SCHEME OF WORK
LITERATURE – IN – ENGLISH
SS 1 FIRST TERM
1. Introduction to the study of literature-in-English
English literature VS literature-in-English
Functions of literature
2. Genres of literature
3. Prose: types of prose – fiction and non-fiction
4. Elements of prose
5. Drama: types, elements/features
6. Poetry: definition, types/elements, figures of speech
7– 9. Introduction and analysis of Harvest of Corruption by Frank Ogbeche
10. Introduction and comprehensive analysis of the Pulley by George Herbert
11. Revision
12. Examination
What is Literature?
The word literature is related to the word ‘literate’ which means ‘able to read and to write’. In this sense, literature can be used generally to describe all written materials which give information, instruction etc.
However in the classroom we are concerned with the narrower sense of literature. Here, we define literature as an imaginative art that relies on the use of words. In other words, literature is an expressive art that is concerned with not just what is expressed but also with the manner of expression. It refers to works of art which use language, plot, characters and setting etc to paint a picture of life.
Functions and Advantages of Literature
Literature benefits man in so many ways. Below are some of the ways in which literature helps us:
i. Literature serves as a means of education. Literature exposes us to all aspects of life. A well-read individual is usually rounded, with the ability to function in different areas of life.
ii. Literature entertains. Literature affords its audience leisure and it is a useful way to relax.
iii. Literature preserves and propagates history, culture and politics. Literature exposes people to aspects of their culture that they may not have knowledge of and equally widens the scope and experience of its audience about different peoples and cultures of the world.
iv. Literature teaches morals. For instance, the folklores and moonlight tales that most of us are familiar with teach us different moral lessons. This quality of literature to teach us morals is known as didacticism
v. Literature is a means of social commentary. Literary texts contain comments on the society so as to pave way for reforms.
vi. Literature improves the audience’s use of language. Literature helps to hone the reader’s language skills. It also increases the vocabulary set of the reader.
Genres of Literature
Genre is the term used in literary criticism to characterize the distinct types or categories of literary texts. Based on the forms and techniques of literary works, we identify three main genres of literature. They are: Drama, Prose and Poetry
Drama
The ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle defined drama many years ago as ‘the imitation of human action’. We may define it as any work of art written in the form of dialogue which portrays human actions and which is meant to be acted on stage.
Types of Drama
1. Tragedy: This is a serious play with a tragic or sad ending. A good example is Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman.
2. Comedy: This is a play that deals with the lighter and funny aspects of life. It usually has a happy ending.
3. Tragicomedy: This is a play which combines the features of tragedy and comedy. In other words, it deals with both the serious and the playful. It maintains heightened tension and often ends on a happy note when all the conflicts have been resolved.
4. Melodrama: This kind of play involves exaggerated characters and events. Its purpose is simply to excite the audience and it usually has a happy ending.
5. Farce: This is a comedy of extravagant humour. The characters are foolish to the point of being absurd. The situations in which they often find themselves are equally silly. The characters are foolish to the point of being absurd. The characters and events in a farce are calculated to excite laughter from the audience.
Elements of Drama
The following are different terms that we use in discussing drama.
a. Protagonist: This is the central character around whom the story or plot of the play revolves. This character is also referred to as hero/heroine.
b. Antagonist: This character is pitted against the protagonist. The antagonist contends or struggles with the protagonist. Another name for the antagonist is villain.
c. Conflict: This is the challenge or struggle faced by the main characters in a play. The conflict is the driver or mover of the plot. Every play ends on a sort of resolution of the conflicts in a play.
d. Plot: This refers to the sequence of events in a play.
e. Act: This is a major division of events in a play. It is like the chapter in a novel. Every act in a play consists of scenes.
f. Scenes: This is a single event in a play. It is the division of events in a play below the ‘act’.
g. Dialogue: This is the speech or conversation between characters or personages in a play.
h. Monologue: As opposed to dialogue, monologue refers to the speech of just one character.
i. Prologue: This is the introductory speech made by a character at the beginning of a play.
j. Epilogue: This is the final speech made at the end of a play.
k. Aside: This is the speech or comment made by a character and heard by the audience but other characters give the impression in their act that they did not hear it.
l. Soliloquy: This is the speech made out loud by a character when he/she is thinking about or reflecting on an issue
m. Mime: This type of play does not include any form of speech. It is based on the characters gestures or actions.
n. Flashback: This is a strategy used to recall past events in a play. It involves reenactment of an event that happened in the past
o. Audience: These are the people that watch a play as it is being staged or acted.
p. Flaw: This is the main weakness in the character of a hero that leads to his downfall. For instance, the tragic flaw in Macbeth’s character is his excessive ambition.
