An Introduction to English Literature

Instructor
Dr. Mohammad Shaaban, PhD Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, USA

LANE: 231 Group: LN2 Department of Foreign Languages and Translation Faculty of Arts and Humanities Taibah University Madinah Munwarah, KSA

Classification of Literary Works

Literature

Poetry

Drama

Prose

Each type of Literature has its particular form and style.

Common Characteristics of these Genres

Written and Spoken Tone, inflections, feelings and emotions Universality of feelings, and themes

Common attitude to the problems of life

Sincerity and truth of experience

Literature

Prose

Poetry

Drama

Poetry

Poetry is a language written with rhythm and is organized in lines and groups of lines called stanzas. Its chief quality is that it is often memorable

Literature

Prose

Poetry

Drama

DRAMA

Drama is a story written to be performed by actors. It portrays life or characters through dialogue or action Although a drama is meant to be performed, one can also read the script, or written version, and imagine the action.

Drama

Comedy

Tragedy

Tragicomedy

PROSE Prose is writing that is organized in sentences and paragraphs. It imitates the spoken language.

Prose

Novel

Biographies

Essay and Criticism

Literature

Prose

Poetry

Drama

Prose
FICTION Short Stories Fairy Tales Novels NON-FICTION Biographies Letters Memoirs Historical Essays Critical Essays

Novel
Narrative in prose Has certain length Gives pleasure to the reader Interpret human life

Essay
The most commonly written literary forms Brief writing in prose

Biographies and Memoirs

Prose writing about the history of the lives of certain men If written by the writers about themselves, it is autobiography

Criticism
Evaluation of a work of art. Relationship between criticism and literature is one between theory and practice.

~*!*~Review~*!*~
1. What is Literature? 2. What does genre mean? 3. What are the three main genres of literature? 4. Write the categories in which prose is divided and write two examples of each. 5. Write the categories in which poetry is divided 6. What is drama?