Literary Devices and Techniques: A Comprehensive Glossary, Lecture notes of Literature

Download Literary Devices and Techniques: A Comprehensive Glossary and more Lecture notes Literature in PDF only on Docsity! A GLOSSARY OF L ITERARY TERMS GLOSSARY OF LITERARY TERMS - 2 ABSTRACTION is the process of removing an element from its unifying design. e.g. a discussion of the disease images in Hamlet. ABSURDISM a philosophy based on the belief that man exists in an irrational and meaningless universe and that his search for order brings him into conflict with his universe. ACCENT is the stress thrown upon a syllable. e.g. ad dréss (verb); ád dress (noun) AESTHETIC (also ESTHETIC) suggests an appreciation of that which is beautiful; sensitive to beauty. Literature, drama, music, and ballet are termed aesthetic arts. ALLEGORY is a derivative of the Greek allegoria, meaning to imply something else . Thus an allegory is a story, essay, play, or poem in which specific characters in concrete situations are intended to represent wider, general truths about human experience. In short, the story is symbolic. e.g. Bunyan s Pilgrim s Progress; the parables of Jesus, Aesop s fables ALLITERATION is the repetition of the first consonant sound in a consecutive series of words, usually for the purpose of heightening rhythmic effect or suggesting an emotion or sensation. e.g. round the rugged rocks; the sun sank slowly ALLUSION is a casual reference to a work, person, place, or event which is assumed to be familiar to the reader, and which depends on this familiarity for its significance. e.g. You ve met your Waterloo alludes to the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo. e.g. the face that launched a thousand ships refers to Helen of Troy BIBLICAL ALLUSION has reference to the Holy Bible. e.g. another flood is coming requires a familiarity with the story of Noah for clarity AMBIGUITY is a vagueness or lack of clarity of meaning or expression which makes possible more than one interpretation. AMERICAN DREAM, THE, based on both the Puritan work ethic that hard work and industry breed success and the promise of a brave new world, The American Dream is at once an elusive and illusory aspiration. The works of such writers as F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway, and Arthur Miller illustrate the number of treatments of the theme, ranging from a bitter indictment of American values, to the sham and shame of a false and unattainable promise, to the cultural barrenness, moral and spiritual emptiness of 20th-century America. (Benét s Readers Encyclopedia) GLOSSARY OF LITERARY TERMS - 5 BALANCED SENTENCE is one in which phrases or clauses balance each other by virtue of their likeness of structure, their direct contrast or similarity in meaning and their approximate equality of length. e.g. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures/He leadeth me beside the still waters BALLAD, a NARRATIVE of unknown authorship passed on in the oral tradition. It often makes use of repetition and DIALOGUE. A ballad whose author is known is called a literary ballad. BALLAD STANZA, a STANZA usually consisting of four alternating lines of IAMBIC TETRAMETER and TRIMETER and rhyming the second and fourth lines. We cross the prairie as of old / The Pilgrims crossed the sea, To make the West, as they the East, / The homestead of the free. Whittier, The Kansas Emigrants BATHOS refers to a sudden comedown from the grand to the ridiculous. (Also used to refer to overly sentimental presentations or passages as in soap operas and many Hollywood films play on the word pathos ). e.g. highly implausible and artificial speeches of Macduff s children before they are murdered in Macbeth BIOGRAPHY, an account of a person s life. (See Ulibarri s My Grandmother Smoked Cigars .) Autobiography is the story of all of a person s life written by the person who lived it. (See Hansberry s To Be Young, Gifted and Black .) BLANK VERSE is unrhymed iambic pentameter. e.g. Night s candles are burnt out, and jocund day / Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain top. Shakespeare BURLESQUE (see SATIRE) CACOPHONY is a series of unpleasant, discordant sounds. e.g. I wish my tongue were a quiver the size of a huge cask / packed and crammed with long black venomous rankling darts Poe, The Bells (see also EUPHONY) CADENCE is the rhythm of a series of sounds, determined by the pattern of accented and unaccented sounds. The fall of voice in reading or speaking. GLOSSARY OF LITERARY TERMS - 6 CAESURA, a pause in a line of verse, usually dictated by the sense of the line and often greater than a normal pause. For purposes of study, the mark indicating a caesura is two short vertical lines (ll). A caesura can be indicated by punctuation, the grammatical construction of a sentence, or the placement of lines on a page. It is used to add variety to regular meter and therefore to add emphasis to certain words. CARICATURE, exaggeration of prominent features of appearance or character. CARPE DIEM, Latin for seize the day , the name applied to a THEME frequently found