English Literature Basics: Poetry, Prose and Drama
FoundationEnglish literature organises its texts into the three genres of poetry, prose and drama, and this lesson introduces the core devices — simile, metaphor, personification, irony, symbolism and foreshadowing — together with the close-reading habit that turns ordinary reading into literary analysis.
- Three genres, three focuses: poetry foregrounds line and rhythm, prose foregrounds narrative and character, drama foregrounds dialogue and staging.
- Similes compare with “like” or “as”; metaphors assert directly; personification gives life to things.
- Symbols carry the abstract in the concrete and must be read in context; irony sets surface against sense.
文體小知識：文學賞析說明文——以定義與例句介紹詩歌、散文、戲劇三大體裁及常用修辭手法，訓練從語言細節讀出作者用意的賞析能力。
§Text Passage
1English literature asks how human experience takes shape in language. The subject is organised around three genres: poetry, prose and drama. Poetry compresses feeling into line and rhythm; prose unfolds character and world through narrative; drama stages conflict through dialogue and action. Identifying the genre is the first move in any analysis, because each genre directs your attention to different features.
2Poetry is the most condensed of the three. Poets organise meaning through lines and stanzas, summon sensory experience through imagery, and build music through rhythm, sound and repetition. For example, Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 opens with the question “Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?”, which sets up a simile in a single line and places the beloved beside an English summer. Reading aloud helps you hear pauses, stress and sound effects.
3Prose — here meaning narrative fiction such as novels and short stories — advances through paragraphs. Watch three things: characterisation, or how the writer builds characters through speech and action; setting, the time and place that shape events; and point of view, since a first-person “I” knows only what the narrator knows, while a third-person narrator may see far more. Perspective sets the reader's distance from events.
4Drama is written for performance, and its text consists of dialogue and stage directions. Dialogue drives plot and reveals character; stage directions record movement, setting and tone, and they count as evidence in analysis. In Macbeth, the hero's soliloquy before the murder lays his fear bare before the audience. When you read a play, stage it in your mind: meaning is completed on the stage, not merely on the page.
5Literary devices are the writer's tools: simile and metaphor compare, personification gives life to things, symbolism lets concrete images carry abstract meaning, irony says one thing while meaning another, and foreshadowing plants clues that ripen later. Annotate as you read: circle key words, mark devices, jot questions in the margin, and keep six questions in view — theme, character, setting, point of view, tone and mood.
1Summary 重點摘要
English literature organises its texts into the three genres of poetry, prose and drama, and this lesson introduces the core devices — simile, metaphor, personification, irony, symbolism and foreshadowing — together with the close-reading habit that turns ordinary reading into literary analysis.
2Vocabulary cards Vocabulary
A genre organised in lines and stanzas, condensed in language and built on imagery and rhythm.
Writing organised in paragraphs, covering novels and short stories.
A genre written for performance, composed of dialogue and stage directions.
A comparison explicitly signalled by “like” or “as”.
A comparison asserted directly, without a comparison word.
Giving human actions or feelings to non-human things.
A contrast between what is said and what is meant, including dramatic irony.
The use of concrete images to carry abstract meanings.
Planting early clues that make a later development feel both surprising and inevitable.
The habit of marking a text and noting questions and associations in the margins.
3Step by step Steps
- Step 1: The three genres at a glanceEnglish literature organises its texts by genre, and genre sets the focus of your reading: poetry foregrounds line and rhythm, prose foregrounds narrative and character, drama foregrounds dialogue and staging. For example, the same theme of parting can become an eight-line lyric, a chapter of farewell at a station, or a single heated scene between two characters — identify the genre first, then choose your angle of analysis.
- Step 2: The language of poetryPoems are built from lines and stanzas; their language is dense, and the line break itself carries meaning. Take Shakespeare's Sonnet 18: the opening question “Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?” completes a simile in one breath, setting the beloved beside an English summer. Read every poem aloud at least once, listening for pauses, stress and sound patterns, before you begin to annotate.
