summarized

Introduction to literature;
The meaning of literature:
The term derives from Latin litaritura/litteratura and it is an art of written

Main of Literary Genres:
1- Drama a play for theater told by character dialogue (talking) actually real. Comedy – a
humorous drama with a happy ending.
Tragedy - a sad drama with a sad ending.

Important of study language:
Literature improves your command of language
• It teaches you about the life, cultures, and experiences of people in other parts of the
world.

Definition of Drama:

- It is a literary work, performed on stages by actors who perform the character.

Types of drama:

Comedy: a play that is light, funny, and happy

Tragedy: a sad, serious play that has events (actions) representing the disastrous downfall of
a central character (the protagonist), and usually it has a sad ending.

Tragicomedy: a play that combines elements of tragedy and comedy, either by providing a
happy ending to a potentially tragic story or by some more complex blending of serious and
light moods.

The elements of drama:

- Theme

- Plot

Every story or drama unfolds in a series of opisodes that we call plot.General,
A plot contains five key parts ;
1-Introduction / Exposition
2-Rising Action
3- Climax
4- Falling Action
5- Resolution

- Character: a personage in a dramatic work, played by actors on stage.

Definition of Fiction (Novel – Novella – short story):
Fiction: Imaginative story about fictional characters.
Novel: a long, narrative, fictional (not real) work
Novella: a narrative, fictional (not real) work
Short story: a short narrative, fictional (not real) work

*The definition of Poetry Literature:
-writing using language and sounds in special ways to express ideas.

*Poem*:

-A composition written in verse, it may have a rhythmic structure based on patterns of
stresses (metric feet) or on patterns of different-length syllables and it may or may not
utilize rhyme.

*Foot*:

-A group of syllables taken as a unit of poetic metre in traditional prosody, regardless of
word- boundaries .

*Metre*:

-measured sound-units recurring more or less regularly in lines of verse.

*Theme*:

-A salient abstract idea that emerges from a literary work's treatment of its subject-matter;
or a topic recurring in a number of literary works.

*Diction:*

-The writer’s choice of words used in a literary work. Also, it can be the distinctive tone or
tenor of an author’s writings. It can include the mood, attitude, dialect and style of writing.

*Line:*

- A line of verse that has a full number of syllables.

*Stanza:*

-A group of verse lines forming a section of a poem and sharing the same structure as all or
some of the other sections of the same poem, in terms of the lengths of its lines, its METRE,
and usually its RHYME SCHEME..

*Tone:*

-a very vague critical term usually designating the mood or atmosphere of a work, although
in some more restricted uses it refers to the author's attitude to the reader (e.g. formal,
intimate, pompous) or to the subject matter (e.g. ironic, light, solemn, satiric, sentimental).

*Types of Poetry:*
* Narrative Poetry.
* Dramatic Poetry.
* Lyrical Poetry.

*Narrative Poetry:*
It is the class of long poems that tells a story. Most commonly, the stories involve heroic
events or are of cultural or national (or some degrees even local) importance.

*Dramatic Poetry:*
A verse written for the theatrical performance usually. It tells a story - narrative- spoken
from the point of a view of a persona, a speaker who is a character rather than the author. It
often has multiple characters; they often speak in rhymed lines or in blank verse. Sometimes
it expresses emotional feelings.

*Lyrical Poetry:*
A type of poetry, short poem with one speaker
expressing feeling, emotion, mood, thought, it is of a more personal nature instead. Poems
in this genre tend to be shorter, melodic, and contemplative.

1. Ode: A complex, serious and long.
2. Elegy: A lyric poem lament over the death of someone.
3. Sonnet: A lyric poem comprising 14 rhyming lines.

*Types of Sonnets:*

- THE ITALIAN (PETRARCHAN) SONNET:
A lyric poem comprising 14 rhyming lines. Consists of an octave (8 lines) or a set of two
quatrains (4 lines each), rhymed 'abba abba'. Followed by a sestet (6 lines) or a set of two
tercets (3 lines each) usually rhymed 'cde cde' or 'cdc dcd'.

- THE ELIZABETHAN (SHAKESPEAREAN) SONNET:
A lyric poem comprising 14 rhyming lines. Consists of three quatrains (4 lines each) and a
final couplet (2 lines), rhyming 'abab cdcd efef gg'.

Ahoud abdullah