Literature Steop WS2024

Intentional - what does author want to tell us?

Symptomatic - what does the text tell us about author?

Quantative- what counts as literature?

-> can have broad and narrow view at what counts

Qualitative - what are the features of literature?

What features can I check to consider it literature

distinguish between high and pop culture

Textual. focus on language and content

Is this a text? -> literariness

Contextual: focus on society

-> Cognitive View does not really fit in

mimesis: imitates real world

poiesis: making smth up

Improvisation is human ability -> literature is a form of that

Narratives as a way to understand the world

practice mode through literature

cognitive re-framing and upgrade of imagination and fictionality

• use specific tools, theories, models and terms to analyze a text
• concerned with all areas of literary field: author-text-reader-context
• 2 main components: analysis, interpretation
• what is the effect?

function or effect of text in relation to its context

-> keats poem: need to know who Cortez is and who Homer is

• meaning of textual element vs entire text

Cognitive change while reading

Character realize something is wrong with their society

retroactive look at what happened

After reading I have a meaning

• Stereotypical
• Seeming & Being
• Non-conformity
• Freudian
• Topical political play
• Feminist
• Document of Doctrinal Transition

extremely innovative or stereotypical revenge tragedy?

Hamlet as pattern literature

Freud treated Hamlet as if he were real: psychoanalytical analysis

• wants to fuck mommy and kill papa
• sexually repressed & self punishing

Role of Hamlet as revenger, role-playing at court, role playing of players

Motifs/Theme in text

unwilling to conform to conventional social roles, Hamlet as hero ahead of his time

reflect political concerns of Period (unmarried Queen E - male heir does not inherit throne in Hamlet) reading against historical & political backgorund

Theological divide of early modern culture, alienated Catholic past,

Context: religious politics of the time

Lit content: other texts, what we know about other texts- influences how texts look like and reader expectations

Medium: book Code: Language that is used

Medium refers to real world - abstract references

Societal context - all that stuff is influenced by society

Approaches centering on literary context

Author centered

Reader centered

Text centered

Context centered approaches

Discursive & Historical

Biographical approach

Psychoanalytical

Studies of Texts's genesis

New Criticism/ Close Reading /Narratology

Formalism/Structuralism

Postructuralism / Deconstruction

Reader- response Criticism

Cognitive Poetics

Empircal Reception Studies

History of Reception and Effect of Works

Studies on lit. sources and influences

Literary sociology

Studies on intertextuality & intermediality

History of the book

Feminist literary criticism

Marxist literary criticism

Post-colonial theory

Cultural Studies

Mentalitätsgeschichte

History of ideas

mass production & mass dissemination -> accessibility

democratisation

standardisation of languages & literature

red thread in a text: repetition

broader than message

Function

impacts the reader

working through emotions in a safe way

Story: who does what in which order where when and why?

• Action Characters Temporal and Local setting

Discourse: How is it narrated?

What does the text look like / which devices are used?

literary devices, narrative choices

• Chronology - sequence of events (change of state)
• Causality - connectedness of events -> one thing leads to another

• story
• discourse
• Themes (motifs)
• Norms: ideology, world view, value system, construction of hierachies
• functions: questions about functions/effects apply to all levels

(what to elements do for the text)

Multiple events in a time sequence (Chronology) that build on each other (Causality)

we have no direct access to story -> we experience through narrator who shapes our experience

Story is mediated succession of events

Author creates Innerfictional speaker/ Narrator / Lyrical I that tells story to innerfictional addresse that reader experiences

Teleological Plot

cyclical

Episodic

Static

internal (psychological) vs external (physical) plotlines

towards a goal ->LOTR

Freytag Triangle

Quest

Coming of Age story

everything is fine, it gets disrupted, get back harmony, story ends where it started

no material changes in the plot

no overall trajectory, hero stumbles form on adventure to the next, no deeper connection

max and moritz

Goal is practically told to characters / readers

Being told what to do

String of events relating to each other through cause and effect

there can be multiple plotlines

or subplots

some type of change

• connected casually (line A triggers line B)
• or connected through character(s) common theme

• Hierarchy: main plot vs subplot

• uses our fundamental cognitive patterns to understand the world

notions of space used to make sense of abstract: left/right wing, heaven (up) -

--> uses binaries & contrasts

• semanticised space carries meaning
• text as spatial system -> corrospondences and contrasts
• only when character transgresses from one semanticised space into another -> progress

• flat vs round = one vs pluri - dimensional
• static vs dynamic
• Main character vs minor
• Protagonist vs antagonist
• Character types

• Confidante - best friend, the one who gets explained to
• Blocking character - if one character stops another from doing smth
• Foil character - highlights the other person

-> assigning label to character

• narratorial vs figural
• explicit vs implicit
• auto vs altero characterisation
• Unreliable characterisation

-> look at specific part like a sentence

chronology vs anachrony (unnatural)

Flashback (analepsis)

Flashforward (prolepsis)

Objective vs subjective anachrony

• factual vs imaginary; through narrator vs perceived by character

flashbacks

flashforward

subjective: a character imagining smth, character dreaming smth about future

objective: through narrater

Interest, unpredictability, Mystery, Tension

realtion between time read (discourse time) and clocktime in fictional world (story time)

• ellipsis / cut: no words (0 discourse time) but time continious to pass (story time) -> something is left out
• summary /speed up: discourse shorter than story time
• scene: story and discourse time are the same
• stretch/slow down: d time longer than story time: slow motion
• pause: action stops but discourse continues - space description

• singulative
• repetitive: narrates several times what happens once (multi POV)
• multi singulative: e.g. narrates 3 times what happens 3 times (repetition(repetetive effect)
• iterative: narrated once, happened more often (habits)

