LITERATURE IN EDUCATION VALUES

LITERATURE VALUES IN HUMAN LIFE

It is a curious and prevalent opinion that literature, like all art, is a mere play of imagination, pleasing enough, like a new novel, but without any serious or practical importance. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Literature preserves the ideals of a people; and ideals--love, faith, duty, friendship, freedom, reverence--are the part of human life most worthy of preservation. The Greeks were a marvelous people; yet of all their mighty works we cherish only a few ideals,--ideals of beauty in perishable stone, and ideals of truth in imperishable prose and poetry. It was simply the ideals of the Greeks and Hebrews and Romans, preserved in their literature, which made them what they were, and which determined their value to future generations. Our democracy, the boast of all English-speaking nations, is a dream; not the doubtful and sometimes disheartening spectacle presented in our legislative halls, but the lovely and immortal ideal of a free and equal manhood, preserved as a most precious heritage in every great literature from the Greeks to the Anglo-Saxons. All our arts, our sciences, even our inventions are founded squarely upon ideals; for under every invention is still the dream of Beowulf, that man may overcome the forces of nature; and the foundation of all our sciences and discoveries is the immortal dream that men "shall be as gods, knowing good and evil."

In a word, our whole civilization, our freedom, our progress, our homes, our religion, rest solidly upon ideals for their foundation. Nothing but an ideal ever endures upon earth. It is therefore impossible to overestimate the practical importance of literature, which preserves these ideals from fathers to sons, while men, cities, governments, civilizations, vanish from the face of the earth. It is only when we remember this that we appreciate the action of the devout Mussulman, who picks up and carefully preserves every scrap of paper on which words are written, because the scrap may perchance contain the name of Allah, and the ideal is too enormously important to be neglected or lost.

LITERATURE IN HUMAN LIFE
"Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become." - C.S. Lewis, a British scholar and novelist.

This adage is perhaps the most appropriate description of the importance of literature in our lives. Literature reminds us of stories, epics, sacred scriptures and classical works of the ancient and modern times. Literature is defined as the body of written works of a language, period or culture, produced by scholars and researchers, specialized in a given field. Why is literature important? Let us see.

As stated in the quotation by C.S. Lewis, literature not only describes reality but also adds to it. Yes, literature is not merely a depiction of reality; it is rather a value-addition. Literary works are portrayals of the thinking patterns and social norms prevalent in society. They are a depiction of the different facets of common man's life. Classical literary works serve as a food for thought and a tonic for imagination and creativity. Exposing an individual to good literary works, is equivalent to providing him/her with the finest of educational opportunities. On the other hand, the lack of exposure to classic literary works is equal to depriving an individual from an opportunity to grow as an individual. 

Prose, poetry, drama, essays, fiction, literary works based on philosophy, art, history, religion, and culture and also scientific and legal writings are grouped under the category of literature. Creative nonfiction of the ancient times and literary journalism also fall under literature. Certain extremely technical writings such as those on logistics and mathematics are also believed to be a part of literature.

Some of the great literary works like the Bible and Indian epics like Ramayana and Mahabharata, among others, provide society with the guiding principles of life. Ancient poetic works by poets like Homer, Plato, Sappho, Horace and Virgil, Shakespeare's sonnets and notable poetry by W.B. Yeats, John Keats, Wordsworth, Tennyson and William Blake are timeless. The Lord of the Rings, The Godfather, A Tale of Two Cities, James Bond series are some of the best-selling books of all time. The Adventures of Pinocchio, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Winnie-the-Pooh were some of the greatest works in children's literature. The relatively recent Harry Potter series made record sales across the globe and carved a niche for J.K. Rowling. However, a discussion about children's authors would be incomplete without the mention of all-time popular authors like Aesop, Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl and Mark Twain. 

It is through reading such great literary and poetic works, that one understands life. They help a person take a closer look at the different facets of life. In many ways, it can change one's perspective towards life. Lives of brilliant achievers and individuals who have made a valuable contribution to society, are sketched in their biographies. These works give the readers an insight into the lives of these eminent people, while also serving as a bible of ideals.

