CSET English - Literary Terms Part 1

Some Basic Principles of Existentialism

(1) A concern with man's essential being and nature (2) An idea that existential "angst" or "anguish" is the common lot of all thinking humans who see the essential meaninglessness of transitory human life, (3) The belief that thought and logic are insufficient to cope with existence (4) The conviction that a true sense of morality can only come from honestly facing the dilemma of existential freedom and participating in life actively and positively.

Lyric Common Traits

-A short poem (usually no more than a dozen lines long) -Written in stanzas -Designed to be set to music (In classical Greece, the lyric was a poem written to be sung, accompanied by a lyre.) -Without plot (unlike a ballad, there is no chronology of events) -Expresses the feelings, perceptions, and thoughts of a single poetic speaker (not necessarily the poet) -Intensely personal, emotional -Often written about a moment of contemplation and appreciation -Has the form and musical quality of a song

Traits of Gothic Novels

-Ancient prophecy, especially mysterious, obscure, or hard to understand. -Mystery and suspense -High emotion, sentimentalism, but also pronounced anger, surprise, and especially terror -Supernatural events (e.g. a giant, a sighing portrait, ghosts or their apparent presence, a skeleton) -Omens, portents, dream visions -Fainting, frightened, screaming women -Women threatened by powerful, impetuous male -Setting in a castle, especially with secret passages -The metonymy of gloom and horror (wind, rain, doors grating on rusty hinges, howls in the distance, distant sighs, footsteps approaching, lights in abandoned rooms, gusts of wind blowing out lights or blowing suddenly, characters trapped in rooms or imprisoned) -The vocabulary of the gothic (use of words indicating fear, mystery, etc.: apparition, devil, ghost, haunted, terror, fright)

Elegy Traits

-Begins with an invocation of the muse -Both laments and celebrates a dead person -Contains allusions to classical mythology -Contains a poetic speaker who uses first person -Raises questions about justice, fate, or providence -Tends to be longer than a sonnet but not as long as an epic -Is not plot-driven -Ends with the poet's finding consolation in the idea that there is something "larger" than the life or death of any one person

Typical Conventions in Epics

-Poem begins with a statement of the theme ("Arms and the man I sing") -Invocation to the muse or other deity ("Sing, goddess, of the wrath of Achilles") -Story begins in medias res (in the middle of things) -Catalogs (of participants on each side, ships, sacrifices) -Histories and descriptions of significant items (who made a sword or shield, how it was decorated, who owned it from generation to generation) -Epic simile (a long simile where the image becomes an object of art in its own right as well as serving to clarify the subject). -Frequent use of epithets ("Aeneas the true"; "rosy-fingered Dawn"; "tall-masted ship") -Use of patronymics (calling son by father's name): "Anchises' son" -Long, formal speeches by important characters Journey to the underworld -Use of the number three (attempts are made three times, etc.) -Previous episodes in the story are later recounted

Ballad Common Traits

-The beginning is often abrupt -The story is told through dialogue and action -Language is simple or "folksy" -Contains repetition (usually a refrain is repeated, with small variations) -Quatrains of iambic tetrameter alternating with iambic trimeter (This form is also popular amongst Romantics)

Ballad

A ballad is a relatively short narrative poem, written to be sung, with dramatic action (a plot). Ballads tell of love, death, the supernatural, or a combination of these. The theme is often tragic, but comic ballads do exist.

Flashback

A device that allows the writer to present events that happened before the time of the current narration or the current events in the fiction. Flashback techniques include memories, dreams, stories of the past told by characters, or even authorial sovereignty. (That is, the author might simply say, "But back in Tom's youth. . . .") Flashback is useful for exposition, to fill in the reader about a character or place, or about the background to a conflict.

Allegory

A figurative work in which a surface narrative carries a secondary, symbolic or metaphorical meaning. In The Faerie Queene, for example, Red Cross Knight is a heroic knight in the literal narrative, but also a figure representing Everyman in the Christian journey. Many works contain allegories or are allegorical in part, but not many are entirely allegorical. Some examples of allegorical works include: Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress Dante, The Divine Comedy William Golding, Lord of the Flies (allegorical novel) Herman Melville, Moby Dick (allegorical novel) George Orwell, Animal Farm (allegorical novel)

Euphuism

A highly ornate style of writing popularized by John Lyly's Euphues, characterized by balanced sentence construction, rhetorical tropes, and multiplied similes and allusions.

Traditional Ode

A lengthy, complex lyric which has a serious subject and elevated diction. Invented by Pindar, a Greek poet. His odes were modeled on the choral songs of Greek drama. They were encomiums--a speech or piece of writing that praises someone or something highly--usually to athletes who had been successful in the Olympic games.