in LYRIC poetry: enjoy life s pleasures while you are able . CATASTROPHE is that part of a tragedy in which ruin or death befalls one or some of the central characters. This point in the play is termed a catastrophe only when the conflict involves a protagonist with praiseworthy qualities. CATHARSIS refers to the releasing effect which the arousal of emotions has on the person experiencing them; an emotional purification or release. CHARACTER is a person in a play, short story, or novel. ROUND CHARACTER complex, many-sided, fully developed by the author FLAT CHARACTER characterized by one or two traits only; often minor STOCK CHARACTER is the stereotyped figure who has occurred so often in fiction that his nature is immediately known; e.g. the strong, silent sheriff; the mad scientist STATIC CHARACTER same sort of person at the end of the story as he was at the beginning DYNAMIC or DEVELOPING CHARACTER undergoes a permanent change in some aspect of his character, personality, or outlook CHRONOLOGY, measuring time and dating events. CHRONOLOGICAL, arrangement of events in the order of their appearance. CIRCUMLOCUTION is a roundabout way of speaking; verbosity. e.g. the wife of your father s brother instead of your aunt CLASSICAL is a term which originally referred to the literary works of early Greece and Rome. CLICHÉ refers to an expression which was once original, but has since been used so frequently that it has become trite. e.g. high and dry, sober as a judge, doing his own thing GLOSSARY OF LITERARY TERMS - 7 CLIMAX is the highest point of emotional response when the conflict is being resolved favourably or unfavourably; the high point, the decisive confrontation in any play or novel. A novel or play may have many minor climaxes. COHERENCE is the clarity given to a piece of writing through a definite method of development and transitional devices. COMEDY is a play written largely for entertainment; in its broadest meaning, a drama which ends happily. COMEDY OF MANNERS form ridiculing social rather than individual faults. The characters are laughed at because they represent social types with characteristic foibles of fashion and morality (The Importance of Being Earnest) FARCE type of comedy wherein situations or behaviour are so ludicrous as to be incredible. Farce is achieved by placing one-dimensional characters in highly amusing situations which ignore all standards of probability (some television comedies). COMPARISON is the similarity between two or more objects or situations. COMPLICATION is an event which introduces or intensifies conflict. e.g. in the play Macbeth, Duncan s naming of his son Malcolm as a potential successor to the throne is a complication to Macbeth. CONCEIT is an elaborate image or metaphor in which two dissimilar objects or situations are compared. e.g. in The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock , T. S. Eliot compares the evening sky to a patient etherized upon a table CONCRETE, not theoretical or abstract. CONFLICT is a clash between two opposing forces. The clash may be physical, mental, emotional, moral, social, etc. Conflict is the struggle between two opposing forces. The four basic kinds of conflict are: 1. a person against another person ( The Cask of Amontillado ); 2. a person against nature ( The Bear ); 3. a persona against society ( Harrison Bergeron ); and 4. two elements within a person struggling for mastery ( The Haunted Boy ). More than one kind of conflict can be and often is present in a work. As Robert Penn Warren put it, no conflict, no story. GLOSSARY OF LITERARY TERMS - 10 DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE is a poem involving an uninterrupted speech by a character to a silent second figure. It is meant to reveal the personality of the speaker through his manner of speech, the attitudes his remarks disclose, and the implied reactions of his listener. e.g. Robert Browning s My Last Duchess DRAMATIC POETRY is theatrical drama in a poetic form. e.g. Shakespeare s plays; T. S. Eliot s Murder in the Cathedral DRAMATIS PERSONAE are the dramatic characters in a play. ELEGY is a formal song or poem which expresses sorrow and usually praise for the one who is dead. e.g. Milton s Lycidas ; Shelley s Adonais When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom d is Walt Whitman s elegy written on the death of Abraham Lincoln. ELLIPSIS is the omission of words or phrases grammatically necessary to a sentence. The omitted words, however, are implied. e.g. I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;/Am an attendant lord EMANCIPATION, the act or process of freeing from control, restraint, or the power of another; to free from bondage; to free from any controlling influence such as traditional mores or beliefs. EMPATHY is the projecting of oneself into the personality of a character and thereby understanding him/her. END RHYME, the rhyming of words at the ends of lines of poetry. (See also INTERNAL RHYME) END-STOPPED LINE, a line of poetry that contains a complete thought, thus necessitating the use of a semicolon or period at the end. The