TOG Year 2 Rh Literature

High Style

An exalted mode of writing that includes such things as epithets, historical or literary allusions, catalogues, pleonasms, and epic similes.

Epithet

An exalted title for a person or thing: i.e. "King of France" for Charlemagne or " Breaker of Horses" for Diomedes.

Experiment in Living

An experiment in living is a choice that a character makes to act and live according to particular beliefs. (hint: how's that working for him)

Symbol

Any detail in a work of literature that in addition to its literal meaning stands for something else. (Ryken 517)

Couplet

1) A stanza composed of two lines, or 2). a rhyme scheme in which one line rhymes with the one immediately after it. If there are several couplets, this rhyme scheme will form a pattern like this: aabbccddeeff.

Conceit

1)Defined in the Middle Ages as any liteary device or means of expressing an idea (the word originally meant "concept"). 2) Later used to denote a complex or extended metaphor figure.

Bob and Wheel

Five lines rhyming ababa. The first of these rhyming lines contains only one stress and is called the bob. The four lines that follow have each three stresses and are together called the wheel (Norton Anthology of English Literature).

Soliloquy

From the Latin soliloquium (meaning "to speak alone"), a speech that an actor delivers as if musing aloud to himself, which no one else in the drama overhears.

Symbolic Character

A character who, in addition to his role in the story, stands for another idea or meaning outside the story.

Business

A character's activities on stage, which he uses to make his character more lifelike or his lies more vivid.

Kenning

A compound of two words in place of another as when sea becomes 'whale-road' or body is called 'life-house' (Norton Anthology of English Literature 6).

Masque

A court play of a allegorical or smbolic type, often including mythological elements, rich costumes, and complex staging, in which courtiers as well as actors can participate.

Pleonasm

A description that is lengthened beyond what is necessary as the poet tries "to do justice to the grandness of the subject".

Novel

A fictional story that is long, written in prose,, and uses special techniques, of which the most essential is its tendency to give a detailed revelation of the beliefs, feelings, thoughts, and affairs of human beings in everyday life.

Sestina

A form of lyric poetry made up of six stanzas of six lines each, with a concluding three-line envoi. A sestina uses the repetition of end words instead of rhyme to create its distinctive effect.

Dream vision

A genre in which "the author presents the story under the guise of havin dreamed it" (Norton Anthology of English Literature 331).

Comedy

A genre that depicts flawed human beings who are nevertheless capable of growth and receive blessings (earned or not), in a formal pattern that usually progresses from a comfortable or hopeful situation through difficulties to a happy ending for the sympathetic character(s).

Tragedy

A genre that depicts wrong human choices which cause or compound suffering. The genre is organized in a formal pattern that progresses from dilemma, to choice, to catastrophe, and usually ends in death.

Irony

A kind of artistic contrast that occurs when things should match but don't, or when they are exactly the opposite of what is intended or expected.

Pattern Plot

A kind of plot in which the events are arranged in patterns, which often means that they are repeated or grouped in threefold arrangements.

Plot Frame

A literary technique used to introduce and provide a framework for a story, usually by enveloping it in another story.

Symbolism

A literary technique whereby the author represents things through symbols often to the extent that the symbols forms sets or systems which become part of the story or poem's narrative structure and a primary means of communicating themes.

Iambic Pentameter

A metrical line composed of five iambic feet.

Terza rima

A metrical pattern consisting of tercets (3 line stanzas) which follow the rhyme scheme aba bcb cdc.

Rhyme scheme

A pattern of end rhymes that occurs consistently throughout a stanza or poem.

History play

A play written to dramatize the life of a historical person, or a historical even, or both.

Suspense

A plot device whereby the author leaves something important in doubt, so that the reader is strongly motivated to see how things will turn out.

Enjambment

A poetic technique in which the thought being communicated in a line of poetry does not end with that line but continues to the next one.

Octave

A stanza composed of eight lines, sometimes rhyming abbaabba.

Quatrain

A stanza composed of four lines, commonly rhyming either abab, abba, or abcb.

Sestet

A stanza composed of six lines, often rhyming ababab or sometimes rhyming ababcc.

Folk Literature

A story couched in the language of everyday speech and appealing to the common person.

Allegory

A story, poem, or play in the allegorical mode.

Fairy Tale

A sub-genre of Folk Literature that includes fantastic elements such as miraculous events, magical characters, strange creatures and settings, or magical powers.

Religious Lyric

A sub-genre of lyric poetry that deals primarily with the speaker's religious belief. (145)

Dark Conceit (Dark Figure)

A term invented by Edmund Spenser to describe the literary device of allegory, whereby an invisible reality is figuratively expressed through a concrete story.

