Literatry Elements

Literary Elements
While not an exhaustive list of literary elements, this resource packet provides the basics to prepare you for successful literary analysis. We will use it and refer to it constantly in this class.
Allegory. A figurative work in which a surface narrative carries a secondary, symbolic or metaphorical meaning. In The Faerie Queene, for example, Red Cross Knight is a heroic knight in the literal narrative, but also a figure representing Everyman in the Christian journey. Many works contain allegories or are allegorical in part, but not many are entirely allegorical. Some examples of allegorical works include the following: Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress Dante, The Divine Comedy William Golding, Lord of the Flies (allegorical novel) Herman Melville, Moby Dick (allegorical novel) George Orwell, Animal Farm (allegorical novel)
Alliteration. The repetition of initial sounds in neighboring words. See also assonance (the repetition of vowel sounds only) and consonance (the repetition of consonant sounds only). Alliteration is the genus, whereas, assonance and consonance are the species. An example would be alliteration and then more specifically and exactly consonance or assonance. "lady lounges lazily" is both alliteration and consonance Example: In clichs: sweet smell of success, a dime a dozen, bigger and better, jump for joy Wordsworth: And sings a solitary song/ That whistles in the wind. The matching or repetition of consonants is called alliteration, or the repeating of the same letter (or sound) at the beginning of words following each other immediately or at short intervals. A famous example is to be found in the two lines by Tennyson: The moan of doves in immemorial elms, And murmuring of innumerable bees. The ancient poets often used alliteration instead of rhyme; in Beowulf there are three alliterations in every line:
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Now Beowulf bode in the burg of the Scyldings, Leader beloved, and long he ruled/ In fame with all folk since his father had gone . . . Modern poets also avail themselves of alliteration, especially as a substitute for rhyme. Edwin Markham's "Lincoln, the Man of the People" is in unrhymed blank verse, but there are many alliterative such as: She left the Heaven of Heroes and came down To make a man to meet the mortal need A man to match the mountains and the sea The friendly welcome of the wayside well Robert Frost's "The Death of the Hired Man" begins: Mary sat musing on the lamp-flame at the table Waiting for Warren. When she heard his step. . . . The eye immediately sees the alliteration in the "m's" in "Mary sat musing" and the "w's" in "Waiting for Warren. When. . . ." But it is the car that picks up the half-buried in "sounds in" lamp-flame sounds which act like faint and distant rhymes. Like rhyme, alliteration is a great help to memory. It is so powerful a device that prose has borrowed it. It is the alliteration which makes us remember such phrases as: "sink or swim," "do or die," "fuss and feathers," "the more the merrier," "watchful waiting," "poor but proud," "hale and hearty," "green as grass," "live and learn," "money makes the mare go." While alliteration is the recurrence of single letter-sounds, there is another kind of recurrence which is the echo or repetition of a word or phrase. This is found in many kinds of poetry, from nonsense rhymes to ballads. The repeated words or syllables add an extra beat and accentuate the rhythm. They are often heard in "choruses" or "refrains," as in Shakespeare's "With a hey and a ho and a hey nonino" or Rudyard Kipling's: For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute! But it's "Savior of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot. Excellent use of repetition occurs through the whole of Rudyard Kipling's "Tommy" "Danny Deever" and Alfred Noyes's "The Barrel-Organ" especially in such lines as: Come down to Kew in lilac-time, in lilac-time, in lilac-time; Come down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!) And you shall wander hand in hand with love in summer's wonderland; Come down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!)
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Allusion. A brief reference to a person, event, or place, real or fictitious, or to a work of art or a casual reference to a famous historical or literary figure or event. An allusion may be drawn from history, geography, literature, or religion.
Analogy. The comparison of two pairs which have the same relationship. The key is to ascertain the relationship between the first so you can choose the correct second pair. Part to whole, opposites, results of are types of relationships you should find. Example: hot is to cold as fire is to ice OR hot: cold::fire: ice
Anastrophe. Inversion of the normal syntactic order of words. Example: To market went she.
Anthropomorphism. The act of attributing human forms or qualities to an entity which is not human. Specifically, anthropomorphism is the describing of gods or goddesses in human forms and possessing human characteristics such as jealousy, hatred, or love. Mythologies of ancient peoples were almost entirely concerned with anthropomorphic gods. The Greek gods such as Zeus and Apollo often were depicted in anthropomorphic forms. The avatars of the Hindu god Vishnu possessed human forms and qualities. Christianity holds that is not logical to describe God, who is believed to be omnipotent and omnipresent, as human. However, it is extremely difficult for the average person to picture or discuss God or the gods without an anthropomorphic framework. In art and literature, anthropomorphism frequently depicts deities in human or animal forms possessing the qualities of sentiment, speech and reasoning.
Antithesis. Opposition or contrast of ideas or words in a balanced or parallel construction. Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice; moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. Barry Goldwater
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Brutus: Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more. (Shakespeare, Julius Caesar) The vases of the classical period are but the reflection of classical beauty; the vases of the archaic period are beauty itself." Sir John Beazley
Aphorism. A brief saying embodying a moral, a concise statement of a principle or precept given in pointed words. Example: Hippocrates: Life is short, art is long, opportunity fleeting, experimenting dangerous, reasoning difficult. Pope: Some praise at morning what they blame at night. Emerson: Imitation is suicide. Franklin: Lost Time is never Found again.
Apostrophe/Authorial Intrusion. When an absent person, an abstract concept, or an important object is directly addressed. Example: With how sad steps, O moon, thou climbest the skies. Busy old fool, unruly sun. Authorial intrusion, on the other hand, is a discussion directed to the reader and constituting a substantial break in the narrative illusion. While ordinary descriptions are not authorial intrusions, substantial essays addressed to the reader are. The difference to me between "apostrophe" and "authorial intrusion" is that usually in apostrophe, the author is addressing some absent person or thing, not the actual reader, and the actual reader is the secondary audience. In other words, when the poet says, "O, come with me and be my love I know he had someone other than me in mind when he wrote it. The apostrophe is to her. She's the primary audience. I'm the secondary audience. With "authorial intrusion, "however, the author is very cognizant of the reader sitting there with book in hand, and the author breaks into (and away from) the text to address this reader directly.
Archetype. The usage of any object or situation as it was originally made - think of it as the biggest clich ever, but one that never dies.
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Example: The Odyssey is so full of archetypes that there is probably at least one of every kind. Odysseus is the archetypal hero, Hydra and Charybdis and the Cyclops are the archetypical monsters.... The word "archetype" was coined by Carl Jung, who theorized that humans have a collective unconscious, "deposits of the constantly repeated experiences of humanity.... a kind of readiness to reproduce over and over again the same or similar mythical ideas...." This shared memory of experiences has resulted in a resonance of the concepts of hero and heroine that transcends time, place and culture. Jung called these recurring personalities archetypes, from the Greek word archetypos, meaning first of its kind.
Asyndeton. A stylistic scheme in which conjunctions are deliberately omitted from a series of related clauses. Examples are veni, vidi, vici and its English translation "I came, I saw, I conquered." Its use can have the effect of speeding up the rhythm of a passage and making a single idea more memorable. More generally, in grammar, an asyndetic coordination is a type of coordination in which no coordinating conjunction is present between the conjuncts.
Autobiographical novel. A novel based on the author's life experience. More common than a thoroughly autobiographical novel is the inclusion of autobiographical elements among other elements. Many novelists include in their books people and events from their own lives, often slightly or even dramatically altered. Nothing beats writing from experience, because remembrance is easier than creation from scratch and all the details fit together. Examples of autobiographical novels are: James Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Thomas Wolfe, Look Homeward, Angel
Bildungsroman. A story in which the protagonist undergoes growth throughout the entire narrative, generally starting off by being removed or chased from their home. Their growth is often impeded by opposition of their desires by other characters. Example: Les Miserables. These stories concentrate on the spiritual, moral, psychological, or social development and growth of the protagonist usually from childhood to maturity. Sometimes they are referred to as a "Coming of Age Stories. The protagonist is initiated into adulthood through knowledge, experience, or both, often by a process of disillusionment. Understanding comes after the dropping of preconceptions, a destruction of a false
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sense of security, or in some way the loss of innocence. Some of the shifts that take place are these: ignorance to knowledge innocence to experience false view of world to correct view idealism to realism immature responses to mature responses Examples: Jane Austen Northanger Abbey Charles Dickens, Great Expectations Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage
Blank Verse. Unrhymed iambic pentameter. Shakespeare's plays are largely blank verse, as are other Renaissance plays. Blank verse was the most popular in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in England. Here are some examples you likely won't see elsewhere: At last, The clouds consign their treasures to the fields, And softly shaking on the dimpled pool Prelusive drops, let all their moisture flow In large effusion o'er the freshened world. --James Thomson, The Seasons, Spring, 172-176 Delightful task! to rear the tender thought, To teach the young idea how to shoot, To pour the fresh instruction o'er the mind, To breathe the enlivening spirit, and to fix The generous purpose in the glowing breast. --James Thomson, The Seasons, Spring, 1152-1156 How poor, how rich, how abject, how august, How complicate, how wonderful is man! How passing wonder He, who made him such! Who centered in our make such strange extremes? ........ Distinguish'd link in being's endless chain! Midway from nothing to the Deity!
