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Literary Terms, set 1
152 terms
152
Literature
Undergraduate 4
11/28/2012

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Term
anachronism
Definition
Assignemnt of something to a time when it was not in existence
Term
courtly love
Definition
A philosophy of love and a code of lovemaking that flourished in chivalric times, first in france and later elsewhere: falling in love is accompanied by great emotional disturbances--symptoms--he and his lady pledge each other to secrecy and they must remain faithful in spite of all obstacles
Term
nemesis
Definition
the greek goddess of retributive justice or vengeance; applied to the divine retribution, when an evil act brings about its own punishment; applied to both agent and act of merited punishment.
Term
antagonist
Definition
the character directly opposed to the protagonist: a rival, enemy, or opponent.
Term
antihero
Definition
A protagonist of a modern play or novel who has the converse of most of the traditional attributes of hero: graceless, inept, sometimes stupid, sometimes dishonest
Term
confidant
Definition
a character who takes little part in the action but is close to the protagonist nand receives confidences and intimate thoughts of the protagonist: Horatio
Term
dramatic monologue
Definition
A poem that reveals "a soul in action" through the speech of one character in a dramatic situation.
Term
foil
Definition
any person who through contrast underscores the distinctive characteristics of another
Term
hamartia (tragic flaw)
Definition
the error, frailty, mistaken judgement, or misstep through which the fortunes of the hero of a tragedy are reversed.
Term
oedipus complex
Definition
a libidinal feeling that develops in a child, especially a male child, for the parent of the opposite sex; generally accompanied by hostility to the parent of the child's own sex
Term
protagonist
Definition
the chief character in a work
Term
villain
Definition
an evil character, potentially or actually guilty of serious crimes, he or she acts in opposition to the hero
Term
bathos
Definition
the effect resulting from the unsuccessful effort to achieve dignity or sublimity of style; an unintentional anticlimax, dropping from the sublime to the ridiculous. "Advance the fringed curtains of thy eyes, and tell me who comes yonder."
Term
didacticism
Definition
instructiveness in a work, especially to give guidance, particularly moral, ethical, or religious
Term
ethos
Definition
the character of the speaker or writer as reflected in speech or writing; the quality or set of emotions that a speaker or writer enacts in order to affect an audience
Term
epiphany
Definition
literally a manifestation or showing-forth, usually of some divine being.
Term
muse
Definition
nine goddesses represented as presiding over the various departments of art and science--inspiring and helping poets
Term
pathos
Definition
the quality in art and literature that stimulates pity, tenderness, or sorrow
Term
allegory
Definition
A form of extended metaphor in which objects, persons, and actions in a narrative are equated with meanings that lie outside the narrative itself. Examples: parable, fable, exemplum, Beast Epic
Term
allusion
Definition
a figure of speech that makes brief reference to a historical or literary figure, event, or object. Biblical allusions are frequent in English literature
Term
analogy
Definition
a comparison of two things, alike in certain aspects; particularly a method used in exposition and description by which something unfamiliar is explaiend or described by comparing it to something more familiar.
Term
anthropomorphism
Definition
The ascription of human characteristics to nonhuman objects.
Term
antithesis
Definition
A figure of speech characterized by strongly contrasting words, clauses, sentences, or ideas, as in "Man proposes, God disposes."
Term
apostrophe
Definition
A figure of speech in which someone (usually but not always absent) some abstract quality, or nonexistent personage is directly addressed as though present. "An address to God, as in Emily Dickenson's "Papa Above! Regard a Mouse."
Term
bombast
Definition
ranting, insincere, extravagant language, outlandish grandiloquence. (originally any sort of ornamental but unnecessary padding)
Term
burlesque
Definition
a form of comedy characterized by ridiculous exaggeration and distortion: the sublime may be made obsurd; honest emotions may be turned to sentimentality …
Term
cadence
Definition
2) the sound pattern that precedes a marked pause or the end of a sentence, making it interrogatory, hortatory, pleading, or such. 2) the rhythm established in the sequence of stressed and unstressed syllales in a phrasal unit. 3) rhythmical movement of writing when it is read aloud, the modulation produced by the rise and fall of the voice
Term
connotation
Definition
the emotional implications and associations that words may carry, as distinguished from their denotive meanings.