ship, becalmed, at length stands still; The steed must rest beneath the hill; Thoreau, Though All the Fates (See also RUN-ON LINE) ENJAMBEMENT is the running together of cadence and thought in two consecutive lines of poetry. e.g. Porphyria s Lover: she guessed not how / Her darling one wish would be heard. GLOSSARY OF LITERARY TERMS - 11 EPIC is a long narrative poem, written in an elevated style and recounting the deeds of a legendary or historical hero. Epics are characterized by an invocation; a setting of immense proportions; in medias res beginning; great battle or long journey; intervention of supernatural forces; catalogues of descriptive detail. e.g. Homer s The Iliad; Virgil s The Aeneid; Beowulf; Milton s Paradise Lost EPICUREANISM is a philosophy advocating that happiness and active enjoyment is life s highest good, that pleasure is the proper end of man s efforts, but that true pleasures depend upon self-control, moderation, and honourable behaviour. EPIGRAM is a terse and witty poem or statement, usually ending with an ingenious turn of thought, a wry twist. e.g. There is no sin except stupidity , Oscar Wilde; Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel , Samuel Johnson Let us all be happy and live within our means, even if we have to borrow the money to do it with. Artemus Ward (Compare with MAXIM and PROVERB) EPIGRAPH is a quotation at the beginning of a literary work for the purposes of illuminating the theme of the work. e.g. the quotation from T. S. Eliot s The Hollow Men appears at the beginning of Shute s On the Beach EPILOGUE (literally to say in addition ) is a section following the actual plot conclusion of a narrative or drama. Of no fixed length, it usually sums up or rounds out the overall design of the work. e.g. G. B. Shaw s Saint Joan EPITHET is a descriptive expression, adjective, noun, or even a clause, expressing some quality or attribute. e.g. crafty in crafty Ulysses ; Lion Hearted in Richard the Lion Hearted ESSAY, a prose composition that presents a personal point of view. An essay may present a viewpoint through formal analysis and argument, as in Civil Disobedience : by Thoreau, or it may be informal in style, as in The Two-Wheeled ATV. EUPHEMISM is an inoffensive expression used in place of one which is clearer, but disagreeable. e.g. gifted underachiever is a euphemism for a perpetually lazy student; pass away for die GLOSSARY OF LITERARY TERMS - 12 EUPHONY is the quality of a passage of writing which sounds pleasant or musical. e.g. Keats Of candied apple, quince and plum and gourd;/With jellies smoother than the creamy curd. (See also CACOPHONY for a comparison) EUPHUISM is flowery, artificial writing or language introduced by John Lyly (1554-1606) in Euphues ; any affected or pedantic style. EXISTENTIALISM, a chiefly twentieth century philosophical movement embracing diverse doctrines but centering on analysis of individual existence in an unfathomable universe and the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for his acts of free will without any certain knowledge of what is right or wrong or good or bad. EXPOSITION is writing designed to convey information or ideas not fully known to the reader. It also means that part of a plot, usually in the opening chapters or scenes, which sets the situation and provides the necessary background for subsequent dramatic action. The author sets the ATMOSPHERE and TONE, explains the SETTING, introduces CHARACTERS, etc. e.g. King Lear s conferral of property on his three daughters in King Lear EXTENDED METAPHOR, a figure of speech that is used throughout an entire work or a great part of it. It is common in poetry but is often used in prose as well. The spiritual Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, contains an extended metaphor, with home representing heaven throughout and the chariot representing the means by which the believer will be transported to heaven. FABLE is a term which refers to a fictitious story or legend with supernatural occurrences (e.g. talking animals); a simple tale usually symbolic and implying a moral. e.g. The Fox and the Grapes ; The Pied Piper of Hamelin FALLING ACTION is the letdown stage following a dramatic crisis. e.g. the period after Antony s funeral speech in Julius Caesar FANTASY is writing in which our known natural laws are willingly suspended but in which situations are logical in terms of the initial supposition. e.g. John Wyndam s The Trouble with Lichen supposes a drug that could triple man s life span; what would be some of the consequences? FEMININE ENDING is the name given to the last syllable of a line of poetry when that syllable is unstressed (as occurs with words ending ing or ed ). GLOSSARY OF LITERARY TERMS - 15 IMAGE is, as the word suggests, a picture. The picture may appeal to any of our senses (including sensations of heat, pressure, and motion as well as of sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing). IMAGERY is the collective images in any piece of literature e.g. the imagery of poison in Hamlet is both literal and figurative. IMAGISM, a movement