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--Edward Young, Night Thoughts, Night the First, 67-70, 73-74 Additional examples: John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667) John Dryden, All for Love James Thompson, The Seasons
Burlesque. A work designed to ridicule a style, literary form, or subject matter either by treating the exalted in a trivial way or by discussing the trivial in exalted terms (that is, with mock dignity). Burlesque concentrates on derisive imitation, usually in exaggerated terms. Literary genres (like the tragic drama) can be burlesqued, as can styles of sculpture, philosophical movements, schools of art, and so forth. See also Parody, Travesty. John Gay, The Beggar's Opera (1728), burlesques Italian opera by trivializing it Henry Fielding, Tom Thumb the Great (1730), burlesques heroic drama by trivializing it Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock (1711-14), burlesques the eighteenth century upper crust social mores by treating them with the machinery of epic poetry
Cacophony. Harsh, discordant sounds. Opposite of euphony.
Caesura. A pause, metrical or rhetorical, occurring somewhere in a line of poetry. The pause may or may not be typographically indicated (usually with a comma). An example from George Herbert's "Redemption": At length I heard a ragged noise and mirth Of theeves and murderers: there I him espied, Who straight, Your suit is granted, said, and died.
Canon. In relation to literature, this term is applied to those works generally accepted as the great ones. A battle is now being fought to change or throw out the canon for three reasons. First, the list of great books is thoroughly dominated by DWEM's (dead, white, European males), and the accusation is that women and minorities and nonWestern cultural writers have been ignored. Second, there is pressure in the literary community to throw out all standards as the nihilism of the late 20th and early 21st century makes itself felt in the literature departments of the universities. Scholars and professors want to choose the books they like or which reflect their own ideas, without
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worrying about canonicity. Third, the canon has always been determined at least in part by political considerations and personal philosophical biases. Books are much more likely to be called "great" if they reflect the philosophical ideas of the critic. On the other hand, a great case can be made for reading through the traditional canon because over many years (hundreds or thousands in some cases) some works have emerged as the best--reaching the deep truths of human nature or discussing the greatest of ideas (who we are, why we live, what our purpose here is, why we go wrong) in the most intelligent, fruitful, and thoughtful ways. The canon works raise the most interesting questions, sometimes offer answers, and often present both Q and A in a beautiful way. You could do worse than read Aristotle, or Samuel Johnson, or Charles Dickens, or Epictetus, or George Herbert. For some sample traditional lists, see the great books lists and programs at The Center for the Study of Great Ideas, The Great Books Index, and Robert Teeter's Great Books Lists.
Characterization. The method used by a writer to develop a character. The method includes (1) showing the character's appearance, (2) displaying the character's actions, (3) revealing the character's thoughts, (4) letting the character speak, and (5) getting the reactions of others.
Circumlocution. The use of a longer phrasing in place of a possible shorter form of expression; a roundabout or indirect manner of writing or speaking.
Conceit. An elaborate, usually intellectually ingenious poetic comparison or image, such as an analogy or metaphor in which, say a beloved is compared to a ship, planet, etc. The comparison may be brief or extended. See Petrarchan Conceit. (Conceit is an old word for concept.) See John Donne's "Valediction: Forbidding Mourning," for example, lines 21-32, where he compares his and his love's souls first to gold (which can be hammered to such a thinness that a small lump can cover the dome of a building) and then to a drawing compass whose foot in the center allows the other to draw a perfect circle. Romantic, isn't it: Our two souls therefore, which are one, Though I must go, endure not yet A breach, but an expansion, Like gold to aery thinness beat,
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If they be two, they are two so As stiff twin compasses are two ; Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show To move, but doth, if th' other do. And though it in the center sit, Yet, when the other far doth roam, It leans, and hearkens after it, And grows erect, as that comes home.
Conflict. The struggle found in fiction. Conflict/Plot may be internal or external and is best seen in (1) Man in conflict with another Man: (2) Man in conflict in Nature; (3) Man in conflict with self.
Connotation. An implied meaning of a word. Opposite of denotation.
Denotation. The literal meaning of a word, the dictionary meaning. Opposite of connotation.
Deus ex Machina. (Literally "god out of a machine") An improbable contrivance in a story. The phrase describes an artificial, or improbable, character, device, or event introduced suddenly in a work of fiction or drama to resolve a situation or untangle a plot (such as an angel suddenly appearing to solve problems). The term is a negative one, and it often implies a lack of skill on the part of the writer.
Diction. In its original, primary meaning, diction refers to the writer's or the speaker's distinctive vocabulary choices and style of expression in a poem or story. Diction has multiple concerns; registerwords being either formal or informal in social contextis foremost. Literary diction analysis reveals how a passage establishes tone and characterization, e.g. a preponderance of verbs relating physical movement suggests an active character, while a preponderance of verbs relating states of mind portrays an introspective character. Diction also has an impact upon word choice and syntax. Diction is understood to be the distinctive tone or tenor of an authors writings that becomes immediately synonymous with his/her name. Diction is usually judged with
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reference to the prevailing standards of proper writing and speech and is seen as the mark of quality of the writing. It is also understood as the selection of certain words or phrases that become peculiar to a writer. Example: Certain writers in the modern day and age use archaic terms such as thy, thee and wherefore to imbue a Shakespearean mood to their work.
Dystopian novel. An anti-utopian novel where, instead of a paradise, everything has gone wrong in the attempt to create a perfect society. See utopian novel. Examples: George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
End-stopped. A line that has a natural pause at the end (period, comma, etc.). For example, these lines are end stopped: My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun. Coral is far more red than her lips red. Shakespeare
Enjambed. The running over of a sentence or thought into the next couplet or line without a pause at the end of the line; a run-on line. For example, all the lines here are enjambed: Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds Or bends with the remover to remove. . . . --Shakespeare A hint to those who read poetry aloud: Don't pause a long time at the end of a line with no punctuation. Pause for a comma, pause longer for a semicolon, longer still for a period, but at the end of an enjambed line, if you pause at all, only the hemi-demisemi-quaver of a pause. On the other hand, don't go out of your way to join the lines together by a forceful lack of spacing.
Epilogue. A final chapter at the end of a story that often serves to reveal the fates of the characters. Some epilogues may feature scenes only tangentially related to the subject of the story. They can be used to hint at a sequel or wrap up all the loose ends. They can occur at a significant period of time after the main plot has ended. In some cases, the epilogue has been used to allow the main character a chance to 'speak freely'. An epilogue can continue in the same narrative style and perspective as the
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preceding story, although the form of an epilogue can occasionally be drastically different from the overall story. When the author steps in and speaks directly to the reader that is more properly considered an afterword. It can also be used as a sequel.
Epithet. An epithet is a word which makes the reader see the object described in a clearer or sharper light. It is both exact and imaginative. Distinctive epithets are found in the ancient Greek classic, The Odyssey: wine-dark sea...... wave-girdled island," blindfolding night." In "Thanatopsis" Bryant (more poems) speaks of the ocean's "gray and melancholy waste." In "Home Thoughts from Abroad" Browning describes the "gaudy" melon flower and the "wise" thrush. Michael Lewis tells of an oncoming storm with its "frantic" wind, "whipped" clouds, and "panicky" trees. In A. E. Housman's poem, "Bredon Hill", there is a much-quoted verse which runs: Here of a Sunday morning My love and I would lie, And see the colored counties, And hear the larks so high About us in the sky. A. E. Housman's brother, Laurence, has revealed how his famous brother found the exact and suggestive epithet "colored" to describe the scene. When he wrote the poem, A. E. Housman put down an ordinary adjective which did not satisfy him. Then, with the poem in his head, he went to bed and dreamed; in his dream he bit on the word "painted." This was better. But when lie awoke he was still not satisfied. He thought of using "sunny," "pleasant," "checkered," "crowded," and "patterned." Finally, he came back to "painted" which suddenly prompted "colored." This was not only exact and imaginative, but the consonant "c" in "colored" gave a musically repeated sound (alliteration) when joined to "counties," and thus made the line more memorable.
Epic. An extended narrative poem recounting actions, travels, adventures, and heroic episodes and written in a high style (with ennobled diction, for example). It may be written in hexameter verse, especially dactylic hexameter, and it may have twelve books or twenty four books. Characteristics of the classical epic include these: The main character or protagonist is heroically larger than life, often the source and subject of legend or a national hero The deeds of the hero are presented without favoritism, revealing his failings as well as his virtues The action, often in battle, reveals the more-than-human strength of the heroes as they engage in acts of heroism and courage
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The setting covers several nations, the whole world, or even the universe The episodes, even though they may be fictional, provide an explanation for some of the circumstances or events in the history of a nation or people The gods and lesser divinities play an active role in the outcome of actions All of the various adventures form an organic whole, where each event relates in some way to the central theme
Typical in epics is a set of conventions (or epic machinery). Among them are these: Poem begins with a statement of the theme ("Arms and the man I sing") Invocation to the muse or other deity ("Sing, goddess, of the wrath of Achilles") Story begins in medias res (in the middle of things) Catalogs (of participants on each side, ships, sacrifices) Histories and descriptions of significant items (who made a sword or shield, how it was decorated, who owned it from generation to generation) Epic simile (a long simile where the image becomes an object of art in its own right as well as serving to clarify the subject). Frequent use of epithets ("Aeneas the true"; "rosy-fingered Dawn"; "tall-masted ship") Use of patronymics (calling son by father's name): "Anchises' son" Long, formal speeches by important characters Journey to the underworld Use of the number three (attempts are made three times, etc.) Previous episodes in the story are later recounted Examples: Homer, Iliad Homer, Odyssey Virgil, Aeneid Tasso, Jerusalem Delivered Milton, Paradise Lost
Epistolary novel. A novel consisting of letters written by a character or several characters. The form allows for the use of multiple points of view toward the story and the ability to dispense with an omniscient narrator. Examples: Samuel Richardson, Pamela Samuel Richardson, Clarissa Fanny Burney, Evelina C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters Hannah W. Foster, The Coquette
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Euphemism. The substitution of a mild or less negative word or phrase for a harsh or blunt one, as in the use of "pass away" instead of "die." The basic psychology of euphemistic language is the desire to put something bad or embarrassing in a positive (or at least neutral light). Thus many terms referring to death, sex, crime, and excremental functions are euphemisms. Since the euphemism is often chosen to disguise something horrifying, it can be exploited by the satirist through the use of irony and exaggeration. "The war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage." -Emperor Hirohito, upon surrendering after the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan.