Literature serves as an enormous information base. Research works by famous inventors and literary works by notable scientists often narrate stories of their groundbreaking discoveries and inferences. Ongoing developments in the fields of science and technology are documented so that the world can know about them. Several ancient scriptures relating stories of human evolution and narratives of human life in those times, have been of tremendous help to mankind. Thus, literature has always served as an authentic source of information from all around the world.

True, languages are the building blocks of literature. But the study of literature cannot be restricted to only studying languages. In fact, literature cannot be confined to an educational curriculum. A degree in language and literature is perhaps unable to provide one, with everything that literature can offer. 

Literature, is definitely, much more than its literary meaning, which defines it as 'an acquaintance to letters'. It, in fact, lays the foundation of an enriched life; it adds 'life' to 'living'.

QUALITY OF LITERATURE
The first significant thing is the essentially artistic quality of all literature. All art is the expression of life in forms of truth and beauty; or rather, it is the reflection of some truth and beauty which are in the world, but which remain unnoticed until brought to our attention by some sensitive human soul, just as the delicate curves of the shell reflect sounds and harmonies too faint to be otherwise noticed. A hundred men may pass a hayfield and see only the sweaty toil and the windrows of dried grass; but here is one who pauses by a Roumanian meadow, where girls are making hay and singing as they work. He looks deeper, sees truth and beauty where we see only dead grass, and he reflects what he sees in a little poem in which the hay tells its own story:

Yesterday's flowers am I,
And I have drunk my last sweet draught of dew.
Young maidens came and sang me to my death;
The moon looks down and sees me in my shroud,
The shroud of my last dew.
Yesterday's flowers that are yet in me
Must needs make way for all to-morrow's flowers.
The maidens, too, that sang me to my death
Must even so make way for all the maids
That are to come.
And as my soul, so too their soul will be
Laden with fragrance of the days gone by.
The maidens that to-morrow come this way
Will not remember that I once did bloom,
For they will only see the new-born flowers.
Yet will my perfume-laden soul bring back,
As a sweet memory, to women's hearts
Their days of maidenhood.
And then they will be sorry that they came
To sing me to my death;
And all the butterflies will mourn for me.
I bear away with me
The sunshine's dear remembrance, and the low
Soft murmurs of the spring.
My breath is sweet as children's prattle is;
I drank in all the whole earth's fruitfulness,
To make of it the fragrance of my soul
That shall outlive my death.

One who reads only that first exquisite line, "Yesterday's flowers am I," can never again see hay without recalling the beauty that was hidden from his eyes until the poet found it.

In the same pleasing, surprising way, all artistic work must be a kind of revelation. Thus architecture is probably the oldest of the arts; yet we still have many builders but few architects, that is, men whose work in wood or stone suggests some hidden truth and beauty to the human senses. So in literature, which is the art that expresses life in words that appeal to our own sense of the beautiful, we have many writers but few artists. In the broadest sense, perhaps, literature means simply the written records of the race, including all its history and sciences, as well as its poems and novels; in the narrower sense literature is the artistic record of life, and most of our writing is excluded from it, just as the mass of our buildings, mere shelters from storm and from cold, are excluded from architecture. A history or a work of science may be and sometimes is literature, but only as we forget the subject-matter and the presentation of facts in the simple beauty of its expression.

Suggestive

The second quality of literature is its suggestiveness, its appeal to our emotions and imagination rather than to our intellect. It is not so much what it says as what it awakens in us that constitutes its charm. When Milton makes Satan say, "Myself am Hell," he does not state any fact, but rather opens up in these three tremendous words a whole world of speculation and imagination. When Faustus in the presence of Helen asks, "Was this the face that launched a thousand ships?" he does not state a fact or expect an answer. He opens a door through which our imagination enters a new world, a world of music, love, beauty, heroism,--the whole splendid world of Greek literature. Such magic is in words. When Shakespeare describes the young Biron as speaking

In such apt and gracious words
That aged ears play truant at his tales,

he has unconsciously given not only an excellent description of himself, but the measure of all literature, which makes us play truant with the present world and run away to live awhile in the pleasant realm of fancy. The province of all art is not to instruct but to delight; and only as literature delights us, causing each reader to build in his own soul that "lordly pleasure house" of which Tennyson dreamed in his "Palace of Art," is it worthy of its name.

