CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE
TIPS FOR WRITING A LITERARY ANALYSIS:
( 1 ) LITERARY ANALYSIS
What is Literary Analysis?
* It is an essay that gives a thorough study of an
author’s work.
* It plunges into events, investigates the
characters and their specific traits, researches
stylistic methods to better understand the main
message the literary work contains.
* You write a formal paper in which you make an
argument and support your argument with
examples from and analysis of a literary text.
What is the point?
* You should be developing your abilities to READ a text,
make an ARGUMENT, LOGICALLY support that argument
with evidence from the text, write in an ORGANIZED
manner which will aid in conveying your points to the
reader, and communicate via the written page.
A literary analysis is NOT:
* A paper exploring the relevance of the story to
your own life.
* You should not focus on personal life experiences
or use them as arguments for your topic.
* A summary of the story and class notes.
STEPS YOU SHOULD TAKE:
1. Formulate a clear thesis.
2. Formulate a few questions relevant to your
thesis.
3. Reread the story or poem you want to
address carefully. Underline passages which
are relevant or copy them into your notes.
4. Brainstorm ideas.
5. Reexamine your thesis.
6. Organize your examples and your ideas.
Make a rough outline, including examples and
page numbers.
7. Start to write.
8. Ask yourself: Do my sentences connect? Do
my paragraphs connect?
9. Rewrite.
10. Have some else proof read it.
11. Rewrite and turn in final draft.
* Write in the present tense.
* Use the third person (no I or you)
* Avoid summarizing the plot (i.e., retelling the
story literally). Instead analyze (form a thesis about
and explain) the story in literary terms.
* Include a clear thesis statement which addresses
something meaningful about the literature, often
about the theme.
* Use literary terms to discuss your points (i.e.,
character, theme, setting, rhyme, point of view,
alliteration, symbols, imagery, figurative language,
protagonist, and so forth).
* Do not confuse characters' (in fiction or drama) or
speakers' (in poetry) viewpoints with authors'
viewpoints.
* Support your points with many quotations and
paraphrases, but write the majority of your paper
in your own words with your own ideas.
* Cite prose, poetry, drama, critics, and any other
sources used.
( 2 ) A GUIDE TO CRITICAL APPROACHES
TO LITERATURE
What is Literary Criticism?
* Literary criticism is the study, analysis, and
evaluation of imaginative literature. Everyone who
expresses an opinion about a book, a song, a play, or
a movie is a critic, but not everyone’s opinion is based
upon thought, reflection, analysis, or consistently
articulated principles.” (Mark Lund, 96).
* Literary criticism is not “reading between the lines.”
Rather, it is the actual act of reading the lines very
carefully, in a discipline and informed manner.
HISTORICAL APPROACH
* It seeks to interpret the work of literature through
understanding the times and the culture in which the
work was written.
* The historical critic is more interested in the meaning
the literary work had for its own time than in the meaning
the work might have today.

