Literary Terms And Perchance The RUB

Sometimes irony is classified into types: in situational irony, expectations aroused by a situation are reversed; in cosmic irony or the irony of fate, misfortune is the result of fate, chance, or God; in dramatic irony. the audience knows more than the characters in the play, so that words and action have additional meaning for the audience; Socractic irony is named after Socrates' teaching method, whereby he assumes ignorance and openness to opposing points of view which turn out to...

A line is named for the number of feet it contains: monometer: one foot, dimeter: two feet, trimeter: three feet, tetrameter: four feet, pentameter: five feet, hexameter: six feet, heptameter: seven feet.

A line is named for the number of feet it contains: monometer: one foot, dimeter: two feet, trimeter: three feet, tetrameter: four feet, pentameter: five feet, hexameter: six feet, heptameter: seven feet.

Alliteration: the repetition of the same sound at the beginning of a word, such as the repetition of b sounds in Keats's "beaded bubbles winking at the brim" ("Ode to a Nightingale") or Coleridge's "Five miles meandering in a mazy motion ("Kubla Khan").

The Petrarchan sonnet consists of an octave (eight lines) and a sestet (six lines).

Two characteristics of the ballad are incremental repetition and the ballad stanza.

* Denotation: the literal meaning of a word; there are no emotions, values, or images associated with denotative meaning.

In English poetry, the most common meters are these: * Iambic: a foot consisting of an unaccented and accented syllable.

Apostrophes are generally capitalized. o Onomatopoeia: a word whose sounds seem to duplicate the sounds they describe--hiss, buzz, bang, murmur, meow, growl. o Oxymoron: a statement with two parts which seem contradictory; examples: sad joy, a wise fool, the sound of silence, or Hamlet's saying, "I must be cruel only to be kind" * Elevated language or elevated style: formal, dignitifed language; it often uses more elaborate figures of speech.

A moralistic person might be shocked by any sexual scene and condemn a book or movie as dirty; a sentimentalist is automatically moved by any love story, regardless of the quality of the writing or the acting; someone requiring excitement may enjoy any violent story or movie, regardless of how mindless, unmotivated or brutal the violence is.

Alliteration: the repetition of the same sound at the beginning of a word, such as the repetition of b sounds in Keats's "beaded bubbles winking at the brim" ("Ode to a Nightingale") or Coleridge's "Five miles meandering in a mazy motion ("Kubla Khan").

A narrator may be trustworthy or untrustworthy, involved or uninvolved.

See rhyme.

Meter: a rhythm of accented and unaccented syllables which are organized into patterns, called feet.

Irony: the discrepancy between what is said and what is meant, what is said and what is done, what is expected or intended and what happens, what is meant or said and what others understand.

Though it is sometimes used only for a brief poem about feeling (like the sonnet).it is more often applied to a poem expressing the complex evolution of thoughts and feeling, such as the elegy, the dramatic monologue, and the ode.

Meter: a rhythm of accented and unaccented syllables which are organized into patterns, called feet.

Figurative language is also called figures of speech.

* Literary convention: a practice or device which is accepted as a necessary, useful, or given feature of a genre, e.g., the proscenium stage (the "picture-frame" stage of most theaters), a soliloquy, the epithet or boast in the epic (which those of you who took Core Studies 1 will be familiar with).

Ballad: a relatively short narrative poem, written to be sung, with a simple and dramatic action.

Apostrophes are generally capitalized. o Onomatopoeia: a word whose sounds seem to duplicate the sounds they describe--hiss, buzz, bang, murmur, meow, growl. o Oxymoron: a statement with two parts which seem contradictory; examples: sad joy, a wise fool, the sound of silence, or Hamlet's saying, "I must be cruel only to be kind" * Elevated language or elevated style: formal, dignitifed language; it often uses more elaborate figures of speech.

The antihero, a recent type, lacks or seems to lack heroic traits.

The ballad stanza is four lines; commonly, the first and third lines contain four feet or accents, the second and fourth lines contain three feet.

