literary eement.doc

What is literature? Broad definition: Many people assume that literature is anything that is written. Narrow definition: Others define literature as an art, works of imagination or creative writing. (poetry, drama and fiction) Literature is a text, a discourse like any other human discourses, say, historical text, political text, religious text or philosophical text. literary element------is a catch-all phrase that basically refers to any concept or idea within a text that the author uses to tell the story. English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England Old English is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and southern and eastern Scotland, more specifically in the England Old Period, between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century. Oral literature corresponds in the sphere of the spoken (oral) word to literature as literature operates in the domain of the written word. It thus forms a generally more fundamental component of culture, but operates in many ways as one might expect literature to do. An Epic is a long narrative poem in elevated style presents characters of high relation to a central figure of heroic proportions and through their development of episodes important to the history of a nation or race. 史诗 Romance which uses narrative verse or prose to sing of knightly adventures or other heroic deeds is a popular literary form in the Middle Ages. 传奇 The English romance mainly deals with three major subjects: Religious, Courtly love, and Arthurian Ballad is a story in poetic form to be sung or recited. Robin Hood is a famous ballad singing the goods of Robin Hood. 叙事歌 Meter is the rhythm, the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in verse. 韵律 Stanza is a recurrent grouping of two or more lines of a poem in