BIOGRAPHICAL APPROACH
* It investigates the life of an author using primary
texts, such as letters, diaries, and other documents,
that might reveal the experience, thought, and feelings
that led to the creation of a literary work.
FORMALISTIC APPROACH
* The formalistic approach began with Aristotle (384-322
BC), a philosopher of ancient Greece, who in his book The
Poetics attempted to define the form of tragedy.
* The formalist critic embraces an objective theory of art
and examines plot, characterization, dialogue, and style
to show how these elements contribute to the theme or
unity of the literary work.
* Paradox, irony, dynamic tension, and unity are the
primary values of the formalist criticism.
(01) The Intention Fallacy
* This states that an author’s intention or purpose for
creating the work is irrelevant in analyzing or evaluating
that work.
* The meaning and value of a work reside in the text
itself, independent of the author.
(02) The Affected Fallacy
* This states that the evaluation of a work of art cannot
be based solely on its emotional effects on the audience.
* Instead, criticism must concentrate upon the qualities
of the work itself that produce such effects.
PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH
* The psychological approach has been one of the most
productive forms of literary inquiry in the twentieth
century.
* Developed in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s by Sigmund
Freud (1856-1939) and his followers, psychological
criticism has led to new ideas about the nature of the
creative process, the mind of the artist, and the motivation
of characters.
* Freud’s principal ideas are essential to an understanding
of modern literature and criticism.
A ( THE UNCONCIOUS)
* According to Freud, human beings are not conscious of
all their feelings, urges, and desires because most of the
mental life is unconscious.
B ( REPRESSION)
* Observing the conservative, prudish upper middle
classes of the late nineteenth century, Freud came to the
conclusion that society demands restraint, order, and
respectability and that individuals are forced to repress
the libidinous and aggressive drives.
C ( THE TRIPARTITE PSYCHE)
* We know this symbolically as the devil on one shoulder
and the angel on the other.
* Freud developed his psychoanalytic theory around three
principles: the ego, the id, and the superego.
D ( THE OEDIPUS COMPLEX)
* In Greek mythology, Oedipus was King of Thebes who,
having been abandoned in childhood and consequently
ignorant of his own identity, unknowingly killed his father
and married his mother.
* In describing the psychosexual development of children,
Freud analyzed the powerful feelings that develop between
mother and son.
THE PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACH
* There are two levels that concern the Philosophical
Approach.
* The first level involves the evaluation of a work and its
ethical content.
* Philosophical criticism always assumes the seriousness
of a work as a statement of values about life. The
philosophical critic judges a work on the basis of his or her
articulated philosophy of life.
* The second level of the Philosophical Approach deals
with how a work reflects the human experience in the
world and in the universe.
THE SOCIOLOGICAL APPROACH
* Sociological criticism focuses on the relationship between
literature and society.
* Literature is always produced in a social context. Writers
may affirm or criticize the values of the society in which they
live, but they write for an audience and that audience is
society.
* Like the moral critic, the sociological critic usually has
certain values by which he or she judges literary works.
 THE GENDER/FEMINIST APPROACH
* This approach is a sub-category of the Sociological
Approach.
* It examines the role and image of women in literature,
media, art, and other forms of text.
* Likewise, we can also apply an analysis of men and their
stereotypical roles throughout time and how they interact
with women and how their image and roles are presented
in text.
THE ARCHETYPAL APPROACH
* The archetypal approach to literature evolved from studies
in anthropology and psychology.
* Archetypal critics make the reasonable assumption that
human beings all over the world have basic experiences in
common and have developed similar stories and symbols to
express these experiences.
* Their assumption that myths from distant countries might
help to explain a work of literature might seem a little far-
fetched.
( 3 ) READERS RESPONSE CRITICISM
What is Reader-Response Criticism?
* Reader-response criticism, as its name implies, focuses its
attention on the reader rather than the work itself.
*Reader-response critics do not assume that a literary work
is a finished product 2 with fixed formal properties, as, for
example, formalist critics do. Instead, the literary work is
seen as an evolving creation of the reader’s as he or she
reads actively.
* In reader-response criticism, the text itself has no meaning
until it is read by a reader. The reader creates the meaning.
( 4 ) FICTION
What is FICTION?
* According to Encyclopedia Britannica, “Fiction is a literature
created from the imagination, not presented as fact, though it
may be based on a true story or situation.”
* Types of literature in the fiction genre include the novel, short
story, and novella.
* The word is from the Latin fictiō, “the act of making,
fashioning, or molding.”
* It is defined as a prose based on the author’s imagination.
* It means, such stories never happened in real life.
* All fiction is a falsehood of sorts because it relates events
that never actually happened to people (characters) who never
existed, at least not in the manner portrayed in the stories.
 TYPES OF FICTION STORY
(1) SHORT STORY
What is Short Story?
* A short piece of fiction aiming at unity of
characterization, theme and effect. It aims to
produce a single narrative effect with the greatest
economy of means and utmost emphasis.
* A short story typically takes the form of a brief
fictional work, usually written in prose.
* The focus is much more on the less spectacular
aspects of life, on the significance underlying what
is apparently trivial.
* The earliest precursors to the short story can be
found in the oral storytelling tradition, as well as
episodes from ancient Mediterranean epics, such
as 'The Epic of Gilgamesh' and Homer's 'Iliad.'
* Anecdotes, fables, fairy tales, and parables are all
examples of the oral storytelling tradition that
helped to shape the short story.
CHARACTERISTICS of a Short Story?
1. A short story should create a single impression.
2. It should be highly economical with every word, all
characters, dialogue and description designed to develop
single predesigned effect.
3. Most short stories revolve around a single incident,
character or period of time.
4. Should be capable of being read at one sitting.
5. Opening sentence should initiate the predetermined
or predesigned effect.
6. Once climax reached, the story should end with minimal
resolution.
7. Character should only be developed to the extent required
by the story.
8. 'In medias res': Short stories usually take place in a single
setting and begin 'in medias res', which means 'into the
middle of things' in Latin.
9. Limited number of characters: Due to the limitations of
the genre, short stories typically focus on just one or a
couple characters.

What makes a good Short Story?

