Literature

Literature is the aesthetic manifestation of language. It is ‘as old as human language and as new as tomorrow’s sunrise.’ This paper explores the interrelationships between language and literature from 600 AD to the present day. The grammar of present-day English is closely related to that of Old English with the same tense formation and word orders. The verse unit is a single line and its organizing device is ‘alliteration’. The range of Chaucer’s English did much to establish English as a national language. The writers of the Elizabethan period reshaped the literary language by borrowing foreign words and by coining new expressions and figures of speech. Shakespeare’s language and modern English have enough in common so that historians consider that they both belong to the same stage in the history of English. Milton attempted to reinvent the English language through his Paradise Lost. The writers of the seventeenth century developed a prose style that could bear the weight of the most serious and complex ideas. Then, the writers of the eighteenth century devoted themselves to developing out a formal, polished, and “correct” style of expression. Wordsworth and Coleridge intended to purify and renew the literary language and make it closer to the everyday speech of the ordinary people. Modernism tried to articulate a representation of the world and the way of seeing it through complexities of mind using the spoken rather than the formal language.

English story reading as a sub branch of literature plays a momentous role with an impressive function to accomplish divergent goals of skill mastery in ELT studies due to the fascinating pedagogical and psychological benefits embedded in it. English for Specific Purpose (ESP) learners encounter reading passages that can implicitly impress their psychological capabilities as they perceive the world from the characters’ points of view, attitudes, and emotional expressions. This study aimed to explore the probable effects of English Literature (story reading) on ESP learners’ emotion-regulation. Research design was Quasi-experimental. Research sample (with convenience sampling method) included ESP learners in West Tehran branch, Islamic Azad University, who were homogenized via Nelson English Proficiency Test and randomly assigned into two experimental (N=65) and control (N=62) groups. Emotion regulation questionnaire (Gross & John, 2003) with the Cronbach’s alpha (0.82) was administered to both groups before and after treatment. The experimental group received the instruction of English story reading in a seven-week period, while the control group received traditional training during this period. The obtained data were analyzed using the statistical method one independent sample t-test on the gain score. The computation and analysis of the t-test proved to be (1.57) and confirmed the positive improvement in emotion regulation of ESP learners in experimental group. Accordingly, it can be concluded that English story reading could sharpen, deepen, and broaden learners’ insights towards emotion regulation. It can be incorporated in ESP curriculum plans and class syllabi as it facilitates learners to regulate their emotions.

As far as teaching English as a foreign language is concerned, the role of literature as a medium to enhance language learning or to promote other cognitive and affective variables has been quite contentious. Over the last three decades, however, some practitioners and second language scholars have resurrected literature as an effective vehicle to teach the second or foreign language. As an attempt to shed more light on the use of literature in English Language Teaching (ELT), the present study investigated the role of literature as a medium to foster critical thinking among English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students. In so doing, a sample of 39 intermediate Iranian EFL students who were the students of two intact classes were recruited. They were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. The experimental group (n=18) were required to read unabridged, authentic short stories written by literary figures whereas control group students were provided with abridged and simplified texts and short stories. A validated scale of critical thinking was administered as the pre-test and the post-test before and after the treatment. The results of a one way ANCOVA revealed that the experimental group outperformed the control group on the post-test of critical thinking, suggesting that use of literary texts has been effective in enhancing the level of critical thinking among Iranian EFL students. The findings of the study have pedagogical implications for ELT theorizers and practitioners.

In this article, I try to defend the thesis that imagination against reason, moral progress through imagination not the reason, the emergence of literary culture after philosophical culture from Hegel onwards, contingency of language, the usefulness of literature (poetry, novels and stories, etc.) in enhancing empathy with one another and ultimately reducing philosophy to poetry in Richard Rorty's writings point to one thing: the priority of literature to philosophy. The literary or post-physical culture that Rorty defends is opposed to the Enlightenment and the philosophical and religious culture. Rorty prefers literary culture among the religious culture and philosophical culture. The literary culture Rorty envisages is a radically historicist and nominalist one. Rorty’s romanticised version of pragmatism aims precisely at dealing with this literary or post-physical culture or, in generally, the literature.

