Introduction to Literature

I. Literature:

● It is a written record of man’s best thoughts, feelings, and emotions

● A reproduction of man’s experiences expressed artistically either in
prose or poetry.
● Written work which deals with themes of permanent and universal
interests characterized by creativeness and grace of expression
● Written or printed productions of the mind connectively
● A record of human experiences with attempts to create, through
structures, the selected details which are organized and presented in an
artistic manner
● Deals with aspirations, dreams, victories, failures, joy, grief, fulfillments,
details, ideas, and faith which give spiritual values.
● Literature is life. It represents human experiences. It presents life and
experiences not by telling you what you are but by showing you through
language.
● True literature is a piece of written work which is undying. It expresses
the feeling, and emotions of the people in response to their daily effort to
live in relation with their environment and their struggle to reach their
creators.

II. Division of Literature

1. Prose - written in ordinary form and it appeals to the mind.

2. Poetry - written in verse and it appeals to the heart.

III. Categories of Literature

A. Fiction - imaginary invention, usually a tale conceived by the writers although

with basis in actuality. The forms of fiction are: Novel, Short Story, etc.
B. Nonfiction - may relate the actual story of a man’s life. The Forms of
nonfiction are: Essay, Biography, and Autobiography.
 Poetry

Branches of Poetry

1. Lyric Poetry - A direct, often songlike expression of the poet’s thoughts and
feelings it has for its primary and direct object the expression of the personal
emotion or emotional conceptions of the writer.

Kinds of Lyric Poetry

A. Song - Is short, simple, and direct to the point. It is a short lyric
adapted for singing.
Example: Song to Celia by Ben Johnson.

B. Ode - Is a poem intended to be sung but longer than a song. It is often

addressed to some praised object or person. It is characterized by
exalted style.
Example: Ode to a Grecian Urn by John Keats

C. Elegy - Is a mournful poem addressed to the dead. It expresses

sorrow for the death of a loved one.
Example: Break, Break, Break by Alfred Tennyson

D. Sonnet - Is a poem composed of 14 Iambic Pentameter lines with a

definite rhyme scheme. It embodies the statement and resolution of a
single theme.
Example: Sonnet 29 by Shakespeare

E. Dramatic Lyric - Is a poem in which the speaker is an imagined

character rather than the poet.

2. Narrative Poetry - Aims to tell in the form of story actual or fictional events.

Kinds of Narrative Poetry

A. Epic - Is a poem that tells about the deeds and adventures of heroes
with supernatural powers.
Ex. Biag ni Lam-ang

B. Ballad - Is a poem intended to be sung and which tells a sad story.

Ex. Ballad of the Green Beret
 C. Tale - Is a poem full of fiction and exaggeration.
Ex. Evangeline, Tale of Acadie.

3. Dramatic Poetry - Includes poems intended to be presented on stage.

Kinds of Dramatic Poetry

A. Comedy - A form of poetry with a happy ending.
Ex. A Midsummer Night’s Dream

B. Tragic - A form of poetry which ends sadly.

Ex. Romeo and Juliet

C. Dramatic Monologue - A stage play with only one person portraying all
the characters in a play. A one-sided conversation which expresses
throughout the underlying ideas and thoughts of the speaker.
Ex. The Despair of Judas

D. Melodrama - A play of highly sensational events accompanied with

music.

E. Farce - Short comedy.

Rhythm of Poetry
- Similarity of sounds, usually at the ends of lines.

Kinds of Rhythm

A.
1. Single Rhythm - consists of one rhyming syllable
Eight, ate
2. Double Rhythm - consists of two rhyming syllables
sha/ken, wa/ken
3. Triple Rhythm - consists of three rhyming syllables
ten/der/ly, slen/der/ly

B.
1. Perfect Rhyme - stressed vowel and all the sounds are repeated perfectly.
drea/ming/ly, see/ming/ly
2. Imperfect Rhyme - not all sounds are repeated.
lone/ly, fond/ly
 3. Eye Rhyme - words seem to rhyme because of their spelling
have, save

C.
1. Masculine Rhyme - end sounds are stressed syllables
Day, sway
2. Feminine Rhyme - words of more than one syllable rhyme and have a falling
accent
Sha/ken, ta/ken

Verse in Poetry - refers to a line in poetry. It is made up of feet, groups of regularly

recurring accented and unaccented syllables.

KInds of Feet

1. Iambus - two syllables, the second is accented. Iambic Tetrameter

It was/ a lo/ver and/ his lass/ (Shakespeare)

2. Trochee - two syllables, the first accented. Trochaic Trimeter with variation.
Queen and/ huntress/ chaste and/ fair. (Ben Johnson)

3. Anapest - three syllables, the third accented. Anapestic Trimeter

I am Mo/narch of all/ I survey. (Cowper)

4. Dactyl - three syllables, the first accented. Dactylic Tetrameter

We who have/ loved him so/, followed him./ Honored him/.
(Browning)

Meter in Poetry - Unit or measure of metrical verse involving an accented syllable

and one or two unaccented ones.