Prose
be defined technically as the non-metrical form of language. Prose uses everyday language as opposed to the condensed and complex language of poetry. Prose uses everyday language as opposed to the condensed and complex language of poetry. Prose is usually written in chapters and paragraphs.
Types of Prose
The two major types of prose are fiction and non-fiction. Each of these is further divided into different sub-categories.
They are explained below:
1. Fiction: This refers to any prose work that is based on the writer’s imagination and which deals with imaginary persons and events.
Types of Fiction
a. The Short Story: A short story usually dealing with few characters
b. The Novella: This is a lengthy or extended fictional prose narrative shorter than a novel in length but longer than the short story. In other words, novellas are short novels.
c. The Novel: A long written story usually about imaginary characters and events. Technically, the novel is a prose narrative that is usually long and complex and deals especially with human experience through a usually connected sequence of events.
d. Epistolary Novel: This refers to a novel written in the mode of letters. The letter is written by one or more of the characters. A good example is Mariama Ba’s So Long a Letter.
2. Non-fiction: This refers to the type of prose work that is based on real life persons and events.
Types of Non-Fiction
There are two main types of non-fiction— Biography and Autobiography
a. Biography: Biographies are accounts of people’s lives written by other people. A good example is Emeka written by Frederick Forsythe which is based on the life of Odimegwu Ojukwu.
b. Autobiography: This is the account of a person’s life written by the same person. Examples include Zambia Shall be Free by Kenneth Kaunda and The African Child by Camara Laye.
Elements of Prose
a. Point of View/Narrative Technique
Point of view refers to the angle or perspective through which a narrator tells the story in a prose work. Narrative technique is a general name that covers the style or styles which a writer employs in telling the story in a prose work. The different points of view and narrative techniques that we have in literature are explained below.
i. The First Person / Autobiographical Point of View: A prose work is said to be written with the first person point of view when the story is told from the point of view of the narrator. Here the narrator sticks to the pronouns ‘I’ and ‘we’ and he or she is a participant in the events of the story. A good example of a novel written from the first person point of view is Chimamanda Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus.
ii. The Omniscient Point of View: This is also referred to as the Eye-of-God technique. The persona of the narrator is not known and he sees and knows everything including the minds of the characters. Example: Achebe’s Things Fall Apart
iii. Epistolary Technique: This is a style of writing based on the pattern of letters. A good example is Mariama Ba’s So Long a Letter.
iv. Multiple Point of View: This is when the writer gives voices to the major characters in a prose fiction. These characters narrate their stories from their perspectives. The reader has to bring together the various tales by the characters to get the full story. A good example of this type of prose work is Isidore Okpewho’s The Last Duty.
b. Plot: Plot is the arrangement of the events in a prose narrative. There are two main types of plot arrangement in prose writing— the simple plot and the complex plot. The simple plot makes use of the chronological arrangement. In other words, events in a story are arranged according to the order in which they occurred in time. Event A comes before event B and so on to the last event in the story. Example: Things Fall Apart
The complex plot on the other hand requires a rearrangement of the events in a story for effects. In other words, the writer rearranges the events in the story in order to achieve certain emotional and aesthetic effects on the reader A good example of a novel that makes use of this type of plot is Chimamnda Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus.
c. Setting: This refers to the time and location of the events in a story. When this is not expressly stated in a fictional work, it can be recognized through historical, socio-political and geographical references in the story.
d. Characterisation: This refers to the various strategies or style which a writer adopts to portray the characters in his/her story. It has to do with the ability of a writer to make his characters real and interesting and this in turn helps to hold the readers’ attention.
e. Theme: These are the issues raised in a fictional narrative. Every novel demonstrates some more lessons or provokes consideration of a moral or social question. It is this quality in literature that is referred to as didacticism.
f. Protagonist: This is the central figure in a prose narrative. Most prose narratives focus on the life of a main character and this character is known as the protagonist or hero.
g. Antagonist: This is the character that is opposed to the character of the protagonist and always aspires to bring down the protagonist’s or the hero’s character.
h. Language: The language of prose is straight. It makes use of everyday language.
