Lecture 1 1

LECTURE 1

I.    The definition of literaturę:

-    from Latin littera ‘Word”,

-    verbal art;

-    ‘imaginative writing’, ‘a performance in words’,

-    literariness: the sum of special linguistic and formal properties that distinguish literary texts from non-literary texts, according to the theories of Russian

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Formalism; defamiliarization.

II.    The verbal naturę of literaturę:

-    verbal meaning constitutes the importance of literaturę - ambiguity,

-    language is subject to historical change (e.g. “He was a verray, partit, gentil knight”, The Canterbury Tales),

-    two features of the word: denotation (literał meaning of a word, the "dictionary definition") and connotation (associations that are connected to a certain word or the emotional suggestions related to that word),

-    the English language is particularly rich in overtones and complexity (abundance of synonyms; French and Latinate words versus Anglo-Saxon words, e.g. “profound” vs “deep”),

-    overtones of words change throughout the years (e.g. “villain” - a farm servant),

-    establishing the precise meaning of words: New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (N.E.D.) / Oxford English Dictionary.

III.    Literaturę as Art:

1/ The theory of imitation (imitative theory):

literaturę as a way of reproducing or recreating the experiences of life in words;

Plato’s Republic - art as copy of a copy (negative sense);

Aristotle’s Poetics - art as imitation (positive sense);

literaturę should “hołd as ‘twere the mirror up to naturę” (Shakespeare).