1. Monometer - composed of one foot

Ex: That I
Pass by

2. Dimeter - Composed of two feet

Ex: He is gone on the mountain
He is lost to the forest,

3. Trimeter - composed of three feet

Ex: Under the greenwood tree,
Who loved to lie with me,
 4. Tetrameter - composed of four feet.
Ex: With blackest moss the flower plots
Were thickly crusted, one and all

5. Pentameter - composed of five feet.

Ex: Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments: love is not love

6. Hexameter - Composed of six feet

Ex: This is the forest primeval, the murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in twilight.

Scansion in Poetry - dividing a verse into its feet

I think/ that I/ shall ne/ver see

A poem/ as love/ly as/ a tree
Iambic Tetrameter

Stanza Forms

1. Free Verse - has no rhyme and it follows no regular meter. It’s lines may be, and
often are, of varying length.

Let us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question ...
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

2. Heroic Couplet - consists of two rhyming lines of iambic pentameter. It was used
by such poets as Chaucer, Dryden, and Pope. It is of little use today.
Good night/, good night/. Parting/ is such/ sweet sorrow/
That I shall say good night till it be morrow.

3. Ballad Stanza - Unaccented syllables are frequent. The second and fourth lines
rhyme, the first and third do not.

It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three.
‘By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp’st thou me?

4. Quintain - stanza of five lines.

8 Types of Quintains
There are many variations of the quintain that have developed over the centuries, some of
which are specific to different cultures. Here are the most common types of quintains:

1. Cinquain: A cinquain is a poem or five-line stanza with a rigid syllable count for each
line. This modern form was invented by American poet Adelaide Crapsey. The first
line contains two syllables, the second line contains four, the third line contains six,
the fourth line contains eight, and the last line contains two.

2. English quintain: The English quintain follows a rhyme scheme of ABABB, in which
the final two lines form a rhyming couplet. Though an English quintain requires an
ABABB rhyming pattern, there is no established foot or measure.

3. Limerick: The limerick follows a rhyming scheme of AABBA. The “A” lines are
composed using iambic tetrameter, while the “B” lines are written in iambic trimeter.
Limericks usually stand alone as a five-line poem and often contain bawdy or
humorous subject matter. Nineteenth-century English poet Edward Lear, whose
works include the famous limerick “There Was Once an Old Man with a Beard,”
popularized this form.

4. Spanish Quintain: The Spanish quintain (also known as the quintilla) is a type of
five-line poetry that is eight syllables in length, each line written in iambic tetrameter.
It usually follows a rhyme scheme of ABBAA or AABBA, but this five-line poetry
form can follow any rhyme scheme (including ABAAB), as long as no more than two
consecutive lines rhyme at a time.

5. Pentastich: A pentastich is a free verse or blank verse form of quintain poetry. Each
five-line stanza contains no rhyme or meter.
 6. Sicilian quintain: The Sicilian quintain employs an ABABA rhyme sequence. Though
the original form of the Sicilian quintain had no specific form or meter, it is now
common for it to be written iambic pentameter. In the Shakespearean sonnet
“Sonnet 99,” the author’s first stanza is a Sicilian quintain, followed by two four-line
stanzas (quatrains).

7. Tanka: The tanka is a Japanese form of quintain poetry. Much like a haiku, the tanka
has particular syllable requirements. In Japanese, the tanka is written as one
unbroken line consisting of 31 syllables, but when it is converted into English poetry,
it is usually broken up into five lines. In this case, the first and third lines contain five
syllables, while the second, fourth, and fifth lines contain seven syllables.

8. Envelope quintet: An envelope quintet is a five-line verse in which the inner lines are
enclosed by the rhyming outer lines. The rhyme scheme may look like ABCBA,
AABAA, or ABBBA (in which the middle lines form a rhyming tercet).

5. Terza Rima - consists of stanzas of three iambic pentameter lines (tercets). Each
is linked to the next by the rhyme scheme; aba, bcb, cdc, ded, etc.
6. Sextet - stanza of six lines

“And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!

That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love! — then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.”

7. Rime (Rhyme) Royal - Stanza of seven Iambic pentameter lines with a definite
rhyme scheme. Its rhyme scheme is ababbcc. Rhyme Royal was a favorite of
Chaucer
8. Octava Rima - consist of eight iambic pentameter lines rhyming: abababcc

9. Spenserian Stanza - made up of nine lines - the first eight in iambic pentameter,
the last of iambic hexameter. It was used extensively by the English romantic poets.

10. Sonnet - composed of 14 iambic pentameter lines. The kinds of sonnet are
Italian, Miltonic, and Shakespearean.