Permanent

The third characteristic of literature, arising directly from the other two, is its permanence. The world does not live by bread alone. Notwithstanding its hurry and bustle and apparent absorption in material things, it does not willingly let any beautiful thing perish. This is even more true of its songs than of its painting and sculpture; though permanence is a quality we should hardly expect in the present deluge of books and magazines pouring day and night and to know him, the man of any age, we must search deeper than his history. History records his deeds, his outward acts largely; but every great act springs from an ideal, and to understand this we must read his literature, where we find his ideals recorded. When we read a history of the Anglo-Saxons, for instance, we learn that they were sea rovers, pirates, explorers, great eaters and drinkers; and we know something of their hovels and habits, and the lands which they harried and plundered. All that is interesting; but it does not tell us what most we want to know about these old ancestors of ours,--not only what they did, but what they thought and felt; how they looked on life and death; what they loved, what they feared, and what they reverenced in God and man. Then we turn from history to the literature which they themselves produced, and instantly we become acquainted. These hardy people were not simply fighters and freebooters; they were men like ourselves; their emotions awaken instant response in the souls of their descendants. At the words of their gleemen we thrill again to their wild love of freedom and the open sea; we grow tender at their love of home, and patriotic at their deathless loyalty to their chief, whom they chose for themselves and hoisted on their shields in symbol of his leadership. Once more we grow respectful in the presence of pure womanhood, or melancholy before the sorrows and problems of life, or humbly confident, looking up to the God whom they dared to call the Allfather. All these and many more intensely real emotions pass through our souls as we read the few shining fragments of verses that the jealous ages have left us.

It is so with any age or people. To understand them we must read not simply their history, which records their deeds, but their literature, which records the dreams that made their deeds possible. So Aristotle was profoundly right when he said that "poetry is more serious and philosophical than history"; and Goethe, when he explained literature as "the humanization of the whole world."

TYPES OF LITERATURE

"When I read great literature, great drama, speeches, or sermons, I feel that the human mind has not achieved anything greater than the ability to share feelings and thoughts through language."- James Earl Jones

The major types of literature across the world are English, Greek, Latin, Roman, African, Indian, American, French, Irish, Spain, Chinese, Italian, Japanese, Persian, Sanskrit, Nepali, Russian and Canadian literature. Literature is a well-considered form of a language that influences the minds of readers of all age. Italian Renaissance is the age of Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, whereas Greece Literature mostly comprises the literature of Greek Gods and Goddesses. 

Romanticism of Wordsworth is the literature which is oriented towards nature and can be considered to be reverse of classicism. Today's era of Modernism and Post modernism uses artificial language based on ambiguity, satire and parody. Some authors choose long composition methods to link more than one story. Moreover, literature being a part of scientific language is also used to analyze grammar, usage, lexis and semantics.

Kinds of Literature

Fictional Literature
Drama: Drama is the theatrical dialog performed on stage, it consists of 5 acts. Tragedy, comedy and melodrama are the sub types of drama. e.g William Shakespeare, an Elizabethan dramatist composed the plays Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, King Lear that are famous because of its combination of tragedy and comedy. Problem play, farce, fantasy, monologue and comedy of manners are some kinds of drama.

Tragedy: It is a story of the major character who faces bad luck. Tragedy, elements of horrors and struggle usually concludes with the death of a person. The Illiad and The Odyssey by Homer are the two famous Greek tragedies.

Comedy: The lead character overcomes the conflicts and overall look of the comedy is full of laughter and the issues are handled very lightly. The elements used in the comedy are romanticism, exaggeration, surprises and a comic view of life.

Melodrama: Melodrama is a blend of two nouns - 'melody' and 'drama'. It is a musical play most popular by 1840. Uncle Tom's Cabin is one of the most popular plays describing cruelty of labor life. It has happy ending like comedy.

Tragicomedy: The play that begins with serious mode but has a happy ending is tragicomedy.

Prose Literature
History, journalism, philosophy, fiction and fantasy writings, scientific writings, children's literature authors and writers are included in Prose Literature. 