Euphony. Soothing pleasant sounds. Opposite of cacophony.
Existentialist novel. A novel written from an existentialist viewpoint, often pointing out the absurdity and meaninglessness of existence. Example: Albert Camus, The Stranger
Fable. A succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, mythical creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature which are anthropomorphized (given human qualities), and that illustrates a moral lesson (a "moral"), which may at the end be expressed explicitly in a pithy maxim. A fable differs from a parable in that the latter excludes animals, plants, inanimate objects, and forces of nature as actors that assume speech and other powers of humankind.
Fantasy novel. Any novel that is disengaged from reality. Often such novels are set in nonexistent worlds, such as under the earth, in a fairyland, on the moon, etc. The characters are often something other than human or include nonhuman characters. Example: J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit
Flashback. A device that allows the writer to present events that happened before the time of the current narration or the current events in the fiction. Flashback techniques include memories, dreams, stories of the past told by characters, or even authorial sovereignty. (That is, the author might simply say, "But back in Tom's youth. . . .") Flashback is useful for exposition, to fill in the reader about a character or place, or about the background to a conflict.
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Foot. The basic unit of meter consisting of a group of two or three syllables. Scanning or scansion is the process of determining the prevailing foot in a line of poetry, of determining the types and sequence of different feet. Types of feet: U (unstressed); / (stressed syllable) Iamb: U / Trochee: / U Anapest: U U / Dactyl: / U U Spondee: / / Pyrrhic: U U Iambic words: about, event, infuse, persuade Trochaic words: woman, daisy, golden, patchwork Anapestic words: underneath, introduce Dactyllic words: fantasy, alchemy, penetrate Note that poetic feet are composed of words fitted together to form the meter. That is, anapestic hexameter is not composed of lines of six anapestic words each, but lines of six anapestic feet, made up of various words. Here is an off-the-cuff anapestic hexameter couplet: On the wall, under light, stood a man in a coat, with a dog by his side. Looking up, looking down, our eyes met with a frown--and a smile from the dog.
Foil. A character who contrasts with another character (usually the protagonist) in order to highlight various features of that other character's personality, throwing these characteristics into sharper focus.[1][2] A foil's complementary role may be emphasized by physical characteristics. A foil usually differs drastically. For example in Cervantes' Don Quixote, the dreamy and impractical Quixote is thin in contrast to his companion, the realistic and practical Sancho Panza, who is fat. Another popular fictional character, Sherlock Holmes, is tall and lean; his right-hand man Doctor Watson, meanwhile, is often described as "middlesized, strongly built." The "straight man" in a comedy duo is a comic foil. While the straight man portrays a reasonable and serious character, the other portrays a funny, dumb, or simply unorthodox one. In some cases, a subplot can be used as a foil to the main plot. This is especially true in the case of metafiction and the "story within a story" motif.
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Foreshadowing. A literary device in which an author suggests certain plot developments that might come later in the story.
Frame. A narrative structure that provides a setting and exposition for the main narrative in a novel. Often, a narrator will describe where he found the manuscript of the novel or where he heard someone tell the story he is about to relate. The frame helps control the reader's perception of the work, and has been used in the past to help give credibility to the main section of the novel, through the implication or claim that the novel represents a true account of events, written by someone other than the author. In the 16th through the 18th centuries, frames were sometimes used to help protect the author and publisher from persecution for the ideas presented. Examples of novels with frames: Mary Shelley Frankenstein Nathaniel Hawthorne The Scarlet Letter
Free Verse. Verse that has neither regular rhyme nor regular meter. Free verse often uses cadences rather than uniform metrical feet.
I cannot strive to drink dry the ocean's fill since you replenish my gulps with your tears
Gothic Novel. A novel in which supernatural horrors and an atmosphere of unknown terror pervades the action. The setting is often a dark, mysterious castle, where ghosts and sinister humans roam menacingly. Horace Walpole invented the genre with his Castle of Otranto. Gothic elements include these: Ancient prophecy, especially mysterious, obscure, or hard to understand. Mystery and suspense High emotion, sentimentalism, but also pronounced anger, surprise, and especially terror Supernatural events (e.g. a giant, a sighing portrait, ghosts or their apparent presence, a skeleton) Omens, portents, dream visions Fainting, frightened, screaming women Women threatened by powerful, impetuous male Setting in a castle, especially with secret passages The metonymy of gloom and horror (wind, rain, doors grating on rusty hinges, howls in the distance, distant sighs, footsteps approaching, lights in abandoned
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rooms, gusts of wind blowing out lights or blowing suddenly, characters trapped in rooms or imprisoned) The vocabulary of the gothic (use of words indicating fear, mystery, etc.: apparition, devil, ghost, haunted, terror, fright)
Examples: Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto William Beckford, Vathek Anne Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolpho Mary Shelley, Frankenstein Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca
Graphic Novel. A novel illustrated panel by panel, either in color or black and white. Graphic novels are sometimes referred to as extended comics, because the presentation format (panel by panel illustration, mostly dialog with usually little exposition) suggests a comic. So too does the emphasis on action in many graphic novels. Characters who are not human, talking monsters, and imaginary beings sometimes populate graphic novels, bringing them closer to science fiction or fantasy than realism. Examples: Jeff Smith, Bone Matt Wagner, Mage: The Hero Discovered
Heroic Couplet. Two lines of rhyming iambic pentameter. Most of Alexander Pope's verse is written in heroic couplets. In fact, it is the most favored verse form of the eighteenth century. Example: u/u/u/u/u/ 'Tis hard to say, if greater want of skill u/u/u/u/u/ Appear in writing or in judging ill. . . . --Alexander Pope [Note in the second line that "or" should be a stressed syllable if the meter were perfectly iambic. Iambic= a two syllable foot of one unstressed and one stressed syllable, as in the word "begin." Pentameter= five feet. Thus, iambic pentameter has ten syllables, five feet of two syllable iambs.]
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Historical novel. A novel where fictional characters take part in actual historical events and interact with real people from the past. Examples: Sir Walter Scott, Ivanhoe Sir Walter Scott, Waverly James Fenimore Cooper, Last of the Mohicans Lloyd C. Douglas, The Robe
Horatian Satire. In general, a gentler, more good humored and sympathetic kind of satire, somewhat tolerant of human folly even while laughing at it. Named after the poet Horace, whose satire epitomized it. Horatian satire tends to ridicule human folly in general or by type rather than attack specific persons. Compare Juvenalian satire.
Humanism. The new emphasis in the Renaissance on human culture, education and reason, sparked by a revival of interest in classical Greek and Roman literature, culture, and language. Human nature and the dignity of man were exalted and emphasis was placed on the present life as a worthy event in itself (as opposed to the medieval emphasis on the present life merely as preparation for a future life).
Hyperbole. The use of exaggeration as a rhetorical device or figure of speech. It may be used to evoke strong feelings or to create a strong impression, but is not meant to be taken literally. Hyperboles are exaggerations to create emphasis or effect. As a literary device, hyperbole is often used in poetry, and is frequently encountered in casual speech. An example of hyperbole is: "The bag weighed a ton." Hyperbole helps to make the point that the bag was very heavy, although it is not probable that it would actually weigh a ton.
Imagery. The use of details and descriptors, such as adjectives and nouns, used to create a mental or sensational image in the mind of a reader. The elements in a literary work used to evoke mental images, not only of the visual sense, but also of sensation (touch, taste, smell, sound, orientation) and emotion. While most commonly used in reference to figurative language, imagery is a variable term which can apply to any and all components of a poem that evoke sensory experience and emotional response, whether figurative or literal, and also applies to the concrete things so imaged.
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In Medias Res. (into the middle of things) A Latin phrase denoting the literary and artistic narrative technique wherein the relation of a story begins either at the mid-point or at the conclusion, rather than at the beginning (cf. ab ovo, ab initio), establishing setting, character, and conflict via flashback and expository conversations relating the pertinent past. The main advantage of In Medias Res is to open the story with dramatic action rather than exposition which sets up the characters and situation. It can be employed in any narrative genre, epic poetry, novels, plays, or film. In medias res often, though not always, entails subsequent uses of flashbacks for exposition of earlier events in order to fill in the backstory. For example, in Homer's Odyssey, we first learn about Odysseus' journey when he is held captive on Calypso's island. We then find out in Books IX through XII, that the greater part of Odysseus' journey precedes that moment in the narrative. However, Homer's Iliad has relatively few flashbacks, although it opens in the thick of the Trojan War.