Special Effects

A visual or auditory effect that is produced using special machinery.

Symbolic Event (or Action)

In a story, a symbolic event or act may either point to another event in the story or to a greater reality outside the story.

Realistic Mode

An attitude which emphasizes a view of the world as it usually appears to our earthly senses.

Apology

An author's explanation and justification for the ideas expressed in a literary work, or for the form through which he expresses them, usually wirtten in a preface to that work.

Poetic Justice

A literary device where by virtue is rewarded and vice punished in appropriate (and often ironic) ways.

Personification

A literary device whereby human attributes are given to something nonhuman, such as animals, objects, or abstract qualities (based on Ryken, Words of Delight 516)

Word Play

A literary technique in which a word is used in more than one way.

Catalogue

A long list (often combined with brief descriptions or epithets) of persons or things i.e. wives and daughters of princes in Hades (the odyssey) or nobles in royal councils (Chanson de Roland)

Epic Poem

A long narrative poem, written in a grave and lofty style, which relates significant events in the life of a great hero, a nation, or even all of humanity, and expresses the central beliefs and values of an entire culture.

Romance

A long story, either in prose or verse, which 1) includes and emphasizes magical or supernatural events, settings and characters, and 2) usually involves adventure, quests, and lovers.

Elegy (funeral) Lyric

A lyric poem that exalts and mourns a (usually recently) deceased person whom the speaker in the poem knew and loved. (118)

Allegorical Mode

A mode in which the author embodies abstract or spiritual realities in a concrete and physical story, in such a way that there is a clear correspondence between the abstract or spiritual and the concrete or physical.

Elegiac Mode

A mode in which the main element is a purpose and mood of lament and mourning, which usually focuses on praising a loved one who has died.

Satirical Mode

A mode in which the purpose is to expose, through ridicule or rebuke, human vice or folly (based on Ryken, Words of Delight 517

Pastoral Mode

A mode of poetry most often characterized by a mood of rustic pleasure (or sometimes longing or melancholy) and by certain settings and subjects: normally, an idyllic countryside wherein lovers (almost always shepherds and shepherdesses) enjoy a healthy, simple, natural lifestyle in small cottages or even in the open.

Farcical

A mood of buffoonery, characterized by horseplay or even violence, a crude physical trickery or crude verbal wit, ludicrous situations, and overbearing or impudent characters.

Tableau

A motionless, usually temporary grouping of persons (or sometimes objects) in various attitudes. The persons in a tableau are normally in full costume and are meant to be symbolic.

Spenserian Stanza

A nine-line stanza invented by Edmund Spenser, consisting of eight lines of iambic pentameter and one line of iambic hexameter (an alexandrine), which altogether rhyme ababbcbcc.

Song of Deeds

A particular kind of epic poem that was popular in ancient times and in the Middle Ages, which celebrates the great deeds of a hero.

Shakespearean (or English) sonnet

A poem of fourteen lines in iambic pentameter, following the rhyme scheme abab cdcd efef gg, divided into three quatrains and a couplet, made famous (though not invented) by Shakespeare.

Petrarchan(or Italian) sonnet

A poem of fourteen lines in iambic pentameter, following the rhyme scheme abbaabba cdecde (or cdcdcd), divided into an octave and a sestet, popularized by Italian poet Francesco Petrarch.

Allusion

A reference in a story to something outside the story (usually a historical or literary person or event).

Sonnet

A short poem of fourteen lines in iambic pentameter, typically in continuous stanza form and typically rhyming either 1) abbaabba cdcdcd (or cdecde), or 2) abab cdcd efef gg. Content varies but is usually about private, not public, concerns.

Envoi

A short stanza at the end of a poem, used to address the reader or to comment on the body of the poem. The word "envoi", derived from French, means a sending away or a farewell

Lay

A short tale of knights and ladies, or at least of love and adventure, which includes supernatural beings and events.

Epic Simile

A simile that is somewhat extended and elaborate, often one that compares human things to things in nature (famously used by Homer) or things in nature to human things (famously used by Virgil)

Romance Play

A sub-genre of drama that combines characteristics of comedy and tragedy, joy and sorrow. The romance play usually ends joyfully, but includes dark or potentially tragic elements. It focuses on redemption and reconciliation, and often includes supernatural elements.

