Lesson Material 1

Literature
Fitrina Harmaini
2019
 What is Literature ?

As a term : Any written expression

Literature derives from Latin word ‘litteratura’ and ‘littera’

means ‘letter’.
Letters words meaningful text

Literature as a subject:
- Aesthetic
- Artistic

Purpose:
To make people see – hear, feel, love- what the author
thinks
 Example of Art Literature

Romeo & Juliet, Act 1

GREGORY
Ay, while you live, draw your neck out of collar.
SAMPSON
I strike quickly, being moved.
GREGORY
But thou art not quickly moved to strike.
SAMPSON
A dog of the house of Montague moves me.
GREGORY
To move is to stir, and to be valiant is to stand.
Therefore if thou art moved thou runn’st away.
 Development of literature
Old English (500 – 1066 AD)
• Production
- Visual form : in the cave, stones.
- poetry: rune, chronicle, lyric.

As a trace left by the predecessor in the form of paintings,

oral poetry with connection to:
- cultural or social,
- religion, and
- historical phenomena
 Examples

Painting by unknown: Rochefoucauld Grail

It has certain characteristic, but not realistic, to convey the

message
 Middle age (1066-1500)
- Visual expression
 Decoration of manuscript
 Traditional Epic
Greek term: word, song
“a long narrative structure of poetry talking about
religion, hero and nationalities”

Different characteristic from poetry:

- Narrative structure
- Depictive character
- Plot
- Supernaturalism
- Universal instead of personal
- Allegory or hyperbole dimension
 The writers

• Homer : the Iliad, the Odyssey

• Dante Alighieri : Divine Commedia
• John Milton : Paradise Lost
 The Iliad
The old man feared him and obeyed. Not a
word he spoke, but went by the shore of the
sounding sea and prayed apart to King
Apollo whom lovely Leto had borne. ‘Hear
me,’ he cried, ‘O god of the silver bow, that
protectest Chryse and holy Cilla and rulest
Tenedos with thy might, hear me oh thou of
Sminthe. If I have ever decked your temple
with garlands, or burned your thigh-bones
in fat of bulls or goats, grant my prayer, and
let your arrows avenge these my tears upon
the Danaans.’
 The 1st Great Name or Father of English
Literature
Geoffrey Chaucer
His Greatest works:
- Troilus and Criseyde
- The Canterbury Tales
The most notable things from his works:
• Faith
• Humanity
“On the side of the Pardoner’s horse was a very large pillowcase. In it,
supposedly, were ancient religious relics such as Saint Peter’s sail, a rotten
cross full of stones, and a bottle of ancient bones. The Pardoner sold these
relics to people who thought that they were genuine. However, the relics
were far from being real, and the people were being ripped off.”
 Renaissance (16th & 17th C)

The invention of printing press by Johann

Gutenberg
• Text became stylized and not expensive to produce

combination of text & picture disappeared

‘iconoclasm’
• Oral poetry
Revived in the form drama, song, film
 Novel

- Firstly emerged in Spain in 17th century

- Firstly emerged in England in 18th century

Development of novel:
The rise of educated middle class
the spread of the printing press,
The shift economic industry

Characteristics:
 surrealism and individualism
 Depict sociohistorical situation
 Novels in its early period

• Robinson Crusoe – 1719 (Daniel Defoe)

• Pamela – 1740 (Samuel Richardson)
• Joseph Andrew – 1742 ( Henry Fielding)
• Tom Jones – 1749 (Henry Fielding)
 Foremost Writers of Renaissance

Christopher Marlowe : Hero and Leander, Dido

William Shakespeare : Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet

The proponents of Renaissance value dignity of

human and joy of society. Literary works appeared
as art work.
 Example: Joy of Society
Hamlet
BARNARDO : Last night, when that star to the west of the North Star had
traveled across the night sky to that point where it’s shining now, at one
o'clock, Marcellus and I —
The GHOST enters.
MARCELLUS : Quiet, shut up! It’s come again.
BARNARDO : Looking just like the dead king.
MARCELLUS : (to HORATIO) You’re well-educated, Horatio. Say something
to it.
BARNARDO : Doesn’t he look like the king, Horatio?
HORATIO : Very much so. It’s terrifying.
BARNARDO : It wants us to speak to it.
MARCELLUS : Ask it something, Horatio.
HORATIO : What are you, that you walk out so late at night, looking like the
dead king of Denmark when he dressed for battle? By God, I order you to
speak.
 Modern Period

• Novel
Henry James : the Portrait of a Lady
Joseph Conrad : Heart of Darkness
R.L Stevenson : ?
Characteristics:
Romanticism, realism, naturalism

• Modern Poet
W.H Auden, Dylan Thomas.
Syntactical characteristics:
simplicity, overstatement
 Simplicity to overstatement
And death shall have no dominion

Dead man naked they shall be one

With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones
gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion
And death shall have no dominion
 20th Century Literature
• Modern Literature
• Postmodern Literature

Popular Literature : Fantasy, science fiction

 Path of Literary analysis

1. Genre
• Epic (most known as prose or fiction)
- Novel
- Short story
Structural features such as plot, character presentation,
narrative perspective
• Drama
• Poetry
 2. Discourse
Content & Theme:
Political issue, male of female voice, sexual
affairs, economic and social problem, etc.
 Examples
wrap their babies in the American flag,
feed them mashed hot dogs and apple pie,
name them Bill and Daisy,
buy them blonde dolls that blink blue
eyes or a football and tiny cleats
before the baby can even walk
speak to them in thick English, hallo, babee, hallo,
whisper in Spanish or Polish,
when the babies sleep, whisper
in a dark parent bed, that dark
parent fear, “Will they like
our boy, our girl, our fine American
boy, our fine American girl?”
 References
1. Klarer, Mario (2004 ) An Introduction to Literary
Studies, 2nd Ed. London & New York: Routledge. Pp. 1-4

2. Barnet, Sylvan, Burto, William & Cain, William E,

An Introduction to Literature, 15th ed.