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A Brief Introduction to English Literature

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A Brief Introduction to English

Literature

By

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© Charles M Kamau All Rights Reserved

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Books by the same author:

1. Foundations of Kenya's Company Law with Cases and Materials. (Amazon)

2. Basic Principles of Criminal Litigation in Kenya (Amazon)

3. Wisdom of Ages: A survival guide to Wealth, Peace & Happiness (Amazon)

4. CHINA: Understanding the Country and it’s People ( E-book Available at Amazon)

5. Principles of Kenyan Constitutional Law, (forthcoming, LawAfrica Publishers)

6. Mastering English as a Second Language (Amazon)

7. The Art of Great Lawyers (Scribd)

Recommended

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Contents

Literature ... 8

Aims and outcomes ... 9

Literary criticism ... 10

Plot and Structure ... 12

Some structural elements of plots ... 12

Examples of plots: ... 13

Setting ... 16

Examples of setting: ... 16

Theme ... 17

Examples of Themes ... 18

Characterisation ... 20

Types of characters ... 20

Narrator ... 22

Examples of Narrators ... 22

Tone and Style ... 24

Stream of consciousness ... 24

Figurative Language ... 27

Simile ... 29

Examples of usage: ... 29

Metaphor ... 31

Epithet ... 33

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Examples of usage: ... 33

Allegory... 34

Examples of allegories: ... 34

Personification ... 35

Examples of usage: ... 35

Analogies ... 37

Examples of Usage ... 37

Humour ... 38

Example of usage ... 39

Satire ... 40

Examples of usage: ... 41

Sarcasm ... 43

Example of usage: ... 43

Irony ... 45

Example of usage ... 46

Symbolism ... 48

Examples of usage: ... 48

Motif ... 52

Examples of usage: ... 52

Paradox ... 53

Examples of usage: ... 53

Imagery ... 55

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Example of usage ... 55

Anaphora ... 57

Examples of usage: ... 57

Idioms ... 59

Examples ... 59

Allusions ... 64

Examples ... 64

Section Summary ... 71

Genres ... 72

Identifying a genre ... 72

Prose ... 74

Selected Excerpts in English ... 75

Poetry ... 99

The purposes of poetic writing ... 100

Why study poetry ... 101

How to read poetry ... 102

Poetic forms ... 104

The sonnet ... 104

The epic ... 109

The ode ... 110

Elegy ... 112

A ballad ... 113

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The Song ... 115

Dramatic poetry ... 116

Blank verse ... 117

Poetic Prose... 118

Tonal devices of poetry ... 119

Alliteration ... 119

Assonance ... 119

Rhyme ... 119

Onomatopoeia ... 119

Other literary devices ... 119

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“‘Literary’ language is commonly distinguished from the language of ordinary life by certain heightening or suppressions. The novelist or essayist, let us say, fashions his language more or less in accordance with his own mood, with his immediate aim in writing, with the capacity of his expected readers. He is discoursing with a certain real or imaginary audience. He may put himself on paper, as Montaigne said, as if he were talking to the first man he happens to meet; or he may choose to address himself to the few chosen spirits of his generation and of succeeding generations. He trusts the arbitrary written or printed symbols of word-sounds to carry his thoughts safely into the minds of other men.” A study of Poetry By Bliss Perry

“The best moments in reading are when you come across something– a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things – which you had thought special and particular to you. Now here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours.” Hector in The History Boys (2004), by Alan Bennett

Literature

Central to the study of literature is the critical analysis of how language is purposefully and creatively used in texts in order to create meaning and explore issues or themes. Through the literary skills of reading and responding critically and personally to literary texts, you actively construct meaning and in the process make connections between the texts, your live and the world around you. The study of Literature encourages you to enter imagined worlds and to explore, to examine, and to reflect on both current and timeless issues, as well as your individuality and humanity at large.

Therefore, the main rationale for studying Literature is that it helps you to develop a humanistic outlook on life. Through a close interaction with literary or creative works which portray a diverse range of human thought, emotion and experience, you are able to gain knowledge and understanding of the nature of human existence and to develop insights into and an appreciation of the world and of the society in which you live.

The study of literary texts both sharpens and broadens your mind.

In addition literature sharpens your critical thinking skills. It helps you to:

cultivate a questioning mind;

explore personal and social issues; and

Interrogate and manage ambiguities and

multiple perspectives.

This introduction to Literature booklet is aimed at building the reader’s socio-cultural sensitivity and awareness. At broadening your global outlook: this it does by offering you

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Ends of Language

The ends of language are, first, to make known one man’s thoughts to another; secondly, to do it with ease and quickness; and thirdly, thereby to convey the knowledge of things. When language fails in any of these requisites, it is abused or deficient. He who in conversation uses the words of any language without distinct ideas in his mind to which he applies them, only utters sounds without

signification, and is in reality no more advanced in knowledge than he would be in learning, who had in his library the catalogues of books, without possessing the books themselves. He who has complex ideas, without particular names for them, is embarrassed in his conversation for want of proper terms to communicate his complex ideas, which he is therefore forced to make known by a detail of the simple ones which compose them: and thus is frequently compelled to use twenty words to express what another more fluent and ready man signifies by one. He who annexes not constantly the same word to the same idea, but uses the same word sometimes in one and sometimes in another signification, ought to pass in conversation for as fair and candid a man as he does in the market, who sells several things by the same name.

By John Locke

opportunities to explore a wide range of literary texts written in different contexts and from various parts of the world, and from different ages and cultures. Above all it aims at stimulating your thinking about different beliefs and values. Hopefully, by the end your empathy and understanding ‘of the other’ will be stronger.