The first step in the optimization of research is to analyze and review the conducted research to gain a comprehensive overview. Therefore, this study was set to delve into the contributions made to Iranian Applied Linguistics Journals approved by the Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology from 2008 to 2019. To analyze the data, frequency analyses were run on 1419 publications. The findings indicated that TEFL-related topics received the most coverage (88%) compared to the other prevalent majors: Linguistics, Translation, and Literature. The study revealed that male contributions (63.7%) far outweighed those of females (34.4%). Furthermore, it came to light that co-authorship (59.95%) was more appreciated among contributors to Iranian applied linguistics journals. Moreover, Islamic Azad University collectively (25.34%) followed by University of Shiraz (11.3%) and University of Isfahan (10.25%) had the highest number of publications. Assistant (32.12%) and associate professors (21.86%) had the highest number of publications. It was also found that the US contributors (28.75%) followed by Australian and Malaysian contributors (13.75%) made the highest number of foreign contributions to the Iranian EFL journals.  Finally, it was revealed that writing-related topics was the most frequently-explored topic (n=164). Corpus-related studies (n=132) and teacher education (n=118) came second and third respectively. The study provides practitioners and researchers with relevant and missing information about the most frequently-explored topics, the most prolific authors, the most productive universities, and the number of foreign contributions.

The proximity of philosophy and literature has been endured since the dawn of time, both holding their stand among the critical thinkers from the ancient age to the modern time. A wide range of schools and thoughts have come to the stage of philosophy, one of the last ones being the Frankfurt School, whose notions target the social life of human beings and their interpersonal connections, which have been affected by the tragic events of the twentieth century. Jurgen Habermas, as the prominent figure of the Frankfurt School, turns down the challenging thoughts of his peers and expands the theory of “Communicative Action” through which he propounds the essentiality of reason and the importance of a constructive interaction among people with different social classes using a common and practical language. The post-war literature and specifically drama of absurd being known with significant figures like Samuel Beckett found a widespread prominence not only in the field of literature but also extended toward other fields like philosophy. In this analysis, through the works of Samuel Beckett, known as the predecessor of the absurdist drama, the dichotomy of ideas between the death of communication posited by Beckett and the efficiency of language supported by Habermas have been investigated.

The age of enlightenment is a turning point in the movements of Neo-Classicism toward Romanticism. This period emerges after preparing the ground for the decline of neoclassicism in the first half of the eighteenth century in the areas of art, literature, etc. in Europe. It is considered as the beginning of a period of art and literature consisting of artistic creativity and intuitive perception. Three main principles of "unity of time", "unity of place", and "unity of subject" based on which the classical literature was founded become subject to change and transformation. England, Germany, and France were the primary manifestation points of this movement in European literature. Although the role of the literature of ancient east in the foundations of the characteristics of "Romanticism" and pre-romanticism cannot be overlooked, the social grounds of the emergence of this age can be summarized in the longings for change of society, getting tired of old criteria in the fields of art and literature, tendency toward platonic thoughts, and escape from modernity and inclination toward logical thoughts in the works of "Kant" and "Rousseau".

Examiningg the lilemry works of Charls Diceens, William Makepmce Thacktrqy, George Elliot and Thomas Harq)•, the a11thor produces a momic of the Victorimr morality in 19th centery E11gla11d. The author comes to tbe concluion that the Viaorian age was not as pnritan as it is usually imagined and tlu moral problems that bumankind deals with in the cosrse of its developmml art in their e.mnce 1111iverso/, though not identical. Thry differ in their individual forms produced lry the individual periods ofhuman history

Tourism has a solid link with literature; on the one hand tourism needs a literary and spiritual spirit, the tangible heritage of literature, including the birthplace and burial of literature, literary museums and other places related to writers and literary works, is always one of the most important sources of attracting tourists.The purpose of this paper is to analyze and explain planning for the development of literary tourism in Fars province. The main question of this article is that what are the literary tourism potential and resources for attracting tourists in Fars province, and especially in Shiraz, and what are the cultural reasons for planning for the development of literary tourism in this province?In addition to the main question other sub-questions are also raised in this article including that what is literary tourism? And what’s relationship has with cultural tourism? The hypothesis of the article to answer the above questions is that literary tourism is an important part of cultural tourismthat in Iranexist great emphasis on expanding it and Fars province and especially Shiraz city due to the location of the tomb of Hafez and Saadi, Khwaju Kermani, Sibawayh and ... in it shall be looked in planning for tourism development as a pole of literary tourism. The results of this article show that First, the cultural approachis considered Ruling spiritOn Tourism Planning in Iran and literature is also a valuable part of Iranian culture and the city of Shiraz and Fars province are also prominent in this regard. Planning for development of literary tourism in Shirazneed to pay attention to these areas: 1- Development and promotion of literary tourism centered on Shiraz 2- Attention to the literary tourism infrastructure in Shiraz 3- Conducting the commemoration and commemoration of literary celebrities in Shiraz.4- Marketing of literary tourism tours with emphasis on Shiraz city, with the focus of faculty and students of Persian literature. 5- Conversion of places related to literary works of Shiraz to literary tourism. 6- Protection of literary heritage of Fars province and Shiraz city 7- Specialized organization of literary tourism centered on Shiraz. Given this introduction in this article will try using of library resources and scientific and research articles as well as analysis of tourism statistics in Fars province and Shiraz pay to analyze and explain the planning potential for the development of literary tourism in Fars province.

