What are the theories of literature?

A literary standard which can be defined as a quality that appeals to our sense of beauty.

A literary standard which evaluates literary pieces must stimulate thought. These should enrich our mental life by making us realize fundamental truths about life and human nature.

A literary standard that can be defined as the quality relevant to the emotional power of literature to make us feel deeply and stir our feelings and imagination. It should give and evoke visions above and beyond the plane of ordinary life and experience.

A literary standard which suggests that a literary work must elevate the spirit by bringing our moral values which make us better persons.

A literary standard that suggest a great literary work endures and can be read again as each reading gives fresh delights and new insights. It opens new worlds of meaning and experience and its appeal is lasting.

A literary standard that suggest a great literary work is timeless and timely. It is forever relevant, it appeals to one and all, anytime, anywhere because it deals with elemental feelings, fundamental truths, and universal conditions.

A literary standard that can be defined as the peculiar way in which a writer sees life, forms his ideas, and expresses them. Great works are marked as much by their memorable substance as by their distinctive style. It should suit the content.

A speech or writing without metrical structure.

It is the art by which a poet projects feeling and experience on an imaginative plane, in rhythmical words, to stir the imagination and the emotions.

An orderly, continuous account of an event or series of events.

Of, connected with, or like the drama; especially involving conflict.

A dramatic composition, also a dramatic representation, especially a public theatrical exhibition.

Originally, a drama with a romantic story or plot, sensational incidents, and usually including some music and song.

A poem or other literary work usually with a happy ending.

A form of drama in which the protagonist, having some quality of greatness (as in Greek, Roman, and Renaissance tragedy, in high places), comes to disaster through some flaw (which may be a noble fault) in him brings about his inevitable downfall or death, the action being managed in a way to produce pity and fear in the spectator and to effect a catharsis of these feelings.

Characterizing verse expressing the poet's personal emotions or sentiments.

In funeral song, a meditative poem with a sorrowful theme.

In classical prosody, a lyric poem intended to be sung or chanted composed of an octave and a sestet properly expressing two successive phases of a single thought or sentiment.

The rendering of vocal music; a musical composition for the voice or for several voices.

Relating to utility; especially, placing utility above beauty or the amenities of life.

The faculty of expressing thought and emotion by spoken words.

An article in a journal, or periodical, presumably written by the editor or by his subordinate, and published as an official argument or expression of opinion.

A recorded narrative of past events, especially those concerning a particular period, nation, individual, etc

Conveying, containing, or pertaining to exposition.

A written or printed communication, from one person to another.

A prose composition of moderate length usually expository, dealing with a subject, idea, theory, or experience.

A type of prose fiction differing from the novel, especially in the matter of length.

A fictional prose narrative of considerable length, representing characters and events as if in real life by a plot or scheme.

Explain ancient people's origin, cultures, beliefs, and traditions.

Pure narratives which tell of the origin of a place, a person, or an object.

Sacred narratives which explain how the world and men came to be in the present form.

A type of poetry that tells a story in richly imaginative and rhythmical language.

A long, narrative poem divided into distinct parts and episodes bound together by a common relationship to some great hero, action, and time. They are essentially single poems of exceeding dignity and power.

A kind of epic that does not have a known author but evolved gradually from the people's ancient traditions.

A kind of epic that have distinct authorship.

A kind of epic that have standard conventions such as an underlying theme of human problem, the hero embodying national, cultural, or religious ideals, the style being lofty and earnest.

A narrative poem that is a long, rambling love story in verse. Ideals of chivalry, romantic love, and religious elements predominate in this type of literature most characteristic of the Middle Ages, "when knighthood was in flower."

Is a short narrative poem intended to be sung. Types can either be folk or literary, as in the epic.

Is to poetry what the short story is to prose. It deals with any emotion or phrase of life and its story is told in a simple, straightforward, and realistic manner.

A type of poetry that expresses personal thoughts and feelings.

An extended poem usually complicated in meter and stanza forms, and always deals with a serious theme such as immortality. Said to be the most majestic of lyric types, it expresses enthusiasm, lofty praise of some person or a thing.

Is generally a poem of a subjective and meditative nature. It is a poem that can be distinguished by its subject - death. It contains the author's personal grief for a loved one or a loss affecting the public as a whole or it may simply be a meditation on death.

Is a short lyric poem intended to be sung; it has that particularly melodious quality required by the singing voice.

A song that have non-religious themes and examples are prothalamiums and epithalamiums (marriage songs).

These are songs in praise of God such as oratorios and cantatas.

Is any short poem where the verse is especially musical or where there is a marked subjective or emotional tone.

This is a lyric poem distinguished by its exact form- fourteen iambic pentameter lines. The lines are arranged in two waves of thought, the rising in the octave, and the falling in the sestet.

A type of sonnet that contains an octave where the theme, problem, hope, or desire is presented and a sestet where a resolution or conclusion is reached. Its rimes are abba-abba-cdecde

Its typical form, the sonnet, presents and develops its theme in the first three quatrains and states a conclusion in the couplet, or the last two lines. Its rimes are bab-cdcd-efef-gg.

A lyric poetry that is a light verse or occasional and complimentary verse which deals in a witty and polished fashion with subjects that, on the surface at least, are not very serious.

A type of poetry that portrays life and character through action in powerful, emotion packed lines such as those in Shakespeare's plays.

Is a type of drama which aims primarily to amuse and which ends happily.

Is a type of drama in which the chief character undergoes a morally significant struggle which ends disastrously.

Is an exaggerated comedy based broadly on humorous situations.

Is a drama the materials of which are taken from the lives of outstanding figures in history.

Is a play with sensational actions, sentimental love story, extravagant emotions, and generally, a happy ending.

Is a form of court pageantry that flourished in England in the 16th century but was not revived later. It had a prologue serving to introduce a group of actors who came in a sort of decorative float.

Is a poem in which one character speaks throughout, but the presence, actions, and even the words of other characters are implied. Caught at a dramatic moment or crisis in his life, the speaker unconsciously, even ironically, reveals his innermost character.

An element of poetry where the poet uses every resource of language, from simplicity to eloquence, heightening through compression, expansion, omission, and repetition, but the effect is always one of spontaneity.

An element of poetry where the feeling or attitude or the poet's way of looking at his subject or at the world.

It is an element of poetry where there is the total sensory suggestion of poetry-visual, auditory, tactile, gustatory, and bodily.

This element of poetry takes into account the kind and number of foot patterns in each line (iamb, trochaic, anapest, spondee and monometer, diameter, trimeter, tetrameter, etc.).

More significant than the meaning of the question “What does a poem mean?” is the question “How does a poem mean?” Reading poetry is reenactment of an experience (“What it feels like to…?.”) rather than arrival at a thought or logical conclusion.

These are like imagery, aspects in the study of poetry concerned with patterns of rhythm, a quality of speech present in both poetry and prose.

A metrical foot consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.

A metrical foot consisting of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable.

A metrical foot consisting of two short or unstressed syllables followed by one long or stressed syllable.

a metrical foot consisting of one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables

It is a reading approach that identifies structures of thought in the way we read. It is a perspective that shows the reader way in which he thinks as he reads patterns of deep structure.

It is the most thought-provoking approach to literary interpretation. It questions all our assumptions about the accumulated experience of modern Western traditions, of civilization, rationalization, urbanization, liberal democracy and advanced technology.

It is an approach which seeks to discover awareness, consciousness, and re-evaluation of women - their roles in life, and their consciousness in literature.

It is an approach that shows the relationship between literature and political struggle.

It is a combination of elements of these critical theories: that is gender studies, film theory, pop culture, post-colonial studies. It presents cultural forces that divide and alienate communities from each other, or on a more hopeful note, create and unite communities with each other.