As equipment for living --- to deal with recurrent situations in daily life.
8. Iser
Ask the reader to join in the game.
What are the forms of literature?
We use the word literature --- in a broad sense, to mean compositions that tell stories, dramatize situations, express emotions, and analyze and advocate ideas;
Enable the students to get a general idea about the major genres of English literature in different times, and also the major works of major authors
Cultivate the literary taste of the students
in a narrow sense, to mean compositions that well written that some aesthetic value is acquired.
Literature is a permanent expression in words of some thoughts or feelings or ideas about life & the world.
6. Victor Shklovsky (1893-1984) 什克洛夫斯基
Art as technique: a special way of thinking and knowing --estrangement, displaying language out of its usual
7. Kenneth Burke (1897-)
Literature is a performance in words. It is the work of men who are specially sensitive to the language of their time and who use the skill of language to make permanent their vision of life.
(A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom.)
Other ideas about literature
1. Plato & Republic (428-347 BC)
Not only pleasant but also useful to the states and to human life;
Poetry Drama Fiction （Novels，Short
stories …) Essays
Why literature?
Why bother to read it? With life as short as it is, with so many
pressing demands on our time, with books of information, instruction, and discussion waiting to be read, why should we spend precious time on works of imagination? The eternal answers to these questions are two: enjoyment and understanding.
5. Friedrich von Schiller (17591805)席勒
Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man
Beauty makes a full man --combine his sensuous drive with sense drive, to maintain dignity and enjoy life towards perfection and truth.
4. Wolfgang von Goethe (17491832)歌德 Make a common subject / reality interesting and poetic; and show an apprehension & representation of the individual / particular
2. Aristotle & Poetics (384-
322BC) Instinct of imitation and
harmony
3. William Shakespeare (15641616)
They’re the abstract and brief
chronicles of the time. (Hamlet)
Enrich the students’ knowledge
Whatrks of the human experience, past and present that are intended for reading, but not everything intended for reading is classified as literature.
英美文学课件
About the course
Teaching material
An Introductory Course Book of English and American Literature
The Objectives of this course
Enable the students to get a general idea about the development or history of English literature