Aims and outcomes

To develop skills of literary comprehension and appreciation

to examine and discuss form and content, showing: comprehension of the thoughts and feelings conveyed in the texts

To develop critical appreciation of the language, technique and style through which these thoughts and feelings are expressed

to demonstrate the ability to compare and contrast literary or creative texts in terms of themes, characterization, language, technique and style

to show awareness of the connections between literary or creative texts and other cultural media (such as paintings, sculpture, photography)

to apply some of the techniques learnt to one’s own creative work

to develop an interest in following up references and allusions, and the ability to establish interconnections within and between texts

to develop a keen interest in reading and viewing literary or creative works

to gain pleasure and enjoyment from reading and viewing literary or creative works and to appreciate the beauty, flexibility and play of language at its best

to gain increased awareness of human relationships and the interaction between the

individual and society and

to empathize with others.

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Literary criticism

Strictly defined, “literary criticism” refers to the act of interpreting and studying literature. As a literary critic you have to evaluate the worth or quality of a piece of literature as well as to argue on behalf of an interpretation or understanding of the particular meaning(s) of literary texts.

The task is to explain and attempt to reach a critical understanding of what literary texts mean in terms of their aesthetic, as well as social, political, and cultural statements and suggestions. As a literary critic you do more than simply discuss or evaluate the importance of a literary text; rather, you must seek to reach a logical and reasonable understanding of not only what a text’s author intends for it to mean but, also, what different cultures and ideologies render it capable of meaning.

NOTE:

It is only when students develop the ability to read and view critically and independently that they apply the ability to select and appreciate literature outside the classroom.

“A perfect Judge will read each Work of Wit With the same Spirit that its Author writ, Survey the Whole, nor seek slight Faults to find” Alexander Pope

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Guidelines for Reading Literature

During the First reading

Determine what is happening, where, what, who is involved, major characters Make a record of your reactions and responses

Describe characterizations, events, techniques and ideas During the Second reading

Trace developing patterns

Write expanded notes about characters, situations, actions Write paragraph describing your reactions and thoughts Write down questions that arise as you read

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Plot and Structure

Plot is the sequence or order of events that take place in a story, or in a work of art. It is the structure of the story. Aristotle in poetics says: a plot must have, a beginning, middle, and an end, and the events of the plot must causally relate to one another as being either necessary or probable.

The plot has to draw the reader into the character’s lives and helps the reader understand the choices that the characters make.

The plot may be related in different orders: for example, Chronological/Linear (natural order); in media res (in the middle of things); or begin in the present and return to the past (for example, through the use of flashbacks).

A plot’s structure is the way in which the story elements are arranged.

Some structural elements of plots

Exposition and/or Rising Action: how readers learn details previous to the story’s beginning, and then continues toward the climax of the story

Diversion: any episode prior to the climax that does not contribute directly to the rising action or add to the suspense (example: comic relief in tragedy).

Suspense: A feeling of uncertainty as to the outcome, used to build interest and excitement on the part of the audience. Related to this is ‘The Hook’ which refers to the part of the text that gets people interested in what you have to say. Hooks are well-placed at the beginning but can be found elsewhere in the plotting as well.

Back-story: this is the background story of the characters. Characters have a past and there are usually important events that have taken place prior to the story itself, and sometimes the past will drive the action in the present. This is back-story, also known as what-happened-before-this-story-took place.

Sub-plots: A story within a story… Sub-plots are the little things going on in the background that often make the main plot more interesting by giving the reader more to think about. These little events are especially effective when they tie in seamlessly with the main plot. Exposition: this is the information needed to understand a story.

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Conflict: struggle between or among characters or entities; how characters deal with conflict helps reader interpret or reconcile characters. It also refers to the internal or external struggle between opposing forces, ideas, or interests that creates dramatic tension

Climax: this is the turning point in the story that occurs when characters try to resolve the complication. Climax is usually the moment of greatest emotional intensity.

Dénouement (“unknotting”) or Falling Action or Resolution: this is the set of events that bring the story to a close.This is where the unravelling of tensions occurs; where most questions answered; and where characters are left to deal with consequences of conflicts. A plot may take one the following types of endings:

Happy ending – everything ends well and all is resolved.

Tragic or Unhappy ending – many events in life do not end pleasantly, so literary fiction that emulates life is more apt to have an unhappy conclusion, forcing the reader to contemplate the complexities of life.

Open-ended/Lack of Resolution/Partial Resolution/Indeterminate – no definitive ending or resolution occurs, leaving the reader to ponder the issued raised by the story.

NOTE

The ‘Freytag Pyramid’ is used as a basis for analysing plot. Climax

Exposition Resolution

Part of plot is how the author chooses to structure time. Many times an author opts to tell a story out of chronological sequence, perhaps with flashbacks or foreshadowing (which offers hints to future events.

Examples of plots:

The Chinese classical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which is widely regarded as one of the greatest works of Chinese literature tells the story of a tumultuous period in Chinese history, the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD. In the final years of the Han dynasty,

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treacherous eunuchs and incompetent officials deceive the emperor and persecute good ministers, and the government becomes extremely corrupt on all levels, leading to widespread deterioration of the empire and the Yellow Scarves rebellion.

As a result of the rebellion (which led to the weakening of the central government), and a disgruntled peasantry suffering from natural disasters the military leaders and local warlords became more powerful eventually leading to the collapse of the Dynasty.

Three Kingdoms (part historical, part legend and part myth) recounts the fighting and scheming of the feudal lords and their retainers after the fall of the Han Dynasty under Emperor Ling, due to the rebellion. It then tells of the Empire falling and being divided into the three kingdoms – Shu, Wei, and Wu – and the reunification of the empire by the Jin Dynasty.

The first eighty chapters describe in detail the crisis that causes the end of a four-hundred- year dynasty. For example we learn that, in the final years of the Han Dynasty, those who held the highest positions in the military were not necessarily men of merit but men with the correct bloodline. That the main factor to the downfall of the dynasty was jealousy and rivalry between the ruling eunuchs, families and clans. That in the period before the downfall of the Dynasty there were many natural disasters.

Later the book tells of how three warlord states emerged victorious from this age of anarchy, establishing their boundaries from their conquered lands.

The novel also contains numerous secondary stories.

