Aspects of the Novel Literary Elements

Collection of lectures

Because this is a collection of lectures and because the narrator discusses philosophical ideas, there is no setting mentioned.

The ideas are presented from the perspective of a first person-subjective point of view and the narrator is the writer.

The tone and mood used in these lectures is a neutral one.

There are no clearly defined protagonists or antagonists in these lectures. However, we can identify the "good writers" as being the protagonists and the "bad writers" as being the antagonists.

The major conflict in the lectures is between what constitutes as being good literature and what is seen as bad literature.

The lecture entitled "The Story" reaches its climax when the narrator concludes that the best stories are those based on real events.

In the first lecture in the collection, the narrator talks about how it is important for a piece of writing to follow a certain set of rules in order for it to be valuable and to have power over the reader. This statement is important because it foreshadows the later instances in which the narrator will criticize numerous writings because they do not follow the rules deemed to be the narrator as being important.

In the second lecture, "The story", the narrator implies that nothing has greater importance than the idea which represents the foundation of a story. However, this is quickly proven to be an understatement when the narrator lists other elements that have much greater importance.

The main allusion we find here is the idea that only those who have divine inspiration can write exceptional literature. This implies that only a select few have what it takes to truly make it in the literary world.

One of the most important images appears towards the middle of the collection when the narrator portrays the writer as a gardener. This transits the idea that the process of creating a literary text is a lengthy process that involves a lot of effort and sacrifice.

One of the most paradoxical ideas is the way in which the narrator criticizes the poets who try to maintain a fixed form and item in their poetry while at the same time urging prose writers to try to make their writings as musical as possible.

The author draws in the collection a parallel between past and contemporary writers. The parallel does not have the purpose of proving that one is better than the other but rather to highlight the idea that literature is constantly changing and evolving and that each era brings something new to the table.

The term "prophecy" is used in the seventh lecture as a general term through which the narrator makes reference to the idea of divine inspiration.

We have a personification in the sixth chapter in the sentence "the words should paint a perfect picture, to bring a static image to life".