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1、Introduction to LiteratureLiterature is a term used to describe written or spoken material. Broadly speaking, “literature” is used to describe anything from creative writing to more technical or scientific works, but the term is most commonly used to refer to works of the creative imagination, inclu
2、ding fiction, and nonfiction. Fiction is referred to as creative or figurative expression of life. Under fiction there are four genres: novels, short stories, dramas, and poems Nonfiction is called a literal expression of life or discursive writing. Non-fiction is essay, which has traditionally been
3、 classified into 4 categories: description, narration, exposition, argumentation.In the widest sense, literature is just about anything written. But in the more specialized sense of the word, literature is the art that uses language as a medium. Other definitions of literature:As Robert Frost says,
4、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 their vision of life.Literature enriches our lives and introduces us to new worlds of experience. We learn about books and literature; we en
5、joy the comedies and the tragedies of poems, stories, and plays; and we may even grow and evolve through our literary journey with books.Literature is important to us because it speaks to us, it is universal, and it affects us. Whatever critical paradigm we use to discuss and analyze literature, the
6、re is still an artistic quality to the works. In academic circles, the decoding of the text is often carried out through the use of literary theory, using a mythological, sociological, psychological, historical, or other approach.1) For the first-level readers, literature is read for emotional satis
7、faction, for excitement as well as for entertainment. Generally, there are three levels of readers, and why they read literature differ.2) For the second-level readers, literature is read for its didactic or hermeneutic function. Literature is regarded as a depositor of human experience of considera
8、ble variety and scope. It gains access to questions of moral philosophyquestion of value and of normative judgment. In such belief, readers try to read as many meanings as they can into literary pieces. 3) Advanced readers of literature have a distinctive concern over matters beyond didacticism. The
9、y look for “how it is said”. In other words, sophisticated readers do not allow themselves to be passively manipulated by either moving plots or fascinating characters. Instead, they have an awareness of how authors manipulate readers, of what the mode of narration is, of whom the speaker is and wha
10、t the benefit of the choice is. For them, literature can be read as rhetoric and philology. Readers at this level are also aware of artistic weakness. They even read texts closely as texts and do not move into the general context of human experience or history.The aim in teaching literature is to en
11、courage a confrontation with actual works of art and to demonstrate how literature is a particular organization of language. Being familiar with technical vocabulary does not guarantee that one will understand and enjoy fiction. There is no substitute for careful reading, thinking about ones respons
12、e, and rereading the text, looking for evidence that supports the initial responses or that will lead to richer or different ones. Literature has its own specific laws, structures, and devices. To understand works of literature is like appreciating a bridge. It is important to know its elements, to
13、know how the component parts are put together to make the whole. T. S. Eliot says that one has to give himself up and then recover himself, and the third moment is having something to say before one has wholly forgotten both surrender and recovery. And the self recovered is never the same as the sel
14、f before it was given. To sum up, one must be inside and outside of the work. One must allow himself to be carried away by the work, and at the same time, on reading again and again think about the way the end is connected to the beginning. Now that one knows the end, one will read the beginning in a different way.