Poetry
Poetry is rhythmic composition. It makes use of figurative expressions to evoke emotional response from its audience.
Features of Poetry
a. It uses language in a compressed form.
b. It relies heavily on imagery. In other words, the expression employed in poetry are usually in such a way that may paint a picture in the mind of the reader.
c. It also relies on sounds. The sound of words and the manner of combination of such words enhance the overall meaning of a poem.
d. It is primarily written in verse.
Types of Poetry
1. Sonnet: This is a lyrical poem that contains fourteen lines. The subject matter of sonnet is always love. There are two types of sonnet – Petrarchian or Italian sonnet and Shakespearian sonnet.
Petrarchian or Italian sonnets contain two parts. The first is an octave (eight lines) with the rhyme scheme ABBA ABBA and the last part is a sestet (six lines) rhyming CDE CDE.
The Shakespearian or English sonnet is divided into three stanzas of four lines each, that is, three quatrains and two rhyming lines (couplet) ABAB CDCD EFEF GG.
NB: Shakespeare wrote about 154 sonnets in his lifetime.
2. LYRIC: This is a poem meant to be accompanied by a lyre and it is sung at burial or marriage ceremonies. It expresses the poet’s personal feelings,thoughts, and emotions of love, sorrow, hate, joy, disappointment or fulfilment.
3. ELEGY:This is a mournful or plaintive poem; a funeral song or a poem of lamentation.Eg Gray’s Elegy Written in a Churchyard
4. Ode: This is a long lyrical poem addressed to a person, object or animal. Example: John Keat’s Ode to Nightingale.
5. Ballad: This is derived from the Portuguese ‘ballad’ which is a dancing song. The ballad is a form of poetic narrative that is set to be accompanied by music.
6. Epic: This is a long poem celebrating the heroic deeds of a tribe or a great man. There is usually a central hero/heroin in the poem whose character is an epitome of fame, nobility and strength of character. The themes of epic poems are based on folk tales and legends of a tribe or a country. Good examples of epic poems include ‘Beowulf’, an early Anglo-Saxon epic poem celebrating its eponymous hero.
7. Pastoral poem: This is a poem that celebrates the lives of country or agrarian people. It focuses on the rural or rustic (simple) life of a people in countryside.
8. Lullaby: Lullaby is a pleasant song used to reassure children. It is rendered in a low gentle voice so that the baby might be lured to sleep.
9. Epitaph: This is a short poem written on a tomb.
Elements of Poetry
a. Theme: This is the main idea or message that a poem tries to pass across.
b. Language: The language of a poem is more concrete and picturesque than prose. It makes a lavish use of figures of speech. It uses archaic words, inversions of sentence structures, and so on.
c. Mood: This is the state of mind of the poet at the time of writing. This is evident in the poet’s word choices and tone.
d. Tone: This is the voice of the poet persona. It is also reflected in the poet’s language use. The tone of a poem could be that of sarcasm etc.
e. Enjambment (run-on-lines): Here, an idea in a line runs into another line and may not complete the message until the next one.
f. Stanza: This is a group of lines in poetry. A poem is usually written in divisions called stanza etc.
Couplet: a stanza of two lines
Triplet: a stanza of three lines
Quatrain: a stanza of four lines
Quintet: a stanza of five lines
Sestet: a stanza of six lines
Septet: a stanza of seven lines
Octave: a stanza of eight lines
g. Rhythm: This is the regularity of sounds at observable intervals. It is marked by an intermittent recurrence of stressed and unstressed syllable.
h. Imagery: This is the mental image or imaginative picture created in the reader’s mind by skillful use of words by the poet.
i. Diction: This refers to the choice of words or language of the poet.
Figures of Speech
Figures of speech refer to the different language strategies by which literature expresses meaning. Figures of speech help to create vivid meaning in the minds of the readers of literature thereby enhancing their ability to grasp the writer’s message in a literary work. Expressions that are identified as figures of speech usually have two layers of meaning. The surface meaning (denotation) is usually less significant in literature than the underlying meaning (connotation).
