An introduction to literature Literature一、What is literature?⏹Literature comes from Latin "litterae", meaning "letter" in English.⏹The word literature literally means "acquaintance with letters" and the term"letters" is sometimes used to signify "literature," as in the figures of speech "arts and letters" and "man of letters."⏹General meanings?①published writings in a particular style on a particular subject (publications, books, brochures and so on)②creative writing of recognized artistic value (artistic and literary writings)③the profession or art of a writer (vocation)④the humanistic study of a body of literature (subject)⑤musical product⑥knowledge or learning⑦reading (supplementary literature)A Crazy Act♦Literature is about writing in a particular country of a period, all over the world in general.♦Literature is a writing which has claimed to consider underground of beauty of form, and emotional effect. (Aestheticism)♦Literature is all the writings that have permanent value, excellent form and great emotional effect.♦Literature is a writing having excellence of form or expression, and expressing ideas of permanence of universal interest. (critical mind)♦ A developing term.AestheticismAestheticism (or the Aesthetic Movement) was a 19th century European art movement that emphasized aesthetic values more than socio-political themes for literature, fine art, the decorative arts, and interior design.Generally, it represents the same tendencies that symbolism or decadence represented in France, and may be considered the British version of the same style.It was part of the anti-19th century reaction and had post-Romantic origins, and as such anticipates modernism. It was a feature of the late 19th century from about 1868 to about 1900.The artists and writers of Aesthetic style used the slogan "Art for Art's Sake"(艺术是纯粹的), tended to profess that the Arts should provide refined sensuous pleasure, rather than convey moral or sentimental messages. Instead, they believed that Art did not have any didactic purpose; it need only be beautiful.The Aesthetes developed a cult of beauty, which they considered the basic factor of art. Life should copy Art, they asserted. They considered nature as crude and lacking in design when compared to art.In Britain the best representatives were Oscar Wilde and Algernon Charles Swinburne, also including John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley, greatly influenced by the French Symbolists.Oscar Wilde (1856-1900):a. an Irish playwright, an aesthete advocating “art for art’s sake”.b. His language is concise, witty and sharp. He criticizes the hypocrisy and corruption of the upper class. His attacks are more like jokes.dy Windermere’s Fan, A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being EarnestA developing term.What is literature?1)The definition of 14th century:➢It means polite learning through reading. A man of literature or a man of letters = a man of wide reading, “literacy”2)The definition of 18th century:➢practice and profession of writing3)The definition of 19th century:➢the high skills of writing in the special context of high imagination4)Robert Frost’s definition:➢performance in words5)Modern definition:➢We can define literature as language artistically used to achieve identifiable literary qualities and to convey meaningful messages. Literature is characterized by beauty of expression and form and by universality intellectual and emotional appeal.Different Ideas♦Literature is imitation.♦Literature is function.♦Literature is an expression of emotions. (imagism意象派)♦Literature is literature.（pay attention to its form）Imagism1)It is a Movement in U.S. and English poetry characterized by the use ofconcrete language and figures of speech, modern subject matter, metrical freedom, and avoidance of romantic or mystical themes, aiming at clarity of expression through the use of precise visual images.2)It grew out of the Symbolist Movement in 1912 and was initially led by EzraPound, Amy Lowell, and others.3)The Imagist manifesto came out in 1912 showed three Imagist poeticprinciples: direct treatment of the “thing”（no fuss, frill, or ornament）, exclusion of superfluous words（precision and economy of expression）, the rhythm of the musical phrase rather than the sequence of a metronome（free verse form and music）.4)Pound defined an image as that which presents an intellectual and emotionalcomplex in an instant of time, and later he extended this definition when he stated that an image was “a vortex or cluster of fused ideas, endowed with energy.”5)Generally an Imagist’s image represents a moment of revealed truth, trut hrevealed by a physical object presented and seen as such. An Imagist poem, therefore, often contains a single dominant image, or a quick succession of related images. Its effect is meant to be instantaneous. For example:In a Station of the MetroThe apparition of these faces in the crowd;Petals on a wet, black bough.人群中幽然浮现的一张张脸庞，黝黑的湿树枝上的一片片花瓣。