in American poetry during the early 1900s, led by Ezra Pound, Amy Lowell, and others, which endorsed the use of precise IMAGERY and freedom of subject selection and metrical rhythms. IMITATIVE HARMONY is produced by a group of words whose sound imitates that which they are describing. e.g. And trailed his yellow-brown slackness soft-bellied down (D. H. Lawrence s Snake ); the sound of the verse suggests the feel, sound, and rhythm of the snake (See ONOMATOPOEIA) IMPRESSIONISM, a manner of writing in which scenes, characters, or moods are presented from a particular vantage point rather than as they actually are. The sights and events in The Red Badge of Courage are filtered through Henry Fleming s impressions so that, for example, the entire regiment appears as grunting bundles of blue. IN MEDIAS RES is a Latin term meaning in the thick of things . Thus a piece of literature commencing in medias res in one in which there is no introduction; instead, the reader is plunged directly into the action. Background information is usually revealed later through such devices as flashback, allusions in dialogue, or narrative explanation. INDIRECT PRESENTATION is the presentation of character, theme, subject through implicit statement. INDUCTION is the reasoning from the particular to the general; examination of specific cases to form a universal law. INFERENCE, a reasonable conclusion about the behaviour of a character or the meaning of an event drawn from the limited information presented by the author. After reading In Another Country, one might infer that this is a story, not about war but about human isolation. Further, one could conclude that the physical wounds of the soldiers symbolize the emotional scars of alienation. GLOSSARY OF LITERARY TERMS - 16 INTERIOR MONOLOGUE, a technique used by writers to present the STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS of a fictional character, either directly by presenting what is passing through the character s mind or indirectly by the author s selection of and comments upon the character s thoughts. INTERNAL MONOLOGUE refers to the words of a literary character who is talking or thinking to himself. While the soliloquy is the convention in drama for such self-addresses, the internal monologue is the convention employed in short stories, novels, and poems. The monologue may proceed in more or less conventional speech patterns or it may reflect the jumbled structure of the imaginative processes, in which case it is referred to as stream of consciousness. e.g. Salinger s Catcher in the Rye; Tennyson s Ulysses; Joyce s novels INTERNAL RHYME is rhyme within a single line, serving to speed up the poem s rhythm or enhance its lyrical quality. e.g. Robert Service s The Cremation of Sam Magee ; Alfred Noyes The Highwayman e.g. I spy a fly upon the rye. INVECTIVE is vigorous verbal denunciation and abuse. e.g. Hamlet s angry cry against Claudius; Bloody, bawdy villain./Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain. INVERSION is a rhetorical device in which normal sentence pattern is altered or reversed to create an emphatic or rhythmic effect. The placement of the verb before the subject is that standard form of inversion. e.g. Tender is the night; Blessed are the meek (See ANASTROPHE) INVOCATION is the direct addressing of a divine power by a writer, in the process of his composition. Invocation usually occurs at the beginning of a poem (as in most epics) where the author requests the inspiration and guidance of the appropriate muses. e.g. Milton s Paradise Lost; Homer s The Iliad IRONY is the result of a statement saying one thing while meaning the opposite, or of situations developing contrary to expectation. VERBAL IRONY refers to a statement in which the opposite of what is said is meant. e.g.. Mark Twain: It s easy to quit smoking. I ve done it hundreds of times . GLOSSARY OF LITERARY TERMS - 17 DRAMATIC IRONY is based on the same principle of opposition between appearance and reality, but here the speaker is unaware of the opposition, and thus his ironic statements are not intentional as they are with verbal irony. The audience, though, often recognizes the ironic implications of such speech. e.g. When Brutus says, And for Mark Antony, think not of him,/For he can do no more than Caesar s arm/When Caesar s head is cut off. , it is not until much later that he discovers the opposite to be true. SITUATIONAL IRONY is a discrepancy between expectation and realization. e.g. a man who develops an elaborate plot to kill his wife is trapped in his own device JARGON is language that is either incoherent or ugly sounding because of its excessive use of circumlocution, technical terms, Latinate terms, slang, or general fuzziness of expression. e.g. meanwhile, in general proximity with the area of the development commonly given over to the dispensation of spirituous liquors, there sat, projecting an aura at the same time ebullient and lubricious, a noble gentleman, known to his peer group as Dangerous Dan McGrew. JUSTIFICATION, to prove right or reasonable. JUXTAPOSITION is a poetic