Internal Rhyme. (Middle rhyme) is rhyme that occurs in a single line of verse. Internal rhyme occurs in the middle of a line, as exemplified by Coleridge, "In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud" or "Whiles all the night through fog-smoke white," in "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." "Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Raven" also exhibits internal rhyme: Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. "'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door Internal rhyme is also used extensively in modern hip hop music, having been pioneered by artists such as Kool Moe Dee, and Rakim, as demonstrated in the latter's piece, "My Melody": My unusual style will confuse you a while If I were water, I'd flow in the Nile So many rhymes you won't have time to go for your's Just because of applause I have to pause Right after tonight is when I prepare To catch another sucker-duck MC out there My strategy has to be tragedy, catastrophe And after this you'll call me your majesty...
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Invective. Speech or writing that abuses, denounces, or attacks. It can be directed against a person, cause, idea, or system. It employs a heavy use of negative emotive language. Example: I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth. --Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels
Irony. A mode of expression, through words (verbal irony) or events (irony of situation), conveying a reality different from and usually opposite to appearance or expectation. A writer may say the opposite of what he means, create a reversal between expectation and its fulfillment, or give the audience knowledge that a character lacks, making the character's words have meaning to the audience not perceived by the character. In verbal irony, the writer's meaning or even his attitude may be different from what he says: "Why, no one would dare argue that there could be anything more important in choosing a college than its proximity to the beach." An example of situational irony would occur if a professional pickpocket had his own pocket picked just as he was in the act of picking someone else's pocket. The irony is generated by the surprise recognition by the audience of a reality in contrast with expectation or appearance, while another audience, victim, or character puts confidence in the appearance as reality (in this case, the pickpocket doesn't expect his own pocket to be picked). The surprise recognition by the audience often produces a comic effect, making irony often funny. An example of dramatic irony (where the audience has knowledge that gives additional meaning to a character's words) would be when King Oedipus, who has unknowingly killed his father, says that he will banish his father's killer when he finds him. Irony is the most common and most efficient technique of the satirist, because it is an instrument of truth, provides wit and humor, and is usually at least obliquely critical, in that it deflates, scorns, or attacks. The ability to detect irony is sometimes heralded as a test of intelligence and sophistication. When a text intended to be ironic is not seen as such, the effect can be disastrous. Some students have taken Swift's "Modest Proposal" literally. And Defoe's contemporaries took his "Shortest Way with the Dissenters" literally and jailed him for it. To be an effective piece of sustained irony, there must be some sort of audience tip-off, through style, tone, use of clear exaggeration, or other device.
Juvenalian Satire. Harsher, more pointed, perhaps intolerant satire typified by the writings of Juvenal. Juvenalian satire often attacks particular people, sometimes thinly
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disguised as fictional characters. While laughter and ridicule are still weapons as with Horatian satire, the Juvenalian satirist also uses withering invective and a slashing attack. Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope are Juvenalian satirists.
Juxtaposition. The placement of two things (usually abstract concepts, though it can refer to physical objects) near each other for the purpose of comparison.
Kenning. A type of literary trope, specifically circumlocution, in the form of a compound (usually two words, often hyphenated) that employs figurative language in place of a more concrete single-word noun. Kennings are strongly associated with Old Norse and later Icelandic and Anglo-Saxon poetry. For example, Old Norse poets might replace the regular word for sword, with a more abstract compound such as wound-hoe. The term kenning has been applied by modern scholars to similar figures of speech in other languages too, especially Old English.
Lampoon. A crude, coarse, often bitter satire ridiculing the personal appearance or character of a person.
Literary quality. A judgment about the value of a novel as literature. At the heart of this issue is the question of what distinguishes a great or important novel from one that is less important. Certainly the feature is not that of interest or excitement, for pulp novels can be even more exciting and interesting than "great" novels. Usually, books that make us think--that offer insight into the human condition--are the ones we rank more highly than books that simply titillate us. In non-literary fiction, plot is emphasized. If the value of the novel lies in how clever the plot twists are or how thrilling the story is, then it is more likely to be classified as fiction than literature. If you don't ever want to read the book again because now you know how it comes out, you have just read fiction, not literature. If you want to read the book again even though you know the plot and the ending, you might just be reading literature. If the book causes you to think, maybe even grow wiser, you are very likely reading literature. Yeah, I know how Hamlet comes out--spoiler alert--pretty much everybody of importance is dead at the end, but I still want to read it or watch it again.
Lyric. A genre of poetry that expresses personal and emotional feelings. In the ancient world, lyric poems were those which were sung to the lyre. Lyric poems do not have to rhyme, and today do not need to be set to music or a beat. Aristotle, in Poetics 1447a,
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mentions lyric poetry (kitharistike played to the cithara, a type of lyre) along with drama, epic poetry, dancing, painting and other forms of mimesis. The lyric poem, dating from the Romantic era, does have some thematic antecedents in ancient Greek and Roman verse, but the ancient definition was based on metrical criteria, and in archaic and classical Greek culture presupposed live performance accompanied by a stringed instrument.
Malapropism. An act of misusing or the habitual misuse of similar sounding words, especially with humorous results. An example is Yogi Berra's statement: "Texas has a lot of electrical votes." The malapropism is the use of "electrical" instead of the correct word, "electoral," which is similar in sound.
Metaphor. A literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels". Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via association, comparison or resemblance. In this broader sense, antithesis, hyperbole, metonymy and simile would all be considered types of metaphor. Aristotle used both this sense and the regular, current sense above. With metaphor, unlike analogy, specific interpretations are not given explicitly.
Metaphysical Poetry. The term metaphysical was applied to a style of 17th Century poetry first by John Dryden and later by Dr. Samuel Johnson because of the highly intellectual and often abstruse imagery involved. Chief among the metaphysical poets are John Donne, George Herbert, Richard Crashaw, Andrew Marvell, and Henry Vaughan. While their poetry is widely varied (the metaphysicals are not a thematic or even a structural school), there are some common characteristics:
Argumentative structure. The poem often engages in a debate or persuasive presentation; the poem is an intellectual exercise as well as or instead of an emotional effusion. Dramatic and colloquial mode of utterance. The poem often describes a dramatic event rather than being a reverie, a thought, or contemplation. Diction is simple and usually direct; inversion is limited. The verse is occasionally rough, like speech, rather than written in perfect meter, resulting in a dominance of thought over form. Acute realism. The poem often reveals a psychological analysis; images advance the argument rather than being ornamental. There is a learned style of thinking and writing; the poetry is often highly intellectual.
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Metaphysical wit. The poem contains unexpected, even striking or shocking analogies, offering elaborate parallels between apparently dissimilar things. The analogies are drawn from widely varied fields of knowledge, not limited to traditional sources in nature or art. Analogies from science, mechanics, housekeeping, business, philosophy, astronomy, etc. are common. These "conceits" reveal a play of intellect, often resulting in puns, paradoxes, and humorous comparisons. Unlike other poetry where the metaphors usually remain in the background, here the metaphors sometimes take over the poem and control it.
Metaphysical poetry represents a revolt against the conventions of Elizabethan love poetry and especially the typical Petrarchan conceits (like rosy cheeks, eyes like stars, etc.).
Meter. The rhythmic pattern produced when words are arranged so that their stressed and unstressed syllables fall into a more or less regular sequence, resulting in repeated patterns of accent (called feet). See feet and versification.
Metonymy. A figure of speech used in rhetoric in which a thing or concept is not called by its own name, but by the name of something intimately associated with that thing or concept. For instance, "Hollywood" is used as a metonym (an instance of metonymy) for American cinema, because of the fame and cultural identity of Hollywood, California as the historical center of movie studios and movie stars. Another example is "Westminster," which is used as a metonym for the Parliament of the United Kingdom, because it is located there.
Mock Epic. Treating a frivolous or minor subject seriously, especially by using the machinery and devices of the epic (invocations, descriptions of armor, battles, extended similes, etc.). The opposite of travesty. Examples: Alexander Pope, The Dunciad Alexander Pope, Rape of the Lock
Motif. Any recurring element that has symbolic significance in a story. Through its repetition, a motif can help produce other narrative (or literary) aspects such as theme or mood. A narrative motif can be created through the use of imagery, structural components, language, or other narrative elements. The flute in Arthur Miller's play Death of a Salesman is a recurrent sound motif that conveys rural and idyllic notions.
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Another example from modern American literature is the green light found in the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Narratives can include multiple motifs of varying types. In his play Macbeth, Shakespeare uses a variety of narrative elements to create many different motifs. Imagistic references to blood and water are continually repeated. The phrase "fair is foul, and foul is fair" is echoed at many points in the play, a combination that mixes the concepts of good and evil. The play also features the central motif of the washing of hands, one that combines both verbal images and the movement of the actors. While it may appear interchangeable with the related concept theme, the term 'motif' does differ somewhat in usage. Any number of narrative elements with symbolic significance can be classified as motifs - whether they are images, spoken or written phrases, structural or stylistic devices, or other elements like sound, physical movement, or visual components in dramatic narratives. A motif is not a theme. The latter is usually defined as a message, statement, or idea, while a motif is simply a detail repeated for larger symbolic meaning, whatever that meaning may be. In other words, a narrative motif a detail repeated in a pattern of meaning - can emphasize a theme; but it also creates other narrative aspects distinct from theme.
Mood. A distinctive emotional quality or character evoked in the reader of a piece of literature. A prevailing emotion or general attitude embodied by a literary work.
Nemesis. From classical mythology: the goddess of divine retribution. In literature it refers to an opponent or rival whom the protagonist cannot best or overcome. Professor Moriarty is Sherlock Holmess nemesis. Can also mean a literary agent or act of retribution or punishment.