The other example is Franz Kafka’s The Trial

The plot starts when an ambitious, young bank official named Josef K. is arrested by two officers from unspecified state agency, although he has done nothing wrong. K. is indignant and outraged. Throughout the ‘trial’ the nature of his crime revealed to him.

After his release K. receives a phone call summoning him to court on the following. However, no time is set, but the address is given to him, which turns out to be an airless, shabby, and crowded room located in a huge tenement building. Although ‘K’ has no idea what he is charged with, or who authorized the process he makes a long speech denigrating the whole process.

Later K. is visited by his uncle who introduces him to a lawyer. The lawyer only tells him that he can prepare a brief for K., but since the charge is unknown and the rules are unknown, it

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is difficult work. He informs K. that the brief may never be read, but it is still very important. He then confesses that his most important task is to deal with powerful court officials behind the scenes.

In K.’s numerous visits to the lawyer the lawyer impresses on him how dire his situation is and tells many stories of other hopeless clients and of his behind-the-scenes efforts on behalf of these clients. He also brags about his many connections. Still, the brief is never complete. Meanwhile K.’s work at the bank deteriorates as he is consumed with worry about his case. One year later, two officers come again for K. They take him to a quarry outside of town and kill him in the name of the Law.

In Alexander Dumas’ The Count of Monte Christo

In the plot the lead character, Edmond Dantes is betrayed during the prime of his life and career by the jealousy of his friend who wanted to marry the girl that Dantes was engaged to. The magistrate is corrupted and imprisons Dantes on tramped up charges.

While in prison, in the deepest dungeons of the Chateau D’If, he was determined to escape and began digging a tunnel in hopes that it would lead to freedom. During this exercise, he met an elderly inmate named Abbe Faria ‘the mad priest’ whose attempt to dig his way to his salvation had led him only to Edmond’s cell. The old man taught Edmond history, economics, mathematics, and languages and many other subjects.

In Edmond’s fourteenth year, Faria became mortally ill. Since the two had become like father and son, the wise elder told Edmond the location of a massive buried fortune. When Faria died his body was placed in a burial sac and left in his cell. Edmond seized the opportunity of escaping, he replaced Faria’s corpse with himself. The Jailers threw the sack into the sea and that way Dantes escaped. He then found himself in Monte Christo, after recovering the hidden treasure, where he planned and executed revenge against those who had put him in prison, including the corrupt magistrate.

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Setting

In simple terms, setting is the time, place, and social reality within which a story takes place. The setting may be a time in history, a geographical place, or an imaginary location.

In stories in which place is the important element of setting, the writer usually provides specific, sometimes extended descriptions of the place.

In other stories, the treatment of time is more significant than place. In literature, time functions in three different ways: the period of time in which a story takes place, how much time passes during the plot of the story, and how the passage of that time is perceived by the lead character (such as, if he or she is having fun time goes quickly, but if he/she is lonely or worried time drags).

Just as important as time and place, is the social context of a story, which is often a product of time and place.

We must understand enough about the society— its customs, values, possibilities— to know what constraints the characters face, what they are free to choose, and what they may not do. NOTE

You have to understand where the text is based, in which period of time, in which society and at which level in that society if you are to interpret correctly the other elements in the story.

Examples of setting:

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander takes place during the years after the decline of Napoleon’s empire. The story begins in 1815 and ends in 1844. The historical setting is a fundamental element of the book.

The setting of the novel is all throughout Europe; the novel begins in Marseilles (France), but then leads to other locations such as Monte Cristo (France), Rome (Italy), and Constantinople (Greece).

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Theme

The theme of a literary text can be said to be the Message of the text, the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.

The ‘Universal’ means that although the particulars of the readers experience may be different from the details of the story, the reader can connect with the general underlying truths behind the story.

The theme can also be described in terms of a moral, or message, or lesson that the reader can gain from the piece of literature. The Theme is rarely stated in the text instead, as a reader you must usually consider the plot, characters, and setting to infer the theme.

Theme can be found in any of these:

Direct statements by the authorial voice. Themes are presented in thoughts and conversations of the main characters.

Direct statements by a first-person speaker or dramatic statements by characters. Authors put words in their character’s mouths only for good reasons. One of these is to develop a story’s themes. Look for thoughts that are repeated throughout the story. characters who stand for ideas. The main character usually illustrates the most important theme of the story. A good way to get at this theme is to ask yourself the question, what does the main character learn in the course of the story?

The work itself. The actions or events in the story are used to suggest theme. People naturally express ideas and feelings through their actions. One thing authors think about is what an action will ‘say’. In other words, how will the action express an idea or theme?

Further suggestions on finding the theme:

Check out the title. Sometimes the title tells you a lot about the theme.

Notice repeating patterns and symbols. Sometimes these lead you to the theme.

Identify the figurative language used and the allusions that are made throughout the story. Understand the details and particulars of the story. Ask yourself if they may have a greater meaning.

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Examples of Themes

Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World has the following themes:

The use of technology to control society,

the incompatibility of happiness and truth,

the dangers of an all-powerful state.

George Orwell’s 1984 themes include: The Dangers of Totalitarianism

Psychological Manipulation by those in power

Control of Information and History by despotic governments Language as Mind Control

Similarly, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s, The Brothers Karamazov has the following themes:

The Conflict between Faith and Doubt. Dostoevsky also sets characters in opposing, contrasting roles, and he pits ideas and philosophies against each other

The Pervasiveness of Moral Responsibility. Dostoevsky states that every man is partially responsible for the sins of his fellow man.

The Burden of Free Will. The novel challenges the notion that in the absence of moral laws, man is free to do whatever he chooses.

Lastly, Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country tackles the following theme:

Conflict between the Urban and Rural Society. Paton clearly places his sympathy on the qualities of rural life: rural society comes to represent family, religion, morality and stability, while the chaotic urban life that Paton describes represents the breaking up of families, hedonism, and atheism.

NOTE

The moral of a fable is its theme. The theme of a parable is its teaching. The theme of a piece of fiction is its view about life and how people behave.

