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Lit Vocab I-O
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Iambic meter | consists of one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable; most common metrical foot in English poetry |
| Iambic pentameter | a metrical pattern in poetry which consists of five iambic feet per line |
| Idyll | a short descriptive narrative, usually a poem, about an idealized country life; a pastoral |
| Image | a word, phrase, or figure of speech (simile or metaphor) that addresses the senses, suggesting mental pictures of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, feelings, or actions; offer sensory impressions to reader and convey emotions and moods |
| Implied metaphor | more subtle comparison; the terms being compared are not so specifically explained and can slip past inattentive readers who are not sensitive to such carefully chosen, highly concentrated language |
| In medias res | used to describe the common strategy of beginning a story in the middle of the action; enter the story on the verge of some important moment |
| Informal diction | plain language of everyday use, and often includes idiomatic expressions, slang, contractions, and many, simple, common words |
| Internal rhyme | places at least one of the rhymed words within the line; "Dividing and gliding and sliding" or "in mist or cloud, on mast or shroud" |
| Irony | a literary device that uses contradictory statements or situations to reveal a reality different from what appears to be true |
| Italian sonnet | (Petrarchan) divided into an octave which typically rhymes abbaabba and a sestet which may have varying rhyme schemes like cdecde, cdcdcd, or cdccdc; octave presents a situation, attitude, or problem that the sestet comments upon or resolves |
| Limerick | a light, humorous style of fixed form poetry; usual form consists of five lines with the rhymes scheme aabba where a = 3 feet and b = 2 feet; silly and obscene content popularized by Edward Lear |
| Limited omniscience | when an author restricts a narrator to the single perspective of either a major or minor character |
| Line | a sequence of words printed as a separate entity on the page; measured by the number of feet they contain |
| Literary ballad | a narrative poem that is written in deliberate imitation of the language, form, and spirit of the traditional ballad; Keats' "La Belle Dame sans Merci" |
| Literary symbol | object, person, situation, or action that has a literal meaning in a story but suggests or represents other meanings |
| Low comedy | associated with physical action and is less intellectual |
| Lyric | a type of brief poem that expresses the personal emotions and thoughts of a single speaker; although the lyric is in first person, the speaker is not necessarily the poet |
| Marxist criticism | approach to literature that focuses on the ideological content of a work, its explicit and implicit assumptions and values about matters such as culture, race, class, and power |
| Masculine rhyme | the rhyming of single-syllable words (grade or shade); occurs where rhyming words of more than one syllable, when the same sound occurs in a final stressed syllable (defend and contend) |
| Melodrama | any literary work that relies on implausible events and sensational action for its effect; conflict arises from plot rather than characterization and focuses on justice |
| Metaphor | a figure of speech that makes a comparison between two unlike things, without using the word "like" or "as" |
| Meter | when a rhythmic pattern of stresses recurs in a poem; determined by the type and number of feet in a line of verse |
| Metonymy | metaphor in which something closely associated with a subject is substituted for it; i.e. "silver screen," "the crown," "The White House" |
| Middle diction | maintains correct language usage, but is less elevated than formal diction; reflects the way most educated people speak |
| Motivated action | occurs when the reader or audience is offered reasons for how the characters behave, what they say, and the decisions they make |
| Mythological criticism | approach to literature that seeks to identify what in a work creates deep universal responses in readers, by paying close attention to the hopes, fears, and expectations of entire cultures |
| Naive narrator | usually characterized by youthful innocence, such as Mark Twain's Huck Finn or J.D. Salinger's Holden Caulfield |
| Narrative poem | a poem that tells a story; short or long, and the story it relates may be simple or complex |
| Narrator | voice of the person telling the story, not to be confused with the author's voice |
| Near rhyme | sounds are almost but not exactly alike (off rhyme, slant rhyme, approximate rhyme) |
| Neutral omniscience | narration that allows the characters' actions and thoughts to speak for themselves; most modern writers use this |
| New criticism | approach to literature made popular between the 1940s and the 1960s that suggests that detailed analysis of the language of a literary text can uncover important layers of meaning in that work; consciously downplays historical influences |
| New historicism | approach to literature that emphasizes the interaction between the historic context of the work and a modern reader's understanding and interpretation of the work |
| Objective point of view | employs a third-person narrator who does not see into the mind of any character; narrator reports action and dialogue without telling us directly what the characters think and feel |
| Octave | a poetic stanza of eight lines, usually forming one part of a sonnet |
| Ode | a relatively lengthy lyric poem that often expresses lofty emotions in a dignified style; characterized by a serious topic |
| Oedipus complex | a Freudian term derived from Sophocles' tragedy Oedipus the King; describes a psychological complex that is predicated on a boy's unconscious rivalry with his father for his mother's love and his desire to eliminate his father |
| Off rhyme | near rhyme |
| Omniscient narrator | an all-knowing narrator who is not a character in the story and who can move from place to place and pass back and forth through time, slipping into and out of characters |
| One-act play | a play that takes place in a single location and unfolds as one continuous action; characters presented economically and action sharply focused |
| Onomatopoeia | referring to the use of a word that resembles the sound it denotes |
| Open form | sometimes called "free verse"; does not conform to established patterns of meter, rhyme, and stanza and derives its rhythmic qualities from the repetition of words, phrases, or grammatical structures i.e. E.E. Cummings |
| Organic form | refers to works whose formal characteristics are not rigidly predetermined but follow the movement of thought or emotion being expressed |
| Overstatement | boldly exaggerated statement that adds emphasis without intending to be literally true; used for serious, comic, or ironic effect |
| Oxymoron | a condensed form of paradox in which two contradictory words are used together, Paradox A statement that initially appears to be contradictory but then turns out to make sense |
Created by:
cramdel37
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