Gifted Students’ School in Basrah
English Language Course
Set by Muhanned Hamid
What's literature?
Literature is any piece of writing that is valued as work of art. For example novels,
poems, short stories, plays ...
Literature can also defined as…
• A product of someone's imagination, originality, thought, feelings, emotions, idea etc.
• A reflection of the society, human nature or reality.
• Written or oral artistic works, especially those with a high and lasting artistic value.
What is the Importance of literature?
• Literature improves your language
• It teaches you about the life, cultures and experiences of people in other parts of the
world.
• It entertains you and provides useful occupation in your free time.
• It helps you compare your own experiences with the experiences of other people.
• It makes you a wiser and more experienced person by forcing you to judge, sympathize
with, or criticize the characters you read about.
Literature genres
• Prose
• Poetry
Prose: is the ordinary form of written language.
Short Story : It’s a brief fictional prose narrative shorter than a novel and that can be
read in one sitting. The short story usually deals with few characters and focuses on one
important event in the lives of those few characters.
Novel : A long artistic form of prose which covers both main and sub events.
Drama: is a type of literature telling a story, which is intended to be performed to an
audience on the stage.(play)
Elements of a story
Introduction: when the setting, time and characters are revealed.
Resolution : the ending, when we see what happens to the protagonist and other main
characters,
Plot : is what happens and how it happens in a narrative. (the events of the story)
Setting: is the time and place in which the action of a story occurs.
Theme: is the main idea of the story ,central message, concern, or insight into life
The narrator: is the voice who tells the story .
Characters : the people or animals in the story.
Protagonist: the main character .
Antagonist: a character in conflict with main character
Literary elements
Literary elements work together to make the story interesting to the reader. They help the
reader to understand the story.
Personification : Giving human qualities to animals or object.
EX
The Sun is smiling at us today.
Irony: is used to say one thing when you really mean another. We might say, for
example , ‘that was a clever thing to do’ and mean ‘that was very foolish’.
Foreshadowing: a hint in the story of something that will happen later in the story.
Flashback: when a portion of the story goes back in time
Metaphor : A word or phrase that means one thing and is used for referring to another
thing.
EX
She has a heart of gold
Simile: a phrase that describes something by comparing it to something else using the
word 'like' or 'as'
EX
I sleep like a log
• Poetry: a general name for all types of poems