Novel. Novels are so varied that any definition is likely to be inadequate to cover all of them. So here is a place to start: a novel is an extended prose fiction narrative of 50,000 words or more, broadly realistic--concerning the everyday events of ordinary people-and concerned with character. "People in significant action" is one way of describing it. Another definition might be "an extended, fictional prose narrative about realistic characters and events." It is a representation of life, experience, and learning. Action,
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discovery, and description are important elements, but the most important tends to be one or more characters--how they grow, learn, find--or don't grow, learn, or find. Compare the definition of a romance, below, and you will see why this definition seems somewhat restrictive.
Novella. A prose fiction longer than a short story but shorter than a novel. There is no standard definition of length, but since rules of thumb are sometimes handy, we might say that the short story ends at about 20,000 words, while the novel begins at about 50,000. Thus, the novella is a fictional work of about 20,000 to 50,000 words. Examples: Henry James, Daisy Miller Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Henry James, Turn of the Screw Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
Novel of manners. A novel focusing on and describing in detail the social customs and habits of a particular social group. Usually these conventions function as shaping or even stifling controls over the behavior of the characters. Examples: Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair
Onomatopoeia. A word that imitates or suggests the source of the sound that it describes. Onomatopoeia refers to the property of such words. Common occurrences of onomatopoeias include animal noises, such as "oink" or "meow" or "roar". Onomatopoeias are not the same across all languages; they conform to some extent to the broader linguistic system they are part of; hence the sound of a clock may be tick tock in English, d d in Mandarin, or katchin katchin in Japanese.
Oxymoron. A figure of speech that combines contradictory terms. Oxymora appear in a variety of contexts, including inadvertent errors such as ground pilot and literary oxymora crafted to reveal a paradox. The most common form of oxymoron involves an adjective-noun combination of two words. For example, the following line from Tennyson's Idylls of the King contains two oxymora: "And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true." Other examples of oxymora of this kind are: Dark light Living dead
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New Classic Old News Open secret (supposedly a secret but it has leaked) Vintage Modern
Less often seen are noun-verb combinations of two words, such as the line "The silence whistles" from Nathan Alterman's Summer Night, or in a record album title like Sounds of Silence. Oxymora are not always a pair of words; they can also be devised in the meaning of sentences or phrases.
Parable. A succinct story, in prose or verse, which illustrates one or more instructive principles, or lessons, or (sometimes) a normative principle. It differs from a fable in that fables use animals, plants, inanimate objects, and forces of nature as characters, while parables generally feature human characters. It features a short tale that illustrates universal truth, one of the simplest of narratives. It sketches a setting, describes an action, and shows the results. It often involves a character facing a moral dilemma, or making a questionable decision and then suffering the consequences. Though the meaning of a parable is often not explicitly stated, the meaning is not usually intended be hidden or secret but on the contrary quite straightforward and obvious. The defining characteristic of the parable is the presence of a prescriptive subtext suggesting how a person should behave or believe. Aside from providing guidance and suggestions for proper action in life, parables frequently use metaphorical language which allows people to more easily discuss difficult or complex ideas. Parables teach an abstract argument, using a concrete narrative which is more easily grasped.
Parody. A satiric imitation of a work or of an author with the idea of ridiculing the author, his ideas, or work. The parodist exploits the peculiarities of an author's expression--his propensity to use too many parentheses, certain favorite words, or whatever. The parody may also be focused on, say, an improbable plot with too many convenient events. Fielding's Shamela is, in large part, a parody of Richardson's Pamela.
Paradox. A seemingly true statement or group of statements that lead to a contradiction or a situation which seems to defy logic or intuition. The word paradox is often used interchangeably with contradiction. Literary and other artistic uses of paradoxes imply no contradiction and may be used to describe situations that are ironic. Used as a literary a paradox functions as a method of literary analysis which
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involves examining apparently contradictory statements and drawing conclusions either to reconcile them or to explain their presence. Literary or rhetorical paradoxes abound in the works of Oscar Wilde and G. K. Chesterton; other literature deals with paradox of situation. Rabelais, Cervantes, Sterne, and Borges, for instance, are all concerned with episodes and narratives designed around paradoxes. Two of literature's arguably most famous paradoxes are the Miltonic narrator's statement in Book One of 'Paradise Lost', that the fires of hell emit 'no light, but darkness visible.' Statements such as Wilde's "I can resist anything except temptation", Chesterton's "Spies do not look like spies" and Polonius' observation in Hamlet that "though this be madness, yet there is method in't" are examples of rhetorical paradox.
Pastoral. Refers to the lifestyle of pastoralists, such as shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasturage. It also refers to a genre in literature, art or music that depicts such shepherd life in an idealized manner, for urban audiences. As a noun, a pastoral refers to a single work of such art, poetry, music or drama. An alternative word for pastoral as a genre, both in adjectival and noun form, is bucolic.
Pathetic Fallacy. The treatment of inanimate objects as if they had human feelings, thought, or sensations. The pathetic fallacy is a special case of the fallacy of reification. The word 'pathetic' in this use is related to 'pathos' or 'empathy' (capability of feeling), and is not pejorative. In the discussion of literature, the pathetic fallacy is similar to personification. Personification is direct and explicit in the ascription of life and sentience to the thing in question, whereas the pathetic fallacy is much broader and more allusive. "Personification" is a more obtrusive and formal use of human traits attributed to natural objects, according to M. H. Abrams. For example, "the sea is angry at us" would be the pathetic fallacy, but when the sea assumes a human form such as a sea god, that is overt personification.
Persona. The person created by the author to tell a story. Whether the story is told by an omniscient narrator or by a character in it, the actual author of the work often distances himself from what is said or told by adopting a persona--a personality different from his real one. Thus, the attitudes, beliefs, and degree of understanding expressed by the narrator may not be the same as those of the actual author. Some authors, for example, use narrators who are not very bright in order to create irony.
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Personification. Is any attribution of human characteristics (or characteristics assumed to belong only to humans) to animals, non-living things, phenomena, material states, objects or abstract concepts, such as spirits or deities. Examples include animals and plants and forces of nature such as winds, rain or the sun depicted as creatures with human motivations, and/or the abilities to reason and converse. As a literary device, personification or anthropomorphism is strongly associated with art and storytelling where it has ancient roots. Most cultures possess a long-standing fable tradition with anthropomorphized animals as characters that can stand as commonly recognized types of human behavior.
Petrarchan Conceit. The kind of conceit (see above) used by Italian Renaissance poet Petrarch and popular in Renaissance English sonnets. Eyes like stars or the sun, hair like golden wires, lips like cherries, etc. are common examples. Oxymorons are also common, such as freezing fire, burning ice, etc. If you wonder where Shakespeare got the images he criticizes in Sonnet 130 ("My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun), take a look at Petrarch's Sonnet 69, which includes the following lines (these translated by Charles Tomlinson in 1874): "Her golden hair was streaming in the wind," "Her walk was not the step of mortal thing, / But of angelic form," "her accents clear had in their music more than human sound."
Picaresque novel. An episodic, often autobiographical novel about a rogue or picaro (a person of low social status) wandering around and living off his wits. The wandering hero provides the author with the opportunity to connect widely different pieces of plot, since the hero can wander into any situation. Picaresque novels tend to be satiric and filled with petty detail. Examples: Daniel Defoe, Moll Flanders Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote Henry Fielding, Jonathan Wild
Plot. A literary term defined as the events that make up a story, particularly as they relate to one another in a pattern, in a sequence, through cause and effect, or by coincidence. One is generally interested in how well this pattern of events accomplishes some artistic or emotional effect. An intricate, complicated plot is called an imbroglio, but even the simplest statements of plot may include multiple inferences, as in traditional ballads. A plot device is a means of advancing the plot in a story, often used to motivate characters, create agency or resolve a difficulty. This can be contrasted with moving a story forward with narrative technique, that is, by making things happen because characters take action for solid, well-motivated reasons. As an
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example, when the cavalry shows up at the last moment and saves the day, that can be argued to be a plot device; when an adversarial character who has been struggling with himself saves the day due to a change of heart, that is dramatic technique.
Point of View. Narrative point of view in the creative writing of fiction describes the narrator's position in relation to the story being told and determines through whose perspective the story is viewed. The narrator may be a fictive person devised by the author as a stand-alone entity, or a character. The narrator is considered a participant if he is an actual character in the story, and nonparticipant if he is only an implied character, or a sort of omniscient or semi-omniscient being who does not take part in the story but only relates it to the audience. The ability to use the different points of view is one measure of a person's writing skill. In a first-person narrative the story is relayed by a narrator who is also a character within the story, so that the narrator reveals the plot by referring to this viewpoint character as "I" (or, when plural, "we"). Oftentimes, the first-person narrative is used as a way to directly convey the deeply internal, otherwise unspoken thoughts of the narrator. Frequently, the narrator's story revolves around him/herself as the protagonist and allows this protagonist/narrator character's inner thoughts to be conveyed openly to the audience, even if not to any of the other characters. It also allows that character to be further developed through his/her own style in telling the story. First-person narrations may be told like third-person ones, with a person experiencing the story without being aware that they are actually conveying their experiences to an audience; on the other hand, the narrator may be conscious of telling the story to a given audience, perhaps at a given place and time, for a given reason. Probably the rarest mode in literature (though quite common in song lyrics) is the second-person narrative mode, in which the narrator refers to one of the characters as "you", therefore making the audience member feel as if he or she is a character within the story. The second-person narrative mode is often paired with the first-person narrative mode in which the narrator makes emotional comparisons between the thoughts, actions, and feelings of "you" versus "I". Often the narrator is therefore also a character in his or her story, in which case it would technically still be employing the firstperson narrative mode; an example of this form is A Song of Stone by Iain Banks. Perhaps the most prominent example of this mode in contemporary literature is Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City. In this novel, the second-person point of view is intended to create an intense sense of intimacy between the narrator and the reader, causing the reader to feel implicit in and powerless against a plot that leads him, blindly, through his (the readers and the narrators) own destruction and redemption:
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"You are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning. But here you are, and you cannot say the terrain is entirely unfamiliar, although the details are fuzzy. You are at a nightclub talking to a girl with a shaved head. The club is either Heartbreak or the Lizard Lounge. All might become clear if you could just slip into the bathroom and do a little more Bolivian Marching Powder. Then again, it might not. A small voice inside you insists that this epidemic lack of clarity is a result of too much of that already."
