CAJ '09 Lit terms
English lit terms. Defintions from handout last year, lit textbook, lit terms dictionary.
Terms
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- Motivation
- a reason that explains why a character thinks, feels, acts, or behaves in a certain way
- Psalm
- sacred song or poem, 150 psalms in the Bible
- Style
- the way an author chooses words, arranges language, and uses images, symbols, figurative language, and other literary devices
- Soliloquy
- a long speech in a play or in a prose work made by a character who is alone and thus reveals private thoughts and feelings to the audience or reader
- Denouement
- refers to the outcome or result of any complex situation or sequence of events applied to unravel the main dramatic complications of a piece of literature
- Anachronism
- an error in chronology, placing an event, a person, item, or language expression in the wrong period.
- Epiphany
- a moment of sudden, intuitive understanding: a flash of insight
- Elegy
- a mournful or plaintive poem; a funeral song; a poem of lamentation
- Ode
- a long lyric poem with many stanzas, varying line lengths, and sometimes and intricate rhyme scheme
- Myth
- a fictional tale, originally with religious significance, that explains the actions of Gods or heroes, the causes of natural phenomena or both.
- Epitaph
- lines composed to mark someone's death (usually on a tombstone)
- Scansion
- the metrical analysis of poetry; the dillusion of a line of poetry into feet by indicating accents and counting syllables
- Hyperbole
- emphasis through exaggeration
- Oxymoron
- a figure of speech pairing contradictory terms
- Free verse
- poetry not written in a regular rhythmical pattern or meter. Seeks to capture the rhythms of speech. Dominant form of contemporary poetry.
- Folklore
- traditional legends and beliefs of a people or particular culture
- Extended metaphor
- a metaphor developed at length and involves several points of comparison
- Anglo-Saxon poetry
- poetry written in Anglo-Saxon or Old English characterized by kennings or caesura etc.
- End-stopped line
- a feature in poetry in which the syntactic unit corresponds in length to the line
- Lyric poem
- highly musical verse that expresses the observations and feelings of a single speaker
- Narrative poem
- tells a story in verse
- Bathos
- 1) sentimentalism, mawkishness, insincere, pathos 2) anti-climax, a descent from the lofty and exalted to the common place.
- Invocation
- a literary convention in which a writer, usually a poet, calls on a muse for help and divine guidance
- Mockery
- humorous or satirical mimicry, to ridicule, contempt..
- Nihilism
- extreme form of skepticism that involves denial of any possible objective basis for truth
- Point of view
- perspective from which a story is told
- Setting
- time and place, sometimes just backdrop, sometimes significant like a symbol or to establish mood
- Archetype
- a character, action, or situation that is a prototype or pattern of human life generally. a situation that occurs over and over again
- Symbolism
- a setting, event, action, character, or any detail that stands for or represents something else
- Oral tradition
- the body of songs, stories, and poems preserved by being passed from generation to generation by word of mouth
- Tragedy
- work of literature especially a play that results in a catastrophe for the main character
- Connotation
- set of ideas associated with a word in addition to its explicit meaning
- Narration
- writing that tells a story
- Assonance
- repetition of vowel sounds followed by different consonants in two or more stressed syllables
- Epithet
- a descriptive word or phrase that has become a fixed formula. It has various shades of meaning when applied to real or fictitious people, divinities, and objects.
- Satire
- ridicules human follies or vices for the purpose of correction
- Legend
- widely told story about the past that may or may not have a foundation in fact.
- Self-realization
- using skills and abilities and achieving as much as one possibly can
- Nonfiction
- literature presenting ideas and opinions based upon facts and reality
- Monologue
- a character speaking aloud to himself or narrating an account to an audience with no other character on stage
- Paradox
- a seeming contradiction that is nevertheless true
- Miracle play
- a medieval drama depicting either biblical stories, the miracles performed by a saint, or the martyrdom of a saint in Christian traditions. Usually presented in a cycle.