Theme is often confused with other literary elements such as Plot or Topic (or Subject). However, the Theme of a piece of literature is a message about people, life, and the world we live in that the author wants the reader to understand.

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The Topic, on the other hand, is the main idea or gist of the story. Exercise

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Characterisation

Characters:

Characters are the people (sometimes animals or ideas) portrayed by the actors in the text. It is the characters who move the action, or plot, of the play forward. Characters can be described physically, intellectually, emotionally, socially, or philosophically.

Character Analysis

This is done to identify the sort of characters being portrayed in the text. The following can assist you in your analysis:

1. The speech and sayings of the person, noting that: what he or she says need not be taken at face value; the person may be hypocritical, or self-deceived, or biased).

2. The actions of the person.

3. The opinion of others (including the narrator of the story) about the person.

4. The actions of others in relation to the person (their actions may help to indicate what the person could do but does not do).

5. The appearance of the person including; face, body, clothes (these may help to convey the personality, or they may in some measure help to disguise it).

6. Determine the character’s appearance, personality, and ethical qualities. 7. Sometimes the environment (setting) even functions as a character.

Types of characters

Main Characters

These characters are almost always round or three-dimensional characters. They have good and bad qualities. Over the course of the story their goals, ambitions and values change. A dynamic character grows or progresses to a higher level of understanding in the course of the story.

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Minor Characters

These characters are almost always flat or two-dimensional characters. They have only one or two striking qualities. Their predominant quality is not balanced by an opposite quality. They are usually all good or all bad. Such characters can be interesting or amusing in their own right, but they lack depth.

Flat characters are sometimes referred to as ‘static’ characters because they do not change in the course of the story.

Examples of characters

The Count of Monte Christo

Protagonist- that is, the lead or main character in the novel is Edmond Dantes.

Antagonist – that is, the character who operates in opposition to the lead character, in the novel is Fernand who fell in love with Edmond's fiancée. He plots for Edmond to be jailed. Round/Complex character – interesting character, can’t be ‘second guessed’ a good example is; Abbe Faria, he was a priest, a scholar and a political prisoner. While in prison he had made escape tools, had written a treatise and in stills vengeance in his young protégé. He also had knowledge of where lots of treasure was hidden.

Flat/Simple character – this are characters who are not very interesting. An example could be Eugenie Danglars who was originally set to marry Albert de Morcerf. She later runs away with her best friend Louise d’Armilly.

Dynamic character – this is a character who evolves as the story progresses. A good example is Mercedes or Countess de Morcerf, the fiancé of Edmond Dantes, who later married Ferdinard after caring for Dantes’ father until his death. She also kept the secret of her son’s true father to herself only revealing it when the son challenges Monte Cristo to a duel for having destroyed his father’s honour.

Static character – stays the same throughout the story an example is Madame Heloise de Villefort who keeps on poisoning people, in order to secure their inheritance, throughout the story. At the end she poisons herself.

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Narrator

Refers to speaker, narrator, persona or voice created by the author to tell the story This may be in,

First person = I, we

Second person = You (uncommon)

Third person = He, she, they (most common

)

The Point of view of the narrator may be: Dramatic/objective = strictly reporting Omniscient = all-knowing

Limited omniscient = some insight

The narrator is the person who tells the story and the story is told from his/her point of view. Often the narrator is simply a voice that tells the story in the third person (someone we do not know and who takes no part in the story). This type of narrator has no personality, but has the power to know the minds and hearts of all the characters in the novel.

A third person narrator like this knows everything about the characters and events in the novel. They can follow characters into their homes and into their thoughts, and they are present to describe all the events that take place. Sometimes the narrator has the voice of the author and may comment on the action or characters. They may even speak directly to the reader.

Examples of Narrators

In Two Thousand Seasons Kwame Armar employees the services of an omniscient narrator:

“…Killers who from the desert brought us in the aftermath of Anoa’s prophecy a choice of deaths; death of our spirit, the clogging destruction of our minds with their senseless religion of slavery. In answer to our refusal of this proffered death of our soul they brought our bodies slaughter. Killers who from the sea came holding death of the body in their right, the mind’s annihilation in their left, shrieking fables of a white god and son unconceived, exemplar of their proffered, senseless suffering.”

Another narrator (Anoa) poses the rhetorical question “Slavery-do you know what that is?” then goes on and provides the answer herself:

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Ah, you will know it. Two thousand seasons, a thousand going into it, a second thousand crawling maimed from it, will teach you everything about enslavement, the destruction of souls, killing the bodies, the infusion of violence into every breath, every drop, every morsel of sustaining air, your water, food.

Another narrator Isanusi says:

“The first wish of the white men is this: they have our land, of the beauty...These metals it is the white men’s wish to take away from us... This is the white men’s second wish,” Isanusi continues “They have been told of the forest here and of the grasslands; of the birds and animals we have roaming the land. It is the white men’s wish to have us help them kill these birds for food. The elephants they say... There is a third wish the white men have made. Land they want from us, but not the way guests ask the use of land.”

Later the narrator continues:

“It is our destiny not to flee the predator’s thrust, not to seek hiding places from the destroyers left triumphant; but turn against the destroyers, and bending all our soul against their thrust, turning every stratagem of the destroyers against themselves, destroy them. That is our destiny: to end destruction utterly; to begin the highest, the profoundest work of creation, the work that is inseparable from our way, inseparable from the way.”

Further examples of narrator

Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness has two different first person narrators, an anonymous frame narrator (a member of the company who hears Marlow tell his story), and then Marlow himself.

Rider Haggard’s Montezuma’s Daughter, is narrated by in the first person Thomas Wingfield.

Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World on its part uses a Third-person omniscient narrator, primarily from the point of view of Bernar or John but also from the point of view of Lenina, Helmholtz Watson, and Mustapha Mond.