and rhetorical device in which normally unassociated ideas, words, or phrases are placed next to one another, creating an effect of surprise, wit, or irony. e.g. foolish, mulish, religious donkeys (Dylan Thomas); irreverent juxtaposition of religious with words of stubbornness and stupidity KENNING is a compound metaphor common to early Germanic literature in which a figurative name is used to present an object. e.g. In the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf, the expression ring-giver is used for king , swan-road for sea , and twilight-spoiler for dragon LEGEND, a traditional anonymous story which may have some basis in fact. There are many legends about Johnny Appleseed, for example, who was a real person named John Chapman, but about whom relatively little is actually known. Both Betsy Ross and George Washington figure in legends. Places, too, sometimes prompt legends cliffs from which unhappy lovers are said to have leaped, for instance. (See MYTH) LITOTES (a form of irony) is a rhetorical device wherein a claim is deliberately played down or understated . The effect is usually one of wit. e.g. Mark Twain: The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated. GLOSSARY OF LITERARY TERMS - 20 MOOD is the unifying attitude of any work. It is conveyed in literature through description of setting, nature of incident and characterization, rhythm of language, diction, and so on. It differs from atmosphere in that it refers to the author s state of mind rather than to the outside world. e.g. A. E. Housman and Thomas Hardy display a strong mood of pessimism in much of their writing. MOTIF is any recurring image or idea in an artistic work which serves to unify its diverse elements. Many motifs are adapted from lore, such as the man fatally caught in the spell of a lady in Keats La Belle Dame Sans Merci . Often a work s motif is indicated by the author s deliberate repetition of a significant phrase (repetition of evermore in Poe s The Raven ). e.g. the images of rebirth in Steinbeck s The Grapes of Wrath MOTIVATION, the portrayal of circumstances and aspects of personality that makes a character s actions and reactions plausible or believable. In A New England Nun , Louisa Ellis decision not to marry Joe seems plausible because of the author s description of events and Louisa s thoughts about her future. MYTH, a traditional tale of unknown authorship involving gods and goddesses or other supernatural beings. A myth often attempts to explain aspects of nature such as the seasons or creation. NARRATION is writing in which a series of events are related. NARRATIVE, a story or account of an event or a series of events. It may be told either in poetry or prose; it may be either fictional or true. Amy Lowell s Patterns, Sara Kemble Knight s account, and April 2005: Usher II, are all examples of narratives. NARRATOR, the teller of a story. The Teller may be a character in the story, as in The Cask of Amontillado ; the author himself, as in Escape: A Slave Narrative : or an anonymous voice outside the story, as in A Worn Path . A narrator s attitude toward his or her subject is capable of much variation; it can range from one of apparent indifference to one of extreme conviction and feeling. When a narrator appears to have some bias regarding his or her subject, as in Soldiers of the Republic, it becomes especially important to determine whether the narrator and the author are to be regarded as the same person. (See also PERSONA and POINT OF VIEW) NATURALISM, writing that depicts events as rigidly determined by the forces of heredity and environment. Stephen Crane has been called a naturalist because his writing expounds the philosophy that the world can be understood by examining cause-and-effect relationships and that all events are determined by antecedent causes. GLOSSARY OF LITERARY TERMS - 21 NEMESIS (from the goddess of retribution) is the dealing out of justice at the end of a drama; the good are rewarded, the evil punished. NOVEL, a long work of prose fiction dealing with characters, situations, and SETTINGS that imitate those of real life. NOVELLA, a brief tale, especially the early tales of French and Italian writers, considered to be the form which engendered the later NOVEL. Novella is also used as a synonym for novelette, or short novel. ODE is a lengthy lyric poem comprised of formally written stanzas which express a sentimental or serious theme. The ode always makes use of the device of apostrophe. e.g. Shelley s Ode to the West Wind ; Keats Ode on a Grecian Urn ONOMATOPOEIA , (also referred to as IMITATIVE HARMONY) use of a word or words whose sounds imitate the sound of the thing spoken about. Words such as hiss, mumble, caw, and mew are onomatopoeic words. In the following example, the author has tried to convey the sound of rustling leaves. The treetops faintly rustle beneath the breeze s flight, A soft and soothing sound, yet it whispers of the night Bryant, Waiting by the Gate OCTAV RIMA is an eight-line stanza, characterized by an a-b-a-b-a-b-c-c rhyme scheme. e.g. Byron s Don Juan OXYMORON is the