Alliteration: the repetition of the same sound at the beginning of a word, such as the repetition of b sounds in Keats's "beaded bubbles winking at the brim" ("Ode to a Nightingale") or Coleridge's "Five miles meandering in a mazy motion ("Kubla Khan").

* Connotation: the emotions, values, or images associated with a word.

Sometimes the term means the mask or alter-ego of the author; it is often used for first person works and lyric poems, to distinguish the writer of the work from the character in the work.

In direct presentation, a character is described by the author, the narrator or the other characters.

Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds, please-niece-ski-tree.

The most common metrical lines in English are tetrameter (four feet) and pentameter (five feet).

The most common figures of speech are these: o A simile: a comparison of two dissimilar things using "like" or "as", e.g., "my love is like a red, red rose" (Robert Burns). o A metaphor: a comparison of two dissimilar things which does not use "like" or "as," e.g., "my love is a red, red rose" (Lilia Melani). o Personification: treating abstractions or inanimate objects as human, that is, giving them human attributes, powers, or feelings, e.g., "nature wept" or "the wind whispered many truth...

* Pyrrhic: a foot consisting of two unaccented syllables, generally used to vary the rhythm.

There are many different kinds and theories of tragedy, starting with the Greeks and Aristole's definition in The Poetics, "the imitation of an action that is serious and also, as having magnitude, complete in itself...with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of such emotions."

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* The most obvious point of view is probably first person or "I." * The omniscient narrator knows everything, may reveal the motivations, thoughts and feelings of the characters, and gives the reader information.

Paradox: a statement whose two parts seem contradictory yet make sense with more thought.

* Literary convention: a practice or device which is accepted as a necessary, useful, or given feature of a genre, e.g., the proscenium stage (the "picture-frame" stage of most theaters), a soliloquy, the epithet or boast in the epic (which those of you who took Core Studies 1 will be familiar with).

* The protagonist is the main character, who is not necessarily a hero or a heroine.

Writers like Faulkner, the Bronte sisters, or Faulkner pull the reader into their work; the reader identifies closely with the characters and is fully involved with the happenings.

Depending on the circumstances, ambiguity can be negative, leading to confusion or even disaster (the ambiguous wording of a general's note led to the deadly charge of the Light Brigade in the Crimean War).

Ballad: a relatively short narrative poem, written to be sung, with a simple and dramatic action.

Consonance repeats consonants, but not the vowels, as in horror-hearer.

The most common figures of speech are these: o A simile: a comparison of two dissimilar things using "like" or "as", e.g., "my love is like a red, red rose" (Robert Burns). o A metaphor: a comparison of two dissimilar things which does not use "like" or "as," e.g., "my love is a red, red rose" (Lilia Melani). o Personification: treating abstractions or inanimate objects as human, that is, giving them human attributes, powers, or feelings, e.g., "nature wept" or "the wind whispered man...

Figurative language changes the literal meaning, to make a meaning fresh or clearer, to express complexity, to capture a physical or sensory effect, or to extend meaning.

Similarly, fiction, drama, and poetry involve the reader emotionally to different degrees.

Ambiguity: (1) a statement which has two or more possible meanings; (2) a statement whose meaning is unclear.

The folk ballad is usually anonymous and the presentation impersonal.

The Shakespearean sonnet consists of three quatrains (four lines each) and a concluding couplet (two lines).

Ambiguity: (1) a statement which has two or more possible meanings; (2) a statement whose meaning is unclear.

Irony is often confused with sarcasm and satire: * Sarcasm is one kind of irony; it is praise which is really an insult; sarcasm generally invovles malice, the desire to put someone down, e.g.,

Sometimes irony is classified into types: in situational irony, expectations aroused by a situation are reversed; in cosmic irony or the irony of fate, misfortune is the result of fate, chance, or God; in dramatic irony. the audience knows more than the characters in the play, so that words and action have additional meaning for the audience; Socractic irony is named after Socrates' teaching method, whereby he assumes ignorance and openness to opposing points of view which turn out to...

* Denotation: the literal meaning of a word; there are no emotions, values, or images associated with denotative meaning.