* A short story is a piece of prose fiction which can

be read at a single sitting.
* It ought to combine matter-of-fact description with
poetic atmosphere.
* It ought to present a unified impression of temper,
tone, color, and effect.
* It mostly shows a decisive moment of life.
* There is often little action, hardly any character
development, but we get a snapshot of life.
* Its plot is not very complex (in contrast to the
novel), but it creates a unified impression and leaves
us with a vivid sensation rather than a number of
remembered facts.
* There is a close connection between the short
story and the poem as there is both a unique
union of idea and structure.
TYPES OF SHORT STORY

Anecdote Story Sequence

* A short account of something interesting and
amusing, which usually tells a story about a real
person and/or incident.
Ex: Ralph Waldo Emerson’s anecdote
Drabble
* An exceptionally short piece of fiction, usually of
exactly 100 words not including the title. Its purpose is
to test an author’s skills at expressing himself/herself
meaningfully and interestingly in a very confined space.
Ex: Light as a feather
* Also called a short story cycle or a composite novel,
is a group of short stories that work together to form a
longer piece, while still functioning as complete short
stories on their own.
Ex: Isaac Asimov’s Robot
Sketch Story
* A shorter than average piece containing little or no
plot. It can be merely a description of a character or a
location.
Ex: Regrets

Fable
*A succinct story featuring anthropomorphic creatures
(usually animals, but also mythical creatures, plants,
inanimate objects, or forces of nature) to tell a story
with a moral.
Ex: The Ant and the Grasshopper
Vignette
* A short, impressionistic piece that focuses on a single
scene, character, idea, setting, or object. There is little
emphasis on adhering to conventional theatrical or
literary structure, or story development.
Ex: E.B. White “Railroads”

Feghoot
* An interesting short story type also known as a story BRIEF HISTORY OF SHORT FICTION
pun or a poetic story joke. It is a humorous piece ending
Always
in an atrocious pun.
* Oral cultures, Oral traditions
Ex: The Buck of the Draw
Ex: Native American Creation Myths and Trickster Tales
Flash Fiction
* An extremely short piece of literature. It has no widely The Ancient World
accepted length, but has a debated cap of between 300 * Greece
and 1000 words. * Rome
Ex: One Last Night at the Carnival Before the Stars Go * Asia
Out * Egyptian papyri dating from 4000 B.C. reveal how the
Frame Story sons of Cheops regaled their father with narrative.

Also known as a frame tale or a nested narrative, is a

The Christian Bible
literary technique of placing a story within a story, for
* In the Old Testament, we have stories such as those
the purpose of introducing or setting the stage for a
of Jonah and of Ruth.
main narrative or a series of short stories.
* In the New Testament, Christ spoke in parables.
Ex: Flashback within a larger piece or a quest within a
larger game environment.
Other
Mini Saga * A hair-raising werewolf story is embedded in
* A short story told in exactly 50 words. It is a test in Petronius's Satyricon.
brevity – about saying a lot with a little. * Tales were written for both pleasure and moral
Ex: Never again instruction.
The Middle Ages
* Fables (Aesop?) and epics about beasts.
* Medieval romance and heroic episodes (e.g., the tales of
King Arthur).
* Low-life comic tales (fabliaux)
* Verse narratives
* In England, about 1250, some 200 well-known tales were
collected in the Gesta Romanorum.
* In the mid-14th century, Boccaccio assembled the 100
tales in The Decameron (prose).
* Shortly thereafter, Chaucer, wrote his framework
collection, The Canterbury Tales (verse).
The Renaissance
* In England, France, and Spain, writers followed the
Boccaccian tradition.
The 16th and 17th Centuries
* The "Picaresque" Novel Ex: Cervantes Don Quixote
The 18th Century (Neoclassicism)
* The Novel begins to flourish.
* The Informal Essay and Sketches.
*In periodicals we see character sketches, satires, gothic
tales, rogue stories, simple adventure stories, sentimental
stories, etc.
* In England, Joseph Addison and Richard Steele were
publishing pieces, such as the "Sir Roger de Coverley papers"
or "The Vision of Mirzah" in The Tatler and The Spectator.
* In America, Benjamin Franklin was publishing the "Silence
Do good" papers and, later, Poor Richard's Almanacs.
* In France, Denis Diderot.
* Others: Voltaire and the Marquis de Sade
* Values: Tradition and Reason
The Early and Middle 19th Century (Romanticism)
* The Germans were first: Goethe, Tieck (influenced by
Laurence Sterne), E. T. A. Hoffman, Kleist, and the brothers
Grimm.
* In England, Sir Walter Scott (influenced by German writers)
*In America, Irving (also influenced by German writers and by
folktales), Hawthorne, Poe - these were the first American
writers to create a considerable number of successful short
stories.
* Others: Merimee and Balzac, Gautier and Musset
* Values: Originality and Imagination
The Early and Middle 19th Century (Romanticism)
* There was a fascination with psychology and with unusual
or eccentric behavior.
Ex: Horror Stories and Criminal Stories
* With these writers the short story as a distinct genre came
into being.
* Originally called "Tales" - they were closer to prose
romance than to the novel - Poe, Gogol, and Hawthorne
were the "greatest and most influential writers of short
fiction during the romantic era“.
* "Tales" soon became "Stories" - for example, Melville's
"Bartleby" is more realistic - the narrator is not a
psychological abstraction as is Goodman Brown
(Hawthorne) and Montressor (Poe).
* The short story begins to have a definition, due in large
part to Poe, something like this: " an original prose work in
which every word chosen in the structure of the plot, and
every detail of description and characterization, contributed
to a unified impression“.
The Later 19th Century and Early 20th Century (Realism and
Naturalism)
* After the mid-19th century, Romanticism slowly gave way
to Realism.
* Characters in a novel (and in short stories) wear
recognizable social masks and reflect an everyday reality.
* Anton Chekhov and Leo Tolstoy -- Russian realistic
writers Kate Chopin and Sarah Orne Jewett -- American
Local-Color writers (a form of writing which combines
romanticism and realism).
* Ambrose Bierce (influenced by Poe) combines
romanticism, realism, and modernism.
* Around the end of the 19th century, O. Henry formulates the
tight "surprise-ending story“.
* Also at the end of the 19th century came the American
Realists.
Ex: Willa Cather, Stephen Crane, and Henry James
* There were also the Europeans -- Guy de Maupassant
(French) and Anton Chekhov (Russian) were the most
influential writers of short fiction, especially realistic fiction,
due to content.
* In the early 20th century came the early "modern" writers,
heavily influenced by Chekhov. Ex: Joseph Conrad, James
Joyce, Franz Kafka, D. H. Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield
The Early to Mid-20th Century (Modernism)
* Writing became more "experimental" and writers were soon
called "modernist" writers.
* Many modernist writers were also heavily influenced by
Chekhov and Maupassant (and Joyce). Ex: Sherwood
Anderson, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Katherine
Anne Porter, and Richard Wright.
The Mid to Later 20th Century and the 21st Century (Post-
Modernism and Contemporary)
* Definitions are still being debated.
EPISTOLARY
* Has its root word epistle, which means letter.
Epistolary uses letters to tell a story. Usually a writer
writes a letter to a real or abstract character.
Ex: The Color Purple by Alice Walker
POLITICAL NOVEL
* It involves ordering of men in society, or politics.
Sometimes it is revealed through satyrs like Gulliver’s
Travel. Usually it is revealed through realistic-action
stories like Divergent.
Ex: 1984 by George Orwell