deliberate combination of incongruous or contradictory words, usually for the purpose of shocking the reader into awareness; a condensed paradox. e.g. harmonious madness ; the wisest fool in Christendom ; bitter sweet PACE is the rate of speed at which any literary work moves. PARABLE is a short and symbolic story which illustrates a truth or moral through the narration of non-supernatural occurrence. e.g. the stories of Jesus; Franz Kafka s The Couriers PARADOX is any statement which appears self-contradictory but has, in fact, real sense. e.g. Jesus: For whosoever will save his life shall lose it. ; Socrates: The more you know, the more you know you don t know. GLOSSARY OF LITERARY TERMS - 22 PARALLELISM refers to the grammatical or structural similarity between sentences or parts of a sentence. e.g. Churchill s they still have it in their power to sweep away the horrors and miseries which surround them, and to allow the streams of freedom, happiness, and abundance to begin again their healing flow. Parallelism is also a literary term, indicating likeness between components of plot. e.g. the two parent-child conflicts in King Lear; the parallel launching of the ship and iceberg, two mighty forces which will eventually be pitted against one another in E. J. Pratt s poem The Titanic PARODY is a comic work in which a particular style or literary composition is ridiculed through imitation. W. H. Auden has called it the highest form of criticism because it requires depth of insight into the work being parodied. e.g. Don Quixote is a parody of the chivalric romance, exhibiting a penetrating insight into the technique and ideas of this form. (See SATIRE.) PARENTHETICAL, a word, phrase, or passage inserted within parentheses to explain or modify a thought. PASTORAL (from the Greek pastor, meaning shepherd ) is, broadly, any literary work which deals with rural life. In doing so, it usually celebrates the simple, rustic existence in contrast to urban artificiality and decadence. e.g. Wordsworth s Michael PATHETIC FALLACY is a literary device involving the personification of nature, which is portrayed as being emotionally sensitive to the plights of man. The ascription of human feelings to nature was considered by John Ruskin (coiner of the phrase pathetic fallacy ) as a wrong ascription of emotion. e.g. The storms in Shakespearean drama almost always occur as reflections of civil disorder or human distress. PATHOS (from the Greeks, meaning suffering ) is a term used to describe scenes or passages in literature which evoke pity or sorrow. Sometimes an artist s effort to create pathos fails, resulting in sentimentalism or bathos. e.g. Pathos occurs in Hemingway s The Old Man and the Sea when the aged Santiago loses his battle with the sharks over his great fish GLOSSARY OF LITERARY TERMS - 25 PROPAGANDA, writing that directly advocates a certain doctrine as the solution to some social or political problem. Writing that tends to support views opposite to one s own is most frequently termed propaganda, but the term should legitimately be applied to the advocation of any doctrine. Thomas Paine was writing propaganda in The American Crisis. PROPOSITION is what a writer has to say about his subject. e.g. a writer s subject may be dogs; his proposition may be that dogs should be banned within city limits or it may be that every child should own a dog PROSE POEM, a piece of writing set down as prose but having the rhythms, language, and imaginative quality usually associated with poetry. PROTAGONIST is the central character of a drama or narrative. PROVERB, a brief, traditional saying that makes an observation on character or conduct or contains some bit of popular wisdom such as Red sky at morning, sailors take warning or A watched pot never boils or Cold hands, warm heart. (Compare MAXIM and EPIGRAM.) PUN is a play on words having similar sounds but different meanings, usually for comic effect. It is the simultaneous use of two or more different senses of the same word, or different words with the same sound. Puns are used for expressive or humorous effect, as in the following epitaph: In her eyes, the love light lies; and lies and lies, and lies. PURPLE PASSAGE is a heightening of emotion and language (usually intentional) so that a literary passage stands out from its surrounding context. The term is also used derogatorily as a synonym for melodramatic as in the overplayed last pages of Dickens A Tale of Two Cities. PURPOSE is the reason a writer has for writing a particular piece of work. Sometimes a writer may have more than one purpose in any particular passage. e.g. Corey Ford s essay How to Build an Outdoor Fireplace is intended to entertain as well as to propose that outdoor living should be left to the fools. GLOSSARY OF LITERARY TERMS - 26 QUATRAIN, verse STANZA of four lines, as in the following epitaph. Emerson s poem Brahma is written in quatrains, as are Robinson s poems Miniver Cheevy and Richard Cory . QUIXOTIC is an adjective referring to any character who is a bungling idealist. The term is derived from Cervantes hero Don Quixote, who