Literature is a term used to describe written and sometimes spoken material.

It commonly refers
to works of the creative imagination, including poetry, drama, fiction, nonfiction, journalism, and
in some instances, song. Through literature people can share ideas, give advice, give the reader a
glimpse of a certain period in history, or give a peek into the mind and thoughts of various
personality types.

Literature is an opportunity for us to see ourselves in literary characters. What causes them to
react, what motivates them, also motivates us; that is because even though settings may change,
human nature does not. Though his characters are fictitious, we learn about what it must have
been like to live during that time. Literature offers a chance to experience times and places which
are quite different from our own. Outside of that, literature offers an escape: from life. Similar to
a movie, a book will transport the reader to a place far away from where they are. A vacation of
the mind is what some people need to recharge.

The Seven Key Elements of Literature:

1. Character- The person in a work of fiction and the characteristics of a person.

2. Theme- The theme of a piece of fiction is its view about life and how people behave.
3. Plot- a causal sequence of events, the "why" for the things that happen in the story.
4. Point of view-Remember, someone is always between the reader and the action of the
story. That someone is telling the story from his or her own point of view.
5. Setting-The location of a story's actions, along with the time in which it occurs.
6. Conflict-Conflict is the essence of fiction. It creates plot.
7. Tone-the emotional colouring or the emotional meaning of the work and provides an
extremely important contribution to the full meaning.

Figures of Speech

1. Alliteration-The repetition of an initial consonant sound.

2. Apostrophe-Breaking off discourse to address some absent person or thing, some abstract
quality, an inanimate object, or a nonexistent character.
3. Assonance-Identity or similarity in sound between internal vowels in neighboring words.
4. Hyperbole- the use of exaggerated terms for the purpose of emphasis.
5. Metaphor-An implied comparison between two unlike things that actually have
something important in common.
6. Paradox-A statement that appears to contradict itself.
7. Onomatopoeia-The use of words that imitate the sounds associated with the objects or
actions they refer to.
8. Personification-A figure of speech in which an inanimate object or abstraction is
endowed with human qualities or abilities.
9. Simile-A stated comparison between two fundamentally dissimilar things that have
certain qualities in common.