INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE

(This task is submitted to fulfill the Last Exam Assignment)

Lecturer : Senia Rika, M.Pd

By :

RIZMA WIDYA PANGESTIKA

(1611040169)

IV F

ENGLISH EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM

TARBIYAH AND TEACHER TRAINING FACULTY

RADEN INTAN LAMPUNG STATE ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY

2018/2019
1. What is literature?

Answer : According to Mario Klarer ,Literature in Etymologically, the Latin word

“litteratura” is derived from “littera” (letter), which is the smallest element of
alphabetical writing.

2. What is a text?

Answer : According to Mario Klarer , A text is The word text is related to “textile” and
can be translated as “fabric”: just as single threads form a fabric, so words and sentences
form a meaningful and coherent text. The origins of the two central terms are, therefore,
not of great help in defining literature or text. It is more enlightening to look at literature
or text as cultural and historical phenomena and to investigate the conditions of their
production and reception.

3. What is genre?

Answer : According to Mario Klarer , Genre is applied primarily to the three classical
forms of the literary tradition A category of artistic composition, as in music or
literature, characterized by similarities in form, style, or subject matter.
4. What is text type?

Answer : According to Mario Klarer , text type is a broader term that is also applicable to
“non-canonical” written texts, i.e., those which are traditionally not classified as
literature.

5. What is discourse?

Answer : According to Mario Klarer , Discourse is the broadest term, referring to a

variety of written and oral manifestations which share common thematic or structural
features. The boundaries of these terms are not fixed and vary depending on the context
in which they appear.
6. What are the major genres in textual studies?

Answer :
According to Mario Klarer :
 Fiction Although the novel emerged as the most important form of prose
fiction in the eighteenth century, its precursors go back to the oldest texts of
literary history. Homer’s epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey (c. 7th century BC),
and Virgil’s (70–19 BC) Aeneid (c. 31–19 BC) influenced the major medieval
epics such as Dante Alighieri’s (1265–1321) Italian Divina Commedia (Divine
Comedy; c. 1307–21) and the early modern English epics such as Edmund
Spenser’s (c. 1552–99) Faerie Queene (1590; 1596) and John Milton’s (1608–
74) baroque long poem Paradise Lost (1667). The majority of traditional epics
center around a hero who

 Poetry is one of the oldest genres in literary history. Its earliest examples go
back to ancient Greek literature. In spite of this long tradition, it is harder to
define than any other genre. Poetry is closely related to the term “lyric,”
which derives etymologically from the Greek musical instrument “lyra”
(“lyre” or “harp”) and points to an origin in the sphere of music. In classical
antiquity as well as in the Middle Ages, minstrels recited poetry,
accompanied by the lyre or other musical instruments. The term “poetry,”
however, goes back to the Greek word “poieo” (“to make,” “to produce”),
indicating that the poet is the person who “makes” verse. Although
etymology sheds light on some of the aspects of the lyric and the poetic, it
cannot offer a satisfactory explanation of

 Drama So far we have identified distinct features belonging to fiction and

poetry, two genres which rely on the written or spoken word as their primary
means of expression. The dramatic or performing arts, however, combine the
verbal with a number of non-verbal or optical-visual means, including stage,
scenery, shifting of scenes, facial expressions, gestures, make-up, props and
lighting. This emphasis is also reflected in the word drama itself, which derive
from the Greek “draein” (“to do,” “to act”), thereby referring to a
performance or representation by actors..

 Film At the end of the twentieth century, it is impossible to neglect film as a

semi-textual genre both influenced by and exerting influence on literature
and literary criticism. Film is predetermined by literary techniques;
conversely, literary practice developed particular features under the impact
of film. Many of the dramatic forms in the twentieth century, for example,
have evolved in interaction with film, whose means of photographic
depiction far surpass the means of realistic portrayal in the theater. Drama
could therefore abandon its claim to realism and develop other, more stylized
 or abstract forms of presentation. Photography and film have also had a
major influence on the fine arts; novel, more abstract approaches to painting
have been taken in response to these new media. The same can be said for
postmodern fiction, which also derives some of its structural features from
film.

