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Lit &Critical terms
Glossary of Literary and Critical Terms
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Allegory | A narrative in which abstract concepts are represented as something concrete, typically major elements in the story, such as characters, objects, actions, or events |
| Allegory | It possesses two parallel levels of meaning and understanding: a literal level, where a surface level story is recounted, and a symbolic level, which addresses abstract ideas |
| Allegory | They are often considered extended metaphors: the surface level story helps to convey moral, religious, political, or philosophical ideas |
| Alliteration | The repetition of the same sounds in initial consonants or stressed syllables in a sequence of words |
| Allusion | An indirect reference in a literary text to a well-known person or place, or to an historical, political, or cultural event; can also be to a literary, religious, or mythological text |
| Allusion | An indirect reference that is not usually identified, as it is assumed the reader will make the connection |
| Anapestic (anapest) | A common metrical unit of poetry consisting of two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable |
| Antagonist | The most significant character or force that opposes the protagonist in a narrative |
| Apostrophe | A figure of speech wherein a thing, place, abstract idea, dead or absent person is addressed directly as if present and capable of understanding and responding |
| Aside | A short remark or speech that tends to reveal insight into plot, character, or emotion |
| Assonance | The repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds in a sequence of words that usually occurs in the stressed syllables and the vowel sound is followed by different consonant sounds |
| Assonance | The effect is thought to be euphony |
| Ballad | A poem that recounts a story, usually a single episode, that was originally intended to be sung |
| Ballad | A poem that feature simple language, dramatic action, and frequently, but not always, a tragic ending |
| Blank verse | Lines of unrhymed verse, almost always in iambic pentameter |
| Blank verse | It is the meter that most closely resembles the natural patterns of English speech |
| Character | A fictional or imagined person in a narrative or literary text |
| Characterization | How an author uses description, action, dialogue, and emotion to convey the complexities of a character |
| Colonial period | A period in American literature beginning with the founding of the English settlement in Jamestown, Virginia and lasting until the passing of the Stamp Act in 1765 |
| Colonial period | Literature of this period was therefore often historical, religious, or didactic |
| Colonial period | Writings of this period were primarily in genres such as tracts, polemics, journals, narratives, sermons, and some poetry |
| Comedy | In a dramatic context, it usually involves a movement from unhappiness to happiness and often relates to themes of regeneration, renewal, and human triumph over chance |
| Comedy of manners | A high form that is usually about love, that relies on intellectual and is meant to appeal to a "cultivated" audience |
| Comedy of manners | It is often associated with Restoration drama, and the setting is frequently aristocratic or high society |
| Commedia dell arte | It is “Comedy of the professional actors” |
| commedia dell arte | A form which emerged in Italy in the mid-sixteenth century that usually involved love intrigues, stock characters, and a mostly improvised dialogue surrounding a scenario |
| Conflict | The struggle between two forces in a literary work that constitutes the foundation of plot, or the arrangement of events, actions, and situations in a narrative work |
| Convention | a character, plot, device, image, theme, or motif used frequently in literature |
| Convention | an unrealistic device, such as an aside, that an audience or reading public has agreed to tolerate |
| Couplet | A grouping of two rhymed verse lines typically with a common metrical pattern or line length |
| Dactylic (dactyl) | A common metrical unit of poetry consisting of a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables Decadence |
| Deconstruction | A close reading of a text that aims to demonstrate that a literary text is not a unified or logical whole, but is instead a text of many irreconcilable and contradictory readings |
| Deconstruction | It shows how conflicting elements undermine a seemingly unified structure and meaning and conveys that there is an unlimited number of interpretations |
| Dénouement | Also referred to as resolution |
| Dénouement | This follows the climax of a narrative and is usually the final scene in a play or the final chapter or section in a narrative or novel |
| Dénouement | French for "unknotting" |
| Dénouement | is the final untying or clearing up a plot where its mysteries, confusions, or uncertainties are resolved |
| Deus ex Machina | Latin for "god out of a machine" |
| Deus ex Machina | The practice in Greek drama of a god descending into the play from a crane-like machine in order to solve a problem in the plot and thus enable the play to end |
| Deus ex Machina | An unexpected, contrived, or improbable ending or solution in a literary text |
| Dialogue | the representation of spoken exchanges between or among characters |
| Dialogue | A literary work where characters discuss or debate a particular subject |
| Diction | The author's choice of words or vocabulary in a literary work |
| Diction | A performer's manner or style of speaking, including phrasing and punctuation |
| Dimeter | A line of poetry consisting of two metrical units, or feet |
| Elegy | In Greek and Roman times, these were poems that used elegiac meter (alternating hexameter and pentameter lines) |
