Literary language characteristics, types and examples

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Jonah Lester
Literary language characteristics, types and examples

Literary language is one of the most beautiful and widespread in the world, We can not only find this type of language in literature as such, but we can also find it in advertising, television and even many times we use it without knowing it in our daily lives.

If you are passionate about the use of language, knowing what literary language is, will help you become a better speaker of your language and will give you fabulous communication tools.

What is literary language?

Literary language is a type of language that stands out for making a aesthetic or stylistic use of language.

This means that unlike the everyday language that we use in our day to day with the exclusive purpose of communicating, literary language is embellished to convey an idea in an aesthetic way, not only for a communicative purpose, but also seeks to generate different effects on the reader or receiver of the message. 

We can understand literary language perfectly, within the genres of literature, but this is something we will delve into later. Before that, let's learn a little more about how to use literary language.

Characteristics of literary language

Literary language has a higher degree of complexity than everyday language, That is why it is convenient for you to explore these characteristics that will help you to know what it is that gives a text or discourse its literary status.

1. Language rarefied

The literary language is characterized by making use of a broader lexicon. This means that, within the literary language, we use a wider range of words than in our daily lives, and the issue is not only of quantity, but of quality, because in this use of the language we can express things in a beautiful or aesthetic way.

2. Use of literary figures

Literary figures are the undisputed queens in literary language. Literary figures are called unconventional ways of using language in order to beautify it to persuade or generate emotional effects on the reader. Within the literary figures we find metaphors, similes, periphrasis, synecdoche or irony. An example of this is when we say: "Serene like a summer sky" "Her strawberry lips" or "Her singing heart".

3. Aesthetic will

The intention of a literary text must be mediated by an artistic or aesthetic will, that is, whoever uses the literary language is fully aware that they want to beautify it and create something artistic with it..

4. Plurisignificant

Unlike the languages ​​used in informational or academic texts, where the word must say what it is specifically, literary or recreational texts have the gift of multi-meaning. This means that, in literary language, words can have multiple meanings and refer to things other than their mere dictionary meaning..

5. Playful function

Literary language is creative and therefore is associated with a playful function. What writers do is play with words to create new meanings and ways of receiving the message, so that in addition to finding meaning, they find aesthetic enjoyment.

Types of literary language

When we talk about literary language, it must be said that its typology must meet the above requirements. The types in which this language is manifested can be in prose or verse, and in both cases they can use various literary figures to encode the message.

Prose: Prose is a natural linguistic form that is written in full freedom without being chained to the structures of the verses. It should be noted that the above does not make it less poetic, because there are absolutely beautiful poetic prose.

Verse: The verses are sentences or sets of words with which a poetic message is transmitted, but unlike prose, these are subject to rhythm and measure.

Examples of literary language

Literary language can manifest itself in multiple types of texts, so below we will show you some of the literary genres where you can see more clearly the use of this type of language.

Novel

The novel is the queen of the narrative. In this, the literary language is almost always manifested in prose, its length is almost always long and it has a greater development of the characters or the arguments..

I have been thinking of Tomás for years, but had not been able to see him clearly until this reflection illuminated him. I saw him standing by the window of his apartment, looking across the courtyard at the wall of the building opposite, not knowing what to do..
Teresa was first met about three weeks ago in a small Czech town. They spent barely an hour together. She accompanied him to the station and waited with him until he caught the train. Ten days later he came to see him in Prague. They made love that same day. At night he got a fever and stayed with the flu for a whole week at home.
Then he felt an inexplicable love for an almost unknown girl; He seemed like a child that someone had placed in a basket smeared with fish and sent it down the river so that Tomás could pick it up at the edge of his bed.

Excerpt from: The unbearable lightness of being - Milan Kundera

Poetry

Poems are literary compositions that stand out for their brevity, stylistic use of language and transmission of a message through the exaltation of ideas or emotions.

Within poetry there are various types of poems that resort to different poetic forms according to their structural rules. However, most are framed within poems written in free verse, or poems written with classic verses or governed by the meter..

