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TÉCNICAS DE ESTUDIO DE LA LITERATURA EN

LENGUA INGLESA (UGR)

APUNTES PRIMER PARCIAL DE TECNICAS UGR

FALCES, MARTA 16-17

Unit 1: introducction. - unit 2: poetic voices (persona).
POETRY: words with a frame around them. We can define poetry as a way
to express our deeepest feelings
OUR STANCE: description-interpretation-evaluation.
The aim is making our interpretation / reading retrievable (recuperable)

How does poetry communicate?

The crafting of poetry (rhythm, sound, rhyme, layout, language
varieties/registers, lexical choices, grammatical behavior, forms,
parallelism, repetition)

1Parallelism: the holding constant of some fearless usually structural while

others (usually lexical) are varied.
Parallelism contributes to create word and phrase associations in different
texts. If two structures are obviously parallel in linguistic form one should
look for a relation in meaning as well.

ADDRESSER POEM ADDRESSE Addresser; quien habla.

I (message) (?) Addressee: a quién habla.
(poetic persona)
[implicit = we cant find the you]
[explicit = we can find the you]

WHITLA (1-12/16-21)
1. “English (Adj.) is usually elevated into the status of a noun”.
(p.5). How does it affect to its meaning?
As ``the English’’ it may refer to the people of England, or the
English as opposed to the Celtic peoples, or the whole of the people
of Britain, perhaps including the whole of Ireland, perhaps not.
2. What is SWE?
English refers to what is commonly accepted at schools and
universities as ``Standard´´ written English (SWE), often called
``formal English’’ namely the form of English that educated English
speakers around the world agree about.

3. What did ‘litteratura´originally mean ?

Litteratura originally meant grammar, and a litteratus was learned
person who knew the rules of grammar. (In the Italian Renaissance,
letters meant not only knowledge of reading and writing, but also
knowledge of the languages of the classical world. So knowing your
letters meant knowing the literature and the culture of the ancient world.)
 4. What is a “classic” of a culture?
Literature became a means of passing on to the present age the values
and the cultural system from generation to generation; everything that
was held of value in a national culture.
Each nation, then, understood literature as a primary means of passing
on one’s cultural heritage through written texts that were valued above
their rivals. Such works were called the ``classic’’ of a culture.

5. What was Arnold and T.S. Eliot’s view of literature? Who was
TS Eliot? (not in the book).
Arnold developed the idea of literature as a form of the culture’s highest
expression, a repository of high art and whereby a cultural elite is formed to
dominate the cultural institutions in a society.
T.S. Eliot extended this view of literature.

6. Why has been this (Arnold’s) view of literature been attacked? What
definition of literature is then proposed?
This Arnold’s view of literature has been attacked for aligning literature with
a social elite, an aristocracy of learning, comprising those who have
learned the best books at the best schools and so are thereby prepared to
govern the best country (say, Britain or America) in the best way.
These attacks have broadened and democratized the sense of what
literature is, to include various kinds of writing and performance, ranging
widely over social classes, and historical periods and geographical areas:
popular literature, documentations of all kinds, newspapers, dialect writing,
personal jottings, and even pornography.

7.What did “teaching literature” mean over the 19th C.? Have you
experienced any/all/none of these procedures as a student of
literature (English/Spanish..)?
Teaching literature until the end of the nineteenth century consisted
chiefly of one of three methods: an application of modes similar to those
used in studying the Greek and Latin classics through minute
philological and grammatical analysis line by line, a declamation of
passages from Shakespeare, Milton, or some other author with a little
commentary; or impressionistic thoughts expressed in the presence of a
text. (I have experienced this kind of procedure. As a Spanish student, I
have been studying literature in high school for years and I would study
authors like Federico García Lorca, by analysing his poems line by line
and commenting them.)
8. What is the difference between ‘English literature’ and ‘Literature in
English’?
English literature is different from ‘’literature in English’’ which might
include American, African, or Caribbean literature.

9. What is philology and how was it originally related to the study

literature at Universities?
Philology is the study of the story, grammar, syntax, and family
relationships of a language. Many claimed that literature could be a means
of teaching moral values (influentially advocated by Matthew Arnold in his
Oxford lectures in the 1850s and 1860s). Sometimes literature became a
secular replacement for religion; it constituted the common heritage of
those values in which a people as a whole believed.