1. inner circle: fictional world, characters doing something (story level, diegesis) level of communication
2. in between: mediating character: strong impact on novel (mediation) level of mediation
3. outer circle: author communicating with reader (real world) level of fictional communication

• russian dolls narrative
• main narrator tells a story (frame narrative/ first degree narrative) in which character tells another story (hypo-narrative second degree narrative)

• Shaping of level of mediation
• what kind of Narrator is being used?
• Shape that different narrator can take

• form
• format
• focalisation
• View
• Mode

• Where is Narrator vis-a-vis the fictional world

About WHOM the story is told

• Autodiegetic
• Homodiegetic
• Hetergodiegetic

Important: Choice of pronoun to talk about protagonist

Autodiegetic

Homodiegetic

Heterodiegetic

= specific shape of narrator character

• overt/covert

• In special case of autodiegetic narration: I as narrator vs. I as character

• Degree of narrator‘s knowledge compared to characters:

• Reliable vs. Unreliable

like zooming in, additional parameters

overt

covert

part of format: autodiegetic/ homodiegetic

N is part of fictional word

I as narrator vs I as character

e.g. old lady tells story in retrospect, tells near objective presentation of life

• historic present is used when I as character is used

omniscience (god like)

- same degree of knowledge (knows as much as other characters)

- limited knowledge (child characters, know less)

unreliability: discrepancy between story facts and their representation by a narrator

can I trust narrator?

through which eyes we see the story

• who sees is not who narrates
• point of "view": seeing, feeling, knowing, believing, remembering
• who feels all the stuff, not who tells us the story

• external
• internal

(perspectival centre situated on extradiegetic level: godlike omniscience, no perspectivity. no limitation) can see into every characters past, knows whats going on behind closed doors

perspectival centre situated on intradiegetic level; info which can realistically be known by the focaliser(s), focaliser can change; strong perspectivity

• prisonar of construction of own human bodies
• one person who sees one person who narrates

character within story whose focus of perception is (temporarily) taken over by narrator (Reflektor, Perspektiventräger)

Narrator uses eyes of fictional character to see

Bewusstseinsdarstellung

• Do we get to know our characters minds?

-> Psychological Inside?

• Inside view thoughts - outside view just description from outside

ways of presenting an event:

strong narrational presence/strong mediation vs seemingly no narrational mediation

Do you notice narrator or not?

Happens in Dialouges

Telling and showing

pragmatic

simple

subtypes are combinable with each other option

Telling: diegesis; narrative mode - we hear narrator's voice

narrative mode: move events forward in time

descriptive mode: space not time

Argumentative mode: engaging in philosophical discourse, internal

mimesis; dramatic mode- character's discourse in direct speech

encounter characters in direct speech

• narrator's discourse and characters' discourse
• 'Discourse': words uttered & words thought
• patchwork structure
• Basic Structure: character's discourse is presented WITHIN narrato'rs discourse

• Introduction to speech
• Verba dicendi (she said, asked, replied, muttered, confessed,...)
• verba cogitandi & percipiendi (she thought, realized, felt,..)

Accuracy: mimetic quality of statement can vary, some nearly verbaitim, very close to what character actually said/thought, we get corractivied version

Or

completely different, radical contraction, rendering character's thoughts

Tagged (introduced) and untagged

• Verbatim rendering of speech/thought

"What should I do?" wondered Mary.

Erlebte Rede

FID

indirect in the sense that the pronouns ans tense of character is made to match to narrator's discourse

Free: syntactic form is retained, does not become subordinate clause

• Main clause/syntax is retained
• Evaluatives, expressives etc. as in direct speech
• Often (not always) untagged

Used in internal focolisation

• 3rd person (Had she not observed him at all) - backshifting
• Deixis retained, but transposed (here becomes there, now becomes then) meaning shifts to communicative situation
• Temporal transposition equals indirect speech -> Why for god's sake had she not talked to him?

leave in emotional phrase: Why for god's sake

• reported speech
• 3rd person
• tagged
• Subordinate clause
• summerizes, interprets, grammatically straightens the character's language
• aligns character's discourse to the point of view of the narrator

Mary wondered what she should do

Contract, summarize thought process

emotional statements left out

• modern - early to mid century
• Imitates the associative workings of the mind
• Incomplete sentences, alogically, non-coherence, etc
• untagged
• 1st person

• Authorial narrative sitaution (auktoriale ES)
• First person narrative situation (Ich-ES)
• Figural narrative situation (personales-ES)

Collection of narratal features whose fixed combination of fascests, modes has proven to be successfull

•Form: extradiegetic, 3rd person

•Format: overt; omniscient; reliable narrator

•Focalisation: external perspective, ‘olympian’,

usually no reflector used

•View: both inside and outside view possible

•Mode: changes between telling and showing;

mode of telling dominant

•Form: autodiegetic; 1st person

•Format: Overt; I-as-narrator has superior knowledge vis-à-vis characters; generally: limited knowledge; both reliability and unreliability possible

•Focalisation: external (when focus on I-as-narrator, erzählendes Ich); internal possible (when focus on limited viewpoint of I-as-character, erlebendes Ich)

•View: Both inside (mostly of narrator-character)

and outside view (of other characters) possible

Mode: changes between telling and showing 

•Form: heterodiegetic; 3rd person

•Format: covert narrator; focaliser has very limited knowledge; focaliser often unreliable

•Focalisation: internal; centre of perspective lies with intradiegetic focaliser (=“Reflektor”), not with narrating instance!!, = split between who sees and who speaks!!

