COMP IDs

use value vs. exchange value

"Use value versus exchange value" comes from Marx's law of surplus value. The usefulness of a commodity versus the exchange equivalent by which the commodity is compared to other objects on the market presents a distinguishable difference, as noted by Marx. The use value is tied to physical properties; the material used and the fulfillment of a human need has a distinct value. The exchange value on a capitalist market is always compared to a "universal equivalent" (which eventually comes down to money), and this is how two commodities can be exchanged. In other words, money is the good which is typically exchanged for another good. Money then becomes equivalence. But money can never hide the real exchange, which is labor. The more labor it takes to make a good is the more value that good holds. An example can be drawn from the Pardoner's Tale by Chaucer.

blank verse

A blank verse is a verse without rhyme which usually relies and uses iambic pentameter to create a melodic cadence. It has ten syllables in each lines (the pentameter), where unstressed syllables are followed by stressed ones, meaning there are five stressed syllables that do not rhyme. Sometimes, the author uses eleven syllables which create a "feminine" unstressed ending. There are no fixed number of lines through the verse. This type of verse was introduced by Henry Howard Earl of Surry in the 16th century and was popularized by Shakespeare, making it the most common meter in English poetry. A prime example of a play that Shakespeare used blank verse in is Hamlet, and Hamlet's famous monologue, which begins: to be or not to be--that is the question.

dramatic monologue

A dramatic monologue is a speech in play, or a poem written in the form of a speech, for an individual character. Typically, it compresses a scene where the narration from the monologue says something about the history of the plot or character while also providing psychological insight. The audience is typically unknown and silent as the speech comes from a clear point of view. Robert Browning sophisticated the use through several poems, adding characterization and complexity of a situation. The subject is typically less interesting than the info that is revealed; for example, "My Last Duchess" is about a Duke showing off a painting of his late wife to the ambassador and father of a potential bride. His cruelty is implicated in the poem, bringing to light that he potentially murdered his late wife because he didn't like that she smiled at other people.

frame narrative

A frame narrative is when the narration is told through a lens. In other words, it is a story within a story. It can be told by the main character or a supporting character, with some sort of audience listening in addition the the actual reader. Typically, the characters telling the story has some sort of shortcoming, prejudice, or motive. In a frame narrative, the introduction sets the start for the main, second story--it provides context. This type of narrative serves to distance the reader from the story as well as the author, and it usually provides the point of view from whoever is hearing the story and the person telling it. A famous example of a frame narrative is Canterbury Tales by Chaucer. Different character on the pilgrimage take turns telling a story to the rest of the characters.

metaphysical conceit

A metaphysical conceit is a literary device, often found in poetry, used to create far-fetched comparisons between a spiritual aspect, typical of a person, and a physical or concrete thing in the world. In other words, it is an extended metaphor between two unrelated objects, and sometimes it can last the entire poem. The purpose of a metaphysical conceit is to connect sensory perceptions to an abstract idea in order to understand an emotional state. This literary device took of in the 17th century, headed by John Donne. One poetic example by him is "The Rising Sun," and the sun is likened to an intruder in order to express the narrator's emotions of not wanting to leave the comfort of his bed with his lover in it. It expresses a fear of limited time with his lover, that an unstoppable force (the sun) can break them apart, because it symbolizes that they must get up for the day. Additionally, this also makes the reader think about how one day death will separate love.

mock-epic

A mock-epic is a form of satire that adapts the elevated heroic style of the classical epic poem to a trivial subject. It often is exaggerated or uses sarcasm and irony to accomplish this. The mock-epic originated with a burlesque of Homer, and it was used by neoclassicals to mock classicals. It uses the epic formula and its characteristics, like invocation to a muse, statement of theme, grandiose speeches, descriptions of warriors, battles and games, supernatural machinery, and participating gods. An example of a mock-epic is Pope's The Rape of the Lock, which satires the triviality of polite society by having the cutting of a lady's lock described in military terms and be heroic behavior. It also mocks gods, making them petty.

mystery play

A mystery play is a vernacular drama from Europe during the medieval and middle ages, around the 14th and 15th century. There were three, the other two being miracle and morality plays. A mystery play usually represented biblical subjects, like Adam and Eve, the last judgement, and creation. These were "cycle plays," and they were performed by ordinary people; in other words, they were put on by guilds with immature actors. They played characters who were allegorical to the bible. As these plays became more satirical, the church stopped endorsing them, thus dying out around the 16th century. An example of a mystery play is the Second Shepherds Pageant from the Towneley manuscript. It's a burlesque of a nativity, featuring a sheep stealer and his wife, and it explicitly compares the stolen lamb to the savior of mankind.

pastoral romance

A pastoral romance presents a society of shepherds as free from the complexity and corruption of city life; it is often a "simple" life which is idealized and a way to return to nature. Pastoral literature involves people living off of the land and dealing with being blessed by nature. Often, the text will contrast this to city life which is depicted as corrupt and artificial, with the people longing for the lost world of innocence back in "simpler" times. An example where this occurs is Shakespeare's As You Like It. When a character is exiled from the city and must return to a rural life, the play depicts the countryside as providing opportunity for insight and perspective for education, growth, and renewal.