Myth
Myths are the fairy tales with lots of adventure, magic and it lacks scientific proof. Nursery rhymes, songs and lullabies are forms of myths that strike the interest of children. Creative and nature myth are stories of the stars and moon. Magic tales are wonderful tales of quests and fantasy. Hero myths are ideal heroes of adventure.

Short story
The small commercial fiction, true or imaginary, smaller than a novel is known as short story. Short stories are well-grouped that followed the sequence of easy and no complexity in beginning, concrete theme, some dialogs and ends with resolution. They are oral and short-lived which have gossip, joke, fable, myth, parable, hearsay and legend.

Novel
Novel can be based on comic, crime, detective, adventurous, romantic or political story divided into many parts. 

The major kinds of novels are:

Allegory: The symbolic story revolves around two meanings. What the writer says directly is totally different from the conveyed meanings at the end. Political and Historical allegory are two forms of Allegory.

Comedy: Satire is very common form in comedy novels and tries to focus on the facts of the society and their desires.

Epistolary: The collection of letters or mails is the epistolary novels. Samuel Richardson's Pamela and Henry Fielding's Joseph Andrew are the few examples of Epistolary novels. 

Feminist: These types of novels are written by women writers around the world to describe the place of women in a male dominated society. E.g Virginia Woolf's "A Room of one's Own".

Gothic: Gothic fiction is the combination of both horror and romance. Melodrama and parody were grouped in the Gothic literature in its early stages.

Ironic: Ironic novels are known for excessive use of narrative technique. It is satire on the contemporary society about cultural, social and political issues. 

Realism: The realistic novels are based on the truths of ordinary society and their problems. It focuses on the plot, structure and the characters of the novel.

Romance: Love and relationship topics are handled optimistically in the romantic novels. It originated in western countries; basically the story revolves around love affairs of main characters. Some popular sub categories of romantic novels are paranormal, erotic, suspense, multicultural and inspirational romance.

Narration: In narrative style, writer becomes the third person who narrates whole story around the characters.

Naturalism: Naturalism is based on the theory of Darwin.

Picaresque: It is opposite to romance novels as it involves ideals, themes and principles that refuse the so-called prejudices of the society. 

Psychological: It's the psychological prospective of mind with a resolution. 

Satire: Satirical novels criticize the contemporary society. The most famous novels are Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726), Kingsley Amis's Lucky Jim (1954), George Orwell's Animal Farm and Randell Jarrell's Pictures from an Institution (1954).

Stream of Consciousness: James Joyce's stream of consciousness is all about the thought coming up in the minds of the readers.

A novel also constitutes categories on social and political aspects like proletarian, psychological, protest novel, government, didactic, materialist novel, allegorical novel, novel of engagement, naturalistic novel, Marxist novel, radical novel, revolutionary novel, anti-war novel, utopian novel, futuristic novel, anarchist novel, problem novel, social philosophy novel, novel of ideas, problem play and speculative novel.

Folk Tale
Folk Tales are traditional stories that have been creating interest since ancient times. The children and old persons like religious story, magic and superstition as well. Fable, tall tales, cumulative, trickster and proverbs are the sub categories of folk tales. Mythology or legend is the ancient religious stories of origin and human civilization such as story of Robin Hood.

Types of poetry
Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings recollected in the tranquility. Greek poetry is found in free verse and we have rhymes in the Persian poem. Are you wondering how to write a poem, here are the followings forms of poem?

Sonnet: Sonnet is the short poem of 14 lines grouped into Shakespearean and Italian sonnets.

Ballad: The poems that are on the subject matter of love and sung by the poet or group of singers as telling readers a story.

Elegy: This type of poem is the lamenting of the death of a person or his near one. Elegy Written in Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray is one of the famous poems marked as sad poems of the ages.

Ode: Ode is the formal and long poem serious in nature.

Allegory: Allegory is the famous form of poetry and is loved by the readers because of its two symbolic meanings. One is the literal meaning and another is the deep meaning.

Epic and Mock epic: Epics are the narrative poems that convey moral and culture of that period. The Odyssey and Iliad are one of the largest philosophical epics written by Samuel Butler. Rape of the Lock is the great mock epic focusing on the minor incident of cutting of a curl.

Lyric: It has Greek origin that gives a melody of imagery. It is the direct appeal of a poet to the readers about any incident or historical events. Lyrics are most of the time similar to ode or sonnets in the form. 

