Language and literature Because all literature is created with words, the medium of literature is language.

Not all combinations of words, however, result in literature. Literary combinations are differentiated from the enormous mass of casual discourse by some filtering device or set of rules. These words then pass into the permanent stock of preserved sounds or texts, forming the literary tradition of the group that produced them. One must therefore uestion what makes one group of words literature and another group not literature, and what the precise connection between language and literature is. This article addresses these uestions. !ome linguists regard literary artifacts simply as preserved utterances, distinguished by the very fact of their preservation. The great mass of casual speech vanishes into air and out of memory "ust a few seconds after being uttered. #sycholinguists have demonstrated, for example, that, whereas most people can relate the gist of statements made a few minutes earlier, few can repeat the exact words they heard. By contrast, noncasual speech must be repeated word for word in order to achieve the total effect. The medium$$the words chosen and their particular order$$is part of the message. %s the &rench poet #aul '%L()* has indicated, ordinary discourse vanishes or dissolves as soon as it has done its work$$as soon as it has communicated an idea and brought understanding$$but literature is preserved and interpreted again and again, as if its usefulness can never be exhausted. (ven strictly defined, however, literature includes an astonishing variety of material. Besides poetry, plays, and novels, literature includes folk tales and songs, religious rituals, sermons, diaries, "ournals, political documents, essays, philosophical treatises, chronicles, and speeches in courts and legislatures. +hat all these kinds of discourse have in common is a formal setting, anything written or uttered in a situation recogni-ed as artistic thereby ac uires the status of art and loses its status as a casual, or transitory, expression. % printed passage entitled .!onnet /0. cannot, by the rules of +estern culture, be taken as a casual utterance. %rtistic displacement$$a fire hydrant removed to a museum, for example$$assigns special status to the ob"ect displaced. The very fact of displacement suggests to the onlooker that someone became convinced enough of the value of the ob"ect in uestion to take it out of its casual setting. 1ence any utterance, even a telephone book, if read or presented as literature on a literary occasion and surrounded by literary trappings, loses its utilitarian aspect and is interpreted for itself alone. %nother approach to defining literature starts with the assumption that preserved utterances have a special type of language or language organi-ation that is not present, or at least not so prominent, in casual utterances. The elevated diction used in (nglish and &rench poetry of the 23th and 24th centuries is an obvious example of literary language. Less elaborate means exist, however, to differentiate special linguistic devices from those found in ordinary discourse. )oman 5%6OB!ON has distinguished three processes at work in the creation of language of any sort, selection, e uivalence, and combination. 7ost expressions are produced semiautomatically, by unconscious mechanisms. This proposition can be illustrated by the following example, a person sees a 8$ ft$high ob"ect made of wood slats hooped with steel, from the interior of which issues a sound like .)owf9 )owf9.: further, the person looks inside the ob"ect and sees a small, four$legged creature with a tail, from which the sound seems to be coming. 0f the person decides to comment on the situation, then first, either semiconsciously or unconsciously, he or she selects certain words e uivalent to the situation$$barrel, barking, dog$$and also a few functional or relational words$$in, a, the, and. !econd, almost always unconsciously, the person combines the words into a complete linguistic account of the experience. The words selected are strongly determined by the situation, but the ways of combining them are not. 1ere the speaker can choose, again unconsciously, among several possibilities, with the final choice based perhaps on personal style. &or example, the speaker might choose from such expressions as .There;s a dog in the barrel and he;s barking.: .% barking dog is in the barrel over there.: .0 think that a dog is barking in that barrel.: and .There;s a barrel with a dog in it over there..