possessed these qualities. e.g. Henrik Ibsen s Hjalmar Ekdal in The Wild Duck; Al Capp s Fearless Fosdick REALISM is a general term which is applied to writers who are concerned with presenting life as it actually is, not as they or their reader would like it to be. Protest against realism, however, often comes from the romanticist and the idealist, who hold that the realist approach tends to ignore the power and beauty of the inner and the unseen. REFRAIN, the repetition of one or more lines in each STANZA of a poem. Clementine has a refrain. REGIONALISM, the emphasis in fiction on the dialect, dress, customs, and traditions of a particular region and on the effect that setting has on character development. In A Wagner Matinee, Aunt Georgiana s character is revealed through descriptions of her life on a Nebraska homestead. Local colour writing, as practiced by Bret Harte, Kate Chopin, and Mary Wilkins Freeman during the 1800s, was a less-complex form of regional writing which described the West, the South, and New England, respectively. REPARTEE is a series of quick and skillful replies occurring in a contest of wits between two or more people. e.g. Oscar Wilde s The Importance of Being Earnest REPETITION is a rhetorical device in which words, sounds, and ideas are used more than once for the purpose of enhancing rhythm and creating emphasis. There is also repetition of a non-rhetorical sort in much literature; within an overall narrative (modes of darkness in Conrad s Heart of Darkness) or within a people s entire cultural heritage (in the myth of the hero-redeemer). RHETORIC is the skillful manipulation of language. Some of the favourite devices used towards this end are antithesis, balance, climax, contrast, inversion, juxtaposition, parallelism, periodic sentences, repetition, rhetorical question. Poetic techniques involving rhythm, sound, and imagery are often a part of a writer s or speaker s rhetorical equipment as well. GLOSSARY OF LITERARY TERMS - 27 RHETORICAL QUESTION is one which expects no answer. Instead, it is used to draw attention to a point and is generally stronger than a direct statement. e.g. Mark Antony s Did this in Caesar seem ambitious? is rhetorical. Mark Antony is not really questioning; he is accusing. RHYME, exact repetition of sounds in at least the final accented syllable of two or more words. (See also INTERNAL RHYME, END RHYME, and SLANT RHYME.) RHYME SCHEME, any pattern of rhyme in a STANZA. For purposes of study, the pattern is labeled as shown below, with the first rhyme labeled a, as are all the words rhyming with it; the second rhyme labeled b, the third rhyme labeled c, and so on. And what is so rare as a day in June? a Then, if ever, come perfect days; b Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune, a And over it softly her warm ear lays; b Whether we look, or whether we listen, c We hear life murmur, or see it glisten; c Lowell, The Vision of Sir Launfal RHYTHM, the arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables in speech or writing. Rhythm, or METER, may be regular, taDUM, taDUM, taDUM, or it may vary within a line or work. The four most common meters are IAMB or iambus, TROCHEE, ANAPEST, and DACTYL. RISING ACTION refers to the building up of events and conflicts in a drama or narrative which leads eventually to the climax. ROMANTICISM, unlike REALISM, Romanticism tends to portray the uncommon. The material selected tends to deal with extraordinary people in unusual experiences. In Romantic literature there is often a stress on the past and an emphasis on nature. e.g. Wordsworth It is a Beauteous Evening and Keats Ode to a Nightingale RUN-ON LINE, a line in which the thought continues beyond the end of the poetic line. There should be no pause after might in the stanza below, the unbroken rhythm making a run-on line. Oh, dumb be passion s stormy rage, When he who might Have lighted up and led his age, Falls back in night. Whittier, Ichabod (See ENJAMBEMENT.) GLOSSARY OF LITERARY TERMS - 30 STOICISM is a classical school of philosophy which teaches that virtue and happiness depend on an unflinching resignation to the laws of the universe. Stoical is a term which has since come to be applied generally to any human behaviour which exhibits quiet, unbreakable courage. e.g. Ernest Hemingway s heroes STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS is a narrative style which ignores the usual grammatical and logical patterns of writing in order to portray the actual flux and rhythm of a character s thoughts. All the mental associations and feelings connected with an event or object in the fictional character s life are recorded by the author in a stream of impressions, without conventional punctuation or sentence structure. The result is a flow of language which often seems chaotic, but may be rich in its implications and truer to actual thought than more orthodox syntax of the ordinary internal monologue. e.g. Katherine Anne Porter s Pale Horse, Pale Rider; James Joyce s Ulysses; Salinger s Catcher In The Rye STYLE is the way in which an author expresses what