stream of consciousness

A stream of consciousness is a type of narrative technique used in nondramatic fiction to render the total flow of the mind--the consciousness--of an individual. It describes the visual, auditorial, physical, associative connections, and subliminal impressions of that individual. This technique was popular in the 20th century, and it was often accompanied by experimental punctuation to express that thought is not always rational and in fact often was disjointed, unorganized, and illogical. The interior monologue was a free flow of the present, sensations, thoughts, memories, reflections, and anything else passing through the mind. William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury showed this technique with two characters. With Benjy, sensory experience and non chronological memories were presented because that was how he perceived the world. With Quentin, the reader witnesses a devolvement of punctuation and grammar to represent his decaying mental state.

alliterative long line

Alliterative long line is a poetic form of verse that uses alliteration as the principle device to indicate a metrical structure; alliteration is the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words or stressed syllables. This creates a feeling of concreteness and materiality, and it's typically found in older works in the germanic languages. Typically, the form is divided into two half lines. The first is called a-verse with verses, hemistichs, or distichs followed by a heavy pause or caesura. Then there's b-verse, which is more regular to help perceive the end of the line. An example of this is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight which came about in the alliterative revival in 14th century England. A line of poetry is seen held together by two words at the beginning of the line which alliterate, such as "and all his vesture verayly watz clene verdure."

allegory

An allegory is an extended metaphor throughout a complete narrative where objects, persons, or actions are equated with meanings found outside of the narrative itself. Through this, it delivers a broader message about real-world issues because it represents an idea, abstraction, or principle in the guise of a more concrete image. Typically, characters are representative or personifications of that thing the text wishes to represent. These meanings can be religious, moral, or political, and the purpose of an allegory is to teach or explain, often coming across as a moral lesson. An example is Arthur Miller's The Crucible, where the concrete image is found in the Salem Witch Trials which represents McCarthyism, or the blacklisting and manhunt of communists in the United States. Miller wrote this novel after being accused, and there are many similarities to be drawn from society during the Red Scare and the witch hunt.

antihero

An antihero is a protagonist, usually found in modern plays and novels, who lacks the conventional and traditional aspects of a hero. Meaning, the character can be gracless, inept, sometimes stupid, or perhaps dishonest. A "normal" protagonist is typically admired for some sort of bravery, charm, strength, or royal status, but an antihero has both good and bad qualities, which can be used to represent social flaws, human frailty, or an aspect of political culture. An example of an antihero can be found in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby via the characters Gatsby. Gatsby wants to see himself as a the hero, but he frequently fails prey to his own greed, building his success and name on lies and cheating, and he covets thy neighbor's wife.

unreliable narrator

An unreliable narrator is a narrator who cannot be trusted to tell the events of the story accurately. This can be due to them being insane, delusional, evil, forgetful, selfish, stupid, biased, or mentally unwell. The narrator purposefully lacks credibility, and the author usually offers clues to discredit the narrator and and clue-in the reader that not everything may be as it appears. It might happen through a revelation of a lie or a frame narrative. The reader may have to figure out the "real story" or the "truth" for themselves, allowing the reader to draw their own conclusions through questioning perception. An example of an unreliable narrator is Briony from Atonement by Ian McEwan, as she openly lies and has a knack for retelling and rewriting stories.

carnivalesque

Carnivalesque is a term coined by Mikhail Bakhtin; it refers to writing that depicts the destabilization or reversal of power structures (although temporarily) that occured in the traditional form of carnival. In the traditional essence of carnival, traditional order of society was put aside, and the world turned upside-down metaphorically. Daily life was suspended, and Catholic carnival celebrations involved people wearing masks and hosting giant street parties before Lent. The practice stemmed from religious festivals for Apollo and Dionysius, where revelers released tensions to cope with peasant life. Carnival had an essence of excitement, revelry, danger, and topsy-turvy social structure. The modern day remnant is Mardi Gras. Shakespeare frequently had plays that were carnivalesque, and one of the most notable is Midsummer Night's Dream, which is set in a festive holiday where things are definitely turned upside down. A queen falls in love with a man who has the head of an ass, for example. This creates chaos and confusion and goes beyond social and bodily boundaries.

cartharsis

Catharsis is a term which stems from Aristotle's Poetics meaning "to cleanse." Originally, it was a quality of a good, successful or "true" tragedy, and it would act a purification or purge of emotions, particularly pity and fear. Through this purge, a viewer would achieve emotional, moral, or spiritual renewal because of the arousal of terror and pity. This occurred through vicariously experiencing the art, and it was believed to be healthy. In particular, it released feelings of anxiety An example of a true tragedy would be Oedipus Rex by Sophocles. A hero doesn't heed prophecies and brings his own fate upon himself, and in the end, he is overcome with regret and shame from marrying his mother and killing his father. The audience should feel sympathy and pity, releasing negative emotions.