•View: inside view (but only as regards focaliser’s consciousness!!) and outside view of all other characters

•Mode: showing dominant

•‚Referentless‘ pronouns "he, she" don't know who

•Familiarising articles "the table, this"

•Slice-of-life story

•Focus on the internal action

•Impressionistic, emotional, subjective

•Associative, incoherent

•Reminiscence (personal past) and conjecture (personal future)

• Gradation: prototype is at the center, other members further away
• categories are blurred
• not all or nothing, web of overlaps

1. Brevity

• quantative brevity
• qualitattive content

2) Overstructuring/Artificiality

• Overstructured typography
• Overstructured sound

3) Deviation

4) Subjectivity

5) Selfreferentiality

6) Fragile Aesthetic Illusion

• space saving code: normally books fill entire page, not in poetry, do what you want
• short - length

-> vertical density: overstructuring on all linguistic levels

• Intensified reading experience - no interruption
• Simualtanious cognitive presence of all textual details

• reduced content
• fuzzy world building, semantic gaps
• filling the gaps - heightened reader activation
• few/one prototypical element triggers semantic context - cognitive frames
• Little info on communicative constituents- speaker and adressee

• order on all levels also typographical level and sound level
• therefore: each poem - unique code
• Requires different way of reading: mindful of details
• Reading poetry: visual and auditive component

-> Lesen und sich hineinsprechen

1) overstructuring suprasegmental/ word & sentence level

• stress vs unstress; metre / rhythm

2) Overstrucuting phonetic/ syllable & sound level

• alliteration, assonance, rhyme

• poetry breaks inner and extratextual rules
• causes reader activation
• causes self- referentiality
• Produces unique code

-> subjectivity!!

• Example: metaphor
• unpredictability is engaging

Often: focus on speaker's subjective perspective

-> autodiegetic narrator in narrative texts

• Terms: speaker, persona
• overt vs covert speaker - viewpoint of speaker
• Impression of subjectivity as compound effect

look at my language

• not just carrier of meaning
• we are aware of constructed-ness of text

As direct consequence of

• overstructuring/artificiality, deviation, poetic function

Immersion

• we know it's not real -> we act like it is
• willing suspension of disbelief

Illusion of lyric - world: weaker

• static cognitive images
• unclear fictional world
• focus on form
• distance through deviation: you think about it

Strong speaker illusion

• we treat speaker as if they were real

Making something up, lying

Mimesis, poesis

Language only used in Literature

Literariness - Prose texts

Poeticity- Poems

What is considered Literature?

Publishers, Universities, BookShops, literary magazines

issues of power -> based on social agreement and historical conditioned

Phylogenetic: development of a species

Ontogenetic: development of one person

Child abandonment is a Theme

Function: helps us work through emotions

Interpretations are always biased - need to be transparent

Intersubjectivity - other people should know where you are coming from

• Textual evidence: support your claim
• Contextual, historical data: they said this a that time
• ethos of science: don't plagiarise

Actor pretends to be a chracter and audiences watches them

A impersonates B while C looks on

• Different communication situation from other texts
• Not primarily written to be read but script to be performed

• Dramatic texts are written by author & read by individual
• Play is performed by actor & experienced by large audience

• Dramatic texts exist as verbal & non-verbal modes as communication
• Acoustic & Optical dimension, sometimes sensory perception = Multimedia form of presentation

Dramatic text = script performance based 

• Every performance independent “theatrical work of art”
• Text prescribes temporal structure of a drama

• Interpretative approaches concerned primarily with performance= “performance criticism”
• “Implied production” inherent within dramatic texts

• Ancient Greece plays performed in amphitheatres-> audience in semicircle around stage
• Theatre Shakespearean times close contact between actors & audience on 3 sides of the stage, natural daylight, minimal set
• Todays stage form box like structure, lightning, curtains, props, aesthetic illusions

• Every performance independent “theatrical work of art”
• Text prescribes temporal structure of a drama

Significant differences between internal communication situations of dramatic & lyric texts

• Drama enables represent graphic form of of main differences between dramatic texts & other literary genres
• Dramas comprise speakers addresses form various characters & move between roles addressed & addressee
• Dialogue most important medium for information transmission

• Majority of dramas = internal communication
• Narrative texts-> mediated by narrator
• Lack of mediating communication = important differences between dramatic & narrative texts = “Absolute nature of dramatic texts”

• Reading drama: author = addresser -> Dramatic text= message -> reader=addressee
• Theatre performance: collection of individuals involved in production= addresser -> performance=message-> audience= addressee

Theatre performance complex process of communication

o Levels

▪ Dramatic level (interaction between characters on stage)

▪ Theatrical level (communication between cast & the audience)

▪ Level of everyday life (social communication about production, its relation to everyday norms)

Dramatic texts comprise:

▪ Level verbal communication

▪ Contain detailed information how text should be performed (printed in italics)

▪ Characters remarks=primary text

▪ Stage directions= secondary text (also concern gestures & facial expression)(includes all constituent parts of dramatic text & are not part of dialogue z.B.: demarcation of acts & scenes, information as to which characters are speaking, title of play, dedications, prefaces, & list of characters =“dramatis personae”)

Superordinate narrative frame to the action is constructed-> illustrative of structural characteristics & communication techniques, narrative texts are described as epic. Amadeus: Salieri appears mediating in narrative instances

Inside the action vs outside the action -> wether the narrating instance is involved in action of drama. Amadeus example for characters inside the action Salieri assumes role of a narrator, addresses audience directly in hope of winning understanding, Wilders Our Town narrator outside of action

Distinguish between verbal forms, example stage directions involving commentary, projections, barriers, non verbal forms of epic elements -> destruction of atrial illusion & exposure of its mechanism-> character steps out of his role = “alienation effect”

