Definition of Anthology – When you go to a bookstore like Sinaumedia, Matobers often sees books with anthology titles prefixed. The term anthology must also be familiar to Matobers who likes to read books, right?
Simply put, the notion of an anthology can be defined as a collection of writings by one author or more than one author.
Usually there are many kinds of anthologies, but one of the sufficient anthology works is short stories and poetry or short stories. Short stories, poems and short stories are usually used as anthologies because the stories are rather short, so a combination of several other works is needed.
What exactly is an anthology? What are the benefits of writing anthologies and how do you write them? If you want to know, see the explanation about this one anthology.
Definition of Anthology
The literal meaning of anthology comes from Greek which is absorbed into Indonesian. The definition of an anthology is a bouquet or flowers. Thus, the contents of anthology books are collections of literary works.
Initially, the definition of anthology only included a collection of poems, including rhymes and poems printed in one book volume. However, an anthology can also mean a collection of other types of literary works.
In its modern sense, an anthology can also contain a collection of musical works written by a composer or artist, a collection of stories that have been broadcast on radio, television or published in magazines or newspapers.
Usually, anthology books that contain poetry literary works consist of several works by one or more authors and are set forth in one book. These poems are bound by spells, rhythms, rhymes and stanzas that have the same theme.
In general, the notion of an anthology is a book that contains a collection of similar literary works, which can be in the form of essays, poetry or short stories. These collections of literary works have the same theme, then are combined into one book and published.
Usually, an anthology consists of several authors with works that have the same theme. However, there are also anthology books written by one author. There are various ways to create an anthology, either through collaboration with several authors or even through competitions and contests.
If works for an anthology are submitted through a competition, the committee will have several works, for example the 100 best works and record these works.
Making an anthology book through a competition is considered quite easy, because usually there will be a lot of people participating and the theme of the literary work has been determined by the organizers of the competition to achieve certain goals.
If the term anthology is interpreted from various sides, then there are many definitions of anthology. The following is an explanation of the meaning of anthology from various sides.
According to linguistics, the notion of an anthology is a collection of selected literary works, whether in the form of short stories, poetry or prose. Meanwhile, according to literary scholarship, the notion of anthology is a collection of selected literary works from several people, authors and writers.
Some of the anthology terms that are often encountered are poetry anthology, rasa anthology, essay anthology, cafe anthology and short story anthology. In addition to the definition of anthology above, the term anthology is also known by several other names, such as proceedings, compendium, anthology and omnibus.
All of these terms are related to the meaning of anthology. Here’s an explanation.
- Anthology according to the Big Indonesian Dictionary (KBBI) is a mixture or collection of literary works originating from various books. Usually, anthology focuses on one particular discussion or topic.
- Proceedings are a collection of papers or a collection of writings resulting from a seminar which is recorded in a book. Proceedings are more focused on academics and not literature.
- Omnibus is the term used for a collection of writings by authors or directors that have previously been published in a conscious way, then put back together into a book. The term omnibus comes from omnibus which means for all.
- According to the Big Indonesian Dictionary (KBBI), the compendium is a complete and concise summary of scientific essays. A compendium can also be defined as a collection of writings that focus on discussing an overview of certain predetermined writing themes.
Types of Anthologies
As explained above regarding the meaning of anthology, it can be concluded that in general, anthologies have two types. That is the type of anthology whose contents are in the form of a collection of literary works as well as anthologies containing scientific or academic writings. The following is an explanation of the two types of anthologies.
1. Anthology of literary works
The definition of a literary anthology is general compared to an academic anthology and is more widely known by people. Usually, writers will collect various kinds of writing with the same type of literary work, for example poetry, short stories, essays, prose and others written with one big theme.
A collection of literary works for an anthology, can be written at a certain time. For example right away, spontaneously when a book is about to be published or has been written for quite some time.
Publishers or committees that will publish an anthology of literary works, usually collect literary works that have been published previously or have been distributed through various platforms, such as magazines, newspapers, radio, or even television.
Published literary works, apart from having the same major theme, also have the same genre. The goal is that the published anthology books will be arranged in a more orderly and structured manner.
One common anthology of literary works is an anthology of poetry. The poetry anthology has several characteristics that Matobers needs to know.
- The resulting work comes from one or several authors.
- In the form of a book or paper
- Consists of several poems with the same genre and theme.
In addition to having these characteristics, an anthology poetry book must also contain several elements of poetry, such as extrinsic and intrinsic elements of poetry. Here’s an explanation.
The extrinsic elements of poetry consist of the biographies of the poets, the values ​​contained in poetry, for example, such as social, economic, political to customs and finally society as a situation that occurred when the writer was creating the poem.
Then the intrinsic elements of poetry consist of seven elements including theme, enjambement, feeling, verification, typography, tone and message. Here’s an explanation.
- Theme: a theme is an idea that contains or explains the subject matter or what the author wants to convey through his work. Examples of themes are ecology, socio-culture, politics, economy to the environment.
- Enjambement: is the repetition of a phrase or sentence that is in an array derived from the sentence at the end of the previous line. This sentence is referred to as trimming the jamb and is used to be able to provide control over a particular feed or section. Enjambment is also used as a link between one part to the previous part or the next part.
