Fall Semester
Terms
undefined, object
copy deck
- dramatic irony
- when the audience knows something that the characters do not; the incongruity created when the (tragic) significance of a character's speech or actions is revealed to the audience but unknown to the character concerned
- feminine ending
- extra short syllable in a line of verse
- foil
- a character whose personality and attitude is opposite the personality and attitude of another character. Because these characters contrast, each makes the personality of the other stand out. (ex. Hamlet and Fortinbras)
- narrative (structure)
- a collection of events that tells a story, which may be true or not, placed in a particular order and recounted through either telling or writing
- anapest (anapestic)
- u u -- (short short long)
- octave
- first 8 lines (part 1) of an Italian sonnet
- foot
- meter/segment
- irony
- a situation or statement characterized by a significant difference between what is expected or understood and what actually happens or is meant
- Petrarchan Love
- courtly love - a.based on fictional stories of knights, etc; b. formalized and ritualized; c. hyperbolic; d. unrequited love
- point-of-view
- a way the events of a story are conveyed to the reader, it is the "vantage point" from which the narrative is passed from author to the reader (first person,limited omniscient third person, omniscient (all-knowing) third person, objective)
- iambic pentameter
- base pattern in Shakespeare's verse; 10 syllables = 5 feet (penta-meter) * each foot is an iamb (short long = u -- or u /)
- ethos
- appeal to ethics
- Apollonian
- reason, logic, caution, THOUGHT
- appeal to ignorance
- an argument for or against a proposition on the basis of a lack of evidence against or for it. If there is positive evidence for the conclusion, then of course there are other reasons for accepting it, but a lack of evidence by itself is no evidence.
- false cause (post hoc ergo propter hoc)
- fallacy committed whenever one reasons to a casual conclusion based solely on the supposed cause preceding its "effect." Of course, it is a necessary condition of causation that the cause precede the effect, bt it is not a sufficient condition. Thus post hoc evidence may suggest the hypothesis of a casual relationship, which then requires further testing, but it is never sufficient evidence on its own.
- figurative language
- Based on, or involving the use of, figures or metaphors; metaphorical, not literal
- Aristotle, Poetics
- definition of tragedy (and other writing structures of Aristotle's time)
- trochee (trochaic)
- -- u (long short)
- Dionysian
- fun, party, impulsive, ACTION
- diction
- the manner in which something is expressed in words
- The Great Chain of Being
- very strict structured/heirarchical social system (during Elizabethan England), absolute, don't move up; God ->... monarch/head of Anglican church -> noble men -> lesser men -> women
- apostrophe (?)
- A figure of speech, by which a speaker or writer suddenly stops in his discourse, and turns to address pointedly some person or thing, either present or absent; an exclamatory address.
- sonnet
- A piece of verse (properly expressive of one main idea) consisting of fourteen decasyllabic lines, with rimes arranged according to one or other of certain definite schemes
- eleos
- pity
- hubris
- over-weening pride (tragic flaw) in a Greek tragedy
- soliloquy
- revealing the inner thoughts of a character (usually when the character is alone)
- argument ad hominem
- a general category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument
- Carl Jung
- collective unconsciousness
- theme
- a statement (i.e. a complete sentence) of universal truth (ex. nature of humankind; nature of humanity's relationship(s) with the world (individual/society); human beings' relationships with one another) that may be divined from a work of literature (extends beyond text)
- Old English
- in use until 1150
- main character in a tragedy
- a. can't be bad person who fall (b/c this is "good"); b. can't be supremely good person (b/c "horrifying"); c. can't be "nobody"/common person; d. has to be a great person who falls because of either some hamartia or hubris
- pyrrhic
- u u (short short)
- hamartia
- error/mistake
- character
- an imaginary person represented in a work of fiction (play or film or story); , the inherent complex of attributes that determine a persons moral and ethical actions and reactions
- logos
- appeal to logic
- red herring
- a fallacy in which an irrelevant topic is presented in order to divert attention from the original issue. The basic idea is to "win" an argument by leading attention away from the argument and to another topic
- archetype
- In the psychology of C. G. Jung: a pervasive idea, image, or symbol that forms part of the collective unconscious.
- dactyl (dactylic)
- -- u u (long short short)
- Oedipus complex
- enoting or relating to a situation in which a child develops a desire for the parent of the opposite sex (esp. a son for his mother) at an early stage of sexual development (Freudian theory)
- spondee (spondaic)
- -- -- (long long)
- peripeteia
- a turn, a change in fortune; the fall in a Greek tragedy
- sestet
- last 6 lines (part 2) of an Italian sonnet
- catharsis
- purification; purgation of emotions
- Alexandrine
- iambic hexameter
- frame tale
- a story within a story
- pathos
- appeal to emotions (?)s
- Chorus
- in Greek theater, about 15 masked men , divided into two parts: strophe and antistrophe plus chorus/choragos/chorus leader; delivered long "songs/passages (often divided between strophe and antistrophe) called odes; in Oedipus, speaking as "voice of the people/town"
- literature
- 1. literary work or production 2. literary productions as a whole; the body of writing produced in a particular country or period or the world in general 3. printed matter of any kind
- symbol
- an arbitrary sign (written or printed) that has acquired a conventional significance, something visible that by association or convention represents something else that is invisible
- stanza
- a fixed number of lines of verse forming a unit of a poem
- Middle English
- from about 1100-50 until about 1450-1500; ex. Chaucer
- motif
- a unifying idea that is a recurrent element in a literary or artistic work
- tone
- The quality of something (an act or a piece of writing) that reveals the attitudes and presuppositions of the author
- allegory
- a story (in prose or verse) with a double meaning, a primary or surface meaning and a secondary, figurative or "below the surface" meaning
- Early Modern English
- used from about 1450-1500 until about 1700; ex Shakespeare
- couplet
- A pair of successive lines of verse, esp. when riming together and of the same length.
- climax
- the decisive moment in a novel or play
- persona
- The aspect of a person's character that is displayed to or perceived by others
- tragedy (according to Aristotle)
- From Aristotle's Poetics: "Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative; through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions."
- volta
- "turn in a an Italian/Petrarchan love sonnet (comes between the octave and sestet)
- anagnorisis
- moment of recognition in a Greek tragedy ("o, o, o" moment)
- phobos
- fear
- meter
- foot/segment of a line in verse, rhythm as given by division into parts of equal time
- Eros & Thantos
- love & death, respectively; Freud believed these were the 2 governing engines for humans (all actions traced to these two things)
- metaphor
- A figure of speech in which a name or descriptive word or phrase is transferred to an object or action different from, but analogous to, that to which it is literally applicable
- Petrarchan sonnet
- in the style of the Italian poet Petrarch (1304-74); spec. designating a sonnet with an octave rhyming abbaabba, and a sestet usually rhyming cdecde (or cdcdcd or cdcedc or cdcdcc)
- setting
- the context and environment in which something is set
- canon
- a body of literary works traditionally regarded as the most important, significant and worthy of study; the classics
- Freud
- phsycoanalyst of the 19th century (came up with "talking cure" - therapy); proposed Oedipus complex
- plot
- the story that is told in a novel or play or movie etc.