A moralistic person might be shocked by any sexual scene and condemn a book or movie as dirty; a sentimentalist is automatically moved by any love story, regardless of the quality of the writing or the acting; someone requiring excitement may enjoy any violent story or movie, regardless of how mindless, unmotivated or brutal the violence is.

Sometimes the term means the mask or alter-ego of the author; it is often used for first person works and lyric poems, to distinguish the writer of the work from the character in the work.

In indirect presentation, a character's traits are revealed by action and speech.

* Characters may be classified as round (three-dimensional, fully developed) or as flat (having only a few traits or only enough traits to fulfill their function in the work); as developing (dynamic) characters or as static characters.

* Stock situation: frequently recurring sequence of action in a genre, e.g., rags-to-riches, boy-meets-girl, the eternal triangle, the innocent proves himself or herself.

Two characteristics of the ballad are incremental repetition and the ballad stanza.

In English poetry, the most common meters are these: * Iambic: a foot consisting of an unaccented and accented syllable.

The most common figures of speech are these: o A simile: a comparison of two dissimilar things using "like" or "as", e.g., "my love is like a red, red rose" (Robert Burns). o A metaphor: a comparison of two dissimilar things which does not use "like" or "as," e.g., "my love is a red, red rose" (Lilia Melani). o Personification: treating abstractions or inanimate objects as human, that is, giving them human attributes, powers, or feelings, e.g., "nature wept" or "the wind whispered many truth...

Language can be classified in a number of ways.

Irony is often confused with sarcasm and satire: * Sarcasm is one kind of irony; it is praise which is really an insult; sarcasm generally invovles malice, the desire to put someone down, e.g.,

Incremental repetition repeats one or more lines with small but significant variations that advance the action.

Figurative language changes the literal meaning, to make a meaning fresh or clearer, to express complexity, to capture a physical or sensory effect, or to extend meaning.

On the other hand, writers often use it to achieve special effects, for instance, to reflect the complexity of an issue or to indicate the difficulty, perhaps the impossibility, of determining truth.

Genre: a literary species or form, e.g., tragedy, epic, comedy, novel, essay, biography, lyric poem.

Some literary critics call the reptition of any sounds alliteration.

Apostrophes are generally capitalized. o Onomatopoeia: a word whose sounds seem to duplicate the sounds they describe--hiss, buzz, bang, murmur, meow, growl. o Oxymoron: a statement with two parts which seem contradictory; examples: sad joy, a wise fool, the sound of silence, or Hamlet's saying, "I must be cruel only to be kind" * Elevated language or elevated style: formal, dignitifed language; it often uses more elaborate figures of speech.

Theme: (1) the abstract concept explored in a literary work; (2) frequently recurring ideas, such as enjoy-life while-you-can; (3) repetition of a meaningful element in a work, such as references to sight, vision, and blindness in Oedipus Rex. Sometimes the theme is also called the motif.

* A foil is a secondary character who contrasts with a major character; in Hamlet, Laertes and Fortinbras, whose fathers have been killed, are foils for Hamlet.

Shakespeare frequently uses unrhymed iambic pentameter in his plays; the technical name for this line is blank verse.

The most common figures of speech are these: o A simile: a comparison of two dissimilar things using "like" or "as", e.g., "my love is like a red, red rose" (Robert Burns). o A metaphor: a comparison of two dissimilar things which does not use "like" or "as," e.g., "my love is a red, red rose" (Lilia Melani). o Personification: treating abstractions or inanimate objects as human, that is, giving them human attributes, powers, or feelings, e.g., "nature wept" or "the wind whispered man...

* Denotation: the literal meaning of a word; there are no emotions, values, or images associated with denotative meaning.

* The most obvious point of view is probably first person or "I." * The omniscient narrator knows everything, may reveal the motivations, thoughts and feelings of the characters, and gives the reader information.

Aesthetic distance: degree of emotional involvement in a work of art.

It occurs in everyday speech in such prhases as "tittle-tattle," "bag and baggage," "bed and board," "primrose path," and "through thick and thin" and in sayings like "look before you leap."

* Stock character: character types of a genre, e.g., the heroine disguised as a man in Elizabethan drama, the confidant, the hardboiled detective, the tightlipped sheriff, the girl next door, the evil hunters in a Tarzan movie, ethnic or racial stereotypes, the cruel stepmother and Prince Charming in fairy tales.