deconstruction

Deconstruction began with Jacques Derrida, and it is a way to analyze a text or a way to think about philosophy. It means to look at what makes a text or a thing whole, and thus, what leaves holes. With the idea that there is no fixed meaning to a text, it looks at what is said but equally important at what is not said. It's the idea that it is easier to describe something by what it is not, because in the end, a thing cannot truly by defined without saying what it isn't. In other words, all meanings are infinitely deferred which creates binaries or oppositions. When forgetting the binaries, one can ask what originally put that binary in place. An example of deconstruction theory is Saussure's Course in General Linguistics. This linguistic theory identified sign, signifier, and signified through deconstruction. In language, there are only differences without positive terms.

diaspora

Diaspora refers to literature by people who are "disinherited." Diaspora, outside of a literature capacity, refers to the dispersion of Jews beyond Israel after their expulsion, and furthermore, when they had to flee Greece after Constantinople. It can mean any scattered population of a group of people whose original is in one singular geographic location, but some reason, a physical dispersal occurred. Although literal movement, it also connotes religious, philosophical, political, or cultural groupings--that a group of people have inherited a relation to a shared homeland. This literature typically expresses a desire for that homeland with themes of nostalgia, trauma, exile, and alienation. This can occur through things like colonialism or enslavement; an example of diaspora in literature is Aphra Behn's "Oroonoko," where the character is forced to travel to the West and thus displaced, and he yearns to return.

dramatic realism

Dramatic realism is a type of play; a dramatic realism play mirrors real-life by using everyday behavior and characters. It started in the 19th century, replacing a more romantic style of play, and it treated the stage as an environment. With technological innovations and social and political ideas brought to the stage, it created a "naturalism" feel. Both the environment and the plot were believable and logical, mimicking life, and the plot typically revolved around secrets that a character kept from other characters but was known to the audience. The climax was marked by the reveal of the secret. A prime example is A Doll House by Henrik Ibsen, which had a realistic set, common dialogue, and motivated action. It dealt with accurately depicting a woman's place in society, lacking sentimentality and romanticism.

epistolary novel

Epistolary mean "letter"; thus, epistolary novels refers to a literary genre in which the story is made up of letters, journals, and / or diary entries. The narration could jump through multiple point of views, and it provided an opportunity to present feelings, thoughts, and reactions without intrusion. It created a sense of immediacy with the reader, as well as the ability to jump to different times, tones, styles, and narration choices. There are multiple famous examples, one of which is Bram Stoker's Dracula. This is a novel comprised of letters, newspaper clippings, diary entries, doctor notes, telegrams, and ship logs. It contains different views on the same incidents and it intimately and privately connected the characters to each other, providing them with unique voices. This type of novel enabled us to see the individual characters struggle to make sense of things.

fetishism

Fetishism is a term that typically regards the hyperbolic, abnormal, and obsessive cherishment of a commodity (the object of consumption) as if the object has spiritual value, and usually, it is accompanied by a sexual desire. It's considered a "sexual deviance" when an erotic attachment occurs with an inanimate object or an asexual part of the body; in other words, it displaces desire onto an object for sexual gratification. Sigmund Freud's work theorizes that this occurs whenever the penis is substituted for something else in early childhood, stemming from the fear of castration. Commodity fetishism comes from Karl Marx to express when commodities have the same significance as humans to an individual. An example of fetishism can be found in M. Butterfly by David Hwang as it critiques the Western fetishism of an Asian person, stereotyped as "oriental." This fetish by Gallimard on Song is so strong that he cannot even perceive that she has a penis. Additionally, the "oriental" has a commodity value, providing reputation and career success.

ficcion

Ficcion refers to Ficciones, which is a collection of short stories by Jorge Borges. This collection is often used to talk about the kind of innovative fiction that Borges helped introduce into Latin American literature. Elements of this include concentrating on common language, calling attention to its own fictional nature, and making the literary devices conspicuous to the reader. It knows that it is fiction and embraces it without offering explanation. In this vein, it's largely magical realism. Additionally, themes include labyrinths (which is a metaphor for the complex nature of the world, human enterprise, the mental faculty of humans, and abstract concept like time) and strategy games. Additionally, characters are extremely detailed, and the narration is incredibly mutable, meaning that it changes easily and fluidly. An example would be any short story out of Ficciones, like La Biblioteca de Babel.

formalism

Formalism is a type of criticism which uses close reading to formulate an idea or meaning about a text, focusing solely on the text itself. Formalists consider themselves "free from" the creation process or purpose intended by an author as well as any influence. Outside forces, like when it was written in history, the cultural and societal state when it was written, are not considered. Everything can be found within the text itself, so it focuses on literary devices, like rhyme, imagery, or metaphor, as evidence for arguments. Formalism seeks to be objective through giving the text toal autonomy. A formalist reading example would be if one read The Crucible by Arthur Miller without any consideration of McCarthyism or communism, which the text is an allegory for. Instead, a formalist would only focus on what it literally in the text and how literary devices are used.