Courtly Love Lyric

A sub-genre of medieval lyric poetry that deals with the topic of courtly love. (115)

Self-Examination Lyric

A sub-genre of medieval lyric poetry that focuses on the poet himself and the progression of his thoughts or feelings. (149)

Estates satire

A sub-genre of satire in which the objects of the satire are the three medieval estates (nobility, clergy, and workmen). This form discusses "the ills of society and how they can be cured"" (Norton Anthology of Western Literature 1698)

Liturgical Drama

A type of medieval drama developed by the Roman Catholic church to dramatize scenes from Scripture as sermon illustrations.

Morality Play

A type of medieval play that presents the moral and spiritual struggles in the Christian life in order to encourage and teach Christians to deal with them successfully.

Mystery Play

A type of medieval play that retells stories from the Bible and is typically perfomred as part of a cycle of such plays which dramatize key episodes from the whole story of the Bible.

Miracle Play

A type of medieval play that retells stories from the lives of Roman Catholic saints.

Progression Plot

A type of plot structure which arranges events into a roughly bell-shaped curve which peaks at a climax. This type of plot is made up of several distinct phases through which a story or play progesses.

Romantic Mode

An attitude which emphasizes the truth that reality consists of both the natural and supernatural and focuses on the influence of the supernatural on the natural. It often includes themes of redemption, poetic justice, and heroism, and love.

Properties (Props)

Any object that an actor uses on stage, other than sets and costumes.

Repartee (Wit)

Conversation consisting of witty exchanges.

Stage Directions

Directions written into the script that indicate to actors where to enter and exit and what to do.

Aside

In drama, a line delivered either directly to the audience or to oneself in such a way that the audience "over hears" it. In either case, other characters usually do not hear the line.

Ad-lib

In drama, unscripted lines spontaneously added by the actor in performance.

High (Poetic) Diction

Language that has been develped specifically to be used in poetry. Such language is intense and vivid and is often considered elevated or lofty. The term may also indicate language that was once vivid but has become stale through much use.

Prose

Language which is relatively uncompressed, does not follow any metrical rules, and is measured in the basic units of sentences and paragraphs.

Denouement (pronounced dey-noo-MAH)

Literally, the "tying up of loose ends," this phase of the story follows the climax and resolves any leftover concerns into a final conclusion.

Inciting Moment

The part of the plot in which an inciting force triggers a reaction (usually from a character) that changes the original situation into one that is moving towards a climax and resolution.

Further Complication

The part of the plot that falls between the turning point and the climax, often with increasing suspense, and advances the action towards its conclusion.

Elision

The poetic tecnique whereby a syllable is dropped or rolled into the next syllable. This is often done so that the number of syllables and (or) stresses in the line will match the poem's established meter.

Turning Point

The point in the plot at which the story turns towards what will be its final conclusion.

Commedia dell'arte

Literally "comedy of professional artists," a type of Italian comedy that combines stock characters and situations with imporvised action and dialogue,performed by a troupe of ten to twelve actors and actresses.

Malapropism

The act or habit of confusing a word or words in a ludicrous way, especially by substituting for the right word one which issimilar in sound, but different in meaning.

Sentence Structure

The characteristic length (or shortness) of sentences, the way they are usualy constructed, and the characteristic elements included in them, in the style of a given author.

Descriptive Style

The characteristic manner in which a storyteller describes everything in a given story, including characters, objects, ideas, and places.

Climax

The moment(s) or event(s) towards which the plot of the story has been building and from which it falls away into lesser significance.

Exposition

The opening phase of a story in which the writer presents the background information that the reader needs in order to understand the plot that will subsequently unfold (Ryken, Word of Delight).

Rising Action

The part of a plot in which the action is progressing from the inciting moment towards the turning point, usually with increasing suspense and complexity.

Supernatural Machinery

The participation of supernatural beings in the action of the story.

Alliteration

The repetition of the initial sound of words in a line or lines of verse. (Oliver, A poetry Handbook page 29)

Lighting Scheme

The type of arrangement of lighting used to illuminate a dramatic production.

Style

The unique rhythm, techniques, and qualities that characterize a particular author's craftmanship.

Dramatic Irony

This kind of irony occurs when a speaker or character in a literary work does things that he would not do if he knew what the audience knows.

Verbal Irony

This kind of irony occurs when a speaker or character intentionally or unintentionally says one thing when another is really the case. Commonly, verbal irony takes the form of sarcasm.

Situational Irony

This kind of irony occurs when the situation in which a speaker or character finds himself different from and usually the opposite of what would be suitable.

Blank verse

Unrhymed iambic pentameter.

Blocking

an actor's positions and movements on stage, including entrances and exits.