Figures of Speech Involving Contrast
1. Oxymoron: This is the juxtaposing (placing side by side) of two contrasting words or ideas in an expression.
Examples
a. The medicine has a bitter-sweet taste.
b. It is an open-secret that she is pregnant.
c. The class called him a holy devil.
2. Paradox: This is any statement which appears absurd or senseless on the surface but which, on a closer look, contains an important truth
Example
a. The boy is the father of the man.
b. Spare the rod and spoil the child.
3. Antithesis: This involves placing side by side two contrasting phrases or statements for effects.
Examples
a. United we stand, divided we fall.
b. To err is human, to forgive divine.
4. Irony: This is a figure of speech which the ordinary or literal meaning of the word is more or less the opposite of what the speaker intends.
Examples
a. He knows French so well that he cannot say good morning in the language.
b. Abacha, the former military head of state, was an angel.
c. I wish I had your type of teeth (When in reality the person’s dentition is not the best.)
Figures of Speech Based on Sound
1. Alliteration: This is a systematic repetition of a consonant sound in a line of poetry.
Example:
a. She sells silk and sea shells by the seashore.
b. We had better sing some song here.
2. Assonance: This is the repetition of similar vowel sounds in the same line or nearby lines of a poem or prose passage.
Example:
a. Let not ambition rock their useful toil.
3. Onomatopoeia: This is when the meaning of a word is implied in the sound of that word.
Example:
a. The bang of an explosive.
b. The boom of a canon.
c. The sprinkling of water
4. Pun: This is a deliberate play on the sound of words. It involves using phrases or words which although have similar sounds, possess different meanings.
Examples:
a. Seven days without what to eat makes one weak. (one week)
b. As a mender of soles, I can also mend your troubled soul.
c. It is better to be late than be late.
5. Repetition: Repetition is a figure of speech in which a word, phrase or idea is expressed more than once in a piece of poetry, drama, or prose passage for purpose of emphasis.
Examples
a. ‘Ambassadors of poverty are…’
b. The woods decay, the woods decay and fall ….’ (Alfred Lord Tennyson)
Other Figures of Speech
1. Simile: A simile is an indirect comparison of two things that have similar qualities with the use of words like ‘like’, ‘as’, ‘as if’ etc.
Examples:
a. Ibrahim ran like a gazelle.
b. My shoes are as black as a charcoal.
c. I shall float like butterfly and sting like a bee.
2. Metaphor: A metaphor is a direct comparison f two things with similar qualities without the use of words like ‘like’ or ‘as.’
Example:
a. Emeka is a pig.
b. The woman is a jezebel.
3. Allusion: This is a direct or indirect reference to something outside the immediate scope of what is being presented. It may be reference to characters, events, historical mythology and works of literature.
Examples
a. He sold me in shekels and silver much more than thirty. (This is an allusion to Judas’ betrayal of Jesus Christ)
b. He met his waterloo (Allusion to Napoleon’s defeat by the Duke of Wellington)
4. Personification: It is a figurative device which gives the attributes or features of humans to inanimate objects.
Examples
a. Death lays its icy hands on kings. (Shakespeare)
b. The windows clapped at the arrival of the wind.
5. Euphemism: This figure of speech states an unpleasant fact in a mild or pleasant manner to reduce the effects it may have on the audience.
Examples
a. My grandmother has at last knocked the bucket.
b. The woman is a lady of the night.
6. Hyperbole: This is a deliberate overstatement of a fact without the intent to deceive.
Example
a. I am so hungry that I can finish a whole horse.
b. I woke up this morning only to notice that my head weighed a ton on my neck
7. Metonymy: This is a figurative expression in which the name or attribute of a person, a thing or an object is given as the name of that thing itself.
Example
a. The crown has refused to recognize the newly elected Prime Minister. (The ‘crown’ for the Royal Family)
b. The White House has sanctioned the attack on Iraq. (White House for the president of the US )
c. Aso Rock is yet to speak on the matter. (Aso Rock for the Nigerian President)
d. The pen is mightier than the sword.
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