Structure of a literary TEXT

In this lesson from a Teacher we will focus on literary texts, but paying particular attention to the different types of structures they can present. And the most interesting thing about this type of text is what you as a writer contribute uniquely and individual, but from a PROFESSOR we believe that a little help to build the base skeleton of your next novel best-seller it does no harm. So let's get to work, and let's find out the structure of a literary text!

Index

1. Types of literary texts and their structure
2. External structure of a literary text
3. Internal structure of a literary text
4. Training
5. Solutions

When you ask someone what their favorite book is, they will most likely respond with the name of a novel, a collection of poems, or even a play. Few people prefer a newspaper article, or your natural science textbook, to a good story that makes you dream, think, travel, or just have a good time.

The literary texts are these types of texts with a mainly artistic function, which express the emotions or thoughts of the author through a creative language It serves to attract the reader. There are mainly 3 types of literary texts, each with its subgenres: the Narrative texts (novel, short story, fable ...), lyrical texts (poems: song, elegy, ode ...), and dramatic texts (tragedy, comedy, tragicomedy ...).

We can find two types of structure of a literary text: the external structure, and the internal structure. Each kind of literary text (narrative, lyrical, or dramatic) has its own structure, so we must take them into account when analyzing the text.

If we imagine the literary text as a human body, the external structure it would be what we see immediately when looking in the mirror: a head, arms, legs, etc. Just as our first visual encounter with a person can tell us if the person is tall or short, young or old, brunette or blonde, etc. the external structure of a text helps us determine whether it is a prose narrative, a sonnet, or a play, for example.

Narrative texts

The external structure of narrative texts normally consists of the following elements:

• Text mainly in prose. But pay attention! There are also narrative subgenres such as the epic poem, the epic or the fables that are written in verse.
• Parts, volumes, chapters, etc.
• Paragraphs and sentences.
• Dialogue.
• Letters, in the case of an epistolary novel.
• Other elements such as fragments of articles, poems, etc., that help to complete the narrative.

Lyrical texts

If we continue with our comparison of the text with a person, the lyrical texts would be those that would stand out from the crowd, dressed in a striking, elegant, or perhaps extravagant and chaotic. We could say that lyrical texts take into account their appearance. Broadly speaking, his external structure It consists of the following elements:

• Verse
• Verse: set of verses in the same paragraph.
• Poem: set of all stanzas.

Even so, this is not all, and the form or structure is so important in lyrical texts, that they have their own tools to analyze it: the so-called meter, rhyme, and rhythm.

The metrics is especially important, because it allows us to determine the type of lyrical text in front of us (sonnet, popular song, etc.) analyzing in detail the number of syllables of the verses, the type of stanzas that make up the poem, and the type of rhyme of each stanza. The stanzas, verses and poems receive different names according to their number of syllables, verses, or according to their rhyme, and thanks to the metric, we can discover the most specific elements of each poem.

Dramatic texts

The external structure of dramatic texts It does not only have an aesthetic or organizational function, but is designed to help the director, the actors, and the entire theatrical team to carry the text on the scene.

This is why we find the following elements:

• Scenes: we usually change the scene every time we change the characters that interact with each other, leaving or entering the stage.
• Picture: the paintings are recognizable by a change of scenery (decoration, light, clothing ...), which indicates a change of place and / or time in the plot of the story.
• Acts: set of several scenes. Traditionally there were 3, but now we can find as many (or as few) as the playwright wants.

Other elements of the text structure make it easy to recreate the story on stage. These are the following:

• Annotations: practical indications of the playwright on how the text should be represented on the scene. We usually find them in italics, and indicate inputs and outputs, such as (Enter X character with a sword), emotions that actors have to express when saying certain words (crying), and other practical information.
• Information on spatio-temporal changes in history: Similar to dimensions, but usually longer. These can be found at the beginning of each act, and when changing frames or sometimes scenes. They can be more or less detailed, but they place the characters in the precise place and time in the story, with descriptions of the set, props and clothing that must accompany them.
• List of characters: We find it at the beginning of the dramatic text, and it indicates all the characters that appear in the story. In some cases, the author makes precise clothing indications for all or some of them.

Dramatic texts can be written in verse or prose, and although some have a narrator, they mostly consist of dialogues between characters, or monologues of a character before the public. In any case it is important to indicate the character's name what each element of the text says.

Now that we have learned the elements of the external structure of a literary text - what can we do? see when opening a book and meeting the text for the first time - it is also important to take into account the internal structure.

If the external structure were the elements of the body that we see at first glance, the internal structure of a text could be the personality of a person. Although we cannot see it at first glance, we can get to know it by relating more closely to the person. In the same way, we can get to know all the elements of the internal structure of a text when we read it.

