Michael Ruddock, CLEP English, 7-12-21 study set

Quatrains

4 line stanzas

Octave

8 line stanza

caesura/cesura

A complete pause in a line of poetry

iambic hexameter

A line of English verse composed in iambic hexameter, usually with a caesura after the third foot.

rising action

A series of events that builds from the conflict. It begins with the inciting force and ends with the climax.

Exposition

Background information presented in a literary work.

John Milton

He was blind and wrote "On His Blindness"

She Stoops to Conquer

Oliver Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer (1728-1774) Dedicated to Samuel Johnson (dictionary) The hero is Charles Marlow, a wealthy young man who is being forced by his family to consider a potential bride whom he has never met. He is anxious about meeting her, because he suffers from shyness and can only behave naturally with women of a lower class. He sets out with a friend to travel to the home of his prospective in-laws, the Hardcastles, but they become lost on the road. While the bride-to-be is awaiting his arrival, her half-brother, Tony Lumpkin (one of literature's great comic characters), while out riding, comes across the two strangers, and, realising their identity, plays a practical joke by telling them that they are a long way from their destination and will have to stay overnight at an inn. The "inn" he directs them to is in fact the home of his parents. When they arrive, their hosts, who have been expecting them, go out of their way to make them welcome. However, the two men, believing themselves in a hostelry, behave rudely. Meanwhile, Tony's sister, Kate, learning of the error and also acquainted with her suitor's shyness, masquerades as a serving-maid in order to get to know him. He falls in love with her and plans to elope with her. Needless to say, all misunderstandings are sorted out in the end, and Charles and Kate live happily ever after.

metaphysical poetry

Refers to the work of poets like John Donne who explore highly complex, philosophical ideas through extended metaphors and paradox.

The Waste Land

T.S. Eliot

The Cocktail Party

T.S. Eliot - 1950

Prospero

The Tempest character

Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits, and Are melted into air, into thin air; And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve; And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.

The Tempest: a play about a play within a play

They also serve who only stand and wait

The last line of the poem "On His Blindness," by John Milton. The poet reflects that he has a place in God's world despite his disability.

Richard Lovelace

To Lucasta, Going to the Wars To Althea, from Prison

trochaic tetrameter

Trochaic tetrameter is a meter in poetry. It refers to a line of four trochaic feet. The word "tetrameter" simply means that the poem has four trochees. A trochee is a long syllable, or stressed syllable, followed by a short, or unstressed, one.

The Second Coming

William Butler Yeats

Persona

a character in a novel or play; the outward character or role that a person assumes

anapestic tetrameter

a poetic meter that has four anapestic metrical feet per line. Each foot has two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable.

iambic pentameter

a poetic meter that is made up of 5 stressed syllables each followed by an unstressed syllable

paean

a song of praise, joy, or triumph

Shakespearean sonnet

a sonnet consisting three quatrains and a concluding couplet in iambic pentameter with the rhyme pattern abab cdcd efef gg

iambic tetrameter

contains eight syllables and four iambic feet

iambic tetrameter

line of a verse with 4 feet (8 syllables)

How to identify a sonnet at first glance

regular rhyme scheme, iambic pentameter (every line has ten syllables)

Sestet

six line stanza

denouement

the final part of a play, movie, or narrative in which the strands of the plot are drawn together and matters are explained or resolved.

Globe Theatre & Reconstruction

the globe theatre was located in London and was associated heavily with Shakespeare. They reconstructed it and rebuilt it to Shakespeare's Globe.