- Pun
- a play on two words similar in sound but different in meaning
- Understatement
- deliberate underplaying or undervaluing of a thing to create emphasis
- Catharsis
- any emotional discharge which brings about a moral or spiritual renewal or welcome relief from tension and anxiety
- Romance
- any fictional account of heroic achievements, colorful scenes, passionate love, or supernatural experiences
- Dialect
- the language of a particular district, class, or group of persons
- Search for meaning
- trying to find a reason why such a thing is important or why it matters
- Sonnet sequence
- a series or group of sonnets, most often written to or about a beloved
- Aside
- short speech by an actor in a play, expressing the character
- Hero/Heroine
- major male/female protagonist in a narrative o[r drama
- Ficiton
- imagined and invented literary composition
- Climax
- the high point of interest or suspense in a literary work or when crisis comes to greatest intensity
- Flashback
- method of narration in which past events are introduced into present actions
- Synecdoche
- a figure of speech in which a part of something is used to stand for the whole
- Poetry
- literary work ini metrical form or patterned language; a composition written or spoken, designed to produce pleasure through beautiful, elevated, imaginative or profound thoughts
- Rhyme scheme
- regular pattern of rhyming words in a poem, indicated by using different letters of the alphabet for each new rhyme
- Tone
- writer's attitude toward audience and subject: formal/informal, serious/playful, bitter, ironic..
- Alliteration
- repetition of initial consonant sounds used to give emphasis to words, to imitate sounds and to create musical effects
- Morality play
- a drama that illustrates the way to live a pious life through allegorical characters. The characters tend to be personified abstractions of vices and virtues. Not necessarily religious material.
- Gothic
- characterized by gloom, mystery, grotesque, and violence
- Symbol
- anything that stands for or represents something else. Conventional or Original
- Protagonist
- main character in a work of fiction-the character readers would like to see succeed
- Essay
- a short literary composition on a particular theme or topic, usually in prose and generally thoughtful and interpretive
- Image
- a word or phraase that appeals to one or more of the senses (sight, hear, touch, taste, smell)
- Antagonist
- character who opposses the character whom readers want to see succeed
- Figure of speech
- expressive uses of language in which words are used in other than their literal senses so as to suggest and produce pictures or images in a reader's mind
- Choice and Consequence
- a decision and a result
- Fantasy
- highly imaginative writing that contains elements not found in real life
- Nature
- the usual way a person or animal behaves that is part of their character
- Simile
- "like" or "as" used to compare two unlike ideas
- Dialogue
- conversation between characters used to reveal character, to present events, to add variety to a narrative and to interest readers
- Exposition
- form of discourse that explains, defines, and interprets
- Figurative language
- not meant to be interpreted literally, creates vivid impressions by comparing dissimilar things
- Existentialism
- belief that emphasizes man's responsibility for forming his own nature and that stresses the prime importance of personal decisions, personal freedom and personal goals
- Neoclassicism
- revival of a classical style (in art or literature or architecture or music) but from a new perspective or with a new motivation
- Conflict
- a struggle between opposing forces. Characters in conflict form the basis of stories.
- Epic
- long narrative or narrative poem about the deeds of gods or heroes
- Drama
- story written to be performed by actors, script is made up of dialogue and stage directions
- Rhyme
- repetition of sounds at the ends of words
- Foreshadowing
- clues that suggest events that have yet to occur. creates suspense, keeping readers wondering and speculating about what will happen next.
- Prose
- ordinary form of spoken and written language, applies to all expression in language that doesn't have a regular rhythmic pattern
- Comedy
- drama or narrative with a happy ending-usually a marriage
- Personification
- gives human qualities to a non-human subject
- Theism (Christian)
- belief that there is only one God who is completely separate from those things he created rather than being part of them
- Octave
- an eight-line stanza, but especially to the first eight-lines in an Italian sonnet
- Motif
- a conspicuous recurring element, such as a type of incident, a device, a reference, a verbal formula, which appears frequently in works of literature
- Mock-heroic
- the style of a kind of satire that treats "ordinary" characters and events in the ceremonious manner and lofty language usually reserved for major happenings and elevated personages
- Iambic pentameter
- A metrical pattern in poetry which consists of five iambic feet per line. (an iamb, or iambic foot, consists of one unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.)
- Rationalism
- acceptance of reason as the supreme authority in matters of belief, conduct, and opinion
- Biography
- a written account of a person's life or an account of the lives of any small and closely knit group
- Mood
- the feeling created in a reader by a work or passage, often suggested with descriptive details
- Temporal vs. Eternal
- temporal: living for now, the instant pleasure; eternal: living for eternity, long term pleasure
- Sonnet
- 14-line lyric poem, usually written in rhymed iambic pentameter (English, Shakespearean, Italian, Petrarchan)
- Irony
- portrays the difference between appearance and reality, expectation and result, meaning and intention. Suggest opposite of what it's meant.
- Naturalism
- a literary movement seeking to depict life as accurately as possible, without artificial distortions of emotions, idealism, and literary convention.
