General Concept of Novel as Literature

7 CHAPTER II REVIEW OF THE RELATED LITERATURE

2.1 General Concept of Novel as Literature

The term literature originated from Latin literaturra. The term expanded toward European Nation and was absorbed in the European languages, such as: literature in English, littérature in French language , literatur in German language and literatuur in Dutch language. Literraturra was derived from word “littera” and “gramma” which means “letter”. From the meaning, it can be understood that literature deals with text and writing that can be read. However, not every writing text can be regarded as literature. Several aspects must be fulfilled by certain text in order to gain the label of literature. According to Abrams 1999 in Glossary of Literary Terms, there are certain criterions that need to be fulfilled in seeing work as literature. It is either aesthetic worth alone or aesthetic worth in combination with general intellectual distinction. Within lyric poetry, drama, and fiction, the greatest works are selected on aesthetic grounds; other books are picked for their reputation or intellectual eminence together with aesthetic value of a rather narrow kind: style, composition, general force of presentation are the usual characteristics singled out. This is a common way of distinguishing or speaking of literature. By saying that this is not literature, we express such a value judgment; we make the same kind of judgment when we speak of a book on history, philosophy, or science as belonging to literature Abrams 1999:198. In general, there are four major forms of literature. They consist of poetry, prose, drama and novel. Each of them are different in form, but they represent the essence of life as what Robert 1993:1 says in his book Literature: An Introduction 8 to Reading and Writing that literature refers to compositions and tell stories dramatize situations, express emotions, and analyze and advocate ideas. From all the literary genres that have been mentioned, novel is the most recent to be included into the genre. Although novel is the newest genre in literature, the popularity of novel as literary work is massive and widely known by many people. In short, novel becomes the most common literary work that introduces people toward literature. Wellek and Warren in The Theory of Literature 1956: 282 define the novel as a picture of real life manners of time in which it is written. It means everything that is described in a novel that is written by their authors based on the true story or on the experience of his or her life. The story a novel, even though it is fiction can be true in real life. The story about social phenomena and daily issues that the novel represents is closely related with human’s life Klarer1994: 11.

2.1.1 Intrinsic Elements of the Novel

Intrinsic element is the elements that come from the literary work and affect the existence of it. In short, intrinsic elements build up the literary work. The elements that compose the intrinsic of the novel are:

a. Character