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‘Consciousness, then, does not appear to itself chopped up in bits. Such words as ‘chain’ or ‘train’ do not describe it fitly as it presents itself in the first instant. It is nothing jointed: it flows. A ‘river’ or a ‘stream’ are the metaphors by which it is most naturally described. In talking of it hereafter, let as call it the stream of thought, of consciousness, or of subjective life.” William James, Principles of Psychology, (1890)

Tone and Style

The Tone is the methods by which writers and speakers reveal their attitudes or feelings towards their audience, characters, narrator, theme, or subject. Tone can be found or expressed by diction, word choice, syntax, metaphors, word arrangement, imagery, appeal to senses, and even words that seem unrelated in context.

Writer’s tone can be serious, sarcastic, tongue-in- cheek, solemn, objective, satirical, solemn, commanding, affectionate, hostile etc.

The Style is ways in which writers assemble words to tell the story, to develop an argument, dramatize the play, and compose the poem. In other words style is the choice of words in the service of content.1

The Essential aspect of style is diction. Diction refers to the word choices a writer makes.

A writer’s diction may be said to be either, formal (which uses standard or elegant words), neutral (which uses everyday standard vocabulary)or informal (which uses colloquial language or slang).

Stream of consciousness

This is a style of writing in which the thoughts and feelings of the writer are recorded as they occur.

Stream of consciousness writing allows an author to create the illusion that the reader is privy to sensations and uncensored thoughts within a character’s mind before the character has ordered them into any rational form or shape, thereby gaining direct, intimate and unmediated access to their personal, private “thoughts.”2

1

Roberts and Jacobs, Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing

2

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Example:

Why Are We So Blest? By Kwame Armah is an example of stream of consciousness. The author adopts a broken narrative strategy which reflects the minds of the three protagonists that are in a state of constant agitation. Narrated in fragments, their lives of dissipation and inaction run as in a whirlpool.

The reader is constantly compelled to go forward and backward in order to fill gaps, reconstruct a chronology of events, and make a whole of the bits and pieces of their biographical information scattered haphazardly through the story.

NOTE

Resist the impulse to assess a work after you first read it, even if you have diligently. A thorough critical analysis cannot be accomplished until you’ve reread the work.

Critical Thinking – analysis of any work of literature – requires a thorough investigation of the “who, where, when, what, why, etc.” of the work.

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Exercise:

Choose one literary work novel from any of those which have been given as examples in this section and critically read it. Then attempt the following criticism.

How would you describe the choice of words and their arrangement (the style) in this work? Does the author call attention to the way he or she uses words, or is the style inconspicuous? What are the various connotations (shades of meaning, or emotional suggestions) of key words in this work?

If dialect or colloquial speech is used, what is its effect? Is the level of language appropriate for the speaker or characters in the work?

Are there statements or actions in this work that are presented ironically (that is, there is a discrepancy between appearance and reality, or between what is said and what is intended)? Is the style consistent throughout the work or does it shift to a different style (more formal or less formal, for example)?

Is the style suitable for the subject and theme of the work? Does it contribute to the meaning of the whole or hinder the reader’s understanding?

If you are reading a translation of a foreign work of literature or a modern translation of an older English work, what limitations or difficulties are created by your lack of contact with the author’s original language?

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The next section deals with different literary techniques that writers employ to convey their meaning and to achieve their purpose.

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“There is a generally accepted division of language into literal and figurative. Language that is literal uses words in their accepted and accurate meaning. Figurative language employs words with meanings not strictly literal, but varying from their ordinary definitions. The use of figurative language falls under the ambit of a writer’s personal style. This is the subject of our next study.” Composition and Literature By W. F. (William Franklin

“Proper words in proper places; make the true definition of style.” Jonathan Swift “The final cause of speech is to get an idea as exactly as possible out of one mind into another. Its formal cause therefore is such choice and disposition of words as will achieve this end most economically.” G. M. Young

Figurative Language

“Content helps to determine style. And one of the best ways to palm off inferior goods is to wrap them up in a respectable-looking package.” Anon

Figurative Language is any expression that stretches the meaning of words beyond their literal meaning. Figurative language is not intended to be interpreted in a literal sense. It is language that appeals to the imagination and to the emotions. It uses devices such as similes, metaphors, analogies, irony and to describe something. Through use of such figures of speech the writer describes things through the use of unusual comparisons, for effect, interest and to make things clearer.

The opposite if figurative language is literal language which means exactly what it says. To speak literally all the time would make language dull and limit your abilities to express your emotions.

Figurative language provides new ways of looking at the world. It adds clearness to our speech; it gives it more force; or it imparts to literature beauty. ‘Figurative language’ is often used in speaking and writing to express ideas and emotions, and to affect the views and attitudes of others. There are many reasons why you can choose to use figurative language: to add colour, drama, persuasiveness, beauty, clarity, and wit. You can also use it to conceal your real feelings.

Without Figures of Speech your writing would be plodding and boring. Similarly, some complex ideas can be explained better through the use of figurative language.

Since use of figurative language is a matter of style, learning

to use figurative language is an important step in developing a mature and rich writing style. Style in English Literature is the way in which a work is presented through the voice of the author. Style, as the word is commonly understood, is the choice and arrangement of words

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in sentences and of sentences in paragraphs in a way that is effective in expressing your meaning and convincing your readers or hearers. In short, your Style is created by the words you choose and the way you structure those words into a sentence.

It is important to understand that, style is not fancy or pompous language added to plain statements of fact. A good style is one that is effective, and a bad style is one which fails of doing what the writer wishes to do.

Henry David Thoreau was spot on when he said:

“Who cares what a man’s style is, so it is intelligible, as intelligible as his thought. Literally and really, the style is no more than the stylus, the pen he writes with; and it is not worth scraping and polishing, and gilding, unless it will write his thoughts the better for it. It is something for use, and not to look at.”

There are as many ways of expressing ideas as there are ways of combining words and as many styles as there are writers.

Style is just as essential to a piece of work as plot, setting, theme, and characters. Now let us look at different figures of speech.

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Comparison

The principal figures based upon comparison are simile, metaphor, epithet, personification, apostrophe, allegory, and analogy.