Theme: (1) the abstract concept explored in a literary work; (2) frequently recurring ideas, such as enjoy-life while-you-can; (3) repetition of a meaningful element in a work, such as references to sight, vision, and blindness in Oedipus Rex. Sometimes the theme is also called the motif.

The Romantic poets were attracted to this form, as Longfellow with "The Wreck of the Hesperus," Coleridge with the "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (which is longer and more elaborate than the folk balad) and Keats with "La Belle Dame sans Merci" (which more closely resembles the folk ballad).

Aesthetic distance: degree of emotional involvement in a work of art.

A common use for alliteration is emphasis.

Theme: (1) the abstract concept explored in a literary work; (2) frequently recurring ideas, such as enjoy-life while-you-can; (3) repetition of a meaningful element in a work, such as references to sight, vision, and blindness in Oedipus Rex. Sometimes the theme is also called the motif.

Alliteration: the repetition of the same sound at the beginning of a word, such as the repetition of b sounds in Keats's "beaded bubbles winking at the brim" ("Ode to a Nightingale") or Coleridge's "Five miles meandering in a mazy motion ("Kubla Khan").

Characterization: the way an author presents characters.

Ballad: a relatively short narrative poem, written to be sung, with a simple and dramatic action.

For instance, most of us would know the difference between a mechanic's being as reliable as George Washington or as reliable as Benedict Arnold.

For example, when we read a comic book, we accept that a light bulb appearing above the head of a comic book character means the character suddently got an idea.

There are many kinds of end rhyme: * True rhyme is what most people think of as rhyme; the sounds are nearly identical--notion, motion, potion, for example.

* A persona is a fictional character.

* Abstract language refers to things that are intangilble, that is, which are perceived not through the senses but by the mind, such as truth, God, education, vice, transportation, poetry, war, love.

Alliteration: the repetition of the same sound at the beginning of a word, such as the repetition of b sounds in Keats's "beaded bubbles winking at the brim" ("Ode to a Nightingale") or Coleridge's "Five miles meandering in a mazy motion ("Kubla Khan").

The title of the country song "Heaven's Just a Sin Away" is deliberately ambiguous; at a religious level, it means that committing a sin keeps us out of heaven, but at a physical level, it means that committing a sin (sex) will bring heaven (pleasure).

* Literary convention: a practice or device which is accepted as a necessary, useful, or given feature of a genre, e.g., the proscenium stage (the "picture-frame" stage of most theaters), a soliloquy, the epithet or boast in the epic (which those of you who took Core Studies 1 will be familiar with).

The most common figures of speech are these: o A simile: a comparison of two dissimilar things using "like" or "as", e.g., "my love is like a red, red rose" (Robert Burns). o A metaphor: a comparison of two dissimilar things which does not use "like" or "as," e.g., "my love is a red, red rose" (Lilia Melani). o Personification: treating abstractions or inanimate objects as human, that is, giving them human attributes, powers, or feelings, e.g., "nature wept" or "the wind whispered man...

Obvious examples are flags, which symbolize a nation; the cross is a symbol for Christianity; Uncle Sam a symbol for the United States.

The Romantic poets were attracted to this form, as Longfellow with "The Wreck of the Hesperus," Coleridge with the "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (which is longer and more elaborate than the folk balad) and Keats with "La Belle Dame sans Merci" (which more closely resembles the folk ballad).

Ballads often open abruptly, present brief descriptions, and use concise dialogue.

Satirists frequently use irony.

* Stock situation: frequently recurring sequence of action in a genre, e.g., rags-to-riches, boy-meets-girl, the eternal triangle, the innocent proves himself or herself.

The Romantic poets were attracted to this form, as Longfellow with "The Wreck of the Hesperus," Coleridge with the "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (which is longer and more elaborate than the folk balad) and Keats with "La Belle Dame sans Merci" (which more closely resembles the folk ballad).

Notice the difference in style of the opening paragraphs of Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms and Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains.