he has to say. It is analyzed in terms of the writer s use of sound, diction, sentence structure, rhythm, and imagery. SUBJECT is the thing or idea about which a writer writes. SUBPLOT is a minor plot in a story, related to the major plot and often developing parallel to it. Despite the wide and effective use of subplot in drama, Aristotle condemned it in his Poetics as faulty technique and a violation of unity of plot. e.g. the relationship between Gloucester and his sons in King Lear is a subplot which, besides being of interest in itself, mirrors, promotes, and intensifies the movement of the main plot involving King Lear and his daughters. SUSPENSE is the tension and anxiety felt by the audience towards one or more characters whose fate is uncertain. Suspense is aroused at various critical moments of the rising action, during which time the audience (or reader) feels an intensified emotional identification with some of the characters. SYLLOGISM, a form of logical argument that derives a conclusion from two premises. e.g. all poets are alcoholics, Jane is a poet, therefore, Jane is an alcoholic. GLOSSARY OF LITERARY TERMS - 31 SYMBOL is a concrete entity standing for some general idea (a cross is the idea of Christianity). In literature, symbols may be conventional or personal. Some important conventional symbols are the elements of fire and water (for passion and redemption respectively); the colours white, grey, green, black (for purity, dullness, fertility or immaturity, and evil respectively); the names of any number of mythical heroes (for whatever quality the figures in question most exemplify); light (for goodness or wisdom); the rose (for love); natural storms (for human agony and disorder). Like mythology, to which it is closely related, symbolism is a crucial part of artistic communication. SYMBOLISM, the use in literature of objects or events to represent something other than themselves, frequently abstract ideas or concepts. In The Chambered Nautilus, the shell symbolizes the body and the animal in the shell, the soul. SYNECHDOCHE is a figure of speech in which 1. a part of something is used to represent the whole (all hands on deck) 2. a whole is used to represent a part (Canada met the Soviet Union at hockey) 3. the material from which something is made is used for the thing itself (the quarterback threw the pigskin fifty yards downfield). SYNTHESIS is the bringing together of varied elements by some unifying design. e.g. a discussion of several of Shakespeare s plays under the unifying subject of imagery TALL TALE, a humourous, simple NARRATIVE which recounts extraordinary, impossible happenings. A distinctly American Genre, it originated on the American frontier when yarn-spinners passed on the legendary feats of such folk heroes as Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox, Mike Fink (the Mississippi Riverman), and John Henry. The tall tale found its way into the American Literary tradition after the Civil War, and its form is preserved in The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. TECHNIQUE, the craftsmanship used by an author to give a work form and meaning. Also a specific literary device, such as SYMBOLISM or SATIRE, may be referred to as a technique. TERCET, a stanza of three rhyming lines: Maiden! With meek, brown eyes, In whose orbs a shadow lies Like the dusk in evening skies! Longfellow, Maidenhood GLOSSARY OF LITERARY TERMS - 32 TETRAMETER, a metrical line of four feet: One au / tumn night, / in Sud / bury town, Across / the mead / ows bare / and brown. Longfellow, Tales of a Wayside Inn THEME of any work of art is the main unifying idea behind the plot, character, and setting. THESIS is the author s opinion about his subject. (see PROPOSITION) TONE is a manner of speaking or, in writing, the spirit or character which suggests a writer s attitude. Although tone in speech is indicated by pitch as well as by words, in writing it is indicated by diction alone. TOPIC (see SUBJECT) TRAGIC FLAW (see HAMARTIA) TRAGEDY, dramatic or narrative writing in which the main character suffers disaster after a serious and significant struggle but faces his or her downfall in such a way as to attain heroic stature. TRANSCENDENTALISM, a mystical philosophy which expresses the belief that within human beings there is an insight or intuition which transcends sensory experience and logic and makes it possible to recognize universal truths. Romantic idealism and self-determination are characteristics of transcendental writing. The works of Emerson and Thoreau are representative of American Transcendentalism. TRANSITIONAL DEVICES are devices for achieving clarity between two ideas or subjects. Some transitional devices are pronouns, relative pronouns, subordinate and coordinate conjunctions, adverbial conjunctions, parallelism, and repetition. TRIMETER, metrical line of three feet: Oft to / his fro / zen lair Tracked I / the gris / ly bear Longfellow, The Song of Hiawatha UNITY is a singleness of idea. It involves relating everything relevant to a topic and eliminating everything that is irrelevant.