LITERATURE AND COMBINED ARTS LITERATURE
Writings having excellence of form or expression and expressing ideas of permanent or universal interest. (Merriam webster)
It is any single body of written written works. More works. More restrictively, it is writing considered as an art form, or any single writing deemed to have artistic or intellectual value, often due to deploying language in ways that differ from ordinary usage.
Derived from the Latin word “Litteratura” which means letter or handwriting.
COMBINED ARTS
Collection of different art mediums such as painting, singing, and musical performance. It can also refer to organizations that work over multiple platforms and venues to promote artistic endeavor.
ELEMENTS OF LITERATURE AND COMBINED ARTS
It is undeniable that the medium of literature is language, and language is composed of words that are combined into sentences to express ideas, emotions or desires. Writers therefore, should be careful in their choice of words and expressions of their emotions and ideas in order to carefully organize sentences that would manifest a high sense of value.
In other words, a writer should bear these objectives in mind: 1. To strive in raising the level of the reader‟s humanity and 2. To accomplish the purpose of making one better person, giving him a high sense of value.
The important elements of literature are: 1. Emotional appeal – is attained when the reader is emotionally moved or touched by any literary work.
2. Intellectual appeal – it is when the reader attained more knowledge from a literary work.
3. Humanistic value- can be attained when a literary work makes the reader an improved person with a better outlook in life and with a clear understanding of his/her inner self.
CLASSIFICATION OF LITERATURE Perrine stated that literature can be classified as escape and interpretative literature.
1. ESCAPE LITERATURE - is written for entertainment purposes, that is, to help us pass the time in an agreeable manner. It takes us away from the real world and enables us to temporarily forget our troubles and has for its object only pleasure.
2. INTERPRETATIVE LITERATURE- is written to broaden and sharpen our awareness in life. It takes us, through imagination, deeper into the real world and enables us to understand our troubles. It has for its object- pleasure plus understanding.
USES OF LITERATURE 1) Moralizing literature – here, the purpose of literature is to present moral values for the reader to understand and appreciate; the moral may be directly or indirectly stated. 2) Propaganda literature – This kind of literature is found not only in history books and advertising and marketing books but also in some books describing one's personal success and achievements in life. 3) Psychological continuum of the individual -It could be looked on as a sophisticated modern elaboration of the idea of catharsis.
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an emotional relief experienced by the reader there by helping him recover from a previous pent-up emotion.
Poetry- is as universal as language and almost as ancient. The most primitive peoples have used it, and the most civilized have cultivated it. Among the types of literature, poetry writing is the most challenging for the following reasons: first, the choice of pr oper words or grammar; second, the denotative and symbolical meaning of the chosen grammar and third, the limitation imposed by the structure and rhythm of sounds. It is the last reason, however, that makes a poem beautiful and appreciated by the reader:
ELEMENTS OF POETRY 1. Denotation/Connotation Denotation – is the actual meaning of a word derived from the dictionary. The word “home” for instance, by denotation means a place where
one lives. Connotation – is the related or allied meanings of a word. The same word “home” suggests warmth, comfort, security, love, and other meanings that are
associated with its denotative meaning. 2. Imagery - this may be defined as the representation of sense experience through language. Images are formed as we see, hear, taste, smell, and touch; or we say that an “image” is the mental duplication of a sense impression. The most common
imagery is visual, as we are made to see what the author is talking about. G. Burce Bunao‟s “Change” is filled with the poet‟s own personal imager y.
3. Figurative language – the most commonly used and the most important of the figurative language are the simile and the metaphor. Both simile and metaphor are used as a means of comparing things that are essentially unlike.
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The only distinction between them is that a simile – the comparison is expressed by the use of some word or phrase, such as like, as than, similar to, resemble or seem; metaphor – the comparison is implied, that is, the figurative term is substituted for or identified with a literal term.
4. Rhythm and Meter - our appreciation of rhythm and mater is rooted even deeper in us than our love for musical repetition. It is related to the beats of our hearts and the intake and outflow of air from our lungs. Rhythm is a part of our lives as there is rhythm in the way we walk, the way we talk, the way we swim and other similar activities. Meter, in language, is the accents that are so arranged as to occur at apparently equal intervals of time. Metrical language is called verse. 5. Meaning and Idea – the meaning of a poem is the experience it expresses. Here, we can distinguish between the “total meaning” of a poem and its “prose meaning”.
Total meaning – is the idea in a poem which is only a part of the total experience it communicates. The value and worth of the poem are determined by the value of the total experience, not by the truth or the nobility of the idea itself.
Prose meaning – does not necessarily have to be an idea itself. It may be a story, a description, a statement of emotion, a presentation of human character or a combination of these.
ELEMENTS OF SHORT STORY As mentioned earlier, literature can be classified as escape and interpretative literature. A story becomes interpretative as it illuminates some aspects of human life or behavior. An interpretative story presents us with an insight- large or small- into the nature and condition of our existence. It gives us a keener awareness of what it is to be a human being in a universe that is sometimes friendly, sometimes hostile. It helps us understand our neighbors and ourselves. A story has certain elements: 1. Plot - it is the sequence of incidents or events of which a story is composed. “The Life of Cardo” by Amador T. Daguio is in example of a short story with related incidents
or events. Plot in a short story means arrangement of action. The action refers to an imagined event or happening or to a series of such events.
2. Character – reading for character is more difficult than reading for a ploy, for character in much more complex, varied, and ambiguous. Most short stories are focused on or evolves in just one character. 3. Theme – it is the controlling idea or the central insight in a literary work. It is the unifying generalization about life stated or implied by the story. In many stories, the theme may be the equivalent to the revelation of human character. In stating the theme in the sentence, we must pick the central insight, the one that explains the greatest number of elements in the story and relates them to each other. The theme gives a story its unity. The equivalent of the theme in the literature and combined arts is the subject in painting, sculpture, and music. 4. Symbol and Irony – literary symbol is something that means more than what it is. It is an object, a person, a situation, an action or some other item that has a literal meaning in the story but suggests or represents other meanings as well. Irony – is a term with a range of meanings, all of them involving some sort of discrepancy or incongruity. It is a contrast in which one term of the contrast in some way mocks the other term. 5. Language and Style – language refers to the idiom used and how it is used. Style, on the other hand, is a term which may refer to the precise use of language, both literary and figuratively; it may refer to the total working out of the short story, taking all the other elements (character, plot, theme , setting) into consideration. ( Edilberto Dagot ; et al., 1974)