Textural characteristics sometimes supplemented by watching play performed

• Study of signs & codes of theatre communication= semiotics of theatre
• Various verbal & non-verbal sign systems of theatre = theatre codes

• Wether sign is verbal / non-verbal
• Non-verbal -> related to actors, the stage or other aspects of dramatic production
• Fundamental distinctions between acoustic & optical/visual signs
• Durative theatre codes= remain constant over time (stage set)/ non durative codes (= temporary codes)(gestures/ facial expressions)

Info transmitted in dramatic texts verbal & non verbal codes & channels, Info about time, place & other aspects of fictional world

• Exposition= transmission introductionary information necessary for understanding of initial dramatic events
• Exposition & dramatic introduction perform different functions:
• Introduction serves establish communication Channel between stage & audience (phaticfunction); Exposition serves informing reader/ audience about history preceding action, introducing them to time & place of action 

• 2 basic categories: initial & integrated
• Initial= inclusion of all exposition information through isolated passage at beginning & separate from action in proper style
• Integrated= expository information is distributed in small quantities throughout text, woven into action

Extreme variety of integrated exposition in analytical drama, gradual disclosure of past has led to initial situation

Categories of artificial constructs

Messenger speech= teichoscopy

= Succession of remarks & counterremarks (=utterances) between 2 or more characters (duologue/ polylogue)

• Consider length of individual utterance, distribution & contribution & frequency when speaker changes
• Syntagmatics = logical coherence of dialogue

• Set action of drama & ensures its progression
• Medium for conflict & clarification of opinions

• Artificiality evident in English comedy
• Comedy of manners => this conversational style = wit 

• Monologue= Selbstgespräch
• Information conveyed in monologues & soliloquies often characterised by high degree of subjectivity -> They do not offer objective view
• Dramatic Monologue is not part of a drama but a poem

Monological specific to the drama-> character is thinking aloud on stage, representing consciousness

• Monologues identity of main addressee
• Dialogues are addressed to interlocutor on stage
• Monologues & soliloquies directed towards speakers themselves or audience, rather than characters in performance
• (Example of introductionary soliloquy in Richard III, Play by Shakespeare, 

• Familiarising audience with Atmosphere, description of scenery/ surroundings
• Providing information of preceding events , introductions action in spatial & temporal context
• Commenting in previous events from perspective of speaker
• Introducing protagonist
• Giving expression speakers innermost thoughts& feelings, describing internal conflicts & processes
• Disclosing speakers plans, intentions, decisions process
• Introducing audience to personality of hero/villain
• Arousing expectations with regard to future development

=Speech Mode specific to drama

• Manfred Pfister names 3 different types of aside:
• Monological aside
• Dialogical aside
• Aside ad spectatores

voices thought which not expressed anywhere else, only audience understands

unnoticed by characters on stage, group of initiated characters conduct conspiratorial conversation

character addresses comment directly at audience

• Various forms dialogical & monological speech for determining what extent characters & audience are informed about dramatic events & plans of characters
• Audience is placed at advantage/ disadvantage in comparison character situation is described as discrepant awareness 

• Discrepant awareness is precondition for dramatic irony
• Dramatic Irony= discrepancy between internal & external communication systems / between internal & external communication systems.
• Audience gets information that’s not available to character concerned
• Speaker herself is butt of irony
• Can be comedic or tragic

=change of perpetuation situation by characters.

o 4 Factors:

▪ Abilities

▪ Needs

▪ Motivation

▪ Intention

Specific reference to dramatic action o Volker Klotz-> distinction between open & closed forms

• Closed= entirely self contained story brought to definite conclusion, consisting of 5 Acts:

1. Introduction

2. Development

3. Climax

4. Moment of delay

5. Catastrophe 

• Characters= anthropomorphic figures
• Real actor
• Fictive role

• Neoclassical style = adherence to rules & conventions
• Naturalistic style= encourage audience to to empathise with characters

• Majority interpretations character treated as real, existing, individuals
• Structuralist theories= characters agents/ functions rather than psychological entities -> “actants”

• Aristoteles said: Drama defined as imitation of action
• Characters act on necessarily limited perspective, action changes perspective

• Refers to literary characters
• Distinction between minor & main characters
• Correspondences & contrasts

Ascertain how important single character is within play

1. Characters Level of Knowledge

2. Characters psychological disposition

3. Characters ideological persuasions (values & norms)

=Perspektivenstruktur

1. Paradigmatic dimension = selection of characters perspectives

2. Syntagmatic dimension = combination of perspectives 

• Used to analyse relationship between character perspectives
• Closed= Diverse character perspectives converge at one point, -> unitary view of world
• Open= drama presents no converge & individual characters are divergent 

• Broad spectrum of possible kinds of characterisations:
• Personification= figure who embodies & personifies single character
• Individual= complex character like real human 

• Terms to differentiate literary characters
• Type= few human characteristics
• Psychological Types, Social Type, Stereotype
• Individual= complex, uniqueness, multi-faceted, resemble human beings

E.M. Forster

One dimensional/ multi-dimensional

• Tendencies: Greater individualism in characters
• Medieval morality => Abstract concept of vice & virtue
• Neo-classical school=> categorises of human being age, gender, social status, nationality -> Horace’s poetics by Aristoteles

• Central analysis of drama how characters are supplied with characteristics & semantic features
• Figural techniques
• Authorial techniques
• Explicitness of character information

= include techniques in which character themselves supply information

Common techniques of authorial characterisation-> descriptions in stage directions

Three separate Rules of Unity of Time & place:

Closed vs open temporal & spatial structure:

• Shakespeare’s dramas for example have open temporal & spatial structure -> setting changes frequently & time in not restricted to one day

Stage theatre & fictional space:

• Fictional space is presented, partly, on stage, imaginary place where drama takes place 

• Theatre performances primarily achieved by means of the set
• Director decides to what degree stage directions are observed on set
• Word-scenery= describes location of action (not objective but filtered through perspective)

Structure & presentation of spatial context important considerations-> indicative how place is semanticized.