Nonfiction Literature:
Nonfiction Literature is opposite to fiction as it is informative and comprises the interesting facts with analysis and illustrations. 

Main types of Non- fiction literature

Autobiography and Biography
An autobiography is the story of the author's own life. 'Family Life at the White House' by Bill Clinton is focused on his life and achievements. 'Wings of fire' by Dr.A.P.J.Abdul Kalam, Mein kampf of Adolph Hitler are the autobiography books on real life.

Essay
Generally the authors' point of view about any particular topic in a detailed way is an essay. Essay has simple way of narrating the main subject; therefore they are descriptive, lengthy, subject oriented and comparative.

Different types of essay: Personal essay, expository essay type, response essay, process essay, persuasive essay, argumentative essay, critical essay type, interview essay, reflective essay type, evaluation, observation essay, comparison type of essay, application essay, compare and contrast essay and narrative essay type.

Literary criticism
It is the critical study of a piece of literature. Here critics apply different theories, evaluation, discussion and explanation to the text or an essay to give total judgments. Plato, Aristotle, T.S.Eliot, Saussure and Frye are some of the famous critics.

Travel literature
It is the narration of any tour or foreign journey with the description of the events, dates, places, sights and author's views. Francis Bacon's natural philosophies in the middle of Seventeenth century is one famous example of travel literature.

Diary
Diaries are the incidents recorded by the author without any means of publishing them. It is the rough work of one's daily routine, happenings, memorable days or events in their life. E.g. Anne Frank's 'Diary of a Young Girl' was published by her father in 1940s; it's a story of a girl trapped during German invade Amsterdam.

Diaries consists of business letters, newsletters, weather listing. In today's world of Internet, writers write in blogs, forums, polls and social networking sites to convey their thoughts. This also is a form of diary writing. Some profound forms of diaries are online diary, travel, sleep, tagebuch, fictional, dream and death diaries.

Journal
Journal is one of types of diaries that records infinite information. They are of following types:

Personal: It is for personal analysis. In this journal one can write his goal, daily thoughts, events and situations.

Academic: It is for students who do research or dissertation on particular subjects. 

Creative journals: Creative journals are the imaginative writing of a story, poem or narrative.

Trade: Trade journals are used by industrial purposes where they dictate practical information.

Dialectical: This journal is use by students to write on double column notebook. They can write facts, experiments, and observation on the left side and right side can be a series of thoughts and response with an end.

Newspaper
It is a collection of daily or weekly news of politics, sports, leisure, fashion, movies and business.

Magazine
Magazines can be the current affairs or opinions well collected covering various content.

Frame Narrative
The psychoanalysis of human mind is present in a frame narrative. Here we find another story within the main story. Some of the popular narratives are Pegasus, Wuthering Heights, The Flying Horse, The Three Pigs, A Time to keep and the Tasha Tudor Book of Holidays.

Outdoor literature
Outdoor literature is the literature of adventure that gives whole exploration of an event. Exciting moments of life such as horse riding, fishing, trekking can be a part of literature. Some outdoor books are 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer' by Mark Twain, 'Treasure Island' by Robert Louis, 'Voyages' by Richard Hakluyt and 'A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush' by Eric Newby.

Narrative form of Literature
Today we find movies, audio and video CD's and Cassettes that present current literature in use. Digital poetry is an upcoming trend too. Comic books, cartoons, eBook and Internet games are the learning methods for children. Literature includes centuries, human nature, cultures and souls. Isn't it?


ELEMENTS OF LITERATURE
Have you read "Robinson Crusoe" or Charles Dickens' "Great Expectations"? If yes, then you must know the taste of literature. Have you gone through Virginia Wolf's often quoted line: Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; life is a luminous halo, a semitransparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end. This echoes the beauty hidden in literature. 

We can summarize literature in the words of Ezra Pound that, Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree. Various types of literature such as story, novel and drama delight us through the elements of literature. In literature, theme is important to reveal the story. An author depicts the ups and downs of the protagonist with the help of characterization. The story progresses through various plots. There are prologues and epilogues in Shakespearean drama. 

