Important notes for B.A. II year | 2nd year 2073 (2016)

The forms of literature

Literature is an art that attempts to imitate human life through written discourse. The main objective of literature is to give pleasure to the readers. But it also gives some important lessons to them through its didactic purpose. Literature makes our lives better because it increases our capacities to understand the meaning of our life experiences. The more we develop that capacity, the more enlightening, insightful, enriching and enjoyable our reading becomes. Literature uses very artistic language that is different from common language. It uses literary language which is symbolic, metaphorical, twisted, suggestive, indirect and connotative.

          Literature has four forms. They are: essay, fiction, poetry and drama. These four forms are also called the four genres of literature. All these four forms use language as the bases of their expression. All of them express ideas or feelings by using language. It is impossible to create any literary texts without using language. But the way they use language is different from each other. All the four forms use unique and distinct way of expression. Some use language to create imaginary people and event but some others use language to express ideas and feelings. More particularly, story and drama use language to create imaginary people and events but essay and poetry use language to express ideas and feelings. So, there is great difference in how they use words. The four forms can be divided horizontally into two types according to how they use language. In the same way, they are again divided vertically into two types according to how they communicate to the readers. Story and essay use the words directly addressed to the readers but drama and poem use the words that ae overheard by the readers. In other words, story and essay directly address the readers but drama and poems do not directly address the readers. The ideas and feelings they express are heard by the readers. The following diagram divides into four categories according to how they use the words and how we divide them into four types.

            In the above diagram, we see story and drama on the upper level. They use words to create imaginary people and events. But we see essay and poem on the lower level. They use words to express ideas and feelings. Similarly, we see story and essay on the left hand side. They use words that are directly addressed to the readers. Bu we see drama and poem on the right hand side. They use words to speak themselves and we hear them that they say. They do not address the readers directly. Therefore, we can divide literature into four forms. All of them have different basic qualities.