Third-person narration provides the greatest flexibility to the author and thus is the most commonly used narrative mode in literature. In the third-person narrative mode, each and every character is referred to by the narrator as "he", "she", "it", or "they", but never as "I" or "we" (first-person), or "you" (second-person). In third-person narrative, it is necessary that the narrator be merely an unspecified entity or uninvolved person that conveys the story, but not a character of any kind within the story being told. Thirdperson singular (he/she) is overwhelmingly the most common type of third-person narrative, although there have been successful uses of the third-person plural (they), as in Maxine Swann's short story Flower Children. Even more common, however, is to see singular and plural used together in one story, at different times, depending upon the number of people being referred to at a given moment in the plot. Sometimes in thirdperson narratives, a character would refer to himself in the third-person e.g., "(Character name) would like to come with you". The third-person modes are usually categorized along two axes. The first is the subjectivity/objectivity axis, with "subjective" narration describing one or more character's feelings and thoughts, while "objective" narration does not describe the feelings or thoughts of any characters. The second axis is between "omniscient" and "limited", a distinction that refers to the knowledge available to the narrator. An omniscient narrator has omniscient knowledge of time, people, places and events; a limited narrator, in contrast, may know absolutely everything about a single character and every piece of knowledge in that character's mind, but it is "limited" to that characterthat is, it cannot describe things unknown to the focal character. Portmanteau Word. A blend of two (or more) words or morphemes into one new word. A portmanteau word typically combines both sounds and meanings, as in smog, coined by blending smoke and fog. More generally, it may refer to any term or phrase that combines two or more meanings. Examples include; brunch (breakfast + lunch); the newly independent African republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar chose the portmanteau word Tanzania as its name; Wikipedia combines the word "wiki" with the word "encyclopedia". Portmanteau words may be produced by joining together proper nouns with common nouns, such as gerrymandering, which refers to the scheme of Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry for politically contrived redistricting; one of the
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districts created resembled a salamander in outline. Bardolatry, a portmanteau of "the bard" and "idolatry," means excessive worship of William Shakespeare and his works. Some city names are portmanteaux of the regions they straddle: Texarkana spreads across the Texas-Arkansas-Louisiana border, while Calexico and Mexicali are respectively the American and Mexican sides of a single conurbation.
Pseudonym. A "false name" or alias used by a writer desiring not to use his or her real name. Sometimes called a nom de plume or "pen name," pseudonyms have been popular for several reasons. First, political realities might make it dangerous for the real author to admit to a work. Beatings, imprisonment, and even execution are not unheard of for authors of unpopular works. Second, an author might have a certain type of work associated with a certain name, so that different names are used for different kinds of work. One pen name might be used for westerns, while another name would be used for science fiction. Lastly, an author might choose a literary name that sounds more impressive or that will garner more respect than the author's real name. Examples: Samuel Clemens used the name Mark Twain Mary Ann Evans used the name George Eliot Jonathan Swift used the name Lemuel Gulliver (once)
Pulp fiction. Novels written for the mass market, intended to be "a good read,"--often exciting, titillating, thrilling. Historically they have been very popular but critically sneered at as being of sub-literary quality. The earliest ones were the dime novels of the nineteenth century, printed on newsprint (hence "pulp" fiction) and sold for ten cents. Westerns, stories of adventure, even the Horatio Alger novels, all were forms of pulp fiction.
Pun. A form of word play which suggests two or more meanings, by exploiting multiple meanings of words, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use and abuse of homophonic, homographic, metonymic, or metaphorical language. A pun differs from a malapropism in that a malapropism uses an incorrect expression that alludes to another (usually correct) expression, but a pun uses a correct expression that alludes to another (sometimes correct but more often absurdly humorous) expression. Henri Bergson defined a pun as a sentence or utterance in which "two different sets of ideas are expressed, and we are confronted with only one series of words". Puns may be regarded as in-jokes or idiomatic constructions, given that their usage and meaning are entirely local to a particular language and its culture. For example, camping is intense
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(in tents). Puns are used to create humor and sometimes require a large vocabulary to understand. Puns have long been used by comedy writers, such as William Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, and George Carlin. The Roman playwright Plautus is famous for his tendency to make up and change the meaning of words to create puns in Latin.
Regional novel. A novel faithful to a particular geographic region and its people, including behavior, customs, speech, and history. Examples: Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird Thomas Hardy, Return of the Native
Rhyme. The similarity between syllable sounds at the end of two or more lines. Some kinds of rhyme (also spelled rime) include: Couplet: a pair of lines rhyming consecutively: "These lines make up a couplet with a rhyme. / Just don't expect the lines to be sublime." Eye rhyme: words whose spellings would lead one to think that they rhymed (slough, tough, cough, bough, though, hiccough. Or: love, move, prove. Or: daughter, laughter.) Feminine rhyme: two syllable rhyme consisting of stressed syllable followed by unstressed. Masculine rhyme: similarity between terminally stressed syllables.
Rhyme Scheme. The pattern of rhyme between lines of a poem or song. It is usually referred to by using letters to indicate which lines rhyme. In other words, it is the pattern of end rhymes or lines. A rhyme scheme gives the scheme of the rhyme; a regular pattern of rhyming words in a poem (the end words).
Bid me to weep, and I will weep While I have eyes to see; And having none, and yet I will keep A heart to weep for thee. A B A B
There are many different such forms, each with its own associations and resonances to cause a particular effect on the reader. A basic distinction is between rhyme schemes that apply to a single stanza, and those that continue their pattern throughout an entire poem (see chain rhyme). There are also more elaborate related forms, like the sestina which requires repetition of exact words in a complex pattern. In English, highly repetitive rhyme schemes are unusual. English has more vowel sounds than Italian, for example, meaning that such a scheme would be far more restrictive for an English writer than an Italian one - there are fewer suitable words to match a given pattern.
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Even such schemes as the terza rima ("aba bcb cdc ded..."), used by Dante Alighieri in The Divine Comedy, have been considered too difficult for English. Hip-hop music and rappings rhyme schemes include traditional schemes such as couplets, as well as forms specific to the genre, which are broken down extensively in the books How to Rap and Book of Rhymes. Couplets are the most common type of rhyme scheme in old school rap and are still regularly used, though complex rhyme schemes have progressively become more frequent. Rather than relying on end rhymes, raps rhyme schemes can have rhymes placed anywhere in the bars of music to create a structure. There can also be numerous rhyming elements which all work together in the same scheme - this is called internal rhyme in traditional poetry, though as rap's rhymes schemes can be anywhere in the bar, they could all be internal, so the term is not always used. Rap verses can also employ 'extra rhymes', which do not structure the verse like the main rhyme schemes, but which add to the overall sound of the verse.
Rhythm. A "movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions." This general meaning of regular recurrence or pattern in time may be applied to a wide variety of cyclical natural phenomena having a periodicity or frequency of anything from microseconds to millions of years. In the performance arts rhythm is the timing of events on a human scale; of musical sounds and silences, of the steps of a dance, or the meter of spoken language and poetry. Rhythm may also refer to visual presentation, as "timed movement through space" and a common language of pattern unites rhythm with geometry. Rhythm is marked by the regulated succession of opposite elements, the dynamics of the strong and weak beat, the played beat and the inaudible but implied rest beat, the long and short note. As well as perceiving rhythm we must be able to anticipate it. This depends upon repetition of a pattern that is short enough to memorize. The alternation of the strong and weak beat is fundamental to the ancient language of poetry, dance and music. The common poetic term "foot" refers, as in dance, to the lifting and tapping of the foot in time. In a similar way musicians speak of an upbeat and a downbeat and of the "on" and "off" beat. A rhythm that accents another beat and de-emphasises the down beat as established or assumed from the melody or from a preceding rhythm is called syncopated rhythm. The foot is the basic metrical unit that generates a line of verse in most Western traditions of poetry, including English accentual-syllabic verse and the quantitative meter of classical ancient Greek and Latin poetry. The unit is composed of syllables, the
Literary Elements
number of which is limited, with a few variations, by the sound pattern the foot represents. The most common feet in English are the iamb, trochee, dactyl, and anapest. The foot might be compared to a measure in musical notation. The foot is a purely metrical unit; there is no inherent relation to a word or phrase as a unit of meaning or syntax, though the interplay among these is an aspect of the individual poet's skill and artistry.