• Chronological representation
• Achronic representation
• Flashforward
• Flashbacks
• Pauses
• Ellipses

• Duration spanned by staged events, further distinction period of time presents on stage-> frequently omitted through fictional time structure between scenes, acts & sequences 

Impersonation

Multimediality

Performativity

Collectivity

Immediacy

• acting
• Actor represents Character in this play
• focus on physical
• iconic relationship
• relationships between characters
• relationships between characters and audiences

Also has non linguistic channels

• acoustics - language, sound, music
• Visual - costumes, lights, make up, sets, probs, gestures, facial expression...

-> semiotic effect

• multimedial form

Dramatic text is not performance

• is blue print
• Theatere studies: actual perfomance
• English studies: dramatic text (implied performance)

Drama is product of multiple people

• Collectivity of production
• Collectivity of reception

very little mediation in Drama

Direct sender - addressee

Internal SOC

External SOC

• Dramatic language simultaneosly directed at internal AND external system of communication
• we need to extract the info

Related issues:

• need to provide info on pre- history exposition
• soliloquy - character talks to himself
• dramatic irony

• is prehistory of dramatic plot which is vital for the understanding

Isolated exposition

Integrated exposition

Monological

Dialogical

Closed ending: resolition of all open conflicts and questions

Open: no clear ending

Aside:

breaking 4th wall

• type of Monolog

Uneven distribution of information

audience knows more/less than characters

Audience knows more than character: character's comment has additional info

need to look at the whole play

• Careful: character's opinion world view etc not overall norm
• A play's underlying nom /ideology/ worldview can only been understood when everything is considered

• prescriptive model based on ancient greece
• conditio humana
• reversal of fortune
• Tragic inevitability
• anagnorsis
• hamartia
• catharsis

needs a happy ending- does not need to be funny

• Story:

everything is semiotic/meaningful

Primary text: what is said by characters

Secondary text: Stage directions

• some elements tend to match the text, others are changed
• variable: can leave out
• invariable: cannot leave out (ending hamlet)

Each performance is unique

Actor, Director, Costume designer, Scene designer, Dramaturg, etc

• audience as unique collective
• collective reception vs solitary reading
• Theatre as cybernetic machine (feedbackloop)

Actor sees audiences behaves accordingly, audience even more (dis)engaged and on and on

order through sameness

Repeated elements establish network of relations, structure, order of meaning

Deeper connection through repetition

Linguistic connection

In poetry words are formal building blocks, consider them for their own sake

Pause, word stress, etc. become important as the words

• sees words their linguistic entirety -> all aspects of a word serve a function
• (stress, syllables, sounds)
• is not superficial -> by that changes the discourse

Poeticalness is not a supplementation of discourse with rethorical adornment but a total re-evaluation of the discourse and of all it's components whatsoever

• involves all senses
• information packed
• high audience actitvty
• immersive

Internal SOC: character to character

External SOC: play to audience

Isolated exposition: info dump, they just say it

Integrated E: exposition inserted into dialog in a way that sounds natural

Monological exposition: one character talking, inside or outside the play (narrator)

Dialogical: two ore more talking

• through protatic figure (sole purpose to facilitate exposition)
• A dialog exposition can help diminish rift between exposition and

• Provides insight to c's mind
• self characterisation
• connects scenes
• drives the plot
• exposition
• empathy
• expectations & suspense

• creates suspense, interest, empathy
• drives action forward
• playing audience in priveliged / ignorant position

Dynamic pattern of info distrebution throughout the play

prescriptive model based on ancient greece

characteristic of Tragedy

high serious concerning the role of man in the universe

characteristic of Tragedy

happiness to unhappiness peripeteia

reversal of fortune

characteristic of Tragedy

• no escape --> Oedipus marries his mother and kills his dad even though he does everything not to

characteristic of Tragedy

From ignorance to knowledge

Noble - aristocratic - hero with tragic flaw/fatal mistake

Audience: feels - fear & pity: cleansing effect

"high" genre, noble protagonist

Ständeklausel/estate clauses: only nobles as actors in tragedies

Three unities: 1 plot, 1 place, finished in 1 day -> unity of action, place, time

• Teelogy towards marriage and social cohesion
• Love triangles dissolve into love couples
• Intrigues to overcome obstacles (blocking character)
• suggests a future beyond the play in renewed social bonds
• Poetic justice - virtue is rewarded
• Female characters more prominent and active than tragedy

• Tendency to dialogue
• Humor: puns to sexual innuendo - infirtle generation dies, younger generations can regenerate themselves

Themes and Norms

• victory of younger generation over older generation
• choices are mantained, trying to make things better does make it better

• verse: first and last word fixed
• creates additional unit for establishing correspondence
• slows down reading
• draes attention to discourse (self- referentiality?

