Literature (basics, history, periods, approaches)

-> Relation to reality

-> Contextual/pragmatic criteria

-> Everything wirtten down; certain type of message; Newspapers, Novels, etc

- massage from adresser to adresse

- written literature no facial expression or bodylanguage that influences the message

- No answer expected

- Time difference

Broad = all texts

Narrow = Only Literature

Normative = how it should be (making judgements)

Descriptive = How it is (present without judgements)

1. addresser (emotive, expressive)

2. message (poetic)

3. adressee (conative)

4. subject (referential)

5. medium of contact (phatic)

6. code (metalingual)

- Mimesis vs. Poesis

1. Text-oriented
2. Author-oriented
3. Reader-oriented
4. Historical reality
5. Other texts (sources and influence studies, studies in intertextuality and intermediality)
6. Further fields (gender studies, postcolonial criticism, Empirical Literary Theory)

-> Theoretical Approach

-text-intrinsic, formalist, structualist, poststructuralist

-> Theoretical Approach

-biographical, psychoanalytical, text's genesis and place within an author's Oeuvre

-> reception aesthetics, history of reception, reader-response criticism, cognitive narratology

sociological and Marxist, feminist, new historicism, cultural Materialism

Literary language:  Literary language is the creative, expressive, and often poetic use of language in literature. It is used to evoke emotions, create imagery, and convey deeper meanings.

Metalanguage: is language that talks about language itself. It is used to describe, analyze, or explain language and its components.

Efferent reading: Reading for information, facts, or practical knowledge, To extract meaning, learn something, or retain key details.

Aesthetic reading: Reading for pleasure, enjoyment, or an emotional experience, to engage with the text on a personal and emotional level.

 Mimesis: refers to the idea that art and literature imitate or represent reality, to depict the world, human actions, and emotions as realistically as possible.

Poesis: refers to the process of creation, bringing something new into being rather than simply imitating reality, to transform and construct new meanings rather than merely represent existing reality.

Factuality: A text that claims to represent real events, people, or circumstances and is bound by truthfulness and verifiability.

Fictionality: refers to texts that are invented or imagined, even if they include real elements. Fictional texts do not claim to be literal truth.

A literary technique that makes familiar things appear strange or new, forcing the reader to see them differently.

• Intrinsic: Analyzes literature based on its internal features—form, structure, style, and meaning—without considering external influences.

• context- sensitive: examines literature in relation to historical, cultural, political, and biographical contexts.

• non-pragmatic: A literary convention that does not follow everyday communicative norms and is not aimed at practical communication, but rather at creating artistic or aesthetic effects.

• This is when readers or viewers agree to believe in things that aren’t real—like magic, monsters, or anything unrealistic—while enjoying a story. E.g. Harry Potter

Literary works are shaped by their time. Writers are influenced by the historical events, cultural norms, political movements, and social changes of their era.

• Analysis: systematic examination of individual components
• Interpretation: potential meanings and formulating hypotheses
• Reading: deriving a meaning or attributing a meaning

-> process of interpretating and explaining texts

-> surface level and deep structure

• Synchronic Axis: The synchronic axis looks at literature at a specific moment in time, focusing on how different elements of a literary system or structure interact at that particular point

• Diachronic Axis: looks at how literature changes over time, studying the development of literary traditions, genres, and themes

Literary works are shaped by their time. Writers are influenced by the historical events, cultural norms, political movements, and social changes of their era.

1. Old English Literature
2. Middle English Literature
3. Renaissance
4. Commonwealth and Protectorate
5. Restoration
6. Neoclassicism/Enlightenment
7. Romanticism
8. Victorian Era
9. Edwardian Era
10. Modernism
11. Post-War Era

500 - 1150

1150 - 1500

1500 - 1649

1649 - 1660

1660 - 1700

1700-1780

1780-1837

1837 - 1901

1901 - 1914

1914 - 1945

1945 - 2004

1. Early Colonial Literature (1600s - mid 1700s)
2. Literature of the early republic (Mid-1700s- early 1800s)
3. Romanticism and American Renaissance (1830 - 1860)
4. Realism (1865 - 1910)
5. Naturalism (1893 - 1914)
6. Modernism (1910- 1945)
7. Post-Modernism (1945 - 2004)

1. Femist revision of the canon
2. Writers from marginalized backrounds
3. Postcolonial literatures
4. Ehlish literatures, post-colonial literatures and world/ anglophone literature

• political history -> e.g. Victorian Era
• development of literary sphere -> shakespeare age
• Art history appplied to literature -> Renaissance, Impressionism
• Categories of English language -> Old English, Middle English etc.
• Chronological Organization into centuries