Formal Features of Literature

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Formal Features of Literature

• An Introduction

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Topics of Discussion

• Whenever you are reading or re-reading, it is
  good idea to find a point of focus for critical
  response. Sometimes you will find yourself liking
  a piece, or hating it, or being indifferent to it
  and not knowing what to say. But if you break the
  piece down to its component formal elements and
  then use one or two of those elements to open up
  the text, you will find your level of
  understanding and pleasure increasing
  exponentially.

3
Symbol

• the word SYMBOL means literally something that
  means something else. A dove, for example is a
  symbol of peace. Authors use symbols as intensely
  compressed units of meaning and rely on the
  reader's understanding of what a certain object,
  color, person or even symbolic action represents.
  This understanding may be developed through
  culture or through the writer's personal
  symbolism established over time in his or her own
  work.

4
Image

• an IMAGE is a visual representation. In
  literature images are often used together to
  create a pattern which can give a reader a sense
  of tone or can establish a theme. Tracking how an
  image changes in visual representation, context,
  and meaning as it progresses through a piece can
  help a reader to understand the piece more fully.

5
Simile

• a SIMILE is a comparison qualified with the word
  like or as. They also serve to make the reader
  consider the relationships of things to each
  other--just not quite so radically. When Felicia
  Hemans writes that "No other smile to thee could
  bring / A gladdening, like the breath of spring"
  she is comparing the qualities of a spring breeze
  to a mother's smile.

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Analogy

• an ANALOGY is an extended comparision--usually of
  one setting or psychological situation to
  another. Often an author will develop such a
  comparison by using the words associated with one
  place or set of circumstances and comparing them
  to another.

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Context

• The context of a piece is more than its physical
  location--its SETTING. It is also its TIME
  PERIOD, and CULTURE. Context helps to establish
  tone and theme through placing an observation or
  event within a specific framework. Often an
  author will attempt to embed references between
  the culture or setting within the piece and the
  culture it was written in.

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Diction

• Diction means, quite literally, "word
  choice"--specifically, the way in which an author
  uses words to create a particular literary effect
  through analogy, tone, or theme.

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Tone

• Originally a musical term, literary tone is
  generally taken to mean that element of a
  piece--established through figurative language,
  word, choice, and rhythm--that establishes the
  emotional and ambient quality of a literary
  work--its mood.

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Narration

• The study of Narration or of Narrative Structure
  involves an exploration of why a piece has been
  put together in such a way--why it begins
  in-media-res, why it starts with dialogue or a
  description of setting. It assumes that the
  formal placement of narrative elements--such
  backstory, setting, characterization, dialogue
  etc.--contribute to the meaning of a literary
  work.

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Freitags Triangle

• Exposition (A-B) the exposition introduces the
  central character and provides background or
  dramatic context.
• Introduction of the conflict (B), which leads to
  the complication or rising action (B-C) this
  part of the story offers a series of events that
  complicates the central character's situation. At
  some point, something forces the character to
  make a decision or take a course of action. That
  point is known as the deciding factor. It causes
  the action to reverse itself.
• Climax (C) this is the actual moment when the
  deciding factor takes place. What happens at this
  point determines the outcome of the piece.
• Falling action (C-D) the conflict begins to
  resolve itself.
• Resolution (D)

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Characterization

• Characterization involves how a character is
  developed--why she is the way she is-- and how
  that character changes throughout the course of
  the plot--how and why that character becomes what
  she becomes. Our understanding of who a character
  is in a literary work is developed though that
  character's physical description, dialogue,
  personal history, representative actions, family
  relationships, possessions, religion etc. Often
  critics will refer to a character as "flat" or
  "round" based that character's potential for
  growth. A "flat character" is simply evil, or
  stupid, or good throughout the text. A "round
  character" changes in response to stimuli
  provided as he or she progresses through the
  narrative. In an "epiphany story," for example, a
  character will come to a drastic realization that
  will fundamentally change the way he or she looks
  at the world. We often judge whether or not a
  character has changed by comparing how the author
  presents that character in terms of physical
  description, association, dialogue,
  representative actions, etc. in comparison to how
  the character was presented earlier in the story.

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Theme

• A theme is what a literary work is "about"--one
  of many points made in a text regarding how we
  live our lives. A theme of a work is not the same
  as its subject. Rather, it is that element of a
  work--usually referred to throughout the
  piece--that seeks to comment on larger issues
  such as value of family relationships, the value
  of community, the nature of love, the nature of
  death, etc. etc. And most literary works make
  numerous arguments regarding these issue--few of
  them explicitly stated. The ambiguous nature of
  artistic "argument" is part of its mystery,
  power, and interest. And that ambiguity is what
  makes discussion about literature lively and
  engaging.