| Elegy | a term referring to poems lamenting the loss of someone or something |
| Elegy | poem of mourning, loss, and lament and are often, but not always, about love |
| English sonnet | has three quatrains (4 lines) and a concluding couplet (two lines) with an abab cdcd efef gg rhyme scheme |
| Spenserian sonnet | has three quatrains (4 lines) and a concluding couplet (two lines) with a variant rhyme scheme of abab bcbc cdcd ee |
| English sonnet | the sestets describe a problem or situation that is repeated in each sestet with some variation; the remaining couplet offers a summary, usually with a turn of thought |
| Enjambement | French for "striding over" |
| Enjambement | occurs when the sense and/or grammatical structure of a sentence moves from one verse line to the next without a punctuated pause |
| Epiphany | a moment of insight, discovery, revelation, or understanding that alters a character's life in a meaningful way |
| Epic | A long, formal narrative poem with elevated style |
| Epic | A poem that narrates a story of national importance based on the life and actions of a hero |
| Epistolary novel | A novel, or extended piece of fictional prose, told through the characters’ writing and exchange of letters |
| Essay | A short, written prose composition that discusses a subject or proposes an argument without claiming to be an exhaustive or complete study of the subject |
| Farce | A form of low comedy that relies upon exaggerated character and physical action and unpredictable or improbable plot situations |
| Farce | aims at entertaining, often with elements of panic, surprise, and cruelty |
| Figurative language | uses figures of speech such as metaphor, simile, and alliteration |
| Flashback | A scene used to show events that occur before the opening scene |
| Flashback | used to provide insight into or background about events, settings, characters, or context and can take the form of a character's dreams, remembrances, or reflections or a narrator's comments |
| Flashback | Also called analepsis |
| Flat character | typically a minor character with a single outstanding trait and is often based on a stock character, or a common, stereotypical character |
| Foil | A character whose qualities or actions are in stark contrast with those of another character, usually the protagonist |
| Foil | a character that often used to convey or develop the protagonist's character |
| Foot (feet) | A unit of rhythm, created by one or more stressed syllables combined with one or more unstressed syllables, that makes up a line of poetry |
| Iamb(Iambic) | a foot of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable (da, da') |
| trochee (trochaic) | a foot of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable (da', da) |
| dactyl (dactylic) | a foot of a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables (da', da, da) |
| anapest (anapestic) | a foot of two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable (da, da, da') |
| spondee (spondaic) | a foot of two successive syllables that are equally or almost equally stressed (da', da') |
| pyrrhic (pyrrhic) | a foot of two successive syllables that are equally or almost equally unstressed (da, da) |
| Foreshadowing | Suggestions of what is to come later on in a narrative |
| Foreshadowing | can be created through imagery, dialogue, diction, events, or actions |
| Foreshadowing | Authors use this to create narrative cohesion, build suspense, and develop plot |
| Foreshadowing | hints at what is to come, and helps an author prepare readers for an ending, thus helping to create resolutions that do not seem contrived |
| Form | the genre or the general type of a literary work (ie, sonnet, novel, or short story) |
| Form | the way a literary work's component parts are arranged into a shape or structure |
| Free Verse | A form of verse where rhythm is not organized into regular meter, has irregular line lengths, lacks rhyme schemes, and depends on natural speech rhythms |
| Free Verse | Also known as "open form" |
| Genre | French for "type" |
| Genre | used to classify literature according to form, style, or content |
| Gothic | a kind of literature that creates a sense of terror and suspense |
| Gothic | characterized by its use of claustrophobic and confining spaces, macabre and medieval-based settings, and gloomy moods |
| Gothic | Literature with a recurring use of dark, threatening, violent forces which often trap virtuous young heroines |
| Heptameter | A line of poetry consisting of seven metrical units, or feet |
| Meter | the rhythm in poetry made by these units of sound created by accented and unaccented syllables |
| Hexameter | A line of poetry consisting of six metrical units, or feet |
| Hyperbole | A figure of speech which uses exaggeration for comic, ironic, or serious effect |
| Imagery | depictions of objects or qualities perceived by the five senses |
| Imagery | what makes language and literature concrete and not abstract |
| Internal rhyme | rhyme which occurs within a line of verse |
| Irony | an incongruity or contradiction between appearance and reality |
| Local color | Descriptions in prose (usually prose fiction) which show particulars about setting, dialect, custom, habits, dress, mannerisms, and folklore about a specific region |
| Lyric | refers to a moderately short (usually 12-30 lines) poem expressing one speaker's emotions and thoughts |
| Lyric | poems that are not limited to a specific meter or form but are almost always about emotion, frequently concerning themes of love and grief |
| Melodrama | Originally, any drama accompanied by music used to enhance mood or emotion |
| Melodrama | dramas that are highly stereotypical and favor sensational plots over realistic characters |