Simile

A simile is one of the simplest figures of speech. It is nothing more or less than a direct comparison by the use of such words as like and as.

The simile is used to help readers understand something new by comparing it with something familiar. In other words when a writer compares one thing with another he confers the qualities of the image upon the subject.

In addition, writers use similes to attract the attention of their readers and appeal directly to familiar experiences, therefore of making it easier for their imagination to comprehend what is being communicated.

Example:

Marriage is like a pair of scissors, so joined that they cannot be separated, often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing anyone who comes between them.

Examples of usage:

“Now an army may be likened to water, for just as flowing water avoids the heights and hastens to the lowlands, so an army avoids strength and strikes weakness” Sun Tzu The Art of War

“They bend their tongue like their bow; Lies and not truth prevail in the land; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they do not know Me, declares the LORD.” (Jeremiah 9:3.)

“We all, like sheep have gone astray…” (Isaiah 53:6).

“As Unto the bow the cord is, So unto the man is woman; Though she bends him, she obeys him, Though she draws him,

yet she follows: Useless each without the other.”

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“When I have stopped reading, ideas from the words stay stuck in my mind, like the sweet smell of butter perfuming my fingers long after the popcorn is finished.” (I love the look of words, Maya Angelo)

“Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout is a beautiful woman who shows no discretion” (Proverbs. 11:22)

“When campaigning, be swift as the wind; in leisurely march, majestic as the forest; in riding and plundering, like fire; in standing, firm as the mountains. As unfathomable as the clouds; move like a thunderbolt.” (The Art of War, Sun Tzu)

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But yet, if we would speak of things as they are, we must allow, that all the art of rhetoric, besides order and clearness, all the artificial and figurative application of words eloquence has invented, are for nothing else but to insinuate wrong ideas, move the passions, and thereby mislead the judgment; and so indeed are perfect cheats: and therefore, however laudable or allowable oratory may render them in harangues and popular addresses, they are certainly, in all discourses that pretend to inform or instruct, wholly to be avoided; and where truth and knowledge are concerned, cannot but be thought a great fault, either of the language or the person that makes use of them.John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

Metaphor

“The greatest thing by far is to be master of metaphor.” Aristotle poetics

“Look at almost any passage, and you’ll find that a paragraph has five or six metaphors in it. It’s not that the speaker is trying to be poetic, it’s just that that’s the way language works.” Steven

Pinker author

The metaphor is the commonest figure of speech; indeed, it is so common that figurative language is often called metaphorical language.

A metaphor is an implied comparison or assumed comparison between things essentially different, but having some common quality. Many words in English language have their roots in metaphor.

In metaphor the words ‘like’ and ‘as’ are no not used. However, the construction of the sentence is such that the comparison is taken for granted and the thing to which comparison is made is treated as if it were the thing itself.

Metaphors enable a writer to convey briefly and vividly ideas that might otherwise need tedious exposition. By use of familiar images the complex is made comprehensible.

It cannot be overemphasised that in practice we always use metaphor to give expression to abstract concepts.

Example of metaphors:

Procrastination is the thief of time;

Year after year it steals, till all are fled, And to the mercies of a moment leaves

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No man is an island

No man is an island, Entire of itself.

Each is a piece of the continent, A part of the main By John

Donne,

Night Thoughts

Be wise to-day; ’tis madness to defer; Next day the fatal precedent will plead. Thus on, till wisdom is push’d out of life. Edward Young (1681-1765)

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul. William Ernest Henley The vast concerns of an eternal scene.

If not so frequent, would not this be strange? That 'tis so frequent, this is stranger still.

John Milton’s Paradise lost makes an extensive use of metaphors, so does Dante’s Divine comedy.

An extended metaphor is one where there is a single main subject to which additional subjects and metaphors are applied

The Caged Bird by Maya Angelou and Invictus are good examples of extended metaphors.

NOTE

Metaphors are crucial to our everyday thinking; they are used as shorthand for complex ideas. However, care should be taken, so that they are not taken too literally and thus end up being a hindrance to understanding rather than a help.

Do not get into trouble by using a “mixed metaphor”, that is using two comparisons in the same sentence or paragraph, one of which contradicts the other.

There are a number of figures that express emotion by simply changing the normal order of the sentence. Among these are inversion, exclamation, interrogation, climax, and irony.

We experience reality metaphorically. What we know, we know metaphorically.

In fact, the ‘fixed truths’ of our culture are nothing but

metaphorical understandings that have become

conventionalised to the point where the original metaphor has been forgotten.

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Epithet

An epithet is a word, generally a descriptive adjective or a noun, used, not to give information, but to impart strength or ornament to diction. It is like a shortened metaphor. In literature, an epithet is a literary device that describes a person, place or thing in such a way that it brings out or makes prominent the typical characteristic of the person, place or thing described.

It is very often found in impassioned prose or verse. Notice that in each epithet there is a comparison; that the figure is based on likeness.

The function of an epithet is to attract full attention of the readers.

Examples of usage:

Leo Tolstoy’s ‘Anna Karenina’

“Just think! This whole world of ours is only a speck of mildew sprung up on a tiny planet, yet we think we can have something great - thoughts, actions! They are all but grains of sand”

Julia Abigail Fletcher Carney’s ‘Little Things’ Little drops of water,

Little grains of sand, Make the mighty ocean And the pleasant land.

Little deeds of kindness, Little words of love, Help to make earth happy Like the Heaven above.

Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad are full of epithets. The writer describes vividly the characters, places and things in his literary pieces through epithets.

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Allegory

An Allegory is a figure of speech in which abstract ideas and principles are described in terms of characters, figures and events. The purpose of allegories is normally to teach a certain lesson or explain a complex idea.

Generally, in an allegory material things and circumstances are used to illustrate and enforce high spiritual truths. It can be said to be a continued personification.

Unlike symbolism an allegory is a complete narrative which involves characters, and events that stand for an abstract idea or an event. A symbol, on the other hand, is an object that stands for another object giving it a particular meaning.

Writers use allegory to add different layers of meanings to their works. Thus, for instance an allegorical story might be enjoyed by both children and adults but at different levels, each enjoying it from their own understanding.

Examples of allegories:

Plato’s Cave

In Plato’s Republic Socrates gives the following allegory:

Imagine this: People live under the earth in a cave like dwelling. Stretching a long way up toward the daylight is its entrance, toward which the entire cave is gathered. The people have been in this dwelling since childhood, shackled by the legs and neck. Thus they stay in the same place so that there is only one thing for them to look that: whatever they encounter in front of their faces. But because they are shackled, they are unable to turn their heads around.

Some light, of course, is allowed them, namely from a fire that casts its glow toward them from behind them, being above and at some distance. Between the fire and those who are shackled [i.e., behind their backs] there runs a walkway at a certain height. Imagine that a low wall has been built the length of the walkway, like the low curtain that puppeteers put up, over which they show their puppets.

So now imagine that all along this low wall people are carrying all sorts of things that reach up higher than the wall: statues and other carvings made of stone or wood and many other artefacts that people have made. As you would expect, some are talking to each other [as they walk along] and some are silent.

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What do you think? From the beginning people like this have never managed, be they on their own or with the help of others, to see anything besides the shadows that are, continually, projected on the wall opposite them by the glow of the fire.

And what do they see of the things that are being carried along [behind them]? Do they not see simply these [namely the shadows]?

Now if they were able to say something about what they saw and to talk it over, do you not think that they would regard that which they saw on the wall as beings?

And now what if this prison also had an echo reverberating off the wall in front of them [the one that they always and only look at]? Whenever one of the people walking behind those in chains (and carrying the things) would make a sound, do you think the prisoners would imagine that the speaker were anyone other than the shadow passing in front of them? All in all …those who were chained would consider nothing besides the shadows of the artefacts as the unhidden.

Personification

Sometimes the metaphor consists in speaking of inanimate things or animals as if they were human. Thus human qualities are given to an animal, an object, or an idea. This is called the figure of personification.

One of the best allegorical works which uses personification is George Orwell’s Animal farm.

Examples of usage:

Kahlil Gibran on Love

When love beckons to you, follow him, Though his ways are hard and steep.

And when his wings enfold you yield to him,

Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you. And when he speaks to you believe in him,

Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.

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The Fiftieth Birthday of Agassiz by Longfellow.

“And Nature, the old Nurse, took The child upon her knee,

Saying, ‘Here is a story book Thy father hath written for thee. “‘Come wander with me,’ she said, ‘Into regions yet untrod,

And read what is still unread In the Manuscripts of God.’ “And he wandered away and away With Nature, the dear old Nurse, Who sang to him night and day The rhymes of the universe.”

The Honest Dealer by Anon

All of us know that money talks Throughout our glorious nation; But money whispers low compared to Business reputation:

Pull off no slick nor cooked deal For pennies or for dollars God! Think of all the trade You’ll lose if just one sucker hollers! Africa by David Diop

Africa, my Africa

Africa of proud warriors in ancestral savannahs Africa of whom my grandmother sings

On the banks of the distant river I have never known you

But your blood flows in my veins

Your beautiful black blood that irrigates the fields The blood of your sweat

The sweat of your work The work of your slavery Africa, tell me Africa

Is this you, this back that is bent This back that breaks

Under the weight of humiliation This back trembling with red scars

And saying yes to the whip under the midday sun But a grave voice answers me

Impetuous child that tree, young and strong That tree over there

Splendidly alone amidst white and faded flowers That is your Africa springing up anew

Springing up patiently, obstinately Whose fruit bit by bit acquires The bitter taste of liberty.

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The City of God

“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.”

“Justice removed, then, what are kingdoms but great bands of robbers? What are bands of robbers themselves but little kingdoms? The band itself is made up of men; it is governed by authority of a ruler; it is bound together by a pact of association; and the loot is divided according to agreed law. If, by the constant addition of desperate men, this scourge grows to such a size that it acquires territory, establishes a seat of government, occupies cities and subjugates peoples, it assumes the name of kingdom more openly. For this name is now manifestly conferred upon it not by the removal of greed, but by the addition of impunity. It was a pertinent and true answer which was made to Alexander the Great by a pirate whom he had seized. When the king asked him what he meant by infesting the sea, the pirate defiantly replied: “The same as you do when you infest the whole world; but because I do it with a little ship I am called a robber, and because you do it with a great fleet, you are an emperor’. Augustine of Hippo,

“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.”

“Justice removed, then, what are kingdoms but great

Analogies

“I especially love analogies, my most faithful masters, acquainted with all the secrets of nature” Johannes Kepler

Analogy is comparison of two things, which are alike in several respects, for the purpose of explaining or clarifying some unfamiliar or difficult idea or object by showing how the idea or object is similar to some familiar one. While metaphors and analogy often overlap, the metaphor is generally a more artistic likening, done briefly for effect and emphasis, while analogy serves the more practical end of explaining a thought process or a line of reasoning or the abstract in terms of the concrete, and may therefore be more extended.

When we think of analogies, we often imagine cases where drawing on complex concepts from one domain helps to extend our comprehension of concepts from a different domain.

As such, the use of analogies is often associated with creativity and problem-solving.

Examples of Usage

Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Act V:

‘Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.’

NOTE

Analogical reasoning is fundamental to human thought and expression. Analogous language can be particularly useful in

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Sydney J. Harris, What True Education Should Do: ‘Pupils are more like oysters than sausages. The job of teaching is not to stuff them and then seal them up, but to help them open and reveal the riches within. There are pearls in each of us, if only we knew how to cultivate them with ardour and persistence.’

Henry Van Dyke:

Time is too slow for those who wait Too swift for those who fear, Too long for those who grieve Too short for those who love, time is Eternity.

Saint Augustine, Bad Company

“Bad company is like a nail driven into a post, which, after the first and second blow, may be drawn out with little difficulty; but being once driven up to the head, the pincers cannot take hold to draw it out, but which can only be done by the destruction of the wood.”

explain scientific and mathematical concepts which may be hard to explain in ordinary language.

Sometimes the point of an analogical argument is just to persuade people to take an idea seriously. Therefore, analogies provide plausible conjectures, not infallible deductions. Inferences generated by analogy must always be tested to

see if they’re actually helpful.

To propose an analogy, or simply to understand one, we must take a kind of mental leap. Like a spark that jumps across a gap, an idea from the source analog is carried over to the target. The two analogs may initially seem unrelated, but the act of making an analogy creates connections between them.

All the above figures of speech are varieties of metaphor. In them there is always an implied, if not an expressed, comparison.

Effect

Humour

“People who never love

Can never be taken seriously” Seneca

“Wisdom sometimes is seen in folly” Horace

Humour is what makes us laugh. There are two very different kinds of humour: one producing comedy, the other producing satire. Comic humour presents the absurdity of life without judgement, whereas satiric humour is directed to attacking the follies or vices of mankind.

Humour works chiefly by stressing the contrast between the ideal and the real.

Humour is a thing that can be cultivated, even learned; and it is one of the most important things in the whole art of writing.

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The master of humour can draw upon the riches of his own mind, and thereby embellish and enliven any subject he may desire to write upon.

Ridicule

Humour used to win one at the expense of another is called satire and sarcasm.

Ridicule, satire, and sarcasm are suitable for use against an open enemy, such as a political opponent, against a public nuisance which ought to be suppressed, or in behalf of higher ideals and standards.

The one thing that makes this style of little effect is anger or morbid intensity. While some thing or someone is attacked, perhaps with ferocity, results are to be obtained by winning the reader. Good-natured humour is an essential element in really successful ridicule. If intense or morbid hatred or temper is allowed to dominate, the reader is repulsed and made distrustful, and turns away without being affected in the desired way at all.

Example of usage

The following, which opens a little known essay of Edgar Allan Poe’s, is one of the most perfect examples of simple ridicule in the English language.

NOTE

Humour, and especially good humour, is indispensable to the most successful works of fiction. Above all other kinds of writing, fiction must win the heart of the reader. And this requires that the heart of the writer should be tender and sympathetic.

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(Satire) has a social

function that places it on a level with Religion, Law, and Government. Though its tone may be light, its function is wholly serious; and as for passion, it is actuated by a fierce and strenuous moral and intellectual enthusiasm, the passion for order, justice, and beauty. . . . It keeps the public conscience alert, it exposes absurdity for what it is and makes those inclined to adopt foolish or tasteless fashions aware that they are ridiculous. It shows vice its own feature and makes it odious to others. . . . Satire is an aristocratic art. It is not afraid to tell unpopular truths, but its habit is to tell them with the assurance and detachment of ridicule, and ridicule is the weapon of contempt...

Alexander Pope

Satire

“He that hath a satirical vein, as maketh others afraid of his wit, so he need be afraid of others’ memory.” Lord Bacon

Satire is a literary technique of writing or art (for example cartoons) which principally ridicules its subject (individuals, organisations, states etc.) often as an intended means of provoking or preventing change.

A satire, either in prose or in poetic form, holds prevailing vices or follies up to ridicule: it employs humour and wit to criticize human institutions or humanity itself, in order that they might be remodelled or improved.

Satirists’ main motivation is to inspire change through laughter rather than to tear down. As a writer you should refrain from using abusive language in the guise of satire. In the words of Roscommon:

“You must not think, that a satiric style allows of scandalous and brutish words.”

The formula for satire is one of honey and medicine.3The best

satire does not seek to do harm or damage by its ridicule, unless we speak of damage to the structure of vice, but rather it seeks to create a shock of recognition and to make vice repulsive so that the vice will be expunged from the person or society under attack or from the person or society intended to benefit by the attack (regardless of who is the immediate object of attack); whenever possible this shock of recognition is to be conveyed through laughter or wit.

Far from being simply destructive, unhelpful and malicious,

3

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As with a moral View design’d To cure the Vices of Mankind: His vein, ironically grave, Expos'd the Fool, and lash'd the Knave. . . . . .

Yet, Malice never was his Aim; He lash’d the Vice but spar’d the Name. No Individual could resent, Where Thousands equally were meant. His Satyr points at no Defect, But what all Mortals may correct… ” Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift

Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after,

And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;

He knew human folly like the back of his hand,

And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;

When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter, And when he cried the little children died in the street. W. H. Auden verse in ‘Epitaph on a Tyrant’.

satire purpose is correction. This view was held by Jonathan Swift, one of the best satirists in English Literature.

Examples of usage:

Mark Twain’s in Huckleberry Finn uses satire as a tool to share his ideas and opinion on slavery, human nature. Jonathan Swift’s Gullivers Travels, A tale in a tub and a

Modest Proposal are excellent examples of satirical works. For example In Part Four of Gulliver’s Travels; the character of Gulliver is that of a patriotic Englishman, decent and practical but at the same time stupid and gullible (as his name suggests). Wherever Gulliver goes, he is always eager to show his devotion to his country and benefits of civilization to other less enlightened peoples. In the fourth voyage, the land of Houyhnhnms, a highly civilized race of horses who keep their savage and filthy domestic animals called Yahoos, which bear strange resemblances to human beings, he is surprised at his host's ignorance of the art of war as practiced in "civilized countries".

I could not forbear shaking my head and smiling a little at his ignorance. And, being no stranger to the art of war, I gave him a description of cannon, culverins, muskets, carbines, pistols, bullets, powder, swords, bayonets, battles, sieges, retreats, attacks, undermines, countermines, bombardments, sea-fights; ships sunk with a thousand men, twenty thousand killed on each side; dying groans, limbs in the air; smoke, noise, confusion, trampling to death under horses' feet...

Without doubt, the Houyhnhnms were horrified that ' a creature pretending to reason could be capable of such enormities.'

References

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