hegemony

Hegemony refers to the dominance of one group in society over another group, supported by legitimizing norms and ideas about this power structure, often accomplished through control of knowledge and culture. This cultural power wielded by the dominant group of a culture or society silences any alternative ideas about structured. It is created and maintained through academia, the educational system, media, religion, and politics. Gramsci started that the supremacy of a class is achieved only the domination, specifically though the articulation and distribution of popular ideas. A literary example of a hegemonic society is Red Azalea by Anchee Min, which depicts General Mao's control over China through forcing his ideology on the country. That ideology spread across education, media, and religion, where the only thing legally allowed to be study was General Mao's book about the supremacy of labor and how the West is the enemy.

hyperreality

Hyperreality occurs when there is an inability to distinguish reality from a simulation of reality. What is real and what is fiction blend seamlessly together without a clear distinction or boundary between them, so hyperreality ahs the quality of being real without having existed at all. Baudrillard's famous example is Disneyland, which is a simulacrum. A simulacrum is a copy without an original or an image without representation; it replaces the real, and life seems real but it is not, which makes it a hyperreality. An example of hyperreality in fiction is Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, because the characters cannot distinguish where reality begins and ends. In fact, characters must use an empathy box to connect to others. There is no difference, really, between androids and humans or the animals and the cyborgs.

iambic pentameter

Iambic pentameter is a ten syllable line in a traditional verse. It is concerned with the number of syllables in a line and their emphasis, and the lines are made up of iambs, which are metrical feet with two syllables. The syllables are unstressed followed by stressed, and there are five iambic feet. Sometimes, eleven syllables are used which creates a "feminine unstressed" ending. Shakespeare loved iambic pentameter and used it in his plays and poems richly. It can be found in Romeo & Juliet, Twelfth Night, Midsummer Night's Dream, Hamlet, Richard III, and many more. It keeps the decorum and grandeur of language while being less rigid, allowing a natural flow to the text.

imagism

Imagism is a 20th century poetic movement that relied on concrete images that were created with precise, colloquial language rather than poetic diction. Ezra Pound was the leader of this movement, and he said that the image was "intellectual and emotional in an instant of time." Thus, language of common speech is utilized, but there is an endeavour to choose the exact word to convey what the poet wants to mean. Imagism avoids cliches and wants to depict the image through capturing it's essence with the sense. It's reactionary against Romanticism. A famous example is Ezra Pound's "In a Station of the Metro," where there is not a story nor are there verbs; it is simply an image of what it is like at the metro. 125 The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough.

in media res

In medias res mean "in the midst of things." In literature, it refers to the practice of beginning a narrative by starting in the middle of the plot or crucial situation. Often, it's a part of a chain of events that continue forward that also utilizes flashbacks in order to explain or show earlier events in the chain. It's a convention of epic poetry, and the characters and situation are usually developed later on. A popular example of in medias res is Shakespeare's Hamlet, which begins after the death of Hamlet's father. By starting here, the reader does not know if the ghost is real or if Claudius stole the throne. These pieces are filled in as the story develops.

indeterminacy

Indeterminacy comes from reader-response theory, largely out of Wolfgang Iser's article. According to reader response, interpretation on ambiguous natures inside of a literary work is where fiction truly lies. If a text's meaning or purpose is determined, then it is simply exposition. Gaps in fiction, or indeterminacy of meaning, are filled in by the reader, referencing other parts of the text or the real world as evidence, forming an interpretation. The act of reading pins the text in the real world, and different readers can have different interpretations which builds bridges over these gaps. It is a basic element for an aesthetic response, because it invites the reader to participate in the text and fulfill that text. An example of indeterminacy can be found in Amy Hempel's "In the Cemetery Where AL Jolson is Buried" when the text never explains why the narrator doesn't visit her dying friend. The reader's imagination and clues in the text provides an answer, which can be varying interpretations.

intertextuality

Intertextuality occurs when a text references the full story of another work inside of it to create meaning or backbone. The relationship to other texts and to the structure of language is a text's intertextuality; this idea subverts the thought that a text is self-sufficient. Phrases and concepts may be borrowed, creating a type of conversation between works. It is not an allusion, which is brief and quick, but a mosaic, an absorption and transformation, of other works which help create the text. In other words, all fiction is built upon all the works the author has read. An example of intertextuality can be seen in James Joyce's Ulysses, because it is a deliberate retelling of Homer in modern-day Dublin. Thus, the text is built on and informed by Homer.

lost cause mythology

Lost cause mythology refers to the regional movement in literature that sought to reconcile the traditional white society of the antebellum south that the region admires. It often portrays the confederacy as noble, an example of old fashion chivalry. In a way, it helped white southerners move forward into the New South by defending confederate causes, focusing on military sacrifice, and depicting slavery as benevolent. Additionally, it reinforced Jim Crow, glorified soldiers, and blamed conflicts on the other or outside sources. The South appears as noble or heroic, living in a doomed romantic society; often, themes include war, love, death, race conflict, honor, class, gender, and generation. An example of lost cause mythology playing out in literature is William Faulkner's The Sound of the Fury, where Quentin holds tight to this idea, not able to stand reality without it. The house, as well, symbolizes this decay.

