Approaches to Literature(Week2)

• Ode on a Grecian Urn

"Ode on a Grecian Urn" is a poem written by the English Romantic poet John Keats in May 1819 and published anonymously in the January 1820, Number 15 issue of the magazine Annals of the Fine Arts (see 1820 in poetry).

Divided into five stanzas of ten lines each, the ode contains a narrator's discourse on a series of designs on a Grecian urn. The poem focuses on two scenes: one in which a lover eternally pursues a beloved without fulfilment, and another of villagers about to perform a sacrifice. The final lines of the poem declare that "'beauty is truth, truth beauty,' – that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know", and literary critics have debated whether they increase or diminish the overall beauty of the poem. Critics have focused on other aspects of the poem, including the role of the narrator, the inspirational qualities of real-world objects, and the paradoxical relationship between the poem's world and reality.

>> John Keats
John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English Romantic poet. He was one of the main figures of the second generation of Romantic poets, along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, despite his work having been in publication for only four years before his death.
Although his poems were not generally well received by critics during his lifetime, his reputation grew after his death, and by the end of the 19th century, he had become one of the most beloved of all English poets. He had a significant influence on a diverse range of poets and writers. Jorge Luis Borges stated that his first encounter with Keats was the most significant literary experience of his life.

• Catharsis

Catharsis (from Greek  meaning "purification" or "cleansing") is the purification and purgation of emotions—especially pity and fear—through art or any extreme change in emotion that results in renewal and restoration. It is a metaphor originally used by Aristotle in the Poetics, comparing the effects of tragedy on the mind of spectator to the effect of a cathartic on the body.

• Allegory

As a literary device, an allegory in its most general sense is an extended metaphor. Allegory has been used widely throughout history in all forms of art, largely because it can readily illustrate complex ideas and concepts in ways that are comprehensible or striking to its viewers, readers, or listeners.
Writers or speakers typically use allegories as literary devices or as rhetorical devices that convey hidden meanings through symbolic figures, actions, imagery, and/or events, which together create the moral, spiritual, or political meaning the author wishes to convey.
One of the best-known examples of allegory, Plato's Allegory of the Cave, forms a part of his larger work The Republic.

>>Aesop's fable
A collection of fables credited to Aesop, a slave and storyteller believed to have lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 560 BC. Of diverse origins, the stories associated with Aesop's name have descended to modern times through a number of sources. They continue to be reinterpreted in different verbal registers and in popular as well as artistic media.

In Classical times there were various theorists who tried to differentiate these fables from other kinds of narration. They had to be short and unaffected; in addition, they are fictitious, useful to life and true to nature. In them could be found talking animals and plants, although humans interacting only with humans figure in a few. Typically they might begin with a contextual introduction, followed by the story, often with the moral underlined at the end. Setting the context was often necessary as a guide to the story's interpretation, as in the case of the political meaning of The Frogs Who Desired a King and The Frogs and the Sun.

>>Parable
A parable is a succinct, didactic story, in prose or verse, which illustrates one or more instructive lessons or principles. It differs from a fable in that fables employ animals, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature as characters, whereas parables have human characters. A parable is a type of analogy.
Some scholars of the canonical gospels and the New Testament apply the term "parable" only to the parables of Jesus,  though that is not a common restriction of the term. Parables such as "The Prodigal Son" are central to Jesus' teaching method in the canonical narratives and the apocrypha.

• Foreshadowing

A literary device by which an author hints what is to come. It is used to avoid disappointment. It is also sometimes used to arouse the reader.A hint that is designed to mislead the audience is referred to as a red herring. A similar device is the flashforward (also known as prolepsis). However, foreshadowing only hints at a possible outcome within the confinement of a narrative. A flashforward is a scene that takes the narrative forward in time from the current point of the story in literature, film, television, and other media. Foreshadowing is sometimes employed through characters explicitly predicting the future.By analogy to foreshadowing, the literary critic Gary Morson described its opposite, sideshadowing.

 

• Falshback

A flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point in the story. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story's primary sequence of events to fill in crucial backstory. In the opposite direction, a flashforward (or prolepsis) reveals events that will occur in the future.Both flashback and flashforward are used to cohere a story, develop a character, or add structure to the narrative. In literature, internal analepsis is a flashback to an earlier point in the narrative; external analepsis is a flashback to a time before the narrative started.
In movies and television, several camera techniques and special effects have evolved to alert the viewer that the action shown is a flashback or flashforward; for example, the edges of the picture may be deliberately blurred, photography may be jarring or choppy, or unusual coloration or sepia tone, or monochrome when most of the story is in full color, may be used.

Prefix/Root/Surffix

ver-/vir- "true"

verism (n.) the theory that rigid representation of truth and reality is essential to art and literature, and therefore the ugly and vulgar must be included 
example: Marisa Miller is a artist of verism.

virtual (a.) having the essence or effect but not the appearance or form of
example: My brother is a virtual reality player.

-dic- "to say, to tell"

verdict (v.) a judgment; decision
example: My wife's verdict on my cooking was very favourable.

predict (v.) to declare or tell in advance; prophesy; foretell
example: He predicted a good harvest.


pro- "in favor of"

protagonist (n.) the leading character, hero, or heroine of a drama or other literary work
example: Lena is a protagonist of this drama.

anti- "against"

antinomy (n.) opposition between one law, principle, rule
example: We have already discussed this subject in the antinomy of pure reason.

antihero (n.) a central character in a novel, play, etc, who lacks the traditional heroic virtues
example: There are always an antihero in each story.

hypo- "under"
hypothesis (n.) a proposition assumed as a premise in an argument
example: No serious arguments that dispute this hypothesis have been advanced.