Term
double entendre
Definition
A statement that is deliberately ambiguous one of whose possible meanings is risque or suggestive
Term
epic simile
Definition
an elaborated comparison
Term
epithet
Definition
strictly, an adjective used to point out a characteristic of a person or thing, but sometimes applied to a noun or noun phrase used for a similar purpose "the trumpet of the dawn"
Term
euphony
Definition
Pleasing sounds, opposite of cacophony
Term
figures of speech
Definition
the various uses of language that depart from customary construction, order, or significance
Term
imagery
Definition
a collection of images in a literary work; synonymous with trope, or figure of speech.
Term
malapropism
Definition
an inappropriateness of speech resulting from the use of one word for another, which resembles it
Term
metonymy
Definition
the substituion of the name of an object closely associated with a word for a the word itself. Monarch as "the crown"
Term
oxymoron
Definition
a self contradictory combination of words or smaller verbal units, usually noun-noun, adjective-adjective, adjective-noun, adverb-adverb, or adverb-verb. Bitter sweet, jumbo shrimp, pianoforte
Term
anticlimax
Definition
an arrangement of details such that the lesser appears at the point when something greater ie expected: custimarily used to describe an effect resulting from a decrease in importance in the terms of a series
Term
coda
Definition
A conclusion
Term
counterplot
Definition
A secondary plot that contrasts with the principal plot of the work
Term
crisis
Definition
the point at which the opposing forces that create the conflict interlock in the decisive action on which a plot will turn. Crisis is applied to the episode or incident wherein the situation of the protagonist is certain either to improve or worsen
Term
denouement
Definition
the final unraveling of a plot, the solution of the mystery, an explanation of outcome.
Term
epilogue
Definition
a concluding statement
Term
episode
Definition
An incident presented as one continuous action
Term
exemplum
Definition
A moralized tale,often highly artificial and to a modern reader incredible
Term
exposition
Definition
one of the four chief types of composition, the others being argumentation, description, and narration--to explain something
Term
interlude
Definition
a kind of drama that played an important part in the secularization of the drama and in the evolution of realistic comedy. The word may mean a play brief enough to be presented in the interval of a dramatic performance, entertainment, or feast, or it may mean a dialogue between to persons
Term
archetype
Definition
Applied to an image, a descriptive detail, a plot pattern, or a character type that occurs frequently in literature, myth, religion, or folklore and is therefore believed to evoke profound emotions because it touches the unconscious memory and thus calls tinto play illogical but strong responses.
Term
controlling image
Definition
An image or metaphor that runs throughout and determines the form or nature of a literary work.
Term
leitmotiv (leitmotif)
Definition
a recurrent repetition of some word, phrase, situation, or idea, such as tends to unify a work through its power to recall earlier occurences.
Term
motif
Definition
a simple element that serves as a basis for expanded narrative; or less strictly, a conventional situation, device, interest, or incident.
Term
milieu
Definition
a general environment in which a work is produced
Term
mood
Definition
the emotional-intellectual attitude of the author toward the subject
Term
aphorism
Definition
A concise statement of a principle or precent given in pointed words. The opening sentence of Hippocrates's Aphorisms is famous "Life is short, art is long, opportunity fleeting, experimenting dangerous, reasoning difficult." Usually implies specific authoriship and compact, telling expression.
Term
ballad
Definition
A form of verse to be sung or recited and characterized by its presentation of a dramatic or exciting episode in simple narrative form.