magical realism

Magical realism is genre of literature, primarily found in Latin-American literature, where the narrative strategy is characterized by the matter-of-fact inclusion of fantastical or mythical elements into an otherwise realistic fiction. It weaves together European realism and elements of the fabulous, so the frame or surface of the world may be conventionally realistic, but elements of the supernatural or fantasy merge within the narrative without explanation. Magical realism deals with historical and societal concerns, distorts time and sequence, plays with myth and legends in a real world setting, and has situations beyond logic, all told straightforwardly. An example of magical realism is Toni Morrison's Beloved, in which Beloved comes back from the dead after haunting the house, having a literal body. This is accepted as realistically as the historical setting, and there is no "explanation" of the supernatural.

master narrative

Master narrative also refers to "metanarrative," or the narrative about narratives of historical meaning, significance, experience, or knowledge. It acts as a source of legitimized knowledge. Lyotard used this term to critique the institutional and ideological forms of knowledge, which he found old fashioned and oppressive because it often emphasized European perspectives. Individuals have their own story, and the master narrative is a "key" for how things, in society or history, worked or were. Examples of master narratives include Greek fatalism, Christian Redemption, Bourgeois Progressivism, and Marxist utopianism. Additionally, the Bible is a master narrative, as it claims to understand and explain how the world works in its entirety. Marxism is a master narrative because it attempts to explain that everything works based on class structure.

memento mori

Memento mori means "remember you must die." This occurs when a text reminds the audience of their mortality, mistakes, and failures, because it seeks to present the inevitable transformation of life to death. It is largely a medieval practice to reflect on mortality, to make the audience consider the vanity of earthly life and the transient nature of all earthly goods. The intended effect is to focus of the immortality of the soul, thus this practice bloomed and grew with Christianity. Often, skulls were used for a symbolic representation. An example of memento mori being used is Plato's Phaedo, where Plato recounts Socrates' death and declares that philosophy is nothing else but dying and being dead. Near-death experiences also bring about the feel of memento mori.

metafiction

Metafiction is the quality of a text that emphasizes its status as a text, thus being self-reflexive. This fiction is aware that it is fiction, often examining its own elements or commenting on them; it might even announce its status as fiction in the text to draw attention to the state of fictionality. It means "beyond fiction," so it is about the nature and purpose of fiction. It might even talk directly to the reader in order to comment on its writing. An example of metafiction is Ian McEwan's Atonement, which is a novel about a writer writing a novel. Part of the subject of this novel is the subject of storytelling and fiction itself, especially when it can be passed off as reality, which is dangerous. It also explains its own narrative--how it came to be a story. Briony claims she saw Robbie rape her cousin, and she writes to make amends.

metatheatre

Metatheatre refers to the type of theatre, or plays, that draw attention to its nature as drama or theatre or to the performance itself. This can be expressed through the use of a play within a play, and it may involve numerous techniques to remind the audience of its performance. This can include a direct address to the audience (through a soliloquy), references to acting or to dramatics, and making the boundaries of the stage clear. In contrast, dramatic realism aims to hide the boundaries between the stage and real life. It's dubbed a Shakespearean technique as he popularly used it by even going as far to break the fourth wall, like when a character says, "All the world's a stage." A Midsummer Night's Dream is a great example of metatheatre because it hosts a play within a play, and it often speaks of itself. Bottom even openly worries that the audience might mistake a play for reality.

mimesis

Mimesis means "imitation." This refers to the imitation or representation of the real world in art or literature and is seen as a basic theoretical principle of art; it's a "mimicry," a reproduction of an external reality, so art imitates life. The philosopher Plato was against mimesis, as he saw it removed from the truth and an falsehood. Aristotle was for the use of mimesis in the name of artistic pursuit, dubbing it "natural." Northrop Fyre claimed it is an attempt to capture the changeless and eternal nature of art. An example of mimesis which is recognized within the text is in Shakespeare's Hamlet when Hamlet delivers a speech to the actors where he tells them that art is to old up a mirror to nature.

modernism

Modernism signifies a radical break with the past and the concurrent search for new forms and expressions. This fostered experimentation in the late 19th and mid 20th century, particularly after World War I. This era was characterized by industrialization, social change, and advancements in science and social science. Modernists felt alienated by Victorian values, and in literature, it expresses an authentic response to the world in chaos and decadence. The war undermined faith, and this is expressed in themes of loss, despair, and the search for redemption and renewal. Modernism rebelled against the clear-cut storytelling and formulaic verse; instead, it chose to elevate the individual and the inward over the social, focus on the unconscious instead of the conscious, and represented reality as dense and unordered. An example of a modernist text is Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, which depicts the corruption of the American Dream and focuses on individuals' experiences. It also experimented with style and sitortation, with technology characterized as dangerous.