10. Why study literature?

The value of literature in its embodiment of a nation’s culture. Here again
the impulse was similar to that advocated for the classics, which were
thought to important the best values of the Greeks and Romans by a kind
of literature osmosis to students in England, America, Canada, or
anywhere else.

(pp. 16-21)

11. What does ‘literary criticism’ mean and how does it connect
with the task of ‘studying English’?
``Criticism’’ can mean, ``criticism’’ in this sense is a negative term, the
opposite of laudatory. But literary criticism means the analysis of literature
to arrive at a better understanding.
It connects with the task of studying English because to many students, the
study of literature is not about literature at all, but is about criticism. So, the
whole task of studying English seems above all to involve a way for talking
about literature that your teacher thinks you understand literature.

12. What does the ‘adoption of a critical attitude’ imply in the study
of English?
In English studies, a critical attitude of mind means that you are open to a
variety of analytical methods, and are adopting an enquiring attitude about
what you are reading.
13. Explain briefly five preliminary aspects of literary criticism
according to Whitla’s view. Connect each of them to your reading of
"Maybe it is too early in the morning"
Five preliminary aspects of literary criticism: literary scholarship, response,
explication, analysis and interpretation.
LITERARY SCOLARSHIP: it determinates facts about a literary work, such
as the dates and places of writing.
RESPONSE: what happens to you o what impacts you when you reaad a
literary text.
EXPLICATION: explanation of the meanings of words, phrases and
sentences as they occur in a text.
ANALYSIS: identification of various strands of argument and presentation
in a literary work, the separating of them out, and the study of how they are
related.
INTERPRETATION: it brings all the previous activities together.

UNIT 3. RHYTM AND POETRY. METRE

A)Rhythm and the English language.

Rhythm: the perception of a regular grouping of events in some
sequence of order.
1 full word has 1 stress on one of its syllables.
English is based in the assumption that the amount of time between
strong stresses is roughly equal.
(monosyllabic words do not usually take any stress)
B)Rhythm and meter.
Principles and practice of verse:
Rhythm and metre: Rhythm is a literary device which demonstrates the
long and short patterns through stressed and unstressed syllables
particularly in verse form. Metre is the basic rhythmic structure of a verse
or lines in verse.

Rhyme: A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounding words occurring at the

end of lines in poems.

Prosody: is the science of versification, although it is far from

scientific. It concludes the theory, principles, and practice of verse,
encompassing such matters as rhythm, accent, meter, rhyme,
scansion and versification.
 Scansion: refers to the method for recording the particular meter of a
poem by marking out its feet and indicating the patterning of beats
and off-beats or stressed and unstressed syllables.
1. Base scansion marks the formal or basic meter which
underlines a poem, noting especially the accented syllables,
even in a mechanical way.
2. Cadenced scansion marks the accents where they occur in
English syntax when the lines are read aloud fluently with a
normal vocal modulation, appropriate to the meaning of the
line.

METRE
Poetry can exploit the way we use stress when we speak to create
rhythms. When stress is organised to form regular rhythms, the term used
for it is metre.
Poetry has more marked, and more complex, rhythmic effects than ordinary
language
Metre in English verse is a level of organization which is based upon a two-
term contrast between positions in a line which should contain strong and
weak syllables.
English prosody: ACCENTUAL-SYLLABIC.
ICTUS (X) - strong.
REMISS (u) – weak.

FEET:
IAMBIC (uX):
And palm/ to palm/ is ho-/ lly pal-/ mer’s kiss/ = iambic pentameter.

TROCHEE (Xu): wi-llons/ whi-ten/ as –pens/ qui-ver/ = trochaic

tetrameter.

Anapest (u u X): without case be he pleased, without

X x
cause be he cross = anapestic tetrameter.
X x

SPONDEE (X X): two stressed syllables together.

(spondees and pyrrhic are never used as a basic patterns)
PYRRHIC (u u): two unstressed syllables together.
 FOOT AND LINES:
One feet per line = monometer.
Two feet per line = dimeter.
Three feet per line = trimeter.
Four feet per line = tetrameter.
Five feet per line = pentameter.
Six feet per line = hexameter.
Seven feet per line = heptameter.
Eight feet per line = octameter.