- Run-on-line
- a line that does bnot contain a pause or a stop at the end. It ends in the middle of a statement and a grammatical unit, and the reader must read the next line to find the end of the statement and the completion of the grammatical unit.
- Parallelism
- repeating the same grammatical forms or verse form which states an idea and then repeats, negates, or completes it.
- Humanism
- any system of thought or action in which human interest, values, and dignity are held to be dominant
- Suffering
- physical or mental pain
- Naturalism
- an attempt to achieve fidelity to nature by rejecting idealized portrayals of life
- Rhythm
- uniform recurrence of beat or accent, the measured flow of words in verse or prose
- Speaker
- imaginary voice assumed by the writer of a poem. usually not identified by name, but not necessarily poet
- Diction
- Word choice
- Realism
- a theory of writing in which the familiar ordinary aspects of life are depicted in a matter-of-fact straight forward manner designed to reflect life as it actually is
- Stream of consciousness
- a manner of writing in which a character's perceptions and thoughts are presented as occurring in random form.
- Concrete Poem
- a poem having a quality of reality, specific elements that the reader can see, hear, feel, smell, or taste
- Quatrain
- a stanza or poem of four lines
- Expressionism
- a term with several meanings variously applied to different forms of artistic work
- Meter
- rhythmical pattern of a poem determined by number and types of stresses, or beats in each line
- Refrain
- a phrase or verse recurring at intervals in a poem or a song usually at the end of a stanza
- Couplet
- pair of rhyming lines, usually of the same length and meter. Generally expresses a single idea
- Theme
- the central message of insight into life revealed through a literary work; a generalization about people or about life that is communicated through the work; maybe stated directly or implied
- Verbal Irony
- portrays the difference between appearance and reality, expectation and result, or meaning and intention. Word used to suggest the opposite of what is meant.
- Characterization
- the act of creating and developing a character
- Dramatic Monologue
- a poetic form in which a single character, speaking to a silent auditor at a critical moment, reveals both a dramatic situation and himself
- Denotation
- independent of other association that the word may have
- Folk tale
- story amde and handed down orally among the common people
- Onomatopoeia
- words that imitate sounds (thud, sizzle, hiss)
- Suspense
- feeling of curiosity or uncertainty about the outcome of events in literary work. Created by raising questions in the reader's mind
- Parody
- comical piece of writing that mocks the characteristics of a specific literary form through exaggeration of the types of ideas, language, tone, or action in a type of literature or a specific work
- Foil
- a character who emphasizes the traits of a main character
- Consonance
- repetition of similar consonant sounds at the end of accented syllables. Used to create musical effects, to link ideas, and to emphasize particular words
- Character
- protagonist/antagonist, flat/round, static/dynamic
- Regionalism
- the tendency to confine one's writing to the presentation of the distinct culture of an area, including its speech, customs and history
- Classicism
- literature movements of ancient Greece and Rome, characterized by strict forms, simplicity, proportion and restraint. Opposite is romanticism.
- Metaphor
- figure of speech in which one thing is spoken of as though it were something else
- Novel
- a lengthy fictitious prose narrative portraying characters and presenting and organized series of events and settings
- Inversion
- inverted order of words or events as a rhetorical scheme
- Nature vs. Grace
- tension between sinful self and eternal self
- Allegory
- a story in which people, things, events have a parallel, symbolic meaning
- Sarcasm
- a form of irony; bitter and often harsh derision. Consists of sneering or cutting remarks; it is always personal and intended to hurt.
- Death
- the end of life
- Deism
- religion that believes in the existence of God on the evidence of nature and reason only
- Metaphysical poetry
- 17th century English poetry that characterizes intellectual playfulness, argument, paradoxes, irony, elaborate and unusual conceits, incongruity and the rhythms of ordinary speech
- Autonomy
- independence; the quality or state of being self-governing
- Imagery
- descriptive or figurative language used in literature to create word pictures for the reader.
- Allusion
- reference to a well-known person, place, event, literary work, or work of art
- Autobiography
- a type of writing that is an account of oneself written by oneself
- Short story
- a relatively short narrative which is designed to produce a single dominant effect and which contains the element of drama
- Romanticism
- a literary attitude in which imagination is considered more important than formal rules and reason and than a sense of fact
- Stanza
- formal division of lines in a poem, considered as a unit, often separated by spaces
- Blank Verse
- poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter lines, widely used by Elizabethan dramatists like Shakespeare