Types of literary texts

A text that tells a story is a narrative text. The narrator is the voice in the text that tells the story.

                                                          

A text where the characters speak without the aid of a narrator is a dramatic text.


                                     


A text in which the main purpose of the author is expressing feelings or just creating beauty with words is a poetic text. Sometimes it is written in verse: separate lines with or without rhyme and with a special structure.

                                                         

                    Your turn!: Draw a table with three columns: one for narrative, one for drama, one for poetry. Then include each of the following kinds of text in that category:

Sonnet     Tale    Song    Comedy    Novel    Joke    Anecdote    Elegy     Tragedy     Nursery rhyme

Film script    Short story   Rap    Biography   

Modernism in the USA: William Faulkner

Modernism

Modernism is a trend that developed in the arts at the beginning of the XXth century striving to break away from tradition and innovate. In literature, modernists opposed realism and sought to represent human reality in a freer way, with such elements as stream of consciousness (the transcription of thoughts as they arise in the human consciousness, without imposing an order on them), fragmentarism, multiplicity of points of view within a narration, a different approach to time (a long book may narrate events that happened in just a few hours, for example), a narrator that is unreliable or is the voice of multiple characters... In essence, modernism was about breaking free from the constraints that existed in nineteenth century literature.

Modernism was influenced by the ideas of such thinkers as Sigmund Freud, Nietzsche, Marx... and by the rest of avant-garde art movements (expressionism, impressionism and cubism in painting and atonalism in music, for example).

An American modernist: William Faulkner

William Faulkner (1897-1962) is the most innovative American novelist of his generation. In his works, he mixes a depiction of Southern rural America with strong modernist innovation in his style. This earned him the Nobel Prize of Literature in 1949. His two best novels are The Sound and the Fury and As I lay Dying. He portrays often degenerate or insane characters in his novels that are a reflection of the decadence of the southern states.

                                                            

Here is a part of his novel As I lay Dying. In this novel, each fragment is the interior monologue of one of the members of a disfunctional family that fundamentally hate each other. The family is transporting the body of the recently deceased mother to another city where she had wished to be buried. Try to guess why the tone of the dialogue of this character is so peculiar. Who is Vardaman?

Vardaman

Darl and Jewel and Dewey Dell and I are walking tip the hill, behind the wagon.

Jewel came back. He came up the road and got into the wagon. He was walking.

Jewel hasn't got a horse anymore. Jewel is my brother. 'Cash is my brother. Cash

has a broken leg. We fixed Cash's leg so it doesn't hurt. Cash is my brother.

Jewel is my brother too, but he hasn't got a broken leg.

Now there are five of them, tall in little tall black circles.

"Where do they stay at night, Darl?" I say. "When we stop at night in the

barn, where do they stay?"

The hill goes off into the sky. Then the sun comes up from behind the hill

and the mules and the wagon and pa walk on the sun. You cannot watch them,

walking slow on the sun. In Jefferson it is red on the track behind the glass.

The track goes shining round and round. Dewey Dell says so.

Tonight I am going to see where they stay while we are in the barn.

Modernism in the British Isles: James Joyce

Modernism

Modernism is a trend that developed in the arts at the beginning of the XXth century striving to break away from tradition and innovate. In literature, modernists opposed realism and sought to represent human reality in a freer way, with such elements as stream of consciousness (the transcription of thoughts as they arise in the human consciousness, without imposing an order on them), fragmentarism, multiplicity of points of view within a narration, a different approach to time (a long book may narrate events that happened in just a few hours, for example), a narrator that is unreliable or is the voice of multiple characters... In essence, modernism was about breaking free from the constraints that existed in nineteenth century literature.

Modernism was influenced by the ideas of such thinkers as Sigmund Freud, Nietzsche, Marx... and by the rest of avant-garde art movements (expressionism, impressionism and cubism in painting and atonalism in music, for example).

A modernist writer: James Joyce

James Joyce (Dublin, 1882 - Zurich, 1941) is the quintessential modernist writer. Born in Ireland and educated in Catholic schools, soon he felt he had to leave for other countries in search of creative freedom. He settled first in Croatia, then in the Italian city of Trieste with his Irish wife, Nora Barnacle, earning his living as an English teacher. He is especially famous for four books, which also chronicle his journey into an increasingly free and obscure style:

- Dubliners. A book of short stories with main characters from his native city.

- Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. A veiled biographical account of his childhood and youth, protagonised by his alter ego Stephen Dedalus.