WHITLA PG 190-196

1. Why does Whitla say that “prosody is far scientific”?

Prosody is the science of versification, although it is far from
scientific. It includes the theory, principles, and practice of verse,
encompassing such matters as rhythm, accent, meter, rhyme,
scansion, and versification

2. What do “rising rhythm” and “falling rhythm” mean?

The rising rhythm is when the stress is at the end of the phrase and
the falling rhythm is when the stress is at the top of the phrase

3.What does usually happen to the final off-beat in falling

rhythms? Why does it happen?
In falling rhythms, the final off-beat in falling rhythms is simply
omitted. We have noted that rhythmic units consist of beats and
off-beats. In English poetry each beat or off-beat occurs on one
syllable, so syllable is the stable unit of language that holds the
beat in place.
4. What is a foot?
Rhythm consists of the stresses on the syllables with their beats and off-
beats, repeating more or less regularly. The complete pattern before it
repeats - " and one" or "one and a" - on stressed and unstressed beats
constitutes a foot.
The literary device “foot” is a measuring unit in poetry, which is made
up of stressed and unstressed syllables. The stressed syllable is
generally indicated by a vertical line (), whereas the unstressed
syllable is represented by a cross (x).

5. According to Whitla, what do spondees and prhyrrics do to

rhythm in a line?
The spondee, a duple foot consisting of two single beats with no off-
beat, and the phyrric consisting of two unstressed or off-beat
 syllables. Normally, neither is used repetitively in a line but is inserted
into a line as a substitution for emphasis.

6. What is scansion? What is the difference between base

scansion and cadenced scansion?
Scansion refers to the method for recording the particular meter of a
poem by marking out and unstressed syllables. There are two ways
of beginning detailed work on the prosody of a poem: base scansion;
marks the formal or basic meter which underlines a poem, noting
especially the accented syllables, even in a mechanical way.

7. How does Whitla suggest a detailed work on the prosody of a

poem should start?
There are two ways of beginning detailed work on the prosody of a poem:
- BASE SCANSION: marks the formal or basic meter which underlies a
poem, nothing specially the acccented syllables, even in a mechanical
way. Usually base scansion will help one perceive whether the meter is
rising or falling, and then the line can be divided into a number of feet,
marking them off using the vertical bar (I).
- CADENCED SCANSION: marks the accents where they occur in English
syntax when the lines are read aloud fluently with a normal vocal
modulation, appropiate to the meaning of the line.

8. How are pauses controlled at the end of the lines?

Pauses within and at the ends of lines are controlled partly by
punctuation, partly by the stress and cadence of the line, and partly
by the sense of the line.

9. What are non-stopped and run-on lines?

Non-stopped are lines which conclude with punctuation and run-on
are lines which continue to the next line.

10. What does ‘caesura’ mean?

The pause within a line, the caesura marked by a double bar line,
divides a line into two hemistiches. Its conventional location in blank
verse is after the second foot, but there are many variation.It often
falls at a different place in successive lines of a poem to vary the
musical and rhythmic effect.

Unit 4: poetry and sound. Rhyme.

Why is poetry metered?

- aesthetic pleasure
- to conform to a convention / style / poetic form
· different from prose fiction (genre difference)
· different from other kinds of writing
- to innovate with a form
- to demonstrate technical skill and for intellectual pleasure
- for emphasis or contrast
- for onomatopeia (rhythm as an echo to the sense)

Analysing sound patterns: poetic functions

- No particular function (accidental)
- Cohesive function. Bonding words together.
- Highlighting some aspects of the poem.
- Creating or reinforcing parallelism (rhythm).
- Contributing to sound symbolism

SOUND PATTERNING:
1. Repetition: identical sounds in a syllable. Repeat each sound in a
syllable.
2. Rhyme: syllables sharing the vowel and the final consonant.
3. Assonance: syllables with a common final vowel but not the final
consonant.
4. Consonant patterning (pararhyme): two syllables have the same
initial and final consonant, bur different vowels.
5. Alliteration: initial consonants are identical.
6. Reverse rhyme: syllables sharing the same vowel and initial
consonant.

WHITLA PG 197-200.
1. When can we say words ``rhyme’’?
Words rhyme when they sound alike or similar, usually through a
repeated vowel sound, and with or without a final consonant. Accented
syllables within a line, or in corresponding positions in succeeding lines,
may rhyme.

2. Give an example of the following types:

What is the difference between them?

The Masculine consists on one accented syllable while the Feminine
consists on one accented syllable followed by one unaccented syllable.
Finally, the Triple consists on three consecutive rhyming syllables.