- Feeling: feeling is the attitude of the poet or writer to the subject that he deals with in his work. Examples such as personality, happy, sad, insecure, worried, worried and others.
- Verification: verification or also known as rhyme is part of poetry consisting of rhymes and rhythm. Rhythm is the equation of sound at the beginning, end and middle of the poem. Rhythm usually has short long sounds, high low and weak strong.
- Typography: can be defined as the arrangement or arrangement of the physical form of a poem. Typography in general has to do with arranging stanzas, words, phrases, sentences, arrays and sounds. All of them have a physical form of poetry that is able to describe the atmosphere, feeling, and content of poetry or rhymes.
- Tone: tone or tone is the attitude of the author towards the audience who reads his poems. Examples are to convince and influence attitudes, give advice and others.
- Mandate: Mandate is a mandate or message of intention from the poet that he wants to convey when writing poetry. The message can be a motivation or encouragement for poets to write other poems.
2. Academic anthology
The second type of anthology is an academic anthology. The definition of an academic anthology is in accordance with its name, which is focused on the academic field. An academic anthology can be defined as a structured collection of works or writings in the field of education.
To make an academic anthology, anthologists will usually look for written references from a variety of different points of view, then collect these references into one book.
Academic anthologies are divided into three namely practicing, practical and theoretical. In theoretical academic anthologies, the writing material chosen by the anthologists must have concepts, principles, views, theory developments and so on.
While a practicing academic anthology must contain material containing writing procedures to respond to a problem in the written work, besides that the writings collected must also contain how to analyze cases and handle practical activities. Finally, the academic anthology of practice theory must contain theoretical aspects and practical implications.
As the name implies, academic anthologies are written and recorded because they have educational purposes. To make an academic anthology, an anthologist needs to collect several texts written by several authors or one author and these texts have a certain topic or subject according to predetermined review criteria.
The texts collected should be the most relevant texts, including comments that might explain the central ideas of the authors as well as the intentions of the texts written. The aim is to support the program content of the modules or subjects.
The characteristic of an academic anthology is that the writer must be able and strive to gain knowledge through various points of view that are related to the subject and purpose of writing.
In addition, academic anthology writers also need to form and include their personal opinions and draw their own conclusions.
Equally important, articles published in academic anthologies should not be too biased, so writers need to contemplate various approaches and carry out different ideological interpretations.
Finally, the writer needs to motivate the readers to have a desire to study the topics in the academic anthology.
The Benefits of Writing an Anthology
As explained above, that in order to publish an anthology, a publisher or anthology needs to collect more than one work with the same theme, genre and type of literary work.
If collected one by one, perhaps Matobers considers that publishing anthology books is a bit more complicated than publishing personal works. Well actually, writing an anthology book has several benefits.
Here are some of the benefits of writing an anthology book.
1. Useful for new writers
Anthology books are useful for aspiring writers, especially new writers who are confused about the right way to publish their work.
On the other hand, there are usually not many works owned by new authors, so if published as personal works the number of writings does not meet the minimum number that must be met in order to be published.
Therefore, anthology books are a solution for new writers to publish their works. For new writers, it is better to write according to the theme determined by the publisher or organizer, so that the work written can immediately join and be published in one of the anthology books.
2. Cheaper costs
Anthology books usually have cheaper publishing costs, because the authors don’t incur publishing costs. If you bear publishing costs, it’s usually lighter because other writers contribute to paying the publishing costs. In addition, it usually does not require a registration fee.
3. Expand the network and get to know other writers
By becoming an anthology book writer, apart from being able to publish works for free and cheaply, Matobers can also expand its network and get to know other writers.
That way, Matobers will have a community that can support Matobers in its work.
Steps to Write an Anthology Book
After knowing the benefits of writing an anthology book, was Matobers interested in starting to write an anthology book? If interested, here are the steps.
1. Choose a theme
Before starting to write, make sure you have chosen a theme that will be raised in an anthology book. So that Matobers’ writing is linear and similar to the discussion of articles or other literary works. The theme also determines the number of contributors, because each writer has different abilities.
After determining the theme, look for the right community. Community means that Matobers knows who the people who took part in writing the anthology books are. If the authors are suitable and are experts in their fields, the anthology book creation will be faster.
2. Understand the role of the contributor
When creating an anthology book, the authors who co-published their work are referred to as contributors. Before wanting to publish a paper into an anthology book, contributors need to understand their roles and fulfill their obligations so that the book publishing process is faster.
3. Editors
The editor has the duty to check the manuscripts that have been entered. The editor needs to check for typos, words, grammar and writing rules and so on.
In order to make the editor’s work easier, it is better if the contributor checks first and does not submit the manuscript close to the submission deadline. Because the editor’s work tends to be denser and can affect the quality of the published anthology books.
4. Publisher
When choosing a community to publish an anthology book, Matobers as a new writer needs to ensure that the publisher who publishes the anthology book can publish the books or writings that have been collected. Because there are several publishers who cannot publish anthology books.
Now that’s an explanation of the meaning of anthology, its types, and the steps for writing an anthology book. Matobers can read anthology books and buy anthology books at sinaumedia.com. As #FriendsWithoutLimits, Sinaumedia provides a variety of interesting books for Matobers.