Narrative texts

The internal structure A narrative text usually follows a certain pattern, the elements of which we can discover and separate when we read the text. These elements are:

• Approach: introduction of the main characters, and presentation of the space-time context (the place and time in which the story takes place).
• Knot: is the most extensive part, and brings together the main events of the story, the adventures and conflicts that the characters must go through. It can include a climactic point of maximum conflict or action from which the story heads toward the denouement.
• Outcome: Final part where, normally, the conflict is resolved. It can be a closed outcome, when all the conflicts exposed in the knot are resolved and the action concludes, or an open ending, when there are still some unresolved issues or information to reveal to the reader and the characters.

These three great parts form a linear structure, which is the most frequent. Even so, the narrative can be told in many different ways, and sometimes the internal structure is more or less altered:

• Chronological or linear structure: the action is counted in a linear time order.
• Circular structure: the approach and the outcome repeat the same elements, so the characters "end where they started", as in a circle.
• Analepsis or flashback: the whole story, or parts of the story, is told through a jump to the past, altering the chronological order.
• Prolepsis or flashforward: the whole story, or parts of the story, is told through a jump to the future, altering the chronological order.

Lyrical texts

Lyrical texts can also tell stories in a poetic way with an approach, a middle, and an ending, but most of the time, they are characterized by express the feelings and subjectivity of the author. Unlike a narrative text, its content cannot be easily categorized.

When analyzing the internal structure of a poem, the meaning and feelings expressed behind each verse or stanza should be taken into account, and divide the poem according to the themes it deals with, or the story it tells.

To see it more clearly, we can briefly look at the following example, with a poem by Garcilaso de La Vega:

While rose and lily
the color is shown in your gesture,
and that your fiery, honest look
ignites the heart and restrains it;

and as long as the hair, that in the vein
from the gold was chosen, with swift flight,
for the beautiful white collar, upright,
the wind moves, scatters and messes up;

take hold of your joyful spring
the sweet fruit, before the angry time
cover the beautiful summit with snow.

The icy wind will wither the rose,
light age will change everything,
for not moving in his habit.

While the external structure tells us that it is a sonnet with hendecasyllable verses, the internal structure I would divide the poem, roughly, analyzing the content of the poem: The first two quartets expose all the details of the beauty of the person to whom the poet is addressing, then the first triplet introduces the idea of Carpe Diem or collige virgo roses (the young woman has to take advantage of her youth before she leaves), and the second continues with the same literary topic, emphasizing the passage of time.

Dramatic texts

The internal structure of dramatic texts is very similar to that of a narrative text. Thus, we can divide the scenes according to the scheme of a approach, a knot, and a denouement.

The end of each act usually coincides with an important point in the story. Obviously, the end of the last act coincides with the denouement, but the acts in between can signal climatic moments in the node or story development. Other times, the end of an act can create a false sense of ending, but the story resumes action when the next one begins.

Sentence 1: Name all the elements of the external structure of the following texts that you can find.

FIRST CHAPTER
Which deals with the condition and exercise of the famous and brave nobleman Don Quixote de la Mancha

In a place in La Mancha, whose name I do not want to remember, not long ago lived a nobleman of the spear in the shipyard, old shield, skinny nag and running greyhound.

Daphne and her arms grew,
and in long round bouquets he showed himself;
in green leaves I saw that they became
the hair that the gold darkened.
With rough bark they covered
the tender limbs, still boiling, were:
the white feet on the ground fell down,
and they turned into crooked roots.
He who was the cause of such damage,
by dint of crying, I grew
this tree that watered with tears.
Oh miserable state! Oh bad size!
That with crying it grows every day
the cause and the reason why he cried!

FIRST WORKING DAY

[SCENE I]

(He goes out at the top of a ROSAURA mountain in the habit of a man, on the way, and in representing the first verses he goes down.)

ROSAURA

Violent hippogriff,

that you ran even with the wind,

Where lightning without flame,

bird without shade, fish without scale

and brute without instinct

5

natural, to the confusing labyrinth

from those naked rocks you run amok,

do you crawl and fall?

Stay on this mountain

where the brutes have his Phaeton;

10

than me, no more way

than the one that the laws of destiny give me,

blind and desperate,

I will lower my tangled head

of this eminent mount

15

That the sun wrinkles the frown of the forehead.

Bad poland you get

to a foreigner, because with blood you write

his entry into your sands;

and he hardly arrives, when he hardly arrives.

20

Well my luck says so;

but where did a wretch find mercy?

(CLARÍN exits, funny.)

CLARION

Say two, and don't leave me

at the inn to me when you complain;

What if two of us have been

25

those of us who have left our homeland

to try adventures,

two those who between misfortunes and madness

here we have arrived,

and two of us who have rolled off the mountain,

30

Isn't it reason that I feel

put myself in the regret and not in the account?

Sentence 2: Now indicate the internal structure of the previous literary texts, whenever possible.