1. What is the difference between initial rhyme, internal rhyme and

end rhyme?
Initial rhyme: the rhyming words occur at the beginning of lines;
sometimes called beginning or head rhyme.

Internal rhyme: occurs within a line of verse.The effect is achieved by

having half-lines rhyme; sometimes called crossed rhyme or
interlaced rhyme.

End rhyme: occurs at the end of a line; sometimes called terminal

rhyme.

Crossed rhyme: the device of rhyming words within lines with words
in subsequent lines,to give what is sometimes called interlaced
rhyme.

2. How many types of end rhyme are there? Examples.

There are several forms of end rhyme:
- Couplet: a pair of rhyming lines ("Blessed are you whose worthiness
gives scope,/Being had,
- Enclosed rhyme: a couplet enchosing another couplet, rhyming
(ABBA).
- Interlocking rhyme: the rhyme from one section or stanza is carried
forward to the next, as in terza rima. (AABAAB, BBCBBC, DDEDDE…)

3. Why can we state that versification contributes to the meaning

of a poem?
Versification is part of the meaning of a poem, since it contributes
essential information to a reader about the theme and genre of a text.
Versification is a method of exerting control over a range of poetic
conventions, including diction, compressed language

4. What is a stanza? What are the most popular stanza in English?

A stanza is a collection of lines that together make up a verse
paragraph. There is usually a space between each stanza. In
general, a stanza comprises three or more lines of verse, with a
repeating pattern of meter and rhyme scheme that recurs throughout
the poem.
The most common structural units used in building stanzas in English
poetry are the couplet, the triplet and quatrain.

Unit 5: conventional froms of metre and sound.

Different patterns of mainly metre and rhyme and also structure,
punctuation and tone, have developed and become accepted as
ways of structuring poems.
Form associated with particular kinds of poetry.
20th C. Open form: all lines have a rhythm which can be metrically
described, and all poems have a form

TYPES:

1. Couplet: two lines of verse connected with a rhyme. rd

2. Quatrains: stanzas of four lines (focus always on the 3 line)
abab
abba -- envelope rhyme
aabb
aaba, bbcb, ccdc, dddd -- chain rhyme

7. Sonnet: is a poem in a specific form which originated in Italy

14 lines - 10 syllables each
Usually iambic pentameter
A variety of rhymings schemes are possible

WHITLA PG 205-212

1. There are several references to the ballad in pp.205-212.

List as many of its characteristics as you can find in this
section.
The ballad stanza suggest certain narrative strategies and the
use of opening heroic couplets with lines of varying length,
accompanied by pastoral imagery of shepherds lamenting the
loss of one of their number immediately suggests that the verse
form and thematics represent a pastoral elegy, as in Milton’s
Lycidas or Shelley’s Adonais.
(Alicia) The ballad stanza was widely used in English and
Scottish folk ballads, such as “Barbara Allen” or the opening
lines of “Sir Patrick Spens”.
Sometimes the ballad quatrain has four tetrameter lines
throughout. Often the ballad uses a refrain, perhaps for
communal singing, with the effect that the many verses move
slowly and inexorably to their conclusion, usually tragic.
 2. What is concrete poetry? Find an example – English or
Spanish poetry.
Concrete poetry is poetry that creates a visual representation
that is a major part of the poem’s meaning. Concrete poetry
insists that the materials of writing and printing be taken into
account.
Example:

Stairs
I
climb.
Every day.
A different priority.
slow making progress
toward success, success, success.
No time to stop, to rest, to appreciate
the small things around me-the air, the flowers,
even the people I meet are standing in the way of the climb.

3. According to Whitla, George Herbert experimented with

formal arrangements in poetry. When did he live?
Somewhere within the Age of Shakespeare and the Age of Milton is
George Herbert. He was an ordained priest and poet. In 1633, his book
The Temple: Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations was published
posthumously.

4. According to Whitla, how does prosody relate to poetic

meaning?
A knowledge of prosody enables a reader to describe the formal
characteristics of a poem, and is a necessary first step before assessing
the role that such techniques and formal arrangements play in the
semiotic, semantic, thematic, and aesthetic functions of a poem. Such
conventions help to elucidate a poem’s relationship to other literary
traditions, such as canon formation and genre, with their social and
political implications in cultural institutions.
The analysis of such devices enables a reader to relate sound to sense,
meter to meaning, and facilities the comparison of one poem with another.