The antagonist is the opponent; the antagonist may be society, nature, a person, or an aspect of the protagonist.

A moralistic person might be shocked by any sexual scene and condemn a book or movie as dirty; a sentimentalist is automatically moved by any love story, regardless of the quality of the writing or the acting; someone requiring excitement may enjoy any violent story or movie, regardless of how mindless, unmotivated or brutal the violence is.

Concrete language identifies things perceived through the senses (touch, smell, sight, hearing, and taste), such as soft, stench, red, loud, or bitter.

Though it is sometimes used only for a brief poem about feeling (like the sonnet).it is more often applied to a poem expressing the complex evolution of thoughts and feeling, such as the elegy, the dramatic monologue, and the ode.

Though it is sometimes used only for a brief poem about feeling (like the sonnet).it is more often applied to a poem expressing the complex evolution of thoughts and feeling, such as the elegy, the dramatic monologue, and the ode.

Writers like Faulkner, the Bronte sisters, or Faulkner pull the reader into their work; the reader identifies closely with the characters and is fully involved with the happenings.

Themes in Hamlet include the nature of filial duty and the dilemma of the idealist in a non-ideal situation.

It can also be used to reveal a self-important or a pretentious character, for humor and/or for satire.

Irony: the discrepancy between what is said and what is meant, what is said and what is done, what is expected or intended and what happens, what is meant or said and what others understand.

Ambiguity: (1) a statement which has two or more possible meanings; (2) a statement whose meaning is unclear.

The most obvious example of aesthetic distance (also referred to simply as distance) occurs with paintings.

* With a limited omniscient narrator, the material is presented from the point of view of a character, in third person.

The Shakespearean sonnet consists of three quatrains (four lines each) and a concluding couplet (two lines).

Meter: a rhythm of accented and unaccented syllables which are organized into patterns, called feet.

* Stock situation: frequently recurring sequence of action in a genre, e.g., rags-to-riches, boy-meets-girl, the eternal triangle, the innocent proves himself or herself.

* The protagonist is the main character, who is not necessarily a hero or a heroine.

* A persona is a fictional character.

* Literary convention: a practice or device which is accepted as a necessary, useful, or given feature of a genre, e.g., the proscenium stage (the "picture-frame" stage of most theaters), a soliloquy, the epithet or boast in the epic (which those of you who took Core Studies 1 will be familiar with).

The ode often praises people, the arts of music and poetry, natural scenes, or abstract concepts.

Click here for a fuller discussion of genres.

Ambiguity: (1) a statement which has two or more possible meanings; (2) a statement whose meaning is unclear.

Ballad: a relatively short narrative poem, written to be sung, with a simple and dramatic action.

The Petrarchan sonnet consists of an octave (eight lines) and a sestet (six lines).

* Literary convention: a practice or device which is accepted as a necessary, useful, or given feature of a genre, e.g., the proscenium stage (the "picture-frame" stage of most theaters), a soliloquy, the epithet or boast in the epic (which those of you who took Core Studies 1 will be familiar with).

* Weak rhyme, also called slant, oblique, approximate, or half rhyme, refers to words with similar but not identical sounds, e.g., notion-nation, bear-bore, ear-are.

There are many kinds of end rhyme: * True rhyme is what most people think of as rhyme; the sounds are nearly identical--notion, motion, potion, for example.

* Weak rhyme, also called slant, oblique, approximate, or half rhyme, refers to words with similar but not identical sounds, e.g., notion-nation, bear-bore, ear-are.

The emotion is or seems personal In classical Greece, the lyric was a poem written to be sung, accompanied by a lyre.

Irony is often confused with sarcasm and satire: * Sarcasm is one kind of irony; it is praise which is really an insult; sarcasm generally invovles malice, the desire to put someone down, e.g.,

Meter: a rhythm of accented and unaccented syllables which are organized into patterns, called feet.

The most common figures of speech are these: o A simile: a comparison of two dissimilar things using "like" or "as", e.g., "my love is like a red, red rose" (Robert Burns). o A metaphor: a comparison of two dissimilar things which does not use "like" or "as," e.g., "my love is a red, red rose" (Lilia Melani). o Personification: treating abstractions or inanimate objects as human, that is, giving them human attributes, powers, or feelings, e.g., "nature wept" or "the wind whispered man...