End-Stop

A line that has a natural pause at the end (period, comma, etc.). For example, these lines are end stopped: My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun. Coral is far more red than her lips red. --Shakespeare

Apologue

A moral fable, usually featuring personified animals or inanimate objects which act like people to allow the author to comment on the human condition. Often, the apologue highlights the irrationality of mankind. The beast fable, and the fables of Aesop are examples. Some critics have called Samuel Johnson's Rasselas an apologue rather than a novel because it is more concerned with moral philosophy than with character or plot. Examples: George Orwell, Animal Farm Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

Frame

A narrative structure that provides a setting and exposition for the main narrative in a novel. Often, a narrator will describe where he found the manuscript of the novel or where he heard someone tell the story he is about to relate. The frame helps control the reader's perception of the work, and has been used in the past to help give credibility to the main section of the novel, through the implication or claim that the novel represents a true account of events, written by someone other than the author. In the 16th through the 18th centuries, frames were sometimes used to help protect the author and publisher from persecution for the ideas presented. Examples of novels with frames: Mary Shelley Frankenstein Nathaniel Hawthorne The Scarlet Letter

Epistolary Novel

A novel consisting of letters written by a character or several characters. The form allows for the use of multiple points of view toward the story and the ability to dispense with an omniscient narrator. Examples: Samuel Richardson, Pamela Samuel Richardson, Clarissa Fanny Burney, Evelina C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters Hannah W. Foster, The Coquette

Christian Novel

A novel either explicitly or implicitly informed by Christian faith and often containing a plot revolving around the Christian life, evangelism, or conversion stories. Sometimes the plots are directly religious, and sometimes they are allegorical or symbolic. Traditionally, most Christian novels have been viewed as having less literary quality than the "great" novels of Western literature. Examples: Charles Sheldon, In His Steps Lloyd C. Douglas, The Robe Henryk Sienkiewicz, Quo Vadis Par Lagerkvist, Barabbas Catherine Marshall, Christy C. S. Lewis, Perelandra G. K. Chesterton, The Man Who was Thursday Bodie Thoene, In My Father's House

Detective Novel

A novel focusing on the solving of a crime, often by a brilliant detective, and usually employing the elements of mystery and suspense. Examples: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles Agatha Christie, Murder on the Orient Express Dorothy Sayers, Strong Poison

Graphic Novel

A novel illustrated panel by panel, either in color or black and white. Graphic novels are sometimes referred to as extended comics, because the presentation format (panel by panel illustration, mostly dialog with usually little exposition) suggests a comic. So too does the emphasis on action in many graphic novels. Characters who are not human, talking monsters, and imaginary beings sometimes populate graphic novels, bringing them closer to science fiction or fantasy than realism. Jeff Smith, Bone Matt Wagner, Mage: The Hero Discovered

Gothic Novel

A novel in which supernatural horrors and an atmosphere of unknown terror pervades the action. The setting is often a dark, mysterious castle, where ghosts and sinister humans roam menacingly. Horace Walpole invented the genre with his Castle of Otranto. Examples: Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto William Beckford, Vathek Anne Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolpho Mary Shelley, Frankenstein Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca

Hypertext Novel

A novel that can be read in a nonsequential way. That is, whereas most novels flow from beginning to end in a continuous, linear fashion, a hypertext novel can branch--the reader can move from one place in the text to another nonsequential place whenever he wishes to trace an idea or follow a character. Also called hyperfiction. Most are published on CD-ROM. Examples: Michael Joyce, Afternoon Stuart Moulthrop, Victory Garden

Adventure Novel

A novel where exciting events are more important than character development and sometimes theme. Adventure novels are sometimes described as "fiction" rather than "literature" in order to distinguish books designed for mere entertainment rather than thematic importance. Examples: H. Rider Haggard, King Solomon's Mines Baroness Orczy, The Scarlet Pimpernel Alexandre Dumas, The Three Musketeers Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

Historical Novel

A novel where fictional characters take part in actual historical events and interact with real people from the past. Examples: Sir Walter Scott, Ivanhoe Sir Walter Scott, Waverly James Fenimore Cooper, Last of the Mohicans Lloyd C. Douglas, The Robe

Children's Novel

A novel written for children and discerned by one or more of these: (1) a child character or a character a child can identify with, (2) a theme or themes (often didactic) aimed at children, (3) vocabulary and sentence structure available to a young reader. Many "adult" novels, such as Gulliver's Travels, are read by children. The test is that the book be interesting to and--at some level--accessible by children. Examples: Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables Booth Tarkington, Penrod and Sam

Caesura

A pause, metrical or rhetorical, occurring somewhere in a line of poetry. The pause may or may not be typographically indicated (usually with a comma). An example from George Herbert's "Redemption": At length I heard a ragged noise and mirth Of theeves and murderers: there I him espied, Who straight, Your suit is granted, said, and died.