5. What is Blank verse? What genre is Blank verse used other

than poetry?
Blank verse consists of unrhymed iambic five-beat or iambic
 pentameter lines, usually presented in verse paragraphs rather
than stanzas.
The blank verse, often with a more flexible use of iambic feet
and five stresses to the line, has continued to be used until the
present, especially in translation of the Greek and Latin
classics, with echoes of Shakespeare and Milton.

WRITING / READING FORMS

WRITING FORMS:
- A Haiku is a very short Japanese form of 17 syllables arranged in a
particular pattern. In the English version of the form it is usual to arrange
the syllables in THREE LINES with 5 syllables (1st line), 7 syllables (2nd
line) and 5 syllables (3rd line)
MY OWN HAIKU: Summer nights with friends
Nights that turned into mornings
Long walks and bright stars

READING FORMS:
- Roger Mcgough ‘40 Love’
The simple fact of rearranging the words in any way shows something of
how texts work differently in different shapes or with a different word order.

Unit 6: poetry and layout `` Drawing a poem´´.

Actividades poema `` child on top of the greenhouse’’ (handout:
poetry, language and images)

TASK 5, WRITING IMAGES.

a. Who is the poetic persona in the poem? Who is
addressing?
The writer. The addressee is the town.

b. Where is the child? What is he wearing?

In the roof of the house. He wears trousers.

c. What time of year is it? What is there in the poem which

makes you think so?
Is spring, because he say that the wind is blowing, there are
clouds and the flowers are growing up.

d. Is there any action taking place in this poem?

Yes, the people shouting him.

e. Is it in the past or is it happening now?

 I am not sure, but I think the poem happened in the past.

f. Underlines verbs. Could you add something to them so

that they can indicate the action is happening now/in the
past? Think of the effect.

g. Write a brief story telling what is/was happening in this

poem?
This a man who one day of spring he goes up in the roof of the
greenhouse, he wears trousers and while the clouds move on
to the east , the people shouted him while they pointed up him.

Unit 7: sense devices: Poetic tropes.

POETIC TROPES A (Trope: figurative language.)

1. Simile
2. Metaphor
3. Metonymy
4. Synecdoche

1. Simile: a comparison made explicit by using ``like’’ or

``as´´(pg235 whitla)
Comparison of one thing with another. The explanation of what one
thing is like by showing how it is similar to something else.
Less forceful than methapor.
(mirar apuntes de clase)

1. Methapor: in implied comparison which identifies two unlike

things on the basis of some common element.
a. X is Y
b. IMPLIED metaphor
c. EXTENDED metaphor
d. CONCEIT
e. DEAD metaphor

3.Metonymy: a word or phrase is subsituted for another closely

associated it: ``dowing street’’ means the British government.

4. Synecdoche: the part is substituted fot the whole.

 TASKS
02. Task 2. You’re Beautiful (Simon Armitage)
06. Task 4. “Meeting at Night” (Robert Browning)
08. Task 5. “Writing forms / reading forms” (‘40 - love’ – Haiku)
10. Task5. Writing images – “Child on top of a greenhouse” (Theodore Roethke)
12. Task 6. Sese devices – Auden’s “Song”
Readings: Whitla (2010:175-213) (1-12; 16-21; 233-239)

SOME OF OUR POEMS…

1) “Probably it is too early in the morning” - Brian Patten
2) “The Minister of exams” - Brian patten
3) “You’re Beautiful” - Simon Armitage
4) “Wild Nights” - Emily Dickinson
5) Othello, V ii 1-3 - Shakespeare
6) “ Song” – Keats
7) “The Tyger”- William Blake
8) “Anthem for doomed youth” - Wilfred Owen
9) “Meeting at Night” - Robert Browning
10) “My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun” Sonnet 130 - William Shakespeare
11) “Remember”- Christina Rossetti
12) “When I set out for Lyonnesse” – Thomas Hardy
13) “Old Tongue” Jackie Kay
14) “London airport”- Christopher Logue
15) “Poem, or Beauty Hurts Mr Vinal” - e.e. cummings
16) “Comeclose and sleep now” Adrian Henri
17) “Lord, who createdst man” George Herbert,
18) 40 – love” - Roger McGough
19) “Slow reader” – Vicki Feaver
20) “ Hey there now!” – Grace Nichols
21) “The Road not taken” Robert Frost
22) “Machine” - Michael Donaghy