TYPES OF FICTION STORY PSYCHOLOGICAL NOVEL

(2) NOVELS
What is NOVEL?
* It is an extensive fictional prose narrative. It is like
a universe with very wide space wherein writers
can create and add billions of imaginations in it. It
can be lengthy, as long as possible, but it still has
limits. A very long story can also be called novel if it
has numerous settings, characters, and events. A
good novel must have a balance length of each
elements.
* There are novels which have more than a thousand
pages but they are good-reads, namely, War and
Peace by Leo Tolstoy and The Broken Drum by David
Maillu.
* It is more interested in what goes in a character’s
mind. It recounts the inner experience of the character.
Sometimes it is partnered with the story of a
physically-challenged character like the story of The
Mystery Case of Benjamin Buttons.
EPIC NOVEL
* It recounts adventures of heroic protagonists whose
actions are of historical or legendary significance. The
deeds of the heroic characters are so important that
they interest the supernatural forces. One example
story is Hercules from Homer’s Illiad and Odyssey.

TYPES OF NOVELS ( 5 ) ELEMENTS OF FICTION

EPISODIC NOVEL
* A novel of different events yet woven together.
Usually it has only one character which encounters
different circumstances in different places.

EPISTOLARY
* Has its root word epistle, which means letter.
Epistolary uses letters to tell a story. Usually a
writer writes a letter to a real or abstract character.
Ex: The Color Purple by Alice Walker

HISTORICAL NOVEL
* It recreates the past. The time and the characters
are based from the past. A story as if it happened in
the history.
Questions about Characters:
What is revealed by the characters and how they are portrayed?

* Are they simple, complex, dynamic or static?

* If they are complex, what makes them complex?
* What are the traits of the main characters in the story?
* Do they change? How and why?
* What events or moments of self-realization produce these
changes?
* What do they learn?
* Does what they learn help or hinder them?
* What problems do they have?
* How do they attempt to solve them?
* Do they experience epiphanies (life changing moments of insight,
discovery or revelation)?
* What emotional reactions do the main characters have and in
reaction to what?
* Do they have traits that contradict one another or cause internal
conflicts?
* How do they interact with one another?
* How do they relate to one another?