Intro to Literary Studies FINAL EXAM

Double Entendre

"double meaning;" deliberate ambiguity, usually humorous, and often sexual.

Atmosphere

the emotional aura invoked by a work

Research

the systematic investigation into and study of materials and sources in order to establish facts and reach new conclusions.

Protagonist

the central character and focus of interest in a narrative or drama.

Malapropism

the comic use of an improperly pronounced word so that what comes out is a real but also incorrect word. Examples are odorous for odious or pineapple for pinnacle. The new word must be close enough to the correct word that the resemblance is immediately recognized, along with the error.

Historical Context

the historical time when a work was written, together with the intellectual and cultural ideas of this period. To study a work of literature in this perspective is to determine the degree to which the work not only spoke to the people of its own time but also continues to speak to people of the present time (and perhaps to people of all time)

Hero

the major male and female protagonists in a narrative or drama. The terms are often used to describe leading characters in adventures or romance.

Setting

the natural, manufactured, and cultural environment in which characters live and move, including all their possessions, homes, ways of life, and assumptions.

Antagonist

the person, idea, force, or general set of circumstances opposing the protagonist, an essential element of plot.

Framing

the same features of a topic or setting used at both the beginning and ending of a work so as to "frame" or "enclose" the work.

Static Character

a character who undergoes no change, a flat character, contrasted with a dynamic character or round character.

Flat Character

a character, usually minor, who is not individual but is useful and structural, static and unchanging, distinguished from a round character.

Primary Texts

a document or physical object which was written or created during the time under study. These sources were present during an experience or time period and offer an inside view of a particular event.

Scene

a dramatic sequence that takes place within a single setting on stage. Often scenes serve as the subdivision of an act within a play.

Stock Character

a flat character in a standard role with standard traits, such as the irate police captain, the bored hotel clerk, or the sadistic criminal, a stereotype.

Representative Character

a flat character with the qualities of all other members of a group, a stereotype character.

Review

a free-ranging essay on a literary work. Reviews may be designed for general readers and for readers with specific fields of interest (politics, religion, history, science, family life, etc.)

Round Character

a literary character, usually but not necessarily the protagonist of a story or play who is three-dimensional, rounded, authentic, memorable, original, and true to life. A round character is the center of our attention and is both individual and unpredictable. Profits from experience, and in the course of a story of play, undergoes change or development. Katniss.

New Historicism

a literary theory based on the idea that literature should be studied and interpreted within the context of both the history of the author and the history of the critic.

Act

a major division in a play

Psychological Approach

a perspective that involves certain assumptions about human behavior: the way they function, which aspects of them are worthy of study and what research methods are appropriate for undertaking this study.

Thesis Sentence

a sentence in your text that contains the focus of your essay and tells the audience what the essay is going to be about.

Topic Sentence

a sentence that expresses the main idea of the paragraph in which it occurs.

Tragedy

a serious play in which the chief character, by some peculiarity of psychology, passes through a series of misfortunes leading to a final, devastating catastrophe.

Dilemma

a situation presenting a character with two choices, each one of which is acceptable, dangerous, or even lethal.

Dramatic Irony

a special kind of situational irony in which a character is ignorant of his or her true plight, or may perceive it in a limited way, whereas readers and the audience--and perhaps one of more of the other characters--understand it fully

Myth

a story that deals with the relationships of gods to humanity or with battles among heroes. A myth may also be a set of beliefs or assumptions among societies.

Mime

a theatrical technique of suggesting action, character, or emotion without words, using only gesture, expression and movement.

Situational Irony

a type of irony emphasizing that particular characters are enmeshed in forces that greatly exceed their perception, comprehension, and control.

Trait

a typical mode of behavior, the study of major traits provides a guide to the description of the character.

Film Script

a written work by screenwriters for a film. Can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. The movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of characters are narrated.

Flashback

also called selective recollection. A method of narration in which past events are introduced into a present action.

Character

an extended verbal representation of a human being, the inner self that determines thought, speech, and behavior.

Drama

an individual play; also plays considered as a group. One of the three major genres of imaginative literature.

New Critical Approach

an interpretive literary approach based on the French method of explication de text, stressing the forms, details, and meanings of literary works.

Economic Determinist Approach

an interpretive literary approach based on the theories of Karl Marx, stressing that literature is to be judged from the perspective of economic and social class and inequality and oppression.

Feminist Approach

an interpretive literary approach designed to raise consciousness about the importance and unique nature of women in literature.

Archetypal Approach

an interpretive literary approach explaining literature in terms of archetypal patterns (God's creation of human beings, the sacrifice of a hero, the search for paradise) (archetypal: recurrent of a symbol)

Deconstructionist Approach

an interpretive literary approach that rejects absolute interpretations and stresses ambiguities and contradictions.

Comedy

any play or narrative poem in which the main characters manage to avert an impending disaster and have a happy ending.

Stage Left/Right

denote the sides of the stage that are on the actor's left and right when the actor is facing the audience.

Secondary Texts

documents written after an event has occurred, providing secondhand accounts of that event, person or topic. Secondary sources offer different perspectives, analysis and conclusions of those accounts.

Reader-Response Approach

focuses on the reader or audience and their experience of a literary work, in contrast to other schools and theories that focus attention primarily on the author or the content and form of the work.

Prose Fiction

imaginative prose narratives (short stories and novels) that focus on one or a few characters who undergo a change or development as they interact with other characters and deal with their problems.

Verbal Irony

language stressing the importance of an idea by stating the opposite of what is meant. Verbal irony may convey humor, but as often as not it also reflects seriousness criticism and even bitterness and mockery of particular facets of life and the universe.

Documentation

material that provides official information or evidence that serves as a record.

Tableau

a group of models or motionless figures representing a scene from a story or from history.

Stereotype

a character who is so ordinary and unoriginal that he or she seems to have been cast in a mold; a representative character

Dynamic Character

a character who tries to assert control by recognition, adjustment, and change. Dynamic changes may be shown in 1) action or actions 2) the realization of new strength, and therefore, the affirmation of previous decisions 3) the acceptance of new conditions and the need for making changes and improvements 4) the discovery of unrecognized truths or 5) the reconciliation of the character with adverse conditions. In a short story, there is usually only one dynamic character, in a novel, there is usually many.