Etymologically,
the Latin word “litteratura” is derived from “littera” (letter), which is the
smallest element of alphabetical writing. Underlying literary production is
certainly the human wish to leave behind a trace of oneself through creative
expression. Literature is a vital record of what men have seen in life, what
they have experienced of it, what they have thought and felt about those
aspects of it which have the most enduring interest for human being. Literature
is fundamentally an expression of life through the medium of language.
Everything
on the reading list will be “literature”. There are three main ways of approaching a definition
of literature are relativism, subjectivism and agnosticism. With relativism, there are no value
distinctions in literature; anything may be called good literature. Subjectivism, as the term implies, means that
all theories of literary value are subjective, and that literary evaluation is
a purely personal matter. Agnosticism
follows from subjectivism, though it argues that though there may be real
distinctions in literary value, our subjective value systems prevent us from
knowing anything about the real values.
Literature
is something that reflects society, makes us think about ourselves and our
society, allows us to enjoy language and beauty, it can be didactic, and it
reflects on “the human condition”. It
both reflects ideology and changes ideology, just like it follows generic
conventions as well as changing them. It
has social and political effects: just ask Salman Rushdie or Vladamir
Nabakov. Literature is the creation of
another world, a world that we can only see through reading literature.
Literature
may consist of texts based on factual information (journalistic or
non-fiction), a category that may also include polemical works, biography, and
reflective essays, or it may consist of texts based on imagination (such as
fiction, poetry, or drama). Literature written in poetry emphasizes the
aesthetic and rhythmic qualities of language—such as sound, symbolism, and
metre—to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, ordinary meanings,
while literature written in prose applies ordinary grammatical structure and
the natural flow of speech. Literature can also be classified according to
historical periods, genres, and political influences. While the concept of
genre has broadened over the centuries, in general, a genre consists of
artistic works that fall within a certain central theme; examples of genre
include romance, mystery, crime, fantasy, erotica, and adventure, among others.
Most
forays into the question of “what is literature” go into how literature works
with the reader, rather than how the author set about writing it. It is the reception, rather than the writing,
which is the object of enquiry. Largely,
what we call “literature” is often a subjective value judgment, and naturally,
value judgments, like literary tastes, will change.
The
common definition of literature, particularly for university courses, is that
it covers the major genres of poetry, drama, and novel/fiction. The term also implies literary quality and
distinction. This is a fairly basic view
of literature because, as mentioned in the introduction, the meaning of the
term has undergone changes, and will no doubt continue to do so. Most contemporary literary histories show a
shift from the belles-lettres tradition, which was concerned with finding
beauty, an elevated use of language, emotional effects and moral sentiments
before something could be called literature.
The
word “text” is related to “textile” and can be translated as “fabric”, so words
and sentences form a meaningful and coherent text. The origins of the two
central terms are more enlightening to look at literature or text as cultural
and historical phenomena and to investigate the conditions of their production
and reception.
Text can be used for both written and spoken language. It
usually refers to a stretch, an extract or complete piece of writing or speech.
Texts generally adhere to broad conventions and rules which determine the
language and structure used in particular text types.
Text in general are:
•
Self-contained
•
Well-formed
•
Hang
together (cohesive)
•
Make
sense (coherent)
•
Have
a clear communicative purpose
•
Are
recognisable text types
•
Are
appropriate to their contexts of use
Method
of literary and textual critism are frequently applied to the cinema and
acoustic media. Computer hipertexts and networks such as the internet are the
latest hybrids of the textual and various media. Many authors and critics have
deliberately left the traditional paths of literature, abandoning old textual
forms in order to find new ways of literary expression and analysis. On the
other hand, visual and acuostic are being reintroduced into literature, on the
other hand, media, genres, text types, and discourses are being mixed.
GENRE,
TEXT TYPE, AND DISCOURSE
The
term genre usually refers to one of the three classical lyterary forms of epic,
drama, or poetry, but they are old categorization, and detedency today is to
abandon the term “epic” and introduce “prose”, “fiction” or “prose fiction” for
the relatively young the literary forms of the novel and the short story.
The
term text type has been introduced, under the influence of linguistics. Texts
which can not be categorized under the canonical genres of fictin, drama, and
poetry are now often dealt with in modern linguistic. The term text type refers
to highly conventional written documents such as instruction manuals, sermons,
obituaries advertising texts, catalogues, and scientific or scholarly writing.
The
term discourse is used as a term for any kind of classifiable linguistic
expression. It has become a usefull denotation for various linguistic
conventions referring to areas of content and theme, for instance, one may
speak of male or female, political,sexual, economic, philosophical and
historycal discourse. The classifications for these forms of linguistic
expression are based on levels of content, vocabulary, syntax, as well as
stylistc and rhetorical elements. Where as the terms text type refers to writen
documents, discourse includes writen and oral expression.
Discourse can be anything from a grunt or single
expletive, through short conversations and scribbled notes right up to
Tolstoy’s novel, War and Peace, or a lengthy legal case.
Insum,
genre is applied primarly to the three clasical forms of the literary
tradition; text type is a broader term that is also applicable to “non
canonical” writen text, those which are traditionally not classified as
literature. Discourse is the broadest
term, refering to variety of writen and oral manifestations which share comon
thematic or structural features. The
boundaries of these terms are not fixed and vary depending on the context in
which they appear.
PRIMARY
AND SECONDARY SOURCES
The term primary sources denote the
traditional objects of analysis in literary criticsm, including texts from all
literary genres, such as fiction, poetry, or drama.
The
term secondary source applies to texts such as articles (or essays) book
reviews, and notes (brief comments on very specific topic) all of which are
published primarily it scholarly journals.
In
term of content, secondary literature tries to uphold those standards of
scholarly practice which have, over time, been established for scientific
discourse, including objectivity, documentation of sources and general
validity.
CONCLUSION
Literature
is a term used to describe written or spoken material. The term is most
commonly used to refer to words of the creative imagination including works of
poetry, drama, fiction and non-fiction. Literature is the art of written works.
It is the body of written works of a language period or culture. Literature is
published in written works in a particular style or particular subject.
Literature is the mirror of life. Our lives and all the subjects that are
related to our lives can be the subject matters or elements of literature. So
we can get the touch with our lives through literature.
Genre
of literature is prose, drama and poetry. Text type of literature has been
introdused influence of linguistic. Discourse of literature classifiable
linguistic experssion.
Primary
sources is traditional objects, such as fiction, poetry, or drama. Secondary
source such as articles or essay, book reviews, and notes.
REFERENCES:
CLARER MARIO. 1998. An Introduction To Literary Studies. English: Routledge
English Poetry. 2000. Education Department
of Indonesia: Jacarta
Wicipedia.com
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