!ometimes, however, the speaker selects the combination of words with as much care as he or she gave to selecting the words themselves. 1e might follow a rule such as .No odd syllable is to bear a strong stress.. Then the only allowable se uence to describe the situation would be something like a <O= is in the B%)rel and he;s B%)6ing,. with stress on the second, sixth, and tenth syllables. % more elaborate rule or set of rules would provide this alliterating sentence, .a Bloodhound;s in the Barrel, and he;s Barking and he;s Baying.. % speaker looking for onomatopoeia$$in this instance, the replication of the actual sound of the barking in the sounds of the utterance$$might choose words with fricatives >consonants pronounced by forcing the breath through the teeth? and declare .a !@1nauAer;! in the 1o=!1ead: 1e !1out!, 1e ra=e!.. 0n each of the foregoing examples the sound pattern of the utterance is distinctive and stands out as something worth preserving. The sentences cannot vanish or dissolve as soon as their meaning has been communicated$$to repeat only the gist would be to miss the point. 0n their own humble ways, the sentences are literature. (dmund L. (pstein &igures of speech 0n its broadest sense a figure of speech is any intentional departure from the ordinary form, use, or arrangement of words for the purpose of making expression more striking or effective. %ncient rhetoricians identified about BCD such figures of speech. These included such devices as antithesis, the expression of contrasting ideas in parallel form >.Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.?: alliteration, most often defined as the close repetition of initial consonant sounds in important words >.hell. and .heaven. in the preceding example?: and repetition, the repeating of any element in an utterance, including sound >as in alliteration and )1*7(?, a word or phrase, a pattern of accents >as in meter?, or an arrangement of lines >as in stan-as?. Ender a broad definition, even variant spellings of a word, as in contractions >.;tis,. .o;er,. .t;other.?, ualify as figures of speech. Ender a narrower definition, a figure of speech, or trope, is an expression that means something else or something more than what it says: it is language that departs from its literal meaning. 0n this sense$$the sense usually intended when we speak of figurative language$$a figure of speech bypasses logic and appeals to the imagination. Thus, paradoxically, it makes possible the expression of meanings more forcefully and more fully than can be accomplished by using literal language. % simple example is !070L(, a stated comparison between things essentially unlike, as in .7y love is like a red, red rose.. This comparison sounds almost logical, but in fact it is not, for a woman could never be confused literally with a rose: the meaning, however, is more vividly and fully conveyed than in the literal paraphrase, .7y beloved is beautiful.. 0f the word like is removed from this simile, it becomes a 7(T%#1O), an unstated comparison between things essentially unlike and, in a literal sense, illogical. 0n metaphor, the things compared may be either named or implied. .!heathe thy impatience. compares impatience to a sword. .Night;s candles are burnt out. compares stars to candles. (mily <ickinson;s poem, .0 like to see it lap the miles,. compares a railroad train to a horse, although neither is named. #ersonification, the attribution of human characteristics to something nonhuman >.!o when he calls me, <eath shall find me ready.?, is a subtype of metaphor, comparing the thing meant to a person. @losely related to personification, and often used with it, is apostrophe, in which someone absent or dead, or something nonhuman, is addressed as if it were human, present, alive, and could respond >.)ing out, wild bells, to the wild sky.: .7ilton9 thou shouldst be living at this hour.?.

%lthough classification is difficult and imperfect, the tropes mentioned above all rest, in some way, on comparison. Based on contiguity are synecdoche, the use of the part for the whole >.(veryone who wants a roof should have one.?, or occasionally, of the whole for the part: and metonymy, substitution for the thing meant of something closely associated with it >.The palace should not scorn the cottage.?. 7etonymy and synecdoche are so nearly alike that the distinction between them is disappearing, and both are often referred to as metonymy. )elated to metonymy and metaphor is the literary symbol$$an ob"ect, person, situation, or action that means more than what it is. Enlike the figurative term in a metaphor >candles in .Night;s candles are burnt out.?, a symbol means itself and something more too. 0t has both literal and metaphorical meanings >.Two men look out through the same bars:FOne sees the mud, and one the stars.?. % peculiar value of symbol is that, although it may have a single ulterior meaning, it often suggests a variety of possible other meanings. 0t is thus an especially rich figure of speech. Opposed to the figures based on comparison or contiguity are those based on contrast. Two of these are verbal irony, which states the opposite of what is meant: and paradox, an apparent contradiction that is somehow true. % paradox is usually resolved by seeing that one >or both? of its contradictory terms is itself used figuratively or has a double meaning >.Believe him, he has known the world too long,F%nd seen the death of much immortal song.?. The paradox of the immortal song that dies is resolved when it is recogni-ed that the word immortal is used ironically. The aged reader has seen the death of many poems once falsely proclaimed by the critics as .immortal.. % special kind of paradox is the oxymoron, a compact figure in which successive words apparently contradict each other >.+omen9 my strongest weakness.?. @losely related to verbal irony are hyperbole, or overstatement, saying more than is actually meant >.%t every word a reputation dies.?: and litotes, or understatement, saying less than what is meant or saying it with less force than seems warranted, fre uently using a negative assertion >.One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.?. &igurative language serves to convey thoughts, feelings, and perceptions that cannot be ade uately expressed in literal language. 0ndeed, language evolves largely through metaphor. The word astonishment, for example, is derived from roots meaning .struck by thunder.. The invention of fresh metaphors today still makes possible the expression of emotions and concepts for which no names exist. Laurence #errine Bibliography, Barfield, Owen, #oetic <iction, % !tudy in 7eaning, 8th ed. >2G48?: Beckson, 6arl, and =an-, %rthur, Literary Terms, % <ictionary, rev. ed. >2G3C?: @uddon, 5. %., The <ictionary of Literary Terms >2G33?: 1olman, @. 1ugh, % 1andbook to Literature, Cth ed. >2G4H?: #errine, Laurence, !ound and !ense, 3th ed. >2G43?: #reminger, %lex, eds. The (ncyclopedia of #oetry and #oetics, enlarged ed. >2G38? and et al., eds., The #rinceton 1andbook of #oetic Terms >2G4H?: Iuinn, %rthur, &igures of !peech >2G4J?: +elleck, )ene, and +arren, %ustin, The Theory of Literature, Jd ed. >2G8G?.