- Step 3: Narrative in proseNarrative prose advances through paragraphs, so watch characterisation, setting and point of view: who speaks, where events happen, and how much the narrator lets you know. For example, Dickens opens A Tale of Two Cities with “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” — the balanced contradiction announces the novel's whole mood, showing how much a single opening sentence can encode.
- Step 4: Drama as performanceA play's text is dialogue plus stage directions, and its meaning is completed in performance. In Macbeth, the soliloquy before the murder exposes hallucination and dread directly to the audience. When you read a play, imagine it on stage, and note soliloquies, asides and stage directions as you go — all three supply evidence for analysing dramatic effect, and none of them should be skipped.
- Step 5: Simile and metaphorA simile compares with “like” or “as”; a metaphor asserts that one thing is another. Burns's “O my Luve is like a red, red rose” keeps its comparison word and is a simile; “time is a thief” asserts outright and is a metaphor. In an answer, quote the line, name both ends of the comparison, and then explain what the shared quality adds — only then is the analysis complete.
- Step 6: Personification and symbolismPersonification lends human action and feeling to non-human things; symbolism lets a concrete image carry an abstract meaning that may run through a whole work. For example, “The wind whispered through the trees” turns the wind into a confider and thickens the atmosphere, while a dove conventionally suggests peace. Read symbols in context rather than forcing a fixed codebook meaning onto every image.
- Step 7: Irony and foreshadowingIrony works by counterpoint between surface and sense, and dramatic irony arises when the audience knows more than the characters. Romeo and Juliet's prologue announces the lovers' death in advance, so every sweet scene plays under a shadow the couple cannot see — the tension of the whole play feeds on that gap. Foreshadowing likewise plants early clues so that a later turn feels both surprising and inevitable.
- Step 8: Close reading and annotationClose reading is the discipline underneath everything else in this subject: first reading for the gist, second reading for annotation — circling key words, labelling devices, writing questions and associations in the margin — while tracking six points: theme, characterisation, setting, point of view, tone and mood. Take the opening paragraph of a short story: the circled verbs and adjectives alone often reveal the narrator's attitude.
5Worked example Example
Close reading practice: read the sentence “The old house groaned as the wind clawed at its windows; inside, a single candle fought the dark.” Identify the devices at work and explain how they create atmosphere.
- Circle the verbs first: groaned, clawed, fought — all three give life to lifeless things, the clearest sign that figurative language is at work
- Name the devices: “house groaned” and “wind clawed” are personification, making the house and the wind hostile agents; “candle fought the dark” also reads as metaphor, casting the flame as a soldier
- Explain the atmosphere: an aggressive wind and a groaning house against one small fighting candle build a sense of menace — an eerie, uneasy mood
- Assemble the answer: point (personification creates an ominous mood), evidence (the three verbs), explanation (how the verbs turn scenery into an adversary)
- Answer: The sentence relies chiefly on personification: the old house “groaned” and the wind “clawed” at the windows, so the scenery behaves like a set of hostile living things. The closing image, “a single candle fought the dark”, extends the pattern and shades into metaphor, picturing the flame as a lone soldier holding a line against the darkness. The three verbs escalate the menace, and the sentence as a whole creates an eerie, oppressive atmosphere. A good answer states the point, quotes the verbs as evidence, and explains their effect.
6Common mistakes Mistakes
7Quick check Quick check
Q1What are the three genres of English literature?
Q2Which device is used in “as brave as a lion”?
Q3What does personification achieve?
Q4Why does dramatic irony create tension?
Q5What should annotation record?
8Recap Recap
- Three genres, three focuses: poetry foregrounds line and rhythm, prose foregrounds narrative and character, drama foregrounds dialogue and staging.
- Similes compare with “like” or “as”; metaphors assert directly; personification gives life to things.
- Symbols carry the abstract in the concrete and must be read in context; irony sets surface against sense.
- Foreshadowing plants early clues so the ending feels both surprising and inevitable.
- Read twice — first for the gist, then annotate, always tracking theme, character, setting, point of view, tone and mood.