• overstructurung suprasegmental level

- stress vs unstress; metre/rhythm

• Overstructuring phonetic level

- alliteration, assonance, rhyme

• first person pronoun
• reduced information on communicative constituents
• emotionality markers
• Idiosyncratic language use
• Deviation - unique language use for unique persona

• static cognitive images
• fragmented fictional world
• focus on form (overstructuring / artificiality)
• Distance through deviation

• 1304-74 - Petrarch
• Italien poet and humanist
• Sonnet cycle II Canzoniere

366

on unhappy love for an unattainable women - Laura

• medieval concept of courtly love
• Many subtle emotions triggered by unrequited love make speaker explore his inner self - consitute identity
• Hot passion - disciplined form
• Sublimating sexual urge through self - reflection, soul searching, religious purification, rigorous form
• imitated by european sonneteers

154

1609

in a loose cycle

• abab cdcd efef ff: 3 quartetts - alternate rhyme, 1 couplet - pair rhyme; iambic pentameter

argumentative structure

• thesis - antithesis - synthesis;
• expectation vs solution
• tension vs solution
• claim vs proof
• claim vs contradiction

provides surprising / ironic twist

• lengthy argument and then BAM quick resolution

Characters

• Speaker is a poet
• Dark lady: sexual love
• Young man: spiritual love
• Rival poet

vs: Pertrarch: realistic, complex, all characters are flawed

Themes: transience; immortal poetry; love in all its aspects

• Lines - per stanza - 14 = sonnet
• Number of stanzas

-> Stanza: unit of lines, visually marked through typographical spaces

• Number of syllables
• Metre
• Rhyme scheme
• Historically fixed form - ottava rima, sonnet etc.

• Suprasegmental Level
• metre
• Regular sequence of stress vs unstress
• "stress"

• level below those language levels which can be divided up into separate segments - e.g. phonemes

equivalences on the level of suprasegmentals (repetition, sameness, correspondences)

• uses patterning, establishes regular scheme

• loudness through stronger air pressure
• full vowel vs schwa

• scan the text
• underline the ikts (stress positions)
• establish type of foot = metrical unit
• establish number of feet = number of syllables

-> trimeter, tetrameter, pentameter, hexamter

apply maximisation principle

• most cases, words within a verse line will have arranged in so that their natural stresses will produce a regular metric pattern, a regular sequence of stress vs unstress

• iamb
• trochee
• dactyl
• anapeast
• sponde

• reading a poem as if it were prose text
• natural prose sequence of stressed or unstressed syllables -> irregular

only stressing content words

• Consult (pronunciation) dictionary
• Stressed syllables: autosemantics (Inhaltwörter)
• Unstressed syllables: form and function words even if they would be in metric level
• Mark accents - stressed syllables with accent

Sentence ends but syntax runs on

-> when a thought begins in one line and carries on to the next

interplay between metre and prose rhythm

between abstract metrical pattern and natural prose

• interplay between individual subsystems

Metre = abstract

Prose rhthym= concrete

Verse Rhythm= interplay

Interplay= tension between abtract, regular metrical norm and concrete realisation

-> describe and functionalise

• aesthetic: appeal through fulfilling and disappointing expectations
• Expressive function
• Emphasis: leitklänge schaffen sinnbeziehungen
• Iconocity - onomatopoeia - Objektmimesis
• makes poem unique

rhyme = sameness of sound after last stressed vowel

• usually the preceding consonant differ
• Correspondence through sameness of sound

-> repetion, equivalence, correspondence

• marking the verse unit
• correspondence between rhyming words
• correspondence between rhyming verses
• contrast with all other non-rhyming verses
• interplay with structure and content of the poem

• historical pronunciation
• sounds do not mean anything in themselves - arbitrariness

-> In a particular poem, they can become semantically charged through the unique way they are linked in the story level

aa bb cc dd

abab cdcd

abba cdda/ aba cdc

xaxa

last consonants preceding last stress vowels differ

night/delight4

slant rhymes/ imperfect rhymes / pararhymes

• rhyme in which there is a close but not exact correspondence of sounds
• lid/ lad

• ends in stressed syllable
• ran - man

ends in an unstressed syllable

• billow - willow

• alliteration
• assonance
• consonance

repetition of internal vowel sounds

• rough winds do shake the darling buds of may

repetition of internal consonant sounds

• knuckle bones click

• figure of speech
• figurative language

• seeing something in terms of something else
• transfer of meaning
• comparison without comparing particle

leaves out the comparison particle

between concepts which, on the surface, do not seem to have anything in common

• deviation
• cannot be understood in its basic way - it's denotation - but needs to be understood in a non - conventional way

• vehicle
• tenor
• tertium comparationis
• verbal imaginery - sensual

• alien construct
• source domain
• subject whose attributes are borrowed

• type/ intensity of feeling
• target domain
• subject to which attributes are ascribed

• totality, completeness
• attributes that tenor and vehicle have in common

• based on sensual rather than mental experience
• often used to capture abstract concepts via concrete analogies

• Isotopies
• areas of reference
• Structure
• Relationship / dynamic

• Greimas
• Which semes (units of meaning) are repeated

which areas experience do a poem's metaphor belong to?

within each individual metaphor

between a poem's metaphors

special type of metaphor: unites several senses

special type of metaphor; anthropomorphising something = making it human or animate

structurely like metaphor, Plus comparative particle

• you are like a summer's day

closely associated to tenor

• REAL relationship tenor & vehicle
• replacement of words that are connected

• euphemism
• hyperbole: excessive exaggeration
• Irony
• Litotes: reference to something by negating opposite
• Oxymoron: combination of contradictory terms
• pleonams: word string with the same meaning
• personification
• paradox
• antithesis - juxtaa position of two logical opposed elements
• hendiadys an idea that would usually be expressed by a single np is represented by two words joined by a conjunction
• paronomasia - pun

• Anaphora: repetition at the begging of verse
• Epiphora: repetition at the end of verse
• Chiasmus: reversal of structures in successive clauses
• Ellipsis: omission of syntactic elements
• Parallelism

Synchronic presence of multiplicity of signs

• involves all senses
• information-packed
• high audience activity
• illusionistic, immersive

some variables will be changed

• variale vs invariable elements

every performance is unique performance and ephemeral event

-> every evening it's a little different

primary: original

secondary: stage directions, dramatis personae

• amphitheatre at delphi
• Elizabthean theatre
• proscenium stage

author does not have full control

• just telling, no showing
• people acting out the stories in real time, no one that explains

• performance is unmediated
• unfolds in here and now
• no narrative guidance: just telling
• audience as eye witnesses
• exception: epic drama (=Brechtian drama), chorus in ancient drama

• need to provide info on pre- history exposition through character's statements
• need to provide info on character's interiority through showing - soliloquy
• discrepant awareness - dramatic irony

only there to give us some information, then disappears

• story
• discourse
• themes
• norms
• functions - questions about functions/ effects apply to all levels

• ideology
• worldview
• value system
• construction of subject positions
• construction of hierachies

• characters: speakers, addressee
• discourse: written, thought, spoken
• action: does anything happen
• discourse type
• Metre/ rhythm interplay

why use unnatural language?