7. Mention the period of English Literature?

Answer : According to Mario Klarer :

Periods of English Literature

 Old English Period 5th–11th century

 Middle English Period 12th–15th century
 Renaissance 16th–17th century
 Augustan Age 18th century
 Romantic Period First half of 19th century
 Victorian Age Second half of 19th century
 Modernism First to Second World War
 Postmodernism 1960s and 1970s

8. Mention the period of American Literature?

Answer : According to Mario Klarer

Periods of American Literature :

 Colonial or Puritan Age 17th–18th century

 Romantic Period and
 Transcendentalism
 First half of 19th century
 Realism and Naturalism Second half of 19th century
 Modernism First to Second World War
 Postmodernism 1960s and 1970s

9. What is text-oriented approaches?

Answer : According to Mario Klarer ;

 Text-oriented approaches
Many of the modern schools and methodologies in literary criticism adhere to text-
oriented approaches and thereby indirectly continue to apply mechanisms rooted in the
above mentioned primordial textual sciences of religion, legal practice, and divination.
All these traditions place the main emphasis on the internal textual aspects of a literary
work. Extra-textual factors concerning the author (his or her biography, other works),
audiences (race, class, gender, age, education) or larger contexts (historical, social or
political conditions) are deliberately excluded from the analysis. Although the text serves
as the focal point of every interpretive method, some schools privilege other aspects
such as biographical information concerning the author, problems of reception and the
like which are only indirectly related to the literary work as such. Text-oriented
traditions, however, center on the text per se, primarily investigating its formal or
structural features. Traditional Philology, for example, highlights “material”
elements of language, Rhetoric and Stylistics analyze larger structures of meaning or
means of expression, and the Formalist- Structuralist Schools, including Russian
Formalism, the Prague School of Structuralism, New Criticism, Semiotics and
Deconstruction, attempt to trace general patterns in texts or illuminate the nature of
“literariness.”

10. What is author-oriented approaches?

Answer : According to Mario Klarer ;

 Author-oriented approaches
In the nineteenth century, before the major formalist-structuralist theories of twentieth
century, biographical criticism evolved and became a dominant movement. This author-
oriented approach established a direct link between the literary text and the biography
of the author. Dates, facts and events in an author’s life are juxtaposed with literary
elements of his or her works in order to find aspects which connect the biography of the
author with the text. Research into the milieu and education of the author is
conducted and then related to certain phenomena in the text. In addition, an author’s
library can be examined in order to gain insight into the author’s background reading or
letters and diaries may be consulted for personal reflections.
11. What is reader-oriented approaches?

Answer : According to Mario Klarer ;

 Reader-oriented approaches
As a reaction to the dominant position of text-oriented New Criticism, a reader-oriented
approach developed in the 1960s called Reception Theory, Reader-Response Theory or
Aesthetics of Reception. All three terms are used almost synonymously to
summarize those approaches which focus on the reader’s point of view. Some of these
approaches do not postulate a single objective text, but rather assume that there are as
many texts as readers. This attitude implies that a new individual “text” evolves with
every individual reading process.
12. What is context-oriented approaches?

Answer : According to Mario Klarer ;

 Context-oriented approaches
The term context-oriented approaches refers here to a heterogeneous group of schools
and methodologies which do not regard literary texts as self-contained, independent
works of art but try to place them within a larger context. Depending on the movement,
this context can be history, social and political background, literary genre, nationality or
gender. The most influential movement to this day is Literary History, which divides
literary phenomena into periods, describes the text with respect to its historical
background, dates texts and examines their mutual influence. This movement is
associated with the discipline of history and is guided by historical methodology. The
entire notion of literary history has become so familiar to us that it is difficult to
distinguish it as an approach at all. This historically informed methodology which
organizes literary works in a variety of categories is, of course, as arbitrary and subject to
conventions as any other approach.