Term
beast epic
Definition
A medieval literary form consisting of a series of linked stories grouped around animal characters and often presenting satirical comment on the church or court by means of human qualaties attributed to beast characters
Term
belles lettres
Definition
Literature, more especially that body of writing, comprising drama, poetry, fiction, criticism, and essays, that lives because of inherent imaginitive and artistic rather than scientific, philosophical, or intellectual qualities
Term
Bildungsroman
Definition
a novel that deals with the development of a young person, usually from adolescence to maturity
Term
cliff-hanger
Definition
a work issued in installments that end at a point of great suspense, as when a character is hanging onto an edge of a cliff
Term
domestic tragedy
Definition
tragedy dealing with the domestic life of commonplace people.
Term
epic
Definition
a long narrative poem in elevated style presenting charactesr of high position in adventures forming an organic whole trhough their relation to a central heroic figure and through their development of episodes important to the history of a nation or race.
Term
epigram
Definition
A pithy saying, often antitheetical
Term
eulogy
Definition
A dignified, formal speech or writing, praising a person or thing
Term
fairy tale
Definition
A story relating mysterious pranks and adventures of spirits who manifest themselves in the form of diminutive human beings
Term
fantasy
Definition
usually designages a conscious breaking free from reality
Term
folktale
Definition
a short narrative handed down through oral tradition, with various tellers and groups modifying it, so that it acquires cumulative authorship
Term
idyll
Definition
one or another of the poetic genres that are short and possess marked descriptive, narrative, and pastoral qualities
Term
maxim
Definition
a concise statement, usually drawn from experience and inculcating some practical advice, an adage.
Term
mock epic
Definition
a literary form that burlesques the epic by treating a trivial subject in the grand style or uses the epic formulas to make a trivial subject ridiculous by ludicrously overstating it
Term
aesthetic distance
Definition
a term used to describe the effect produced when an emotion or an experience, whether autobiographical or not, is so objectified that it can be understood as being independent of the immediate experience of its maker. "psychic distance," objective correlative, objectivity, verfremdungseffekt (alienation effect)
Term
affective fallacy
Definition
The judging of a work of art in terms of its results, especially its emotional effect: the "confusion between what it is and what it does: Aristotles Catharsis and Longinus' "transport."
Term
annotation
Definition
the addition of explanatory notes to a text by the author or an editor to explain, translate, cite sources, give bibliographical data, comment, gloss, or paraphrase.
Term
bowdlerize
Definition
to expurgate a piece of writing by omitting material considered offensive or indecorous especially to female modesty.
Term
explication
Definition
a method involving the painstaking analysis of the meanings, relationships, and ambiguities of the words, images, and other small unites that make up a a literary work
Term
intentional fallacy
Definition
the judging of the meaning of success or a work of art by the author's expressed or ostensible intention in producing it.
Term
objective correlative
Definition
patterns of objects, actions, or events, or a situation that can serve effectively to awaken in the reader an emotional response without being a direct staemtn of that subjective emtion.
Term
Classicism
Definition
As a critical term, a body of doctrine thought to be derived from or to reflect the qualities of ancient Greek and roman culture
Term
Existentialism
Definition
a group of attitudes that emphasizes existence rather than essence and sees the inadequacy of human reason to explain the enigma of the universe as the basic philophical question
Term
Naturalism
Definition
a literary movemet in the late 19th century and early 20th; the application of principles of scientific determinism to literature.
Term
Neoclassicism
Definition
dominated English literature in the restoration age and in the 18th century; models in classical literature; against the renaissance idea of limitless human potentiality was opposed a view of human kind as limited, dualistic, imperfect
Term
alexandrine
Definition
A verse with six iambic feet (iambic hexameter) - Spenserian Stanza = eight lines of pentameter, one hexameter
Term
antistophe
Definition
One of the three stanzaic forms of the Greek choral ode, the others being strophe and epode. It is identical in meter to strophe, which preceeds it
Term
ballade
Definition
One of the most popular of the French verse forms: 1) the refrain recurring regularly at the end of each stanza and of the envoy 2) the envoy, a peroration of climactic importance and likely to be addressed to a patron; and 3) the use of only three (or at the most four) rhymes in the entire poem, occurring at the same position in each stanza and with no rhyme-word repeated except in the refrain. the commonest is eight lines rhyming ababbcbc with bcbc for the envoy
Term
ballad stanza
Definition
The stanza of the popular or folk ballad, usually consists of four lines, rhyming abcb, with the first and third lines carrying four accented syllables and the second and fourth carrying three.