• overuse of structure, repetetion
• has in intertextual pattern

• inner: rhyme scheme, metre
• extra: grammar, taboos

• ancient genre
• extremely heterogenous in both form and content
• generic criteria have changed over time
• no exclusive features but typical features, generic tendencies

14 line poem with a variable rhyme scheme

courtly love -> unatainable love

• extreme idealisation
• self scrutiny, self definition
• Frustration, melancholy, isolution through soul - searching & renunciation
• from erotic to spiritual love

• deciplined structure vs passionate emotions
• rhyme scheme: abba abba cdc cdc - embracing rhymes
• octett vs sestett
• volta between I. 8/9 - the turn in stylistic and thematic change
• very artistic, stylised, mannered- no realism, formulaic, e.g. stereotypical

• Thesis
• Antithesis
• Conclusion
• Volta/ Twist

• unnatural language
• overuse of structure, Repetition of different poetischen mitteln
• inner textual pattern creates an order that makes a pattern

-> order through sameness

• defining feature of poetry
• deprioritize semantics
• poetry sees words in linguistic entirety -> all aspects of word serve function
• not superficial -> changes the discourse

• shape of a poem
• creates expectations
• In verse: first and last word is fixed, not sentences

-> added unit

• slows down reading
• draws attention to discourse level

• inner: rhyme scheme, metre
• extra: grammar, taboos

unpredictability is engaging and created meaning

• causes reader activation
• causes self-referentiality -> attention on discourse level
• uniquness (subjectivity)
• e.g. metaphor

• 1st person pronoun
• little information on context
• emotionality markers
• individual language use
• Deviation

stichic

pairs of stanzas

three lines

four lines

five lines

six lines

seven lines

eight lines

two feet

three

four

five

six

xX

Xx

Xxx

HEA-ven-ly

xxX

a-na-PEST, to the SEA

XX

words/ sounds imitate the real-life sounds

bark, meow, tweet

reference to something sad or distasteful by making it milder

excessive exaggeration

meaning something very different from/ the opposite of what is said

reference to something by negating its opposite

combination of contradictory terms

repetition at beginning of verse

• so long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee

repetition at the end of verse

• the yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window panes. The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window- panes

reversal of structures in successive clauses

never let a fool kiss you or a kiss fool you

omission of syntactic elements

• authors are partial to their wit, tis true but are not Crisis (partial) to their judgement too?

repetition of syntactic structure

fool me once, shame on you: fool me twice, shame on me

154 sonnets 1609

arranged in loose cycle

• uneven distribution of information
• audience knows more/less than character/s
• character A knows more than character B/ all characters

audience knows more than character -> characters comment has additional meaning which character is unaware of

• character's opinion, world view etc ≠ overall norm, world view of text
• a play's underlying norm / ideology / world view can only be gauged by considering the sum total of all the information provided by the text

• action
• local setting
• characters
• temporal setting

only focus on chronology and causality

don't focus on authors choice

can be different

internal - psychological change

external - physical

hunger games:

main: revolution

sub: romance

gail and peter represents the two sides of the revolution - violence or peace

questioning themselves about their morals

protagonist - main character

antagonist - can also be natural disaster

-> they appose each other

order - when are you shown

duration - how long

frequency - how often

story chronology: what happens when in chronology

discourse chronology: when are you told what

ellipsis: happens in story level, not in discourse - not being told that character does his morning routine every time

pause: other way, building is described, like stopping the movie and analysing the screen

which part of the world is being described - trees 1km away

which faults you can see

• normative or qualitative criteria (high/low literature) is problematic
• descriptive criteria, and base itself on certain textual and contextual factors is better

refers to fabricated or imaginative nature of literary texts

• truthfulness of their content or their relation to reality
• = fabricated or imaginative nature of the world presented in literary texts
• places and characters that feature in such texts are therefor described as “fictional or fictive”

all those signs that indicate to the reader that text is fabricated and that it is to be read according to aesthetic convention

• can occur with varying degrees of frequency and concentration
• thus allow for diverse interpretations
• are subject to historical change and variety of conventions

ways to know a book is fictional by looking at the book itself or what surrounds the book

• communication situations (theatre visits, poetry readings)
• signals relating to the publishing progress (some publishing houses only publish fiction books)
• external presentation of a book

• title and subtitle
• subdivision of text
• generic terms as "novel" or comedy
• legal disclaimers

• polyvalence - allows for various interpretations
• is considered seal of quality

polyvalence convention = is expected by readers

• texts are expected to have some amount of freedom to construct meaning

• text instrinsic definitions - definition based on the basis of certain linguistic or formal characteristics
• vs context oriented - focus on production or reception of aesthetics of literature

• particular use of linguistic and stylistic features in literature

• includes the entire social sphere in which literary texts are published, read, discussed and reviewed
• -> literary institution/ literary system
• = network of relations consisting nor only of literary texts but also of people that produce, mediatem read and process these texts
• includes: authors, publishers, readers, critics