narrative voice

Narrative voice refers to who is telling the story, the perspective from which events are observed. The reader sees through the narrator's eyes. The narrative voice can be in either first person "I," second person "you," or third person "he/she." Omniscience, or knowledge, of the narrator is either full (all-knowing), partial (narrator and some of others), or limited (only narrator), and objectivity is either complete, some, or none, referring to the personal bias of the narrator. Lastly, narrative voice can either be reliable or unreliable. While not typical, narrative voice can also be disembodied, telling the events without being a participant in the story. This narrator is unidentified or anonymous. The narrative voice is never the author, even if they share a name, unless the narration is an autobiography. It is responsible for setting the tone and style. Anchee Min's Red Azalea is an autobiography, which account her experience in General Mao's China and reveals her thoughts, feelings, and what she knows concerning her life.

natural philosophy / theology

Natural philosophy and / or theology is the study of nature and the physical universe, which dominated the field of science before the development of modern science. In fact, it is a precursor to modern science. Natural theology aims to "prove" that God exists based on reason and experience of nature; in other words, through observing nature and human reason will reveal God's existence. There is no divine revelation but an understanding about God's nature that occurs through using one's natural faculties, like reason, senses, and introspection. An example of natural philosophy and theology is Aristotle and his works, who studied nature and taught his physics at universities in this field. Thomas Paine is a less ancient example of someone who tried to examine spirituality through science.

naturalism

Naturalism is a literary genre that began in the 19th century. It focused on extreme realism with a pessimistic tone; the roles of family, social conditions, and environment all shape the human character in a naturalist text. Writers often use scientific techniques to depict human beings as objective or impartial characters, like Darwinism. This creates a determinist view because natural forces predetermine a character's actions. Naturalism rejects Romanticism; instead, it embraces a deterministic view and the detachment of social commentary. An example of naturalism is Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, as the protagonist concludes that all existence is nothing but a steady march towards death. It's about impotence, the literal inability to pass on genetics, putting the focus on the environment and determining capabilities of the body.

negative capability

Negative capability was coined by John Keats in the 1800's in a letter to his brothers; it characterizes the capacity of the greatest writers (like Shakespeare) to pursue a vision of artistic beauty even when it leads to confusion. It's the ability of the individual to perceive, think, or operate beyond a predetermined capacity, so it accepts mystery without irritation. It's the power to bury self-consciousness in order to openly experience art, or in other words, to be objective or emotionally detached to experience art in its purest form. An example is John Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn," which expresses a conflict between immortal art and the mutability of nature. While it idealizes the world of art on the urn, it also trivializes immortality, so a dilemma then occurs: to idealize art in a state of permanence or nature that is ever-changing?

noble savage

Noble savage is a term which refers to a character that is an idealized concept of an uncivilized man. It simultaneously others a person while denouncing civilization; the noble savage is a symbol of the innate goodness of one who is unexposed to the corruption on civilization. It's a common romantic theme, where the "other" is not corrupted; in fact, in their ignorance, they are dignified because more primitive humans were thought to be naturally good. They would use their natural reason to understand God and obey the natural law of the world. A prime example of a noble savage is Aphra Behn's "Oroonoko," where Oroonoko is a "savage" because he is African, but he is noble because of his Western characteristics: Western education, Roman features, and royal bloodline.

objective correlative

Objective correlative is a phrase used by T.S. Eliot to describe "a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of that particular emotion" that the poet wants to evoke in the poem. It's a connection between the emotion that the poet wants to express and the object, image, or situation symbolizing it in their combination. He criticizes Shakespeare's incomplete development of Hamlet's emotions, which were not supported in the play as objective correlative needs to be shown not described. T.S. Eliot claims this is an artistic failure, that feelings are not communicated. According to Eliot, it is the only way to show emotion in art.

oedipus complex

Oedipus complex is a psychoanalytic theory stemming from Freud which takes its name from Oedipus Rex. It refers to a desire for sexual involvement with, or sexual possession of, a parent of the opposite sex (usually a male child towards the mother) and a sense of rivalry, or anger, with the same sex parent (usually son and father). Freud said this was a stage in the development process, around age three to five. The child must repress the sexual instinct and anger, then identify with the same sex parent. When this occurs, the superego has overcome the id. The best example if the namesake, of course, in Oedipus Rex when the Oedipus slew his father and married his mother.

pathos

Pathos means "feeling." It's a term associated with catharsis, which can refer to an element of tragedy of being able to evoke pity or sorrow. Pathos is used in rhetoric to persuade by appealing to the audience's emotions, and the language is chosen to effect the audience through an emotional response. The end goal is for the listener to identify with whatever point of view is being argued. It can also mean "to suffer," which means to feel pain imaginatively in order to develop an emotional connection. Pathos is literature is used to bring characters more to life. A good example of an author who uses pathos is Jane Austen, especially in Pride & Prejudice. The proposal is a pathos rhetoric, using compliments and guarantees of happiness.