It should also be noted that there are poetic prose, which are texts constructed in prose with a high poetic content.

Free verse poem example

Plenary communion - Oliverio Girondo

Nerves cling to me
to the mud, to the walls,
embrace the branches,
penetrate the earth,
spread through the air,
until reaching the sky.

The marble, the horses
they have my own veins.
Any pain hurts
my flesh, my skeleton.
The times that I have died
to see a bull kill! ...

If I spot a cloud
I must take flight.
If a woman lies down
I sleep with her.
How many times have I said to myself:
Will I be that stone?

I never follow a corpse
without staying by his side.
When they lay an egg,
I cackle too.
It is enough for someone to think about me
to be a memory.

Example of a poem in classic verses

It shines on me - Carlos Palacio "Pala"

It shines on me, heart, everything very everything
every time I get a lot, you kiss, you dance
and so caressingly you rest me
the life that stone me, splinter, mud.

I go back to wonderful and I accommodate
how much joy, voice, sound,
since your love fell asleep
it shines on me, heart, everything very everything.

Today there are opacifications and brilliance
faint, elbow to elbow,
without a trace of cowardly hopes.

I am the one who modest still and fear I can
and every time I get a lot, you kiss, dance,
it shines on me, heart, everything very everything.

Poetic prose example

I touch your mouth- Julio Cortázar

I touch your mouth, with a finger I touch the edge of your mouth, I draw it as if it were coming out of my hand, as if for the first time your mouth were ajar, and it is enough for me to close my eyes to undo everything and start over, I make the mouth that I desire, the mouth that my hand chooses and draws on your face, a mouth chosen among all, with sovereign freedom chosen by me to draw it with my hand on your face, and that by chance that I do not seek to understand exactly your mouth that smiles below which my hand draws you.

You look at me, closely you look at me, more and more closely and then we play the cyclops, we look more and more closely and our eyes enlarge, come closer to each other, overlap and the cyclops look at each other, breathing confused, their mouths they meet and fight warmly, biting each other with their lips, barely resting their tongue on their teeth, playing in their enclosures where a heavy air comes and goes with an old perfume and a silence. Then my hands seek to sink into your hair, slowly caress the depth of your hair while we kiss as if we had our mouths full of flowers or fish, with lively movements, with a dark fragrance. And if we bite ourselves the pain is sweet, and if we drown in a brief and terrible simultaneous suck of breath, that instant death is beautiful. And there is only one saliva and only one taste of ripe fruit, and I feel you tremble against me like a moon in water.

Story

The story is a type of short story written in prose. This can be based on real events or fully respond to fiction. Within his writing, similar to the case of the novel, dialogues can be included. Although its length is relatively short, we can find from micro-stories, short stories and stories of several pages.

Amares- Eduardo Galeano

Love is a disease. And anybody recognizes the sick by the deep circles under the eyes, which betray the lack of sleep, or by our unbearable need to say stupid things..
Love can be provoked by throwing a handful of "love me" powder in coffee or soup, as if inadvertently, but it cannot be prevented..
There is no government decree that can prohibit it.
I once wrote, to summarize the matter:
"They are two, by mistake that the night corrects".

Epistle

The epistles are what we commonly know as letters. Within the epistolary genre, some of the letters are gathered that do not have a merely informative objective, but rather use stylistic resources to generate emotions in the receiver..

From Gustave Flaubert to Louise Colet

“I will cover you with love the next time we see each other, with caresses, with ecstasy. I want to bite you with all the joys of the flesh, until you faint and die. I want to leave you astonished, to confess that you have never dreamed of such trances ... When you are old, I want you to remember those few hours, I want your dry bones to shudder with joy when you think about it. "

We hope that all of the above has given you an idea of what is literary language and how is it used. Now that you are clear about these concepts, you can start writing your own literary texts or making use of these forms of language to captivate your listeners..

If you liked this article, you may want to explore: Dramatic texts: types, characteristics and examples



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