The Different Elements of Literature

Elements of literature denote the things that are used to make up a work. There are different types and forms of literature. They are novel, drama, poetry, biography, non-fictional prose, essay, epic and short story. All these types have some elements. To complete a piece, a writer, dramatist or a novelist needs to use certain elements like plot, character, theme, etc. However, elements of fiction and elements of drama differ from elements of poetry. These elements are discussed below: 

Elements of Fiction and Drama 

Literary types such as fiction; drama and short story have some elements. These include
Plot
Character
Setting
Theme
Structure
Point of view
Conflict
Diction
Foreshadowing
Plot: Plot is the serial arrangement of incidents, ideas or events. In literature, the plot encompasses all the incidents and provides aesthetic pleasure. The story of the novel progresses through various plots and conflicts. Plots of dramas are divided into "Acts" and "Scenes". Drama has five essential parts. These are:
Introduction of the story where the characters and setting are introduced
Rising action
Climax
Falling action
Denouement
Playwrights use dialog to develop their plots. They reveal information about their characters such as their background and personality. 

Character: Character plays a pivotal role in a drama, novel, short story and all kinds of narratives. In drama, character reflects the personality of the protagonist and other related characters. The method of conveying information about characters in art is called characterization. Characters can be fictional or based on real, historical entities. It can be human, supernatural, mythical, divine, animal or personifications of an abstraction. There are round characters, flat characters, stereotypical stock characters, etc. In Marlowe's drama "The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus", Faustus is the main character of the play. 

Setting: It refers to geographical location of the story, time period, daily lifestyle of the characters and climate of the story. In a novel, the setting plays an important role. In short stories, sometimes it plays an important role, while for others it is not. Settings of literary forms have been changing according to theme of the literary piece, for example, Shakespeare's tragedies and comedies have the setting of palaces, castles whereas modern and post-modern dramas have setting of houses of common people. There were supernatural elements in earlier literature and nowadays absurdity rules. Setting can take place in a house, school, castle, forest, hospital or anywhere that the writers want to extend their scenes. 

Theme: Theme is another prime element of literature, which contains the central idea of all literary forms such as a novel, drama and short story. It reflects innocence, experience, life, death, reality, fate, madness, sanity, love, society, individual, etc. Thus, it reflects the society as a whole, for example, the theme of Hardy's novel "The Mayor of Casterbridge" reflects the role of fate in our life. Likewise, in a drama, theme represents the brief idea of the drama. 

Structure: Structure is another important element of a drama, novel or short story. In dramas, there are plots and subplots. These also are divided into acts and scenes. Here the contrasting subplots give the main plot an additional perspective. Likewise, novels have different chapters and scenes. 

Point of view: Point of view is another element of the narrative, through which a writer tells the story. Authors use first-person point of view or third-person point of view. First-person point of view indicates that the main character is telling the story, whereas the third-person point of view directs that the narrator is telling the story. A novel can be written in the first-person narrative, third-person narrative, omniscient point of view, limited omniscient point of view, stream of consciousness and objective point of view. These points of view play an important role in the distinct structure of the story or a play. 

Conflict: Be it a short story, drama or novel, conflict is the essential element of all these literary forms. A plot becomes interesting and intriguing when it has its share of inbuilt conflict and twists. Conflict can be internal conflict or external. It can take place between two men, between the character and his psychology, between the character and circumstances or between character and society. 

Use of language or diction: Diction is another essential element of drama. A playwright exhibits the thoughts of characters through dialog. "Dialogue" has come from the Greek word "dialogosa" which means "conversation". Shakespeare used this to portray the thoughts, emotions and feelings of the character. This also provides clues to their background and personalities. Diction also helps in advancing the plot. Greek philosophers like Aristotle used dialogue as the best way to instruct their students. 

Foreshadowing: Foreshadowing is another important element of literature that is applied as hints or clues to suggest what will happen later in the story. It creates suspense and encourages the reader to go on and find out more about the event that is being foreshadowed. Foreshadowing is used to make a narrative more authentic. 

