Chapter One: The Concepts of Literature – Literature in English Form Five

The concepts associated with literature and how they relate to it.

Takeaways

Society

Society and literature are interrelated. There is no way we can separate a society from the literary texts that its people produce. Primarily, aspects of society such as peoples’ cultures, traditions, beliefs, values, life styles, and faiths are raw materials for literary texts. These elements constitute the society, and they are the artefact of the literary text.

Artist/creator

For a work of art to be performed and convey meaning, an artist or creator should be capable of channelling his/her worldview in a message that the audience can understand. In literature, the artist/creator expresses his/her views in the forms of poetry, play or prose narratives. These genres of literature are the products of writers’ creative works.

Creativity

Unlike other texts, such as biology, chemistry, and physics, literary texts are unique in terms of the way they convey the message. The event represented in the text might be ordinary or familiar, but the language used to represent it will make the event appear new. This newness or originality of the message and the way it is conveyed is what justifies the creative nature of literature.

Imagination

A literary work contains events or information which can be real (factual) or imagined. Imagination is the central concept in literature, and it entails how creative writers create a world out of fantasy. In literature, a creative writer is capable of creating a fictional world, a world that does not exist physically. A writer can also re-imagine the existing one by crafting it to make readers perceive it as something new or original. It is out of imagination that creative writers create images, characters, events, themes, etc., that appeal to visual and intellectual sensation.

Literary language

The language used in literature differs from the one used in our day-to-day conversations. Literary language is characterised by being rich in terms of aesthetic elements such as figures of speech and literary devices. These elements of form justify the literariness of a literary text because they are language-based elements and the means through which the content is conveyed to the audience. As you read or listen to a literary text, think of how the language used modifies verbal patterns, embodies elements of beauty, and evokes emotional feelings in the audience.

Culture

Certain moral codes always regulate the life of human beings. Each society has its moral codes, though some common codes are shared between one society and another. These moral codes can be realised through language, beliefs, customs, institutions, clothing, foodstuff, house designs, music, dance, traditional medicine, courting, visual arts and celebrations. All these comprise the so-called cultural-based activities. Literature or art does not come from the vacuum; it draws its materials from the lived experience, including cultural experience. Thus, what the creative writer does to create a story is to imagine and re-imagine his/her society based on the day-to-day cultural activities of a particular society.

Takeaways

Folklore

The history of folklore cannot be separated from the history of human beings. In Africa, for example, folklore is associated with early human socio-cultural activities such as hunting and gathering. Usually, as the day ends, a family or society members could sit together (especially during evening hours) to narrate their daily encounters. These narrations varied from one person to another and included songs, proverbs, riddles, and tales, among others. Out of these narratives, the genre of literature called oral literature emerged. William John Thoms (1846) coined the term “folklore” as another name for oral literature. Scholarly publications have popularised “folklore”, regarding it as a literary genre that focuses on studying people’s culture and origin.

The American scholar, Allan Dundes (1965), documents well this idea of folklore and he suggests including in it sub-genres such as myths, legends, folktales, jokes, proverbs, riddles, chants, charms, blessings, curses, oaths, insults, retorts, taunts, teases, toasts, tongue-twisters, greeting and leave-taking formulas, folk costume, folk dance, folk drama (and mime), folk art, folk belief (or superstition), folk medicine, folk instrumental music (e.g., fiddle tunes), folk songs (e.g., lullabies, ballads), folk speech (e.g., slang), folk similes, folk metaphors, and names (e.g., nicknames and place names), folk poetry (e.g., oral epics, autograph-book verse, epitaphs, latrinalia, limericks, ball bouncing rhymes, jump-rope rhymes, finger and toe rhymes, dandling rhymes, counting-out rhymes, and nursery rhymes), games, gestures, symbols, prayers (e.g., graces), practical jokes, folk etymologies, food recipes, quilt and embroidery designs, house, barn, and fence types, street vendor’s cries, and the traditional conventional sounds used to summon or command animals.