Statement 1:

FIRST CHAPTER (chapter)
Which deals with the condition and exercise of the famous and brave nobleman Don Quixote de la Mancha (subtitle)

In a place in La Mancha, whose name I do not want to remember, not long ago lived a nobleman of the spear in the shipyard, old shield, skinny nag and running greyhound. (prose text, part of a paragraph)

Daphne and her arms grew, (hendecasyllable verse - 11 syllables, from major art)
and in long round bouquets he showed himself;
in green leaves I saw that they became
the hair that the gold darkened.

(stanza: quartet)
With rough bark they covered
the tender limbs, still boiling, were:
the white feet on the ground fell down,
and they turned into crooked roots.
He who was the cause of such damage,
by dint of crying, I grew
this tree that watered with tears.
(stanza: triplet)
Oh miserable state! Oh bad size!
That with crying it grows every day
the cause and the reason why he cried!

(poem: sonnet, rhymed ABBA-ABBA-CAB-CAB)

FIRST WORKING DAY (act)

[SCENE I] (scene)

(He goes out at the top of a ROSAURA mountain in the habit of a man, on the way, and in representing the first verses he goes down.) (annotation, with information about the character's clothing)

ROSAURA

Violent hippogriff, (verse)

that you ran even with the wind,

Where lightning without flame,

bird without shade, fish without scale

and brute without instinct

5

natural, to the confusing labyrinth

from those naked rocks you run amok,

do you crawl and fall?

Stay on this mountain

where the brutes have his Phaeton;

10

than me, no more way

than the one that the laws of destiny give me,

blind and desperate,

I will lower my tangled head

of this eminent mount

15

That the sun wrinkles the frown of the forehead.

Bad poland you get

to a foreigner, because with blood you write

his entry into your sands;

and he hardly arrives, when he hardly arrives.

20

Well my luck says so;

but where did a wretch find mercy?

(CLARÍN exits, funny.) (annotation, character entry and information about the representation of him)

CLARION

Say two, and don't leave me

at the inn to me when you complain;

What if two of us have been

25

those of us who have left our homeland

to try adventures,

two those who between misfortunes and madness

here we have arrived,

and two of us who have rolled off the mountain,

30

Isn't it reason that I feel

put myself in the regret and not in the account?

Statement 2:

FIRST CHAPTER
Which deals with the condition and exercise of the famous and brave nobleman Don Quixote de la Mancha

In a place in La Mancha, whose name I do not want to remember, not long ago lived a nobleman of the spear in the shipyard, old shield, skinny nag and running greyhound. (part of the approach: introduction of the main character and her space-time context)

Daphne and her arms grew,
and in long round bouquets he showed himself;
in green leaves I saw that they became
the hair that the gold darkened.
With rough bark they covered
the tender limbs, still boiling, were:
the white feet on the ground fell down,
and they turned into crooked roots.
(Quartets: presentation of Daphne and her metamorphosis into a laurel-Greek mythological theme)

He who was the cause of such damage,
by dint of crying, I grew
this tree that watered with tears.

(1st triplet: introduction of Apollo, crying the transformation of Daphne, whom he loves, without being reciprocated)

Oh miserable state! Oh bad size!
That with crying it grows every day
the cause and the reason why he cried!

(2nd triplet: intervention of the lyrical self, expressing the tragic character of the story)

FIRST WORKING DAY

[SCENE I]

(He goes out at the top of a ROSAURA mountain in the habit of a man, on the way, and in representing the first verses he goes down.)

ROSAURA

Violent hippogriff,

that you ran even with the wind,

Where lightning without flame,

bird without shade, fish without scale

and brute without instinct

5

natural, to the confusing labyrinth

from those naked rocks you run amok,

do you crawl and fall?

Stay on this mountain

where the brutes have his Phaeton;

10

than me, no more way

than the one that the laws of destiny give me,

blind and desperate,

I will lower my tangled head

of this eminent mount

15

That the sun wrinkles the frown of the forehead.

Bad poland you get

to a foreigner, because with blood you write

his entry into your sands;

and he hardly arrives, when he hardly arrives.

20

Well my luck says so;

but where did a wretch find mercy?

(CLARÍN exits, funny.)

CLARION

Say two, and don't leave me

at the inn to me when you complain;

What if two of us have been

25

those of us who have left our homeland

to try adventures,

two those who between misfortunes and madness

here we have arrived,

and two of us who have rolled off the mountain,

30

Isn't it reason that I feel

put myself in the regret and not in the account?

(part of the approach: introduction of Rosaura and Clarín, and their situation)

If you want to read more articles similar to Structure of a literary text, we recommend that you enter our category of Writing.

• AGUIAR, P. I. Structure, text and analytical function.
• Lotman, L. (1990). The text in the text.
• Carrasco, I. (1989). Literature and literary text. UACh Linguistic and Literary Document Magazine, (15).