Existentialism

A twentieth-century philosophy arguing that ethical human beings are in a sense cursed with absolute free will in a purposeless universe. Therefore, individuals must fashion their own sense of meaning in life instead of relying thoughtlessly on religious, political, and social conventions. The ethical idea is that, if the universe is essentially meaningless, and human existence does not matter in the long run, then the only thing that can provide a moral backdrop is humanity itself, and neglecting to build and encourage such morality is neglecting our duty to ourselves and to each other.

Coming of Age Story

A type of novel where the protagonist is initiated into adulthood through knowledge, experience, or both, often by a process of disillusionment. Understanding comes after the dropping of preconceptions, a destruction of a false sense of security, or in some way the loss of innocence. Some of the shifts that take place are these: -Ignorance to knowledge -Innocence to experience -False view of world to correct view -Idealism to realism -Immature responses to mature responses Examples: Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey Charles Dickens, Great Expectations Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage

Burlesque

A work designed to ridicule a style, literary form, or subject matter either by treating the exalted in a trivial way or by discussing the trivial in exalted terms (that is, with mock dignity). Burlesque concentrates on derisive imitation, usually in exaggerated terms. Literary genres (like the tragic drama) can be burlesqued, as can styles of sculpture, philosophical movements, schools of art, and so forth. See Parody, Travesty. John Gay, The Beggar's Opera (1728) Henry Fielding, Tom Thumb the Great (1730) Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock (1711-14)

Dystopian Novel

An anti-utopian novel where, instead of a paradise, everything has gone wrong in the attempt to create a perfect society. Examples: George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

Conceit

An elaborate or unusual comparison--especially one using unlikely metaphors, simile, hyperbole, and contradiction, such as an analogy or metaphor in which, say a beloved is compared to a ship, planet, etc. Before the beginning of the seventeenth century, the term conceit was a synonym for "thought" and roughly equivalent to "idea" or "concept." It gradually came to denote a fanciful idea or a particularly clever remark. In literary terms, the word denotes a fairly elaborate figure of speech, especially an extended comparison involving unlikely metaphors, similes, imagery, hyperbole, and oxymora. One of the most famous conceits is John Donne's "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning," a poem in which Donne compares two souls in love to the points on a geometer's compass. Shakespeare also uses conceits regularly in his poetry. In Richard II, Shakespeare compares two kings competing for power to two buckets in a well, for instance. A conceit is usually classified as a subtype of metaphor.

Elegy

An elegy is a meditative lyric poem. In classical Greek and Roman literature, an "elegy" was a poem written in elegiac meter (alternating hexameter and pentameter lines). But the term has come to have a broader meaning. Today, an elegy can be a lament about any subject (love, death of a person or a way of life) in any meter.

Epigram

An epigram is a short poem with a clever twist at the end OR a concise and witty statement. History: The epigram originated in Greece as a form for inscription on a monument or grave, hence the word 'epigram' from the Greek words meaning 'to write on'.

Epic

An extended narrative poem recounting actions, travels, adventures, and heroic episodes and written in a high style (with ennobled diction, for example). It may be written in hexameter verse, especially dactylic hexameter, and it may have twelve books or twenty four books.

Fantasy Novel

Any novel that is disengaged from reality. Often such novels are set in nonexistent worlds, such as under the earth, in a fairyland, on the moon, etc. The characters are often something other than human or include nonhuman characters. Example: J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

Characteristics of Epics

Characteristics of the classical epic include these: -The main character or protagonist is heroically larger than life, often the source and subject of legend or a national hero -The deeds of the hero are presented without favoritism, revealing his failings as well as his virtues -The action, often in battle, reveals the more-than-human strength of the heroes as they engage in acts of heroism and courage -The setting covers several nations, the whole world, or even the universe -The episodes, even though they may be fictional, provide an explanation for some of the circumstances or events in the history of a nation or people -The gods and lesser divinities play an active role in the outcome of actions -All of the various adventures form an organic whole, where each event relates in some way to the central theme

Examples of Epics

Homer, Iliad Homer, Odyssey Virgil, Aeneid Tasso, Jerusalem Delivered Milton, Paradise Lost

Foot Word Examples

Iambic words: about, event, infuse, persuade Trochaic words: woman, daisy, golden, patchwork Anapestic words: underneath, introduce Dactyllic words: fantasy, alchemy, penetrate

Horatian Satire

In general, a gentler, more good humored and sympathetic kind of satire, somewhat tolerant of human folly even while laughing at it. Named after the poet Horace, whose satire epitomized it. Horatian satire tends to ridicule human folly in general or by type rather than attack specific persons. Compare Juvenalian satire.