| Melodrama | dramas that are full of stock characters, usually either highly virtuous or villainous, and plots that are generally sensational and improbable; virtue inevitably triumphs over villainy |
| Metafiction | Novels or works of short fiction that self-consciously examine the nature of fiction by drawing attention to the fact that they are works of fiction |
| Metaphor | A figure of speech where one thing is described in terms of another |
| Meter | The rhythms in poetry made by units of sound created by accented and unaccented syllables |
| Monometer | 1 foot per line |
| Dimeter | 2 feet per line |
| Trimeter | 3 feet per line |
| Tetrameter | 4 feet per line |
| Pentameter | 5 feet per line |
| Hexameter | 6 feet per line |
| Heptameter | 7 feet per line |
| Octameter | 8 feet per line |
| Metonymy | A figure of speech that replaces the name of one thing with the name of another closely related thing (ie the crown" is used to signify the monarchy) |
| Motif | A significant element that recurs either in a specific literary work, in a group of literary texts, or in literature as a whole; can be plots, imagery, symbols, themes, ideas, narrative details, or characters |
| Motivation | The reasons or explanations for why a character acts in the ways he or she does in response to events of the plot |
| Narrative | The telling of true or fictitious events by a narrator |
| Narrator | The voice or character who tells a story and offers information, interpretation, or insight to readers about events, context, or character |
| Naturalism | An offshoot of realism in American literature, claimed to give an even more realistic and unflinching depiction of contemporary life |
| Naturalism | characterized by a pessimistic view of humanity and human existence |
| Neoclassical period | A period of British literature spanning 1660-1785 |
| Neoclassical period | often divided into three subareas: the Restoration era, the Augustan age, and the Age of Sensibility |
| Neoclassicism | A style of literature primarily written from the mid-seventeenth century to the end of the eighteenth century and the rise of romanticism |
| Neoclassicism | often viewed as a contrast to romanticism |
| Novel | An extended piece of fictional prose that is distinguished from short stories and novellas by its length |
| Novella | A prose fiction work of about 50-100 pages |
| Novella | Shorter than a novel and longer than a short story, but possesses formal and stylistic elements of those two prose genres and is long enough to be published as an individual volume |
| Octave | A grouping of eight rhymed verse lines typically with a common metrical pattern or line length |
| Ode | A lyric poem with an elaborate stanza structure and distinct tone of formality and stateliness; addresses a person or an abstract idea or entity |
| Onomatopoeia | Also called echoism |
| Onomatopoeia | refers to words or passages in which the sound echoes the sense, or the words or passages sound like the words they describe either in terms of movement or sound |
| Onomatopoeia | when the sound of a word closely resembles or echoes the sound it conveys, such as “buzz” or “hiss" |
| Orientalism | A term suggesting the ways in which the East was described, defined, mythologized, or imagined by the West |
| Paradox | A statement that, on the surface, appears to be self-contradictory but, upon analysis, reveals an underlying truth, significance, or meaning |
| Pastoral | Traditionally referred to writings that described the life of shepherds and shepherdesses |
| Pastoral | works that celebrate a golden age characterized by idleness, innocence, and simplicity |
| Persona | Originally refered to the masks worn by actors in ancient drama Persona |
| Personification | A figure of speech through which inanimate objects, ideas, concepts, or animals are given human characteristics, or are referred to as if human |
| Petrarchan sonnet | A sonnet with two main parts: an octave (eight lines) with a rhyme scheme of abba abba followed by a sestet (six lines) with a rhyme scheme of cde cde (or sometimes cdc cdc; usually uses the octave to state or describe a problem and the sestet to resolve |
| Picaresque novel | A novel, or extended piece of fictional prose, that features the realistic and episodic adventures of a likeable yet flawed roguish hero |
| Pindaric odes | Public, celebratory lyric poems with an elaborate stanza structure and distinct tone of formality and stateliness, addressing either a person or an abstract idea or entity |
| Plot | The arrangement or design of events, actions, and situations in a narrative work; constructed through a range of strategies and devices such as conflict, suspense, and dénouement |
| Point of view | The perspective (or perspectives) from which a story is told |
| Postmodern period | In British and American literature, the postmodern period refers to literature written after World War II |
| postmodern period | reflects anxieties concerning and reactions to life in the twentieth century; works are often highly experimental and anti-conventional |
| Postmodernism | works often address the alienation of the individual and the meaninglessness of human existence |
| Postmodernism | characterized by works that are often highly innovative in terms of style, format, and technique, or works that are self-referential, that draw upon popular or so-called "low culture," or that combine genres or blur genre distinctions |
| Prologue | the character or speaker who makes an introductory speech in a play |
| Proscenium arch | An architectural feature of post-Renaissance theaters that separates the playing area from the proscenium and the audience |
| Proscenium arch | the convention that the audience can see the players on the stage but the players cannot see the audience, nor are they aware of the audience |