- Ulysses. A long book whose action happens in just one day in Dublin. The characters are two alter egos of Joyce (Dedalus and Leopold Bloom) and one of his wife (Molly).

- Finnegan's Wake, written already in a hardly comprehensible language.

This is the beginning of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Read it and do the task below.

Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming

down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road

met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo

His father told him that story: his father looked at him through a

glass: he had a hairy face.

He was baby tuckoo. The moocow came down the road where Betty Byrne

lived: she sold lemon platt.

O, the wild rose blossoms

On the little green place.

He sang that song. That was his song.

O, the green wothe botheth.

When you wet the bed first it is warm then it gets cold. His mother put

on the oilsheet. That had the queer smell.

His mother had a nicer smell than his father. She played on the piano

the sailor’s hornpipe for him to dance. He danced:

Tralala lala,

Tralala tralaladdy,

Tralala lala,

Tralala lala.

Uncle Charles and Dante clapped. They were older than his father and

mother but uncle Charles was older than Dante.

Dante had two brushes in her press. The brush with the maroon velvet

back was for Michael Davitt and the brush with the green velvet back

was for Parnell. Dante gave him a cachou every time he brought her a

piece of tissue paper.

The Vances lived in number seven. They had a different father and

mother. They were Eileen’s father and mother. When they were grown up

he was going to marry Eileen. He hid under the table. His mother said:

–O, Stephen will apologize.

Dante said:

–O, if not, the eagles will come and pull out his eyes.–

Pull out his eyes,

Apologize,

Apologize,

Pull out his eyes.

Apologize,

Pull out his eyes,

Pull out his eyes,

Apologize.

                                   Your turn! Try to identify what is happening in this text and why the way the narrator speaks is so peculiar.

Poetry: Robert Frost

Born in 1874 and dead in 1963, Robert Frost is one of America's iconic poets, certainly one of the most important of the beginning of the twentieth century. His poetry often uses rural settings of New England to examine universal human and philosophical themes.

In providing an overview of Frost's style, the Poetry Foundation places Frost's work "at the crossroads of nineteenth-century American poetry [with regard to his use of traditional forms] and modernism [with his use of idiomatic language and ordinary, every day subject matter]." They also note that Frost believed that "the self-imposed restrictions of meter in form" was more helpful than harmful because he could focus on the content of his poems instead of concerning himself with creating "innovative" new verse forms.

                    Your turn!    1. Can you think of a Spanish poet born around the same date as Robert Frost and who used country settings to speak about human issues? 
                                    2. Search and explain what part of the United States is New England.
                                    3. What is Modernism in the English speaking world? How is it different from Spanish "Modernismo"?
                                    4. Do you agree with the last idea expressed about having form restrictions being positive so that the poet can focus on content rather than form? Is it                                                        always a positive thing, in your view?


Read the following two poems by Robert Frost. For each of them, say what you think is the idea the author wants to communicate and what the form of the poem is (metre, rhyme, stanza...).

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village, though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound's the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

     

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim

Because it was grassy and wanted wear,

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

A poem by Tupac Shakur

This is a poem by Tupac Shakur. You have to do two activities with it.

1. Search who Tupac Shakur was. Are you surprised he is the author of this poem? Why/why not?

2. What makes this text poetry? Are there any literary devices?

Did you hear about the rose that grew

from a crack in the concrete?

Proving nature's law is wrong it

learned to walk with out having feet.

Funny it seems, but by keeping its dreams,

it learned to breathe fresh air.

Long live the rose that grew from concrete

when no one else ever cared.

A poem by Rudyard Kipling

Read this poem by Rudyard Kipling. What is it about? Is it written in iambic pentametres?

If

If you can keep your head when all about you   

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   

    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same;   

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

    And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   

    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

    If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   

    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

Late XXth century poetry: Carol Ann Duffy

Carol Ann Duffy is a Scottish poet and playwright born in 1955. Duffy uses simple words in her poems, which are easily accessible. That has made them immensely popular and widely studied at schools. A lot of her love poems reflect her experiences as a lesbian. 

Two popular poem titles of hers are Warming her pearls and Valentine.

Activity: Read both poems mentioned and write a paragraph saying what the poems are about and giving examples of their literary devices (metaphors, etc). It will be checked as homework and discussed in class as soon as classes restart.

Late XXth century narrative: Edna O'Brien and Ian McEwan

Edna O'Brien

Edna O'Brien is an Irish writer born in 1930.

O'Brien's works often revolve around the inner feelings of women, and their problems in relating to men, and to society as a whole. Her first novel, The Country Girls (1960), is often credited with breaking silence on sexual matters and social issues during a repressive period in Ireland following World War II. The book was banned for some time, and in some cases burned.

Ian McEwan

Ian McEwan is an English novelist and screenwriter born in 1948.

Lots of his novels have been made into films, the most popular being perhaps Atonement and Enduring Love.

No assignment for this part.

A poem by Shakespeare

We are going to read one of William Shakespeare's sonnets. In class we will be looking at its foot structure and meaning. Can you make some guesses?

Sonnet 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimmed;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,

Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,

When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.

     So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

     So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Basic concepts of poetry.

Line is a every line of a poem. Verse can have two meanings: the opposite of prose or it can be a synonym of stanza.

Stanzas are a series of lines grouped together and separated by an empty line from other stanzas. They are the equivalent of a paragraph in an essay. One way to identify a stanza is to count the number of lines. Thus:

• couplet (2 lines)
• tercet (3 lines)
• quatrain (4 lines)

Types of poems include:

Haiku: It has an unrhymed verse form having three lines (a tercet) and usually 5,7,5 syllables, respectively. It is of Japanese origin and often refers to a visual perception regarding nature.

Limerick: It is a very structured poem, usually humorous and a bit silly. It is composed of five lines.

Rhyme is the repetition of similar sounds, usually at the end of a line. Internal rhyme occurs in the middle of a line.

Meter is the systematic regularity in rhythm. 

Poetic Foot is the traditional rythmical unit in English poetry. This means: you do not count the syllables in a line but the feet. Each foot is a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables that is repeated in the line. Often the same foot type is repeated along the line.
The most common foot in English poetry is the iamb, which consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. In the line given as an example below there are five iambs one after the other and together they form the line. Notice how every iamb has one unstressed syllable (symbolized by U) and then one stressed syllable ( _ ).

Today / a man / arrived / at six / o'clock

                                           U   _  /  U   _  /  U   _  /  U   _  /  U   _  /  

As it is five iambs that form the line, this verse is called iambic pentametre, and is the most common in English poetry.

Blank Verse: If a poem has a metrical pattern but no rhyme, it is blank verse. Shakespeare used it often in his plays.

Modern poets sometimes do not follow any of these rules for poetry. They just keep some kind of rythm, but not necessarily with the traditional methods. Poetry that does not follow these rules is said to be free verse.

List of devices commonly used in poetry

Look at this list of literary devices commonly used in poetry and learn them. Then think of one more example of each literary device and bring it to class on the date the teacher tells you.

Common Figures of Speech & Poetic Devices

1. Alliteration--Alliteration is the repetition of initial consonant sounds in successive

or closely associated words. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.

2. Assonance--Assonance (slant rhyme) is the resemblance of similarity in sound

between vowels followed by different consonants in two or more stressed syllables

in a line of poetry. Then came the drone of a boat in the cove.

3. Hyperbole--Hyperbole is a figure of speech in which conscious exaggeration is

used for effect. I had a headache the size of a washtub.

4. Personification--Personification is a figure of speech in which animals, ideas,

abstractions or inanimate objects are endowed with human qualities. Death

reached down and carried the old man away.

5. Simile--A simile is a figure of speech in which a similarity between two objects or

ideas is expressed using the words "like" or "as." She sings like a bird. Considering

how much you hurt me, you might as well have put a dagger through my heart!

6. Metaphor--A metaphor is a figure of speech which imaginatively identifies one

object with another and attributes to the first object one or more qualities of the

second. Simply stated, a comparison that does not use "like" or "as."

John was a tiger in the battle, fighting with tooth and claw.

Mid XXth century drama in Britain

Click on the following link to view a presentation on the contents of drama for this term.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1DXbmhAVw2iWugYkruVXLi8y_sP9M7UnIlcEfn4OkKBM/edit#slide=id.p4

No assignment for this part.

Contents of the third term

In the third term, these are the contents corresponding to the part of text typology of Advanced English 1st Bachillerato. The contents will be dealt with in each blog entry.

1- Drama. Tom Stoppard. John Osborne.

2- Novel. Ian McEwan. Edna O'Brien.

3- Poetry. Carol Ann Duffy.

Blog for Text Typology. 2nd ESO and 1st Bachillerato

Important note: as the Educamadrid email address is giving some problems, you can also contact me at cervantesluisdelarosa@gmail.com 

Select the tag for your level and term: #2nd ESO, #1st Bachillerato or #2nd Bachillerato + the term you are in.
(Please, click below after the word "etiquetas")