Humours

In medieval physiology, four liquids in the human body affecting behavior. Each humour was associated with one of the four elements of nature. In a balanced personality, no humour predominated. When a humour did predominate, it caused a particular personality. Here is a chart of the humours, the corresponding elements and personality characteristics: blood...air...hot and moist: sanguine, kind, happy, romantic phlegm...water...cold and moist: phlegmatic, sedentary, sickly, fearful yellow bile...fire...hot and dry: choleric, ill-tempered, impatient, stubborn black bile...earth...cold and dry: melancholy, gluttonous, lazy, contemplative

Ballad Examples

Longfellow's "The Wreck of the Hesperus" Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" Keats's "La Belle Dame sans Merci"

Non-Poetic Epigram

Occasionally, simple and witty statements, though not poetical per se, may also be considered epigrams, such as one attributed to Oscar Wilde: "I can resist everything except temptation." Also, Macdonald Carey's legendary line "Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives" can be considered an epigram, as the meaning of life is concisely explained in a simile. Another good example of an epigram: "The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it."

Romantic Ode

Romantic form of the ode has three elements: -Description of a specific outdoor natural scene; -An extended meditation, stimulated by this scene - which might be about a private problem or a universal situation (or both) -An insight, resolution or decision, which brings a new perspective Examples: Wordsworth's "Ode: Intimations of Immortality," Coleridge's "Dejection: An Ode," and Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind."

Lyric

Short verse poem about a "lyric moment." The lyric form is as old as Egypt (surviving examples date back to 2600 BCE), and examples exist in early Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. The term "lyrical" can also be applied to any prose or verse characterized by a spontaneous outpouring of intense feeling. Remember that it is one speaker who will express this feeling. Types of lyrics include the sonnet, ode and elegy.

Foot

The basic unit of meter consisting of a group of two or three syllables. Scanning or scansion is the process of determining the prevailing foot in a line of poetry, of determining the types and sequence of different feet.

Humanism

The new emphasis in the Renaissance on human culture, education and reason, sparked by a revival of interest in classical Greek and Roman literature, culture, and language. Human nature and the dignity of man were exalted and emphasis was placed on the present life as a worthy event in itself (as opposed to the medieval emphasis on the present life merely as preparation for a future life).

Enjambement

The running over of a sentence or thought into the next couplet or line without a pause at the end of the line; a run-on line. Example: Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds Or bends with the remover to remove. . . . --Shakespeare

Euphemism

The substitution of a mild or less negative word or phrase for a harsh or blunt one, as in the use of "pass away" instead of "die." The basic psychology of euphemistic language is the desire to put something bad or embarrassing in a positive (or at least neutral light). Thus many terms referring to death, sex, crime, and excremental functions are euphemisms. Since the euphemism is often chosen to disguise something horrifying, it can be exploited by the satirist through the use of irony and exaggeration. "The war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage." --Emperor Hirohito, upon surrendering after the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan.

Heroic Couplet

Two lines of rhyming iambic pentameter. Most of Alexander Pope's verse is written in heroic couplets. In fact, it is the most favored verse form of the eighteenth century. Example: u / u / u / u / u / 'Tis hard to say, if greater want of skill u / u / u / u / u / Appear in writing or in judging ill. . . . --Alexander Pope [Note in the second line that "or" should be a stressed syllable if the meter were perfectly iambic. Iambic= a two syllable foot of one unstressed and one stressed syllable, as in the word "begin." Pentameter= five feet. Thus, iambic pentameter has ten syllables, five feet of two syllable iambs.]

Foot Types

Types of feet: U (unstressed); / (stressed syllable) Iamb: U / Trochee: / U Anapest: U U / Dactyl: / U U Spondee: / / Pyrrhic: U U

Blank Verse

Unrhymed iambic pentameter. Shakespeare's plays are largely blank verse, as are other Renaissance plays. Blank verse was the most popular in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in England. Examples: Edward Young, Night Thoughts, Night the First John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667) John Dryden, All for Love James Thompson, The Seasons

Free verse

Verse that has neither regular rhyme nor regular meter. Free verse often uses cadences rather than uniform metrical feet. I cannot strive to drink dry the ocean's fill since you replenish my gulps with your tears

Ode in England

When the ode developed in England, Romantic poets like Keats and Wordsworth modified the Pindaric form to suit their own purposes. What they came up with was more like the Roman ode. Modeled after the Roman poet Horace, the Horatian ode tended to be more personal, meditative, and restrained. Keats' "Ode to Autumn" and Wordsworth's "Ode to Duty" are considered Horatian odes. But the Romantic poets WERE romantic poets after all, so they pretty much ignored the "emotional restraint" part of the Horatian ode formula and got all sappy about it.