petrarchan conventions

Petrarchan conventions refers to the Petrarchan sonnet, which is divided into an octave rhyming abbaabba and sestet rhyming cdecde. It avoids rhyming in couplets and limits the rhyme to five, and the sonnet addresses a "perfect" (at least in appearance) unattainable lady. She is an idealized mistress who is either unavailable or absent, and this sonnet is named after the Italian poet Petrarch who lived during the Italian Renaissance. The beauty of the lady is catalogued in a blazon, and she's often chaste but can be cruel. Shakespeare was none for mocking these sonnets, creating a few as satire. In As You Like It, Orlando has many terrible love poems for Rosalind with lofty notions of love and a blind cupid.

postcolonial

Postcolonial is an area of study for the legacy of Western colonization and imperialism. It focuses on human consequences of the control and exploitation of colonized people and their land, dealing with domination and stereotypes. A concurrent project remains to reclaim and rethink history and the agency of people under imperialism. It's start it tied with British disengagement from the second empire in the 19th and 20th centuries, and the decolonization movements in the 60's and 70's in Africa and elsewhere. Currently, it deals with the struggles of indigenous people in the 21st century, often also dealing with the emergence of states and new international order. Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart is a postcolonial text, written to "take back" Africa from works like Heart of Darkness where Achebe is talking back to Conrad.

postmodernism

Postmodernism literature is characterized by a reliance on narrative techniques like fragmentation, paradox, unreliable narrators, parody, and dark humor in the late 20th century. While not exclusive to this time, it emerged post World War II era as a response against enlightenment and modernism. It engages with reader-response and deconstruction theories, showing a tendency toward metafiction and questioning the differences in low and high culture. It rejects any outright meanings in literature; instead, it claims there's no absolute truth, only relativity, thus rejecting Western values, avoiding conclusions, and depicting the human experience as unstable and ambiguous. William Faulkner's the Sound and the Fury because of the experimental narration (stream of conciousness, back and forth in time, non-linear, changing style, break from traditional punctuation) characters struggle with identity and reality, breaking from tradition and metanarrative of the nmoble south.

reader response theory

Reader-response theory focuses on an audience's / reader's reaction to a particular text rather than the author's intent or even the text itself which gained prominence in the 60's. The reader actively constructs the text through the act of reading, and there is no meaning until a reader experiences it. The text exists to be read; therefore, a text is not complete until it is read. What a text is cannot be separated from what it does, in other words. The reader cannot be omitted from analyzing or understanding the text, and they actively create the meaning by reading it. An example would be a reader reading any text and examining, explaining, and defending their personal reaction to it, using evidence from both reality and the text. 125 For example, "The Red Convertible" by Louise Erdrich might be read differently depending on whether or not the reader has ever experienced a suicide by someone close to them.

realism

Realism began in the mid 19th century in France and spread to the rest of the world. It desired to take out what was "fantastic" and "romantic" and insert what was real into literature in order to represent things how they really, truly are. This involved everyday experiences and everyday people. This literary genre is accomplished through the use of settings, characters, and theme; it also often presents current ethical issues accurately. One reason why this genre is so important is to spread awareness and empathy about different types of lives. George Eliot's Middlemarch is a fantastic example of a realist text, as the full title continues as "a study of provincial life." It focuses on the town of Middlemarch and details the life and the individuals in it. There is nothing romantic or grandiose, providing a look into a Victorian life was truly like. 145 Aspects that make it realism: slow moving plot, emphasis on morality, casualty, foreshadowing everyday events, emphasis on tone, abundance of details, plausible events

renaissance humanism

Renaissance humanism is the study of classical antiquity in the 14th through 16th centuries. It came as a response to the utilitarian approach in scholasticism, and it sought to engage in civic life (for all). It was done through the study of the humanities: grammar, rhetoric, history, poetry, and morality. It was a renewal toward a humanistic origin, involving a return to pagan (Greco-Roman) classics (giving authority to classic writers once more) and focusing on individual experience rather than the afterlife. They wanted to find beauty without supernatural or scientific bias, and Platonic ideas were revived and used for Christianity. A major important aspect of renaissance humanism was writing in the vernacular as well as Latin. Dante, Petrarch, and Machiavelli are famous Italian Renaissance authors who were influenced by this.

romanticism

Romanticism rose in the 18th to mid 19th centuries, with an intellectual orientation in literature in Western civilization. It rejected precepts of order, calm, harmony, balance, idealization, and rationality, which characterized Classicism and Neoclassicism. To some extent, it was also a reaction against the Enlightenment and 18th century rationalism. It emphasized the individual, the subjective, the irrational, the imaginative, the personal, the spontaneous, the emotional, the visionary, and the transcendental. Elements of romanticism were a deep appreciation of nature, emotion over reason, senses over intellect, inward examination, a preoccupation with the genius, and an emphasis on imagination. William Wordsworth really got it started with his Lyrical Ballads, where he claimed poetry was the spontaneous overflow of powerful emotion recollected in moments of tranquility. It held an overall theme of reconnecting to nature and the earth.

soliloquy

Soliloquy means "to himself I speak" and is a literary device used, typically in a drama, to reveal the inner thought or emotions of a character by talking to the audience or through talking to themselves. The character does not acknowledge anyone else; even if other characters are on the stage, they are not privy to the self-narration. While seen as an outdated device, it was frequently used in the Renaissance to move the plot along or to reveal some crucial detail. It is also known as a "direct address" used sometimes to create suspense and irony. A popular soliloquy is Hamlet's "to be or not to be" speech in Shakespeare's Hamlet where he contemplates suicide and revenge.

southern gothic

Southern gothic literature emerged in the 19th century and is still currently popular. It involves the presence of the irrational, horrific, and transgressive thoughts, desires, and or impulses. There are grotesque and morbid characters accompanied by dark humor and a sense of alienation. The genre is rooted in the South's tensions, dealing with the return of massive repressions from the region's historical realities like slavery, racism, and the patriarchal structure. It often explores extreme and anti-social behaviors, and reveals that the refined social order merely hides disturbing realities. A great example is "Good Country People" by Flannery O'Connor, which displaces the horrors of a world without morality on female bodies. The deformed female characters are inversions of the pure, white southern lady.

surrealism

Surrealism is a movement in literature which began in France and flourished in Europe between World War I and World War II. It grew out of the Dada movement, which was art that defies reason. Surrealism places an emphasis on positive expression, and it represented a reaction against the destruction brought on by "rationalism." In other words, it sought to reunite the conscious and the unconscious experiences, dream and reality, to find the absolute reality or surreality, which rationalism destroyed. It often uses a juxtaposition of words, integrates imagination and reality, and doesn't seek to resolve confusion. Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett can be called surrealist because the world has no logic or rules, and Didi actually wonders if he's sleeping or simply under the illusion of consciousness.

brechtian alienation effect

The Brechtian alienation effect is an idea central to the dramatic theory of German dramatist, Bertolt Brecht. It involves the uses of different techniques in order to distance the audience from an emotional investment or involvement to the play through reminders of the artificiality and theatricality of the performance. This effect was used to deliver political messages to help spectators understand the complexity of historical development and societal relationships around the message. In other words, it encouraged the audience to ask questions about how the play relates to real life, using their intellect to analyze the performance. An example is Caryl Churchill's Cloud Nine. This play achieves the brechtian alienation effect through cross-casting, forcing the audience to think about oppression, the power relations which create, rather than simply accept illusions of race and gender.

four humors

The four humors refer to fluid that ancient physicians believed controlled a person's temperament, personality, and health. These fluids are blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. Physical, mental, or moral diseases would be caused by the conditions of the humors; namely, diseases occur when they are out of balance or an individual has too much of one. They also caused exaggerated characteristics if one was out of balance. Blood meant a sanguine nature; phlegm represented and phlegmatic nature, while yellow bile indicated choleric nature, and black bile meant a melancholic nature. Shakespeare is a great example of an author who utilized the four humors to represent or help characterize characters, like in Hamlet when Hamlet's excessive mourning of his father is from "his brain" according to his mother, meaning he has too much black bile and has a depressed temperament.

allusion

The latin root of allusion means "a play on words." An allusion is a figure of speech which makes a brief and often indirect reference to a person, place, object or thing, or idea of some sort of historical, cultural, literary, or political significance outside of the work, or the real world. The reference doesn't go into detail; instead, the reader is expected to have some sort of knowledge in order to understand the reference. Through this knowledge, the allusion strives to evoke some sort of emotional response from the association; otherwise, the meaning is lost. An example of allusion can be found in Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury when Mildred is described as fleeing from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Being the volcano that decimated Pompeii, the reader immediately knows the gravitas, tension, and fear that Moldred must be facing as she runs.

theatre of the absurd

Theatre of the absurd describes the dramatic works in Europe and America during the 50's and 60's, where the human situation was depicted as essentially absurd and devoid of purpose. This theme informs the play and its structure, meaning there's no logical structure, little dramatic action, and nothing happens to change the state of existence. Language is dislocated, full of cliches, puns, repetition, and non-sequiturs. Martin Esslin said the absurdity of the human condition is presented through abandoning rational device and using nonrealism. Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot is a prime example from theatre of the absurd, as it has no plot, two "creatures" completely lost, speaks nonsense, and the characters are incapable of doing or changing anything. In fact, waiting around seems to be their whole identity.

transcendentalism

Transcendentalism is the name of a movement in the 19th century in New England. It adheres to the idealistic system of thought based belief in the essential unity of all creation, the innate goodness of humanity, and the supremacy of insight over logic and experience for the revelation of the deepest truth. In other words, it is a way of knowing. Humans can intuitively transcend limits of the senses and logic and directly receive truth denied to more mundane ways of knowing by living close to nature and through the dignity of manual labor because they both emphasized spiritual education. A relationship to God was established by an individual through using self-trust and self-reliance. Emerson's Self-Reliance, thus, is a good example as it calls for people to be more individualistic and rely on themselves to be froom from social conventions and opinions. By following an inner instinct, individuals will distinguish truth from falsehoods and be happier.