Elements of Poetry 

Poetry is literature in a metrical form. However, free-verse became the popular style towards the modern and post modern age. Like fiction, it may not have plots, setting, etc, yet it has a structured method of writing. There are various kinds of poetry such as ballad, sonnet, etc. All these forms have some elements such as style, theme, rhyme, rhythm, metaphor, etc. that are described below: 

Style: Style refers to the way the poem is written. Poems are written in various styles, such as free verse, ballad, sonnet, etc., which have different meters and number of stanzas. 

Symbol: Symbol represents the idea and thought of the poem. It can be an object, person, situation or action. For example, a national flag is the symbol of that nation. 

Theme: Like other forms of literature, poetry has a theme of its own. Theme contains the message, point of view and idea of the poem. 

Imagery: Imagery is another important element that a poet often uses in poems that appeal to our senses. In the age of modernism, T.S. Eliot used images of urban life in his poems. Wordsworth used nature as poetic images in his poems. 

Rhyme and rhythm: Rhyme is an element that is often used in poetry. It's a recurrence of an accented sound or sounds in a piece of literature. Poets and lyricists use this device in various ways to rhyme within a verse. There is internal rhyme, cross rhyme, random rhyme and mixed rhyme. It gives the poem flow and rhythm. It contains the syllables in a poem. Every poem has a rhythm in it. It's about how the words resonate with each other, how the words flow when they are linked with one another in a poem. 

Meter: This is an important rhythmic structure of poetry. It is described as sequence of feet, each foot being a specific series of syllable types - such as stressed/unstressed and makes the poetry more melodious. 

Alliteration: Alliteration is another element used in poetry for the sound effect. It indicates two or more words with same repetition of initial letter, for example, "dressy daffodils". Here the sound of the letter 'd' is repeated. 

Simile: A simile is a figure of speech used for comparison in the poetry with the words 'like' or 'as', for example, "as black as coal".

Metaphor: Metaphor is used in poetry to make an implicit comparison. Unlike simile, here the comparison is implied, for example, 'Her laughter, a babbling brook'. 

Onomatopoeia: This is one important element of poetry, which refers to words that sound like their meaning, for example, buzz, moo and paw. 

Element of literature includes all the elements that are essential to create a piece. These elements help a writer to create splendid poetry, superb drama and soul-touching novel. These elements are used to form the structure of a literary piece.

LITERATURE QUOTES

What have writers said about literature? How has literature affected them? What causes writers to continue to attempt to make a difference with words, creating new worlds and experiences in literature? Read these quotes about literature. Find out what writers from around the world have thought of creating works of art.

• "Develop an interest in life as you see it; the people, things, literature, music-the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself."
  - Henry Miller
  
• "Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree."
  - Ezra Pound
  
• "He knew everything about literature except how to enjoy it."
  - Joseph Heller
  
• "I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature."
  - John Steinbeck
  
• "It is in literature that the concrete outlook of humanity receives its expression."
  - Alfred North Whitehead
  
• "It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature."
  - Henry James
  
• "Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become."
  - C.S. Lewis
  
• "Literature always anticipates life. It does not copy it, but moulds it to its purpose. The nineteenth century, as we know it, is largely an invention of Balzac."
  - Oscar Wilde
  
• "Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity."
  - G. K. Chesterton
  
• "Literature is strewn with the wreckage of those who have minded beyond reason the opinion of others."
  - Virginia Woolf
  
• "Literature is where I go to explore the highest and lowest places in human society and in the human spirit, where I hope to find not absolute truth but the truth of the tale, of the imagination and of the heart."
  - Salman Rushdie
  
• "The crown of literature is poetry."
  - William Somerset Maugham
  
• "The decline of literature indicates the decline of a nation."
  - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  
• "The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write what you mean."
  - Robert Louis Stevenson
  
• "The duty of literature is to note what counts, and to light up what is suited to the light. If it ceases to choose and to love, it becomes like a woman who gives herself without preference."
  - Anatole France
  
• "What is wonderful about great literature is that it transforms the man who reads it towards the condition of the man who wrote."
  - E.M. Forster
  
• "When once the itch of literature comes over a man, nothing can cure it but the scratching of a pen. But if you have not a pen, I suppose you must scratch any way you can."
  - Samuel Lover
  
• "While thought exists, words are alive and literature becomes an escape, not from, but into living."
  - Cyril Connolly