| Proscenium | The proscenium is the area between the curtain and the edge of the stage |
| Prose | Latin for "straightforward discourse" |
| Prose | language which is not in verse form |
| Protagonist | The main character in a play or narrative, often in conflict with the antagonist |
| Realistic period | This period was the era of Reconstruction and post-Reconstruction, as well as increased industrialization and urbanization |
| Realistic period | this period was considered realistic in its emphasis on unidealized and truthful depictions |
| Renaissance | means "rebirth" |
| Restoration era | A period of British literature beginning with the crowning of Charles II and the restoration of the Stuart line in 1660 and ending around 1700 |
| Restoration era | Drama of this period frequently focused upon the aristocracy and the life of the court, and is characterized by its use of urbanity, wit, and licentious plot lines |
| Revolutionary period | A period in American literature usually said to begin with the passing of the Stamp Act in England and end in 1790 |
| Revolutionary period | refers to writings that are politically motivated, either in support of British rule or in support of American patriotism and independence, including those by Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison |
| Rhyme | The similar sound in syllables or paired groups of syllables |
| Rhythm | Greek for "flow" |
| Rhythm | refers to the pattern of sound established in either prose or verse through pauses and stressed and unstressed syllables |
| Romance (Romanticism) | In literature, it usually refers to works that emphasize emotion over reason and the individual over society and that celebrate the imagination, subjective experiences, and individual expression |
| Romance (Romanticism) | used to describe medieval narratives or narratives that look back to medieval times |
| Romance | refer to works with an exotic or foreign setting or works that are set in an historic past |
| Romance | a novel, or extended piece of fictional prose, that is not entirely realistic and includes fantastic or supernatural events |
| Romantic comedy | A form of comedy usually involving themes of love and young lovers, almost always with a happy ending |
| Romantic period (American) | the American Renaissance |
| Romantic period (American) | sometimes referred to as the Age of Transcendentalism |
| Romantic period (British) | A period of British literature beginning in 1785 (some argue 1789 or 1798) and ending in 1837 |
| Romantic period (British) | Many writers in this period emphasized feeling and imagination and looked toward nature for insight into the divine |
| Round character | usually one of the main characters, and is presented in a complex and detailed manner, and usually undergoes a significant change in response to the events or circumstances described in the plot |
| Satire | Prose, verse, or dramatic works which seek to expose the failings of individuals, institutions, ideas, communities, or society in general |
| Scan or scansion | The process of analyzing poetry for its rhyme scheme, the number of lines per stanza, and its metrical patterns (patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables per line) |
| Scene | Usually refers to a subdivision of an act in a play or dramatic performance |
| Scene | a division in a play with no change of locale or without an abrupt shift in time |
| Scene | a division based on the entrance or departure of a character or a group of characters on the stage |
| Scene | the physical locale where a play is set |
| Setting | refers to the location, historical moment, social context, or circumstances in which a literary work or scene is set |
| Setting | In drama, it includes the scenery and props and is often referred to as décor or mise en scène |
| Shakespearean Sonnet | has three quatrains (4 lines) and a concluding couplet (two lines) with an abab cdcd efef gg rhyme scheme; offers a variant rhyme scheme of abab bcbc cdcd ee |
| Shakespearean Sonnet | the sestets describe a problem or situation that is repeated in each sestet with some variation; the remaining couplet offers a summary, usually with a turn of thought |
| Short story | A prose narrative of about 2,000-12,000 words |
| Short story | has many of the features of novels, but are distinct in their length and in their more narrowed focus |
| Short story | Historically, it is related to the tale, fable, myth, parable, and exemplum |
| Simile | A figure of speech that is a comparison of two different things or ideas using "like" or "as" |
| Soliloquy | A monologue in a play spoken by one character who is alone or believes himself or herself to be alone on the stage |
| Sonnet | A one-stanza lyric poem of fourteen lines in iambic pentameter with a specific rhyme scheme |
| Spenserian sonnet | has three quatrains (4 lines) and a concluding couplet (two lines) with an abab bcbc cdcd ee rhyme scheme |
| Stanza | A grouping of verse lines often (but not always) with a common rhyme scheme, metrical pattern, or line length |
| stanza | include couplet (two rhymed lines), tercet or triplet (three lines with the same rhyme), quatrain (4 lines with varying rhyme schemes), sestet (six lines), and octave (eight lines) |
| Static (or flat) character | typically a minor character with a single outstanding trait and is often based on a stock character, or a common, stereotypical character Stock character |
| Stream of consciousness | A type of prose narration often evident in modern period fiction and used to replicate the way the human mind works |
| Stream of consciousness | A kind of interior monologue, it attempts to convey a character's thoughts directly and with immediacy; it is associative, flowing, continual, fragmented, sensory, and often disