Quotes & Sayings About Elements Of Literature

[Northrop] Frye was concerned mostly with literary criticism, and myths interested him as structural elements in works of literature. He used the word myth to mean story, without attaching any connotation of truth or falsehood to it; but a myth is a story of a certain kind. The myths of a culture are those stories it takes seriously - the ones that are thought to be a key to its identity. — Margaret Atwood

In an oppressive society the truth-telling nature of literature is of a different order, and sometimes valued more highly than other elements in a work of art. — Julian Barnes

I think you can find all the elements that you can find in great literature in mundane experiences. — Harvey Pekar

Someday in the very distant future, what would only be the blink of a second to the rest of the universe, the sun would burn out, and this planet would die. Eventually, the speck of mud once known as Earth would break apart, and all vestiges of humanity - art, and literature, and pictures of families - would be decomposed into their elements, and would be scattered throughout the stars in tiny bits and pieces. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. She had dealt with the fact that things die. And because it all dies, none of it really mattered. Lena, — A.L. Tyler

Many of the most popular children's stories have their roots in tales invented for particular children, and this casual, often serendipitous, approach produces a stream of ideas which are later refined into great literature. With Tolkien's shorter stories and poems, I am even more aware of the presence of the author, and his children. There are elements and events that are so strikingly original that they could only arise as a result of observations and conversations ignited by two or more lively minds. — Alan Lee

Literature should be more revolutionary than revolutions themselves; writers must find the means to continue to be critical of the negative elements in the sociopolitical reality. — Naguib Mahfouz

This philistinism of interpretation is more rife in literature than in any other art. For decades now, literary critics have understood it to be their task to translate the elements of the poem or play or novel or story into something else. Sometimes a writer will be so uneasy before the naked power of his art that he will install within the work itself - albeit with a little shyness, a touch of the good taste of irony - the clear and explicit interpretation of it. Thomas Mann is an example of such an overcooperative author. In the case of more stubborn authors, the critic is only too happy to perform the job. — Susan Sontag

I believe one of the important differences between creating literature and just telling a story around the campfire is that in literature you're recreating the experience of life, not just relaying a 'this happened, then that happened' kind of narrative. The specific details and layers of depth that make the world of the story - and what the character is experiencing in that world - as real as possible are elements I love as a reader and, consequently, elements I strive to use effectively as a writer. — Lara Campbell McGehee

The pull of music, literature or painting on us is like the plucking of a string. Literally, in the case of music. Sometimes gently, sometimes vigorously, but it always causes a reaction. Our innate response brings us in synchronized harmony with the elements in nature - from the smallest atomic particle to the largest heavenly body. We're connected through these vibrations to nature and to each other. So, really, everything's connected — Marilyn Brant

It is known that the Quran leaves an analytical reader the impression of disarrangement, and that it seems to be a compound of diverse elements. Nevertheless, the Quran is life, not literature. Islam is a way of living rather than a way of thinking. The only authentic comment of the Quran can be life, and as we know, it was the life of the prophet Muhammad. Islam is in its written form (the Quran) may seem disorderly, but in the life of Muhammad it proves itself to be a natural union of love and force, the sublime and the real, the divine and the human. This explosive compound of religion and politics produced enormous force in the life of the peoples who accepted it. In one moment, Islam has coincided with the very essence of life. — Alija Izetbegovic

That is, I fancy, the true doctrine on the subject of Tales of Terror and such things, which unless a man of letters do well and truly believe, without doubt he will end by blowing his brains out or by writing badly. Man, the central pillar of the world must be upright and straight; around him all the trees and beasts and elements and devils may crook and curl like smoke if they choose. All really imaginative literature is only the contrast between the weird curves of Nature and the straightness of the soul. — G.K. Chesterton

every fictional world was a work of fantasy, and whenever writers introduce a threat or a conflict into their story, they create the possibility of horror. He had been drawn to horror fiction, he said, because it took the most basic elements of literature and pushed them to their extremes. All fiction was make-believe, which made fantasy more valid (and honest) than realism. He — Joe Hill

The experience of this demoralizing crisis [of the Babylonian exile], which appeared to negate all the central elements that Yahweh had ordained for Israel's well-being, could easily have meant the end of Israel's religion. Remarkably, it provoked instead an almost explosive flowering of theological literature during the exilic period. (p. 139) — Rainer Albertz

Science fiction is an amazing literature: plot elements that you would think would be completely worn out by now keep changing into surprising new forms. — Connie Willis

I've translated a lot of American literature into Japanese, and I think that what makes a good translator is, above all, a feel for language and also a great affection for the work you're translating. If one of those elements is missing the translation won't be worth much. — Haruki Murakami

Utter objectivity ... is not only impossible when judging literature, it's not exactly desirable. Fiction involves trace elements of magic; it works for reasons we can explain and also for reasons we can't. If novels or short-story collections could be weighed strictly in terms of their components (fully developed characters, check; original voice, check; solidly crafted structure, check; serious theme, check) they might satisfy, but they would fail to enchant. A great work of fiction involves a certain frisson that occurs when its various components cohere and then ignite.
(Source: "Letter from the Pulitzer Fiction Jury: What Really Happened This Year" in The New Yorker.) — Michael Cunningham

Fiction, on the whole, and if it is any good, tends to be a subversive element in society. — Fay Weldon

The biggest problem in Chinese society is not money, but rather the lack of a developed civil society. Civil society has received a lot of attention in recent years. But in truth, squared off against the overwhelming presence of the state, the positive elements of civil society are completely powerless."

[In interview. Pathlight: New Chinese Writing (Summer 2013)] — Bi Feiyu

Music and literature, the two temporal arts, contrive their pattern of sounds in time; or, in other words, of sounds and pauses. Communication may be made in broken words, the business of life be carried on with substantives alone; but that is not what we call literature; and the true business of the literary artist is to plait or weave his meaning, involving it around itself; so that each sentence, by successive phrases, shall first come into a kind of knot, and then, after a moment of suspended meaning, solve and clear itself.
-ON SOME TECHNICAL ELEMENTS OF STYLE IN LITERATURE — Robert Louis Stevenson

The short story, its course plotted and its form proscribed, has become too efficient ... but efficiency is not the most, it is perhaps the least, important among the undoubted elements of good literature — Henry Seidel Canby

This is surely the most significant of the elements that Tolkien brought to fantasy ... his arranged marriage between the Elder Edda and "The Wind in the Willows"
big Icelandic romance and small-scale, cozy English children's book. The story told by "The Lord of the Rings" is essentially what would happen if Mole and Ratty got drafted into the Nibelungenlied. — Adam Gopnik

I feel like elements of race and identity and ethnicity are sort of missing in all of literature, not just in women's literature. — Cristina Henriquez

My writing is a combination of three elements. The first is travel: not travel like a tourist, but travel as exploration. The second is reading literature on the subject. The third is reflection. — Ryszard Kapuscinski

I don't really deal with the attention I receive to be honest. I build up a fantasy world around me that I inhabit. I cherry pick elements of literature, music, film, history and art, then weave them together to construct a fantasy reality to live in. It doesn't always work out though, I got evicted from my own fantasy once, which was quite embarrassing. — Pete Doherty

That is its sole law: everything has to submit to form. If any of literature's other elements are stronger than form, such as style, plot, theme, if any of these take control over form, the result is poor. That is why writers with a strong style often write poor books. — Karl Ove Knausgard