Themes in Hamlet include the nature of filial duty and the dilemma of the idealist in a non-ideal situation.

* The protagonist is the main character, who is not necessarily a hero or a heroine.

Tone may be playful, formal, intimate, angry, serious, ironic, outraged, baffled, tender, serene, depressed, etc.

In this course, I will not be asking you to identify meters and metrical lines, but I would like you to have some awareness of their existence.

The folk ballad is usually anonymous and the presentation impersonal.

An allusion: a brief reference to a person, event, place, or phrase.

The most common figures of speech are these: o A simile: a comparison of two dissimilar things using "like" or "as", e.g., "my love is like a red, red rose" (Robert Burns). o A metaphor: a comparison of two dissimilar things which does not use "like" or "as," e.g., "my love is a red, red rose" (Lilia Melani). o Personification: treating abstractions or inanimate objects as human, that is, giving them human attributes, powers, or feelings, e.g., "nature wept" or "the wind whispered man...

However, there are specialized terms for other sound-repetitions.

* Stock character: character types of a genre, e.g., the heroine disguised as a man in Elizabethan drama, the confidant, the hardboiled detective, the tightlipped sheriff, the girl next door, the evil hunters in a Tarzan movie, ethnic or racial stereotypes, the cruel stepmother and Prince Charming in fairy tales.

Apostrophes are generally capitalized. o Onomatopoeia: a word whose sounds seem to duplicate the sounds they describe--hiss, buzz, bang, murmur, meow, growl. o Oxymoron: a statement with two parts which seem contradictory; examples: sad joy, a wise fool, the sound of silence, or Hamlet's saying, "I must be cruel only to be kind" * Elevated language or elevated style: formal, dignitifed language; it often uses more elaborate figures of speech.

The most obvious example of aesthetic distance (also referred to simply as distance) occurs with paintings.

Consonance repeats consonants, but not the vowels, as in horror-hearer.

The most common figures of speech are these: o A simile: a comparison of two dissimilar things using "like" or "as", e.g., "my love is like a red, red rose" (Robert Burns). o A metaphor: a comparison of two dissimilar things which does not use "like" or "as," e.g., "my love is a red, red rose" (Lilia Melani). o Personification: treating abstractions or inanimate objects as human, that is, giving them human attributes, powers, or feelings, e.g., "nature wept" or "the wind whispered many truth...

The Romantic poets were attracted to this form, as Longfellow with "The Wreck of the Hesperus," Coleridge with the "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (which is longer and more elaborate than the folk balad) and Keats with "La Belle Dame sans Merci" (which more closely resembles the folk ballad).

Sometimes irony is classified into types: in situational irony, expectations aroused by a situation are reversed; in cosmic irony or the irony of fate, misfortune is the result of fate, chance, or God; in dramatic irony. the audience knows more than the characters in the play, so that words and action have additional meaning for the audience; Socractic irony is named after Socrates' teaching method, whereby he assumes ignorance and openness to opposing points of view which turn out to...

Structure: framework of a work of literature; the organization or over-all design of a work.

Fiction: prose narrative based on imagination, usually the novel or the short story.

* Denotation: the literal meaning of a word; there are no emotions, values, or images associated with denotative meaning.

The most obvious example of aesthetic distance (also referred to simply as distance) occurs with paintings.

Aesthetic distance: degree of emotional involvement in a work of art.

* Stock character: character types of a genre, e.g., the heroine disguised as a man in Elizabethan drama, the confidant, the hardboiled detective, the tightlipped sheriff, the girl next door, the evil hunters in a Tarzan movie, ethnic or racial stereotypes, the cruel stepmother and Prince Charming in fairy tales.

A narrator may be trustworthy or untrustworthy, involved or uninvolved.

Tone may be playful, formal, intimate, angry, serious, ironic, outraged, baffled, tender, serene, depressed, etc.

Skillful poets rarely use one meter throughout a poem but use these meters in combinations; however, a poem generally has one dominant meter.