Unit 1: Part 3 Literary Terms

Historical writing tells the story of past events using reliable evidence, such as eyewitness reports and documents.

As you read the Prologue, look for these forms of characterization—techniques of revealing character: direct and indirect characterization.

• Direct characterization presents direct statements about a character, like Chaucer's statement that the Knight "followed chivalry...."

• Indirect characterization uses actions, thoughts, dialogue, and description to reveal a character's personality. By saying the Knight Is "not gaily dressed," Chaucer suggests that he is not vain.

Allegories are narratives that have both literal and deeper, symbolic meanings.

For this reason, an allegory may use certain basic storytelling patterns, or archetypal narrative elements, found in folk literature around the world.

The setting of the frame story, the time and place of its action, may not match the settings of individual tales.

Review Bede's History as if you were an eighth-century European reader looking for business opportunities. Then, write a business memo convincing people to invest in an enterprise in Britain or Ireland.

Show your understanding of the Prologue by starting a pilgrimage blog.

Write a sermon—a persuasive talk about some aspect of morality—on greed.

The context of a word is the other words, phrases, and sentences that come before and after the word and that may provide clues to its meaning.

Tell how the connotative meanings, or associations, of the adjectives make them better or worse for describing the characters, although their denotative meanings, or definitions, are similar.

Tell how the connotative meanings, or associations, of the adjectives make them better or worse for describing the characters, although their denotative meanings, or definitions, are similar.

When two short sentences have related ideas, you might be able to combine them using a correlative conjunction, a word pair connecting similar words or groups of words.

Then, use a print or online dictionary to verify your definitions and to find the parts of speech.

Use a print or online dictionary or a book of etymologies to determine the etymologies, or origins, of the three words.

Write an interpretation of a literary text in which you compare and contrast the theme of "Federigo's Falcon" with the theme of "The Wife of Bath's Tale" or "The Pardoner's Tale."