"What is Tone in Literature?": A Literary Guide for English Students and Teachers

[@SWLF]

If you enjoyed the video, please let us know by hitting the like button, asking a question, or sharing your thoughts on your favorite examples of tone in literature. Thanks for watching, everybody!

[@Khatoon170]

Tone in literature refers to author attitude toward central topic . Author reveals their feelings and opinions to reader , conveying author intentions behind text tone of story always described using adjective. Attitude that character or narrator, author takes toward subject . Thank you for your wonderful cultural educational channel.

[@SWLF]

Nice work with this summary, @Khatoon170 !

[@smritiagarwal4534]

This was helpful. please keep making video lessons on more and more literary terms.

[@SWLF]

Thanks so much for your kind words, Smriti! We're excited to debut quite a few more literary terms videos over the next few months!

[@lorirennalinton4962]

The poem "The Bat" by Ruth Pitter offers a super illustration of tonal shifts

[@SWLF]

What a great example! Yes, this is a fantastic illustration of tonal shifts. Thanks so much for sending it our way!

[@ricksixfingerstaira]

I used your instructional video with my grade 10 literature class here in China. It worked like a charm. Much appreciated. I enjoyed your choice of poems.

[@SWLF]

Excellent! We're so glad to hear you found the lesson useful, Rick, and we hope you'll check out the others in our series as well!

[@johnny-tiger7256]

Super helpful for my exam! Thanks!

[@SWLF]

Excellent! Were so delighted to hear you found the lesson useful and we hope you'll check out more in our series. Good luck with that exam!

[@muneerasabry2204]

Wow, amazing! I learnt a lot. Thank you sir.

[@SWLF]

Thanks so much for checking out more of our videos, Muneera!

[@spheleleNgubane-wf4de]

Hello sir,i just wanted to thank you for making the video ,it was helpful but please consider making more of such videos on sonnets like williams poems, i believe its going to help students like myself in identifying the tone and sound devices used throughout the poem more since its usually sonnets that we are gradually tested on.

[@SWLF]

Thanks so much for the suggestion, @spheleleNgubane-wf4de ! And we're delighted to hear that you found the lesson useful!

[@whitneybutler4107]

Great video! So helpful! Thank you.

[@SWLF]

Thanks so much, Whitney! We're delighted to hear that you enjoyed the video and hope you get a chance to check out the other videos in our series as well.

[@MathewStephen_ForeverYoung]

Informative video. Thank you, for sharing.

[@SWLF]

Thanks so much, Matthew! We hope you enjoy the other videos in our series as well!

[@anoakenstaff]

This was a lovely introduction yo tone, thank you! I was finally able to think a bit more clearly about some aspects of literature I couldnt seem to understand before. I did still want to ask though, are there any guides, books or videos that you would recommend on how to understand the tones of different pieces that elaborate more on the process?

[@SWLF]

Thanks so much for your kind words, @anoakenstaff ! Unfortunately, we don't have any immediate recommendations for guides or books on tone itself, but if we can think of any, we'll pass them along. Does anyone else out there have any recs?

[@anoakenstaff]

@@SWLF Ah, that's alright, thank you! This might just be a bit of tautology, and I'm sorry, but is there any other way you'd recommend to learn more about tone and how to identify it correctly in prose?

[@SWLF]

@@anoakenstaff No problem! The best approach (to our mind) is simply to continue to read complex works of fiction or poetry and try to parse out what the tone of a given narrator or character is. We mentioned Kafka in this video, and his works are terrific tests of your tone-spotting abilities, but there are many other works that spring to mind. Viet Than Nguyen's The Sympathizer is a great recent example (the narrator's attitudes towards Vietnam and the United States are incredibly complex--so much so that it is difficult to tell if he loves or hates both countries!).

[@anoakenstaff]

@@SWLF Ah, thanks so much! I'll try to do that, though I only really started to be interested in tone a few days ago. It's quite tricky!

[@user-sy6gh7il9j]

Do you provide written transcripts to follow - for divergent learning styles?

[@SWLF]

We do indeed! Here is a link to written transcripts of our videos in English and in Spanish: liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/wlf/oregon-state-guide-english-literary-terms

[@shauryamehta6786]

i watched the video regarding "imagery" which is from 3 years ago and i just watched this one. I don't want to be mean but why has the quality degraded?. However the video is still as good thanks so much for the content it will really help in my english test tommorow

[@SWLF]

Thanks for the comment, Shaurya. The pandemic forced us to dramatically change the way we record and edit videos. We aren't perfect, but we're trying!

[@IcallDib]

Hi Elizabeth!

[@SWLF]

We don't want to be the one to break the news, so you may wish to Google "Elizabeth Bishop" before trying to contact her.

[@MooreInfoPlease]

Hi Sarah!

[@SWLF]

Hmm, we think you mean Elizabeth, but Bishop dies back in 1979.