Term
blank verse
Definition
unrhymed but otherwise regular verse, usually iambic pentameter
Term
Chaucerian stanza
Definition
Rhyme royale
Term
dirge
Definition
a wailing song sung at a funeral or in commemoration of a death
Term
doggerel
Definition
rude verse; any poorly executed attempt at poetry
Term
elegy
Definition
A sustained and formal poem setting forth meditations on death or another solemn theme.
Term
epitaph
Definition
an inscription used to mark burial places
Term
epithalamion
Definition
A poem written to celebrate a wedding
Term
heroic stanza
Definition
four lines of iambic pentameter, rhyming abab
Term
limerick
Definition
five anapestic lines of which the first, second, anf fith consistying of three feet, rhyme, and the third and fourth consisting of two feet, rhyme.
Term
literary ballad
Definition
a ballad composed by an author as opposed to a folk ballad
Term
lyric
Definition
a brief subjective poem strongly marked by imagination, melody, and emotion, creating a cingle, unified impression.
Term
ottava rima
Definition
a stanza consisting of eight iambic pentameter lines rhyming abababcc
Term
rhyme royal
Definition
Seven-line iambic pentameter stanza rhyming ababbcc, someimtes with an alexandrine seventh line
Term
sestina
Definition
sis six-line stanzas and a three-line envoy
Term
sonnet
Definition
14 lines of iambic pentameter
Term
Petrarchan/Italian sonnet
Definition
abbaabbacdecde
Term
Spenserian stanza
Definition
nine iambic lines, the first eight in pentameter and the ninth in hexameber - ababbcbcc
Term
strophe
Definition
a stanza
Term
tercet
Definition
a triplet in which each line ends with the same rhyme
Term
terza rima
Definition
three line stanza with rhyme schee aba bcb cdc ded and so forth
Term
triplet
Definition
a sequence of three rhyming lines sometimes introduced as a variation in the heroic couplet
Term
villanelle
Definition
a fixed ninteen-line form, employing only two rhymes and repeating two of the lines according to a set pattern. Line 1 is repeated as lines 6, 12, and 18; line 3 as lines 9, 15, and 19. The first and third lines return as a rhymed couplet at the end. Rhyme scheme aba aba aba aba aba abaa
Term
versification
Definition
the art or practice of writing verse.
Term
alliteration
Definition
the repetition of initial identical consonant sounds or any vowel sounds in successive or closely associate syllables, especially stressed syllables, "The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, The Furrow followed free (Colridge)"
Term
assonance
Definition
Same or similar vowel sounds in stressed syllables that end with different consonant sounds: "lake/fake," "dyke/knight"
Term
caesura
Definition
a pause or break in a line of verse
Term
canto
Definition
a section or division of a long poem
Term
cinquain
Definition
five0line stanza ( two, four, six, eight, two, syllables) (originally applied to a medieval five-line stanza of varying meter and rhyme scheme
Term
closed couplet
Definition
two successive lines rhyming aa and containing a grammatically complete, independent statement. "A dog starved at his master's gate predicts the ruin of the state."
Term
conceit
Definition
originally implied something conceived in the mind; now implies ingenuity regarding fanciful notions, usually expressed through elaborate analogy and pointing to a striking parallel between ostensibly dissimilar things.
Term
consonance
Definition
the relation between words in which the final consonants in the stressed syllables agree but the vowels that proceed them differ: "add/read"
Term
end-stopped line
Definition
Lines of poetry that grammatically end at the end of the line
Term
heroic couplet
Definition
paired lines of iambic pentameter
Term
sestet
Definition
The second, six-line division of an italian sonnet.