Ridicule. Words intended to belittle a person or idea and arouse contemptuous laughter. The goal is to condemn or criticize by making the thing, idea, or person seem laughable and ridiculous. It is one of the most powerful methods of criticism, partly because it cannot be satisfactorily answered ("Who can refute a sneer?") and partly because many people who fear nothing else--not the law, not society, not even God-fear being laughed at. (The fear of being laughed at is one of the most inhibiting forces in western civilization. It provides much of the power behind the adolescent flock urge and accounts for many of the barriers to change and adventure in the adult world.) Ridicule is, not surprisingly, a common weapon of the satirist.
Roman a Clef. [French for "novel with a key," pronounced roh MAHN ah CLAY] A novel in which historical events and actual people are written about under the pretense of being fiction. Examples: Aphra Behn, Love Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
Sarcasm. A form of sneering criticism in which disapproval is often expressed as ironic praise. (Oddly enough, sarcastic remarks are often used between friends, perhaps as a somewhat perverse demonstration of the strength of the bond--only a good friend could say this without hurting the other's feelings, or at least without excessively damaging the relationship, since feelings are often hurt in spite of a close relationship. If you drop your lunch tray and a stranger says, "Well, that was really intelligent," that's sarcasm. If your girlfriend or boyfriend says it, that's love--I think.)
Satire. A literary mode based on criticism of people and society through ridicule. The satirist aims to reduce the practices attacked by laughing scornfully at them--and being witty enough to allow the reader to laugh, also. Ridicule, irony, exaggeration, and several other techniques are almost always present. The satirist may insert serious statements of value or desired behavior, but most often he relies on an implicit moral code, understood by his audience and paid lip service by them. The satirist's goal is to
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point out the hypocrisy of his target in the hope that either the target or the audience will return to a real following of the code. Thus, satire is inescapably moral even when no explicit values are promoted in the work, for the satirist works within the framework of a widely spread value system. Many of the techniques of satire are devices of comparison, to show the similarity or contrast between two things. A list of incongruous items, an oxymoron, metaphors, and so forth are examples.
Sequel. A novel incorporating the same characters and often the same setting as a previous novel. Sometimes the events and situations involve a continuation of the previous novel and sometimes only the characters are the same and the events are entirely unrelated to the previous novel. When sequels result from the popularity of an original, they are often hastily written and not of the same quality as the original. Occasionally a sequel is written by an author different from that of the original novel. See series. Examples: Mark Twain, Adventures of Tom Sawyer Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer Abroad Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer Detective Margaret Mitchell, Gone With the Wind Alexandra Ripley, Scarlett
Series. Several novels related to each other, by plot, setting, character, or all three. Book marketers like to refer to multi-volume novels as sagas. Examples: Anthony Trollope, Barsetshire novels C. S. Lewis, Chronicles of Narnia novels L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea novels James Fenimore Cooper, The Leatherstocking Tales
Setting. The total environment for the action of a fictional work. Setting includes time period (such as the 1890's), the place (such as downtown Warsaw), the historical milieu (such as during the Crimean War), as well as the social, political, and perhaps even spiritual realities. The setting is usually established primarily through description, though narration is used also. Some novels include frames that supply an extended description of the setting (where a character is looking back to an earlier era, an "editor" is describing the characters or the context of the tale).
Simile. A figure of speech that directly compares two different things, usually by employing the words "like", "as", or "than".[1] Even though both similes and metaphors
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are forms of comparison, similes indirectly compare the two ideas and allow them to remain distinct in spite of their similarities, whereas metaphors compare two things directly. For instance, a simile that compares a person with a bullet would go as follows: "Chris was a record-setting runner as fast as a speeding bullet." A metaphor might read something like, "When Chris ran, he was a speeding bullet racing along the track."
Slant rhyme. Half rhyme or slant rhyme, sometimes called sprung, near rhyme, oblique rhyme, off rhyme or imperfect rhyme, is consonance on the final consonants of the words involved (e.g. ill with shell). Half/slant rhyme is widely used in Irish, Scottish, Welsh, and Icelandic verse. Half/slant rhyme has been found in English-language poetry as early as Henry Vaughan, but it was not until the works of W. B. Yeats and Gerard Manley Hopkins that it found wide use among English-language poets. In the 20th century half/slant rhyme has been used widely by English poets. Often, as in most of Yeats' poems, it is mixed with other devices such as regular rhymes, assonance, and pararhymes. In the following example the 'rhymes' are on/moon and bodies/ladies:
When have I last looked on The round green eyes and the long wavering bodies Of the dark leopards of the moon? All the wild witches, those most noble ladies, (Yeats, "Lines written in Dejection")
American poet Emily Dickinson also used half/slant rhyme frequently in her works. In her poem "Hope is the thing with feathers" the half/slant rhyme appears in the second and fourth lines. In the following example the 'rhyme' is soul/all.
Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words, And never stops at all.
Sonnet. A fourteen line poem, usually in iambic pentameter, with a varied rhyme scheme. (See Foot and Versification for explanations of iambic pentameter.) The two main types of sonnet are the Petrarchan (or Italian) and the Shakespearean. The Petrarchan Sonnet is divided into two main sections, the octave (first eight lines) and the sestet (last six lines). The octave presents a problem or situation which is then resolved or commented on in the sestet. The most common rhyme scheme is A-B-B-A AB-B-A C-D-E C-D-E, though there is flexibility in the sestet, such as C-D-C D-C-D. The Shakespearean Sonnet, (perfected though not invented by Shakespeare), contains three quatrains and a couplet, with more rhymes (because of the greater difficulty
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finding rhymes in English). The most common rhyme scheme is A-B-A-B C-D-C-D E-F-E-F G-G. In Shakespeare, the couplet often undercuts the thought created in the rest of the poem.
Spenserian Stanza. A nine-line stanza, with the first eight lines in iambic pentameter and the last line in iambic hexameter (called an Alexandrine). The rhyme scheme is A-B-A-B B-C-B-C C. Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene is written in Spenserian stanzas.
Spoonerism. an error in speech or deliberate play on words in which corresponding consonants, vowels, or morphemes are switched (see metathesis). It is named after the Reverend William Archibald Spooner (18441930), Warden of New College, Oxford, who was notoriously prone to this tendency. A spoonerism is also known as a marrowsky, after a Polish count who suffered from the same impediment.[3] While spoonerisms are commonly heard as slips of the tongue resulting from unintentionally getting one's words in a tangle, they can also be used intentionally as a play on words. In some cultures, spoonerisms are used as a rhyme form used in poetry, such as German Schttelreime. In French, "contrepterie" is a national sport, the subject of entire books and a weekly section of Le Canard enchan. Spoonerisms are commonly used intentionally in humor. Examples include:
"Three cheers for our queer old dean!" (dear old queen, referring to Queen Victoria) "Is it kisstomary to cuss the bride?" (customary to kiss) "The Lord is a shoving leopard." (a loving shepherd) "A blushing crow." (crushing blow) "A well-boiled icicle" (well-oiled bicycle) "You were fighting a liar in the quadrangle." (lighting a fire) "Is the bean dizzy?" (dean busy) "Someone is occupewing my pie. Please sew me to another sheet." (occupying my pew...show me to another seat) "A nosey little cook." (cozy little nook).
Stanza. A unit within a larger poem. In modern poetry, the term is often equivalent with strophe; in popular vocal music, a stanza is typically referred to as a "verse" (distinct from the refrain, or "chorus"). A stanza consists of a grouping of lines, set off by a space, that usually has a set pattern of meter and rhyme. In traditional English-language poems, stanzas can be identified and grouped together because they share a rhyme scheme or a fixed number of lines (as in distich/couplet, tercet, quatrain, cinquain/quintain, sestet). In much modern poetry, stanzas may be arbitrarily presented on the printed page because of publishing conventions that employ such features as white space or punctuation.
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Stream of Consciousness. A narrative mode that seeks to portray an individual's point of view by giving the written equivalent of the character's thought processes, either in a loose interior monologue, or in connection to his or her actions. Stream-of-consciousness writing is usually regarded as a special form of interior monologue and is characterized by associative leaps in syntax and punctuation that can make the prose difficult to follow. Stream of consciousness and interior monologue are distinguished from dramatic monologue, where the speaker is addressing an audience or a third person, which is used chiefly in poetry or drama. In stream of consciousness, the speaker's thought processes are more often depicted as overheard in the mind (or addressed to oneself); it is primarily a fictional device. The term was introduced to the field of literary studies from that of psychology, where it was coined by philosopher and psychologist William James. Stream of consciousness, the continuous flow of senseperceptions, thoughts, feelings, and memories in the human mind; or a literary method of representing such a blending of mental processes in fictional characters, usually in an unpunctuated or disjointed form of interior monologue. The term is often used as a synonym for interior monologue, but they can also be distinguished, in two ways. In the first (psychological) sense, the stream of consciousness is the subjectmatter while interior monologue is the technique for presenting it; thus Marcel Proust's novel A la recherche du temps perdu (191327) is about the stream of consciousness, especially the connection between sense impressions and memory, but it does not actually use interior monologue. In the second (literary) sense, stream of consciousness is a special style of interior monologue: while an interior monologue always presents a character's thoughts directly, without the apparent intervention of a summarizing and selecting narrator, it does not necessarily mingle them with impressions and perceptions, nor does it necessarily violate the norms of grammar, syntax, and logic; but the streamofconsciousness technique also does one or both of these things. An important device of modernist fiction and its later imitators, the technique was pioneered by Dorothy Richardson in Pilgrimage (191535) and by James Joyce in Ulysses (1922), and further developed by Virginia Woolf in Mrs. Dalloway (1925) and William Faulkner in The Sound and the Fury (1928).