Roles within the literary system:

• production, mediation, reception and processing/ criticism 
• to define literary system take into account: author, reader, literary works, publishing houses, the book trade, the media,  other institutions involved in mediation of literature, literary reviews

• author produces a literary text = message 
• -> is simultaneously the material basis = channel 
• -> via which the message reaches the reader = addressee
• -> for reader to understand text they need to share common language and similar generic conventions = code
• -> literary texts incorporate references to the historical or contemporary reality = context

• Literature can be regarded as an ensemble of texts which are classified as literary bc they fulfill certain criteria
• from this perspective literature is understood to be a symbolic system, that is characterised by certain aesthetic features and differs significantly from texts in other social systems

• broad: ecompasses all written communications, i.e. the entire corpus of written and printed works -> problem: excludes oral literatures 
• narrow: limits literature to poetic and imaginative texts

literature is subject to historical change -> it can vary from one cultural context to the next

• a set of social conventions concerning how certain texts should be approached 
• texts should be judged according to specific aesthetic criteria 
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge: willing suspension of disbelief

• all those signs that indicate to the reader that the world presented within the text is fabricated, and that it is to be read according to the rules of aesthetic convention 
• Non fictional texts incorporate reality signals 
• signals for fictionality can occur with varying degree of frequency and concentration and frequently allow diverse interpretations are subject to historical change and ta a variety of conventions   

• language
• nation
• categories of aesthetic evaluation: high/low brow, popular lit, pulp fiction
• sociological categories: children's, women's, working class
• historical categories: classical, medieval, contemporary
• media - related categories: oral, written, audiovisual
• relation to reality: mimetic vs anti - mimetic (fantasy)
• conventionality of mode of representation: traditional vs innovative / experimental

different kinds of texts actually form a continuum, with permeable boundaries between various categories

-a group of lit works that share significant characteristics in terms of content, form and or function

• serve as classification system as well as important signposts for authors / recipients

• based on sociocultural, literary and social consensus

• essay
• variety of genres located at the intersection of intersection of fictional and non fictional writing
• sermons and other religious writings, pedagogical tracts, moral weeklies and megazines, histoigraphy, travelouges

at least two meanings:

• ahistorical constants such as the narrative, dramatic and satirical
• as an umbrella term to designate various different textual structures such as metaphors, rhetorical figures, narrative form and so on

narrow: let's us make distinction between mode of writing and genre or sub genre

refers to space of time of variable length, in which literary works sharing particular ideological, thematic, formal or stylistic features originate

by the inerplay between its metrical structure and the linguistic realisation of the individual lines

a break in metre which divides up a line of verse into parts

consists of an iambic hexameter with a ceasure after the third stress/ sixth syllable

• division into its component parts
• organized into stanzas according to certain structural principles
• poetry without this structure is called stichic

rhyming couplets composed in iambic pantamters

by a shift in the communication context or speech situaution, change of theme or of spatial and temporal reference as well as formal or stylistic variations

• can be indicative of internal orginisation
• structure is determined by rhyme scheme - marks units of meaning

Monosyllabic rhmye

Disyllabic rhyme

consonance as from the vowel of the stressed third syllable before the end

Descending rather quickly the delclivity

midst other indications of festivity

consonance between the consonants preceding the final stressed vowels, as well as between the vowels themselves

with homophones

That crazed that bold and lovely knight

Not rested day and night

rhyme formed by the repetition of the same word

But I said "I've pretty rose- tree"

Then I went to my pretty rose-tree

End assonance / vowel rhyme

• congruence between vowel sound only
• crowd - bough

Consance at the end of the two lines

• port - chart

Pararhyme

• initial and final consonance are repeated, vowel varies
• mystery - mastery

homographs as rhyme words

• dies - entities

rhyme words that used to be, but are longer

prove - love

• end
• internal rhyme

• masculine - monosyllabic rhyme
• feminine - Disyllabic rhyme
• triple rhyme

full/ perfect/ true/ exact rhyme

• rich rhyme / rime rich
• idenrical ryhme

near/ imperfect/ slant/ approximate/ off/ half rhyme:

• End assonance / vowel rhyme
• Consance at the end of the two lines
• Pararhyme

Eye/ Sight rhyme

Historical rhyme

schematic representation of the sequence of end - rhymes within a stanza or poem

• end lines lines of verse
• new rhyme scheme marks the beginning of new unit of meaning
• create a link between rhyming words by repetition on phonological level
• intertextual parallels highltight coherence of text

rethorical figures that work on level of words and word formation

rethorical figures that work on level of sentence and sentence structure

rethorical figures that involve the meanings of words or expressions

rethorical figures that involve language use

they are figures involving exact word repetition?

Parallesism between clauses or entire sentences

removal of a word from its original semantic field (domain / donor field) and projection onto an element from another semantic field (target domain/ recipient field)

word that is taken: vehicle

actual referent - tenor

• conceptual models and instruments for creating meaning
• structural creative meanings
• connotative power of the images supplies criteria for perception and interpretation of historical and political circumstances
• have normative emotional and ideological implications

all additional and peripheral meanings that can be inferred from the word's associations

NOT subjective or abitrary

-> associations that are awoken by vehicle and linked implicitly to tenor not always clearly identified

• form of metonymy
• one word is replaced by a narrower one -> part represents whole

several images that are taken from the same semantic field

• using jewels to describe a womens beauty

succession of words or phrases without conjoining words

All whom war, death, age, agues, tyrannies, despair, law, chance hath slain

reversal from normal word order

Here rests his head upon the lap of earth

metaphor

similie

denotation

connotation

metonomy

syndoche

synesthesia