Term
amphibrach
Definition
a metrical foot consisting of three syllables, the first ans last unaccented, the second accented. "Arrangement"
Term
anapest
Definition
a metrical foot consisting of three syllables, with two unaccented syllables followed by an accented one: "Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, I arise and unbuild it again."
Term
common measure
Definition
A stanza of four lines, the firsta nd third being iambic tetrameter (eight syllables) and the second and fourth iambic trimeter (six syllables) rhymed abab or abcb
Term
dactyl
Definition
a foot consisting of one accented syllable followed by two unaccented, as in "mannikin"
Term
feminine (weak) ending
Definition
An extrametrical unstressed syllable added to the end of a line in iambic or anapestic rhythm
Term
trochee
Definition
a foot consisting of an accented and an unaccented syllable, as in the word happy.
Term
anapestic
Definition
A line of verse conisting mostly of anapest feet
Term
dactylic
Definition
a line of verse consisting mostly of dactyl feet
Term
masculine ending
Definition
a line of verse that ends on a stressed syllable, as does any regular iambic line.
Term
meter
Definition
the recurrence in poetry of a rhyming pattern, or the rhythm established by the regular occurrence of similar units of sound
Term
monometer
Definition
a line of verse consisting of one foot
Term
dimeter
Definition
a line of verse consisting of two feet
Term
heptameter
Definition
a line consisting of seven feet
Term
octameter
Definition
a line of eight feet
Term
spondee
Definition
a foot comprosed of two accented syllables. Usually happens with two monosyllabic words and compound words of Germanic origin (in English)
Term
sprung rhythm
Definition
rhythm based on the number of stressed syllables in a line without regard to the number of unstressed syllables
Term
double rhyme
Definition
Feminine rhyme; that is, rhyme in which the similar stressed syllables are followeed by identical unstressed syllables.
Term
end rhyme
Definition
Rhyme at the ends of lines in a poem
Term
feminine rhyme
Definition
a rhyme in which the rhyming stressed syllables are followed by an undifferentiated identical unstressed syllable, as waken and forsaken
Term
imperfect (slant) rhyme
Definition
near rhyme, usually the substitution of assonance or consonance for true rhyme
Term
comedy
Definition
nondramatic literary works marked by a happy ending and a less exalted style than that in tragedy.
Term
farce
Definition
a dramatic piece intended to incite laughter and depending less on plot and character than on imporbable situations, the humor arising from gross incongruities, courase wit, or horseplay
Term
melodrama
Definition
a work, usually a play, based on a romantic plot and developed sensationally, with little regard for motivation and with an excessive appeal to the emotions of the audience
Term
morality play
Definition
a kind of poetic drama, a dramatized ellegory in which abstractions (such as Mrcy, Conscience, Perseverance, and Shame) appear in personified form and struggle for a human soul
Term
mystery play/cycle
Definition
a medieval play based on biblical history; a scriptural play
Term
slapstick
Definition
low comedy involving physical action, practical jokes, and such actions as pie-throwing and pratfalls
Term
Theater of the Absurd
Definition
a kind of drama that persents a view of the absurdity of the human condition by the abandoning of usual or rational devices and by the use of nonrealistic form.
Term
act
Definition
a major division of a drama
Term
catastrophe
Definition
the conclusion of a play, particularly of a tragedy; the last of the four parts into which the ancients divided a play
Term
catharsis
Definition
in the Poetics, Aristotle sees tragedy's objective as being "through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotoins."
Term
comic relief
Definition
a humorous scene, incident, or speech in the course of a serious fiction or drama, introduced it is sometimes thought, to provide relief from emotional intensity, and by contrast, to heighten the seriousness o the story.
Term
complication
Definition
that part of a plot in which the entanglement caused by the conflict of opposing forces is developed
Term
falling action
Definition
The second half or resolution of a dramatic plot
Term
mise-en-scene
Definition
the stage setting of a play, including scenery, properties, and the general arrangement of the piece
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