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Tone (literature)

In literature, the tone of a literary work expresses the writer's attitude toward or feelings about the subject matter and audience.[2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]

The concept of a work's tone has been argued in the academic context as involving a critique of one's innate emotions: the creator or creators of an artistic piece deliberately pushing one to rethink the emotional dimensions of one's own life due to the creator or creator's psychological intent.[1]


As the nature of commercial media and other such artistic expressions have evolved over time, the concept of a work's tone requiring analysis has been applied to other actions such as film production. For example, a study of French New Wave movement occurred during the spring of 1974 in the pages of Film Quarterly commenting upon particular directors such as Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut, noting "the passionate concern for the status of... emotional life" that "pervades the films" they'd made. Highlighting those creative figures, the journal found that the career path of such a filmmaker "treats intimacy, and its opposite, distance, in a unique way" that "focuses on the dialectic between" those contrasts as "they conjugate each other" and so the directors' social movement "uses intimacy as the dominant feeling-tone of its films" (emphasis added) thus.[1]

Overview[edit]

Depending upon the personality of the writer and the effect the writer wants to create, the work can be formal or informal, sober or whimsical, assertive or pleading, straightforward or sly.[10] In determining the attitude, mood, or tone of an author, one could examine the specific diction used.


When one writes, images and descriptive phrases can transmit emotions across—guarded optimism, unqualified enthusiasm, objective indifference, resignation, or dissatisfaction.[11] Some other examples of literary tone are: airy, comic, condescending, facetious, funny, heavy, intimate, ironic, light, modest, playful, sad, serious, sinister, solemn, somber, and threatening.

Difference from mood[edit]

Tone and mood are not the same, although they are frequently confused.[12] The mood of a piece of literature is the feeling or atmosphere created by the work, or, said slightly differently, how the work makes the reader feel. Mood is produced most effectively through the use of setting, theme, voice and tone, while tone is how the author feels about something.

Usage[edit]

All pieces of literature, even official documents and technical documents, have some sort of tone. Authors create tone through the use of various other literary elements, such as diction or word choice; syntax, the grammatical arrangement of words in a text for effect; imagery, or vivid appeals to the senses; details, facts that are included or omitted; and figurative language, the comparison of seemingly unrelated things for sub-textual purposes.


While now used to discuss literature, the term tone was originally applied solely to music. This appropriated word has come to represent attitudes and feelings a speaker (in poetry), a narrator (in fiction), or an author (in non-literary prose) has towards the subject, situation, and/or the intended audience. It is important to recognize that the speaker, or narrator is not to be confused with the author and that attitudes and feelings of the speaker or narrator should not be confused with those of the author. In general, the tone of a piece only refers to attitude of the author if writing is non-literary in nature.[13]


In many cases, the tone of a work may change and shift as the speaker or narrator's perspective on a particular subject alters throughout the piece.


Official and technical documentation tends to employ a formal tone throughout the piece.

Argumentation

Grammatical voice

Point of view (literature)

Valence (psychology)

Writer's voice

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How to Prepare for the GRE General Test

Carey, Gary; Snodgrass, Mary Ellen (1999), , Jefferson: McFarland & Company, ISBN 0-7864-0552-X

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Bedford

Holman, C. Hugh (1975), , Indianapolis: Odyssey Press (a div. of Bobbs-Merrill Company), ISBN 0-672-63048-6

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Turco, Lewis (1999), , Hanover: University Press of New England, ISBN 0-87451-954-3

The Book of Literary Terms: The Genres of Fiction, Drama, Nonfiction, Literary Criticism, and Scholarship