Literary terms

Name : Dipti Vaghela

Roll no. : 09

Paper no. : 3^rd

Topic : Literary terms

                  

 Preface :

                   As we know that we communicate with each other by the help of language. We get pleasure from many way but literature is the best way to get different type of pleasure. If we want to get pleasure and morality so we must understand literature. If we want to study any literary book so we must learn and understand literary terms. There are so many literary terms like aestheticism, antihero, parody, mock-heroic, comedy, plot, melody, chorus, character, tragedy. So let’s know any five among these all.

~ Plot : 

 Plot means arrangement of incidents. Plot is a summary of a story and composed of causal events which means a series of sentences linked by ‘and’, ‘so’. For instance, ‘ the princess runs after the Queen, so finds the Queen’ is a plot. Plot arouses expectation in the audience and reader about the future course of events and action. The part of concerned read about what is going to happened, especially to characters with whom the reader has established a bound of sympathy , is known as surprise. The inter play of suspense and surprise are prime source in a traditional plot.  E.M. Forster said the shock of the unexpected , “ followed by the feelings, ‘ oh, that’s all right’ is a sign that all is well with the plot.’’ Generally there are two type of plots as under,

1)    Simple plot : Simple plots are made up of a series of episodes; they can be coherent and logical. It is the events that make up a story or coincidence. Thus simple plot  includes a reversal of the dramatic situation and recognition.

2)    Complex plot : Complex plot unfold through an internal logic and causality; they are not simple strings of episodes. A complicated plot is called an “ imbroglio” but even the simplest statements of plot may include multiple inferences.

                              Thus, a plot is commonly said to have “unity of action.” According to Aristotle put this concept, all the parts are “so closely connected that the transposal or withdrawal of any one of them will disjoint and dislocate the whole.” In his ‘Poetics’, he considered plot the most important than character. In a beginning, a middle, and an end, and the events of the plot must causally relate to one another

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~ Character : 

The character is the name of a literary genre; it is a short and usually witty, sketch in prose of a distinctive type of person. In the second century BC, a Greek author Theophrastus wrote a lively book ‘ Characters’. A character is a person in a narrative work of arts. It derived from the Greek “Kharacter”. In literature, charaters guide readers through their stories, helping them to understand plots and ponder themes. Since the end of the 18^th century, the phrase “in character” has been used to describe an effective impersonation by an actor. Since the 19^th century the art of creating characters, as practiced by actor or writers, has been called characterisation.

                              Characters are the persons represented in a dramatic or narrative work , who are interpreted by the reader as possessing particular moral, intellectual and emotional qualities by inference from what the person say and their ways of saying dialogues and action. E.M. Forster, in ‘ Aspects of the Novel, introduced new terms for an old distinction by discriminating between flat and round characters.

1)    Flat character : Flat character have one personality. It reveals only one character, simple personality. Flat characters are minor character in a work of fiction who does not undergo substantial change or growth in the course of a story. In story it support round character. Forster says, is built around “a single idea or quality” and is presented without much individualising detail, and therefore can be described adequately in a single phrase or sentence

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2)    Round character : Round character have many personality. A round character is complex in temperament and motivation and is represented with subtle particularity ; such a character therefore is a difficult to describe with any adequacy as a person in real life and like real person, is capable of surprising us.

Thus these both the characters are apposite with each other. Flat has a personality and round has multiple personality.

~ Song/ Melody : 

“Melos” is Greek word for song. A melody is tune, voice, or line, is a liner succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. A melody is a combination of pitch and rhythm it can include other element such as tonal colour. It consist of one or more musical phrases or motifs. It may also be describe by their melodic motion or the pitches or the intervals between pitches, pitch range, tension release, continuity and coherence, cadence, and shape. According to Johann Philipp Kirnberger, “ The true goal of music – its proper enterprise is melody. All the parts of harmony have as their ultimate purpose only beautiful melody. Therefore the question of which is the more significant, melody or harmony, is futile. Beyond doubj, the means is subordinate to the end”.

                              Melody is most European music written before the 20^th century, and popular music throughout the end of 20^th century. Indian classical music relies heavily on melody and rhythm not so much harmony. Thus, by the help of this word “melody” melodrama originated.

~ Chorus : Among the ancient Greek the chorus was a group of people, wearing masks, who sang a song regarding religious festivals. A similar chorus played a part in Greek tragedies where they served mainly as commentator on the dramatic action and events who expressed traditional moral, religious and social attitudes. It beginning with Euripides, the chorus assumed primarily a lyrical function. The Greek ode, as developed by Pindar, was also chanted by a chorus. In Nietzsche’s view, actors were introduced to the enact the event that had originally and the chorus was reduced to the role of commentator.

                              Roman playwrights, Seneca took over the chorus from the Greek, and in the mid-sixteenth century some English dramatists imitated Senecan chorus. In Elizabethan era the term “chorus” was applied also to a single person who, in some plays, spoke the prologue and epilogue and sometimes introduced each act as well.

                              Thus the term chorus used for a group of people, they sing a song in the play.

~ Tragedy : 

In literature there are some form of writing like novel, poetry, epic, drama, etc. And in the form of drama , there are main two types, comedy and tragedy. So let’s know the term of tragedy in detail.

                              Tragedy based on human suffering. It originated in the theatre of ancient Greek 2500 years ago.  Some of Greek dramatists were popular such as Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides. Aristotle defined tragedy as “ the imitation of an action that is serious and also, as having magnitude, complete in itself,” in the medium of poetic language and in the manner of dramatic rather than of narrative presentation, involving “ incidents arousing  pity and fear, where with to accomplish the catharsis of such emotions.”

                              Shakespeare’s ‘Othello’ is closely connected with Aristotle’s basic concept of the tragic hero and plot. The hero of Macbeth is not a good man who commits a tragic error. Then the form of Tragicomedy developed.

~ Conclusion : 

Thus by the understanding of these literary terms, we can easily understand the literature. We can also develop our knowledge by this type of terms. I think that if we study literature so we must know about those terms.