Style. The manner of expression of a particular writer, produced by choice of words, grammatical structures, use of literary devices, and all the possible parts of language use. Some general styles might include scientific, ornate, plain, and emotive. Most writers have their own particular styles.
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Subplot. A subordinate or minor collection of events in a novel or drama. Most subplots have some connection with the main plot, acting as foils to, commentary on, complications of, or support to the theme of, the main plot. Sometimes two opening subplots merge into a main plot.
Symbol. Something that on the surface is its literal self but which also has another meaning or even several meanings. For example, a sword may be a sword and also symbolize justice. A symbol may be said to embody an idea. There are two general types of symbols: universal symbols that embody universally recognizable meanings wherever used, such as light to symbolize knowledge, a skull to symbolize death, etc., and constructed symbols that are given symbolic meaning by the way an author uses them in a literary work, as the white whale becomes a symbol of evil in Moby Dick.
Synecdoche. A figure of speech in which a term is used in one of the following ways: Part of something is used to refer to the whole thing (pars pro toto), or A thing (a "whole") is used to refer to part of it (totum pro parte), or A specific class of thing is used to refer to a larger, more general class, or A general class of thing is used to refer to a smaller, more specific class, or A material is used to refer to an object composed of that material, or A container is used to refer to its contents. The use of synecdoche is a common way to emphasize an important aspect of a fictional character; for example, a character might be consistently described by a single body part, such as the eyes, which come to represent the character. This is often used when the main character does not know or care about the names of the characters that he is referring to. An example of this would be the X-Files character Cigarette-Smoking Man. Also, sonnets and other forms of love poetry frequently use synecdoches to characterize the beloved in terms of individual body parts rather than a whole, coherent self. This practice is especially common in the Petrarchan sonnet, where the idealized beloved is often described part by part, from head to toe. Examples include: A part referring to the whole Prominently used in slang and vulgar speech, where a person's home is referred to as their "crib" or the entire person is referred to by their genitalia. Referring to people according to a single characteristic: "the gray beard" representing an older man or "the long hair" representing a hippie. Describing a complete vehicle as "wheels" Calling workers "hands", e.g. Many hands make light work; All hands on deck!
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Before and during the Cold War, the Soviet Union was commonly referred to by its largest and most well-known member, Russia. Use of the names England (only one of the four constituent nations) or Great Britain (the geographical name of the main island) to mean the entire United Kingdom. Use of Holland, a region of the Netherlands, to refer to the entire country. The name for a whole when used to describe one part of it In the United States, terms like "United States", "(the Commonwealth of) Virginia" or "(the) People (of the State of California)" are used in court trials when the plaintiff, prosecutor or defendant is a government entity, such as in Loving v. Virginia. A general class name used to denote a specific member of that or an associated class "the good book," or "The Book" for the Bible "truck" for any four-wheel drive vehicle (as well as long-haul trailers, etc.) "He's good people." [Here, the word "people" is used to denote a specific instance of people, i.e. a person. So the sentence would be interpreted as "He's a good person.") A specific class name used to refer to a general set of associated things "John Hancock" for the signature of any person a generalized trademark, for example "Coke" for any variety of cola or "BandAid" for any variety of adhesive bandage "bug" for any kind of insect or arachnid, even if it is not a true bug The material that a thing is (actually, historically, or supposedly) made of referring to that thing "glasses" for spectacles "steel" for a sword "tin" for a container made with tin plating "willow" for a cricket bat or "pigskin" for an American or Canadian football "wood" for a type of club used in the sport of golf "irons" for shackles placed around a prisoner's wrists or ankles to restrict their movement "plastic" for a credit card (asking a merchant) Do you take plastic? "lead" for bullets (e.g. They pumped him full of lead.) "silver" for flatware or other dishes that were once made of silver metal "rubber" for a condom "threads" for clothing Yo, check out my new threads! A container is used to refer to its contents "barrel" for a barrel of oil "keg" for a keg of beer
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Synesthesia. A cross-sensory metaphor (e.g., "loud shirt," "bitter wind" or "prickly laugh")
Syntax. The rules and principles that govern the sentence structure of any individual language.
Theme. A broad idea, message, or moral of a story. The message may be about life, society, or human nature. Themes often explore timeless and universal ideas and are almost always implied rather than stated explicitly. Along with plot, character, setting, and style, theme is considered one of the fundamental components of fiction. Another approach to literature stresses that idea, message, and moral are abstractions and that fiction makes the idea concrete through action. In this view many themes exist in any given story but that what gives a story unity is one action of the human condition that is rendered through the various actions of the characters in the story. Thematic patterning is "the distribution of recurrent thematic concepts and moralistic motifs among the various incidents and. Thematic patterning may be arranged so as to emphasize the unifying argument or salient idea which disparate events and disparate frames have in common". This technique also dates back to the One Thousand and One Nights.
Tone. The writer's attitude toward his readers and his subject; his mood or moral view. A writer can be formal, informal, playful, ironic, and especially, optimistic or pessimistic. While both Swift and Pope are satirizing much the same subjects, there is a profound difference in their tone.
Tragedy. A form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of Western civilization. From its obscure origins in the theatres of Athens 2,500 years ago, from which there survives only a fraction of the work of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, through its singular articulations in the works of Shakespeare, Lope de Vega, Racine, and Schiller, to the more recent naturalistic tragedy of Strindberg, Beckett's modernist meditations on death, loss and suffering, and Mller's postmodernist reworkings of the tragic canon, tragedy has remained an important site of cultural experimentation, negotiation, struggle, and change. A long line of philosopherswhich includes Plato, Aristotle, Saint Augustine, Voltaire, Hume, Diderot, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Freud, Benjamin, Camus, Lacan, and Deleuzehave analyzed, speculated upon, and criticized the tragic form. In the wake of Aristotle's Poetics (335 BCE), tragedy has been used to make genre
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distinctions, whether at the scale of poetry in general (where the tragic divides against epic and lyric) or at the scale of the drama (where tragedy is opposed to comedy). In the modern era, tragedy has also been defined against drama, melodrama, the tragicomic, and epic theatre.
Travesty. A work that treats a serious subject frivolously-- ridiculing the dignified. Often the tone is mock serious and heavy handed.
Understatement. A form of speech which contains an expression of less strength than what would be expected. This is not to be confused with euphemism, where a polite phrase is used in place of a harsher or more offensive expression. Understatement is a staple of humor in English-speaking cultures, especially in British humor. For example, in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, a suburban dinner party is invaded by Death, who wears a long black cloak and carries a scythe. He is the Grim Reaper; the party is over; the guests must all go with him. "Well," says one party guest, "that's cast rather a gloom over the evening, hasn't it?" In another scene, an Army officer has just lost his leg. When asked how he feels, he looks down at his bloody stump and responds, "Stings a bit."
Utopian novel. A novel that presents an ideal society where the problems of poverty, greed, crime, and so forth have been eliminated. Examples: Thomas More, Utopia Samuel Butler, Erewhon Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward Verisimilitude. How fully the characters and actions in a work of fiction conform to our sense of reality. To say that a work has a high degree of verisimilitude means that the work is very realistic and believable--it is "true to life."
Verse. Formally a single line in a metrical composition, e.g. poetry. However, the word has come to represent any division or grouping of words in such a composition, which traditionally had been referred to as a stanza. The word "verse" is commonly used in lieu of "poetry" to distinguish it from prose. Where the common unit of poetry, i.e., verse, is based on meter or rhyme, the common unit of prose is purely grammatical, such as a sentence or paragraph.
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Rhymed verse is the most commonly used form of verse and generally has a discernible meter and an end rhyme. Example:
I wandered lonely as a cloud: That floats on high o'er vales and hills When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. -William Wordsworth
Blank verse is generally identified by a regular meter, but no end rhyme. Example:
In Mathematics, Woman leads the way: The narrow-minded pedant still believes That two and two make four! Why, we can prove, We women-household drudges as we areThat two and two make five-or three-or seven; Or five-and-twenty, if the case demands! -from Princess Ida
Free verse is usually defined as having no fixed meter and no end rhyme. Although free verse may include end rhyme, it commonly does not. Example:
I remember the days of dreamings, From where in the world so much knowledges, And thoughts of wonderful and funs. But however life walks ahead, And ideas are unavailing aloud, When around so many flies. Concealed after the masks of sorrow. As though all of us knew it And we read many books, At life and lives to our, And in a head as though by porridge, the ideas of illness Convolved to our. Now, we are free on age, And not closing age, you Remain man by itself, not think about plennosti to it, Go freedom rather. Partake the fruit of freedom rather, -Chobotov Alexei
Versification. Generally, the structural form of a verse, as revealed by scansion. Identification of verse structure includes the name of the metrical type and the name designating number of feet:
Literary Elements
Monometer: 1 foot Dimeter: 2 feet Trimeter: 3 feet Tetrameter: 4 feet Pentameter: 5 feet Hexameter: 6 feet Heptameter: 7 feet Octameter: 8 feet Nonameter: 9 feet The most common verse in English poetry is iambic pentameter. See foot for more information.
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Cacophony. Harsh, discordant sounds. Opposite of euphony.

Connotation. An implied meaning of a word. Opposite of denotation.

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Euphony. Soothing pleasant sounds. Opposite of cacophony.

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