion since my teens and still continues
to put things into perspectives every time I recite it. I hope many more are going to benefit
from its eternal philosophical truths as I have and continue to do.
Enjoy:

121

Desiderata
Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

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