Realism not only has introduced way of thinking but also has discussed a different way of expression in mid-nineteenth century in west and despite its existence has experienced new forms during its stages of development and metamorphosis. Symbolic realism has been discussed as a realistic technique in art and literature style within this through this method, realism and symbolism make contradictory link where although symbolic relationships are formed but signifier, arbitrary signified as well as secondary all have realistic approach in this link which mean in context realistic channel as well as receiver's experimental mind connection with that, although culture, society, policy, history, myths and legends are also represented but they aren&rsquot determinant of meaning and only can be crystallized in second half discovery of signifier as receiver&rsquos mental reserves and of course this is the result and related to discussed realistic patterns in work. This research is sought to investigate symbolic realism which is a kind of realism that is used as technique in a work and can be one of its style indicators and considered as main style in case of its extent of function in work. Besides structural investigation of "symbolic realism", history, approach as well as introducing its artists and writers are investigated in this research and has explained rout map for further researches in this field not only in literature field but also in architecture, painting as well as religious issues.

The application of Mythology and immortal characters in literature by the authors, poets, and playwrights of Western Classical Literature is quite evident; Characters which are immortalized in the minds and memories, many people worship them for their domination and gallantry, extraordinary creatures who never die, get sick, get injured or grow old; including these eternal characterizations are found in; ‘‘Pandora’’ in ‘‘Hesiod’s Pandora’s box’’, ‘‘Hercules’’ in ‘‘Ovid’s Metamorphoses’’, ‘‘Laius’’ in ‘‘Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex’’, ‘‘Niobe’’ in ‘‘Sophocles’s Antigone’’, ‘‘Sappho’s poem(Leto and Niobe)’’, and ‘‘Aeschylus’s Niobe’’, and finally ‘‘Ulysses’’ in ‘‘Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey’’. In this study, researchers have tried to give, at first, an overview of Mythology and then of the Iliad as the first and the oldest surviving work reflecting Mythology in Western Literature. In other words, an outline of Mythology in the darkest episode of the "Trojan War" has been studied to show the connection between Mythology and Western Literature. This paper has been compiled using the ‘‘content analysis’’ of ‘’Iliad’’ translated by ‘’Richmond Lattimore’’ and through the ‘‘library search’’ with the resources mentioned at the end. The results show that there is a fundamental connection between the creation of myth in the doctrinal views and works of Western Literature. Researchers have tried to examine this connection in the Iliad as a sample of epic and mythological works of Western Literature that is the product of the application of the authors, poets, and playwrights from the realm of Mythology in recreating religious and non-religious convictions mingled with ancient quotations.

This study aims to explore the strategies Indonesian students employ in writing comparative Indonesian-English literary criticism within the context of EFL students. A qualitative approach was utilized, and data collection techniques included questionnaires and interviews. The data analysis technique used the identification, classification, reduction, and exposure stages. This study used four phases, namely the screening phase, the reading process phase, the interpretation phase, and the reflection phase. The results showed that in the screening phase, 14.1% of participants expressed a liking for English, while 85.9% remained neutral; the mean score of English obtained by the participants was 45.1% very good, 45.1% good, 8.5% sufficient, 1.3% insufficient; and regarding the English courses attended by participants, 62% never attended, and 38% had taken English courses. In the reading process phase, 74% of the participants searched for translated novels on Google, 7% translated English novels using Google Translate, 3.5% engaged in skimmed reading, 2.5% translated English novels using translators, and other reading strategies were below 3%. Participants who responded with ‘loved’ were 71%, participants who responded with ‘liked’ were 19%, participants who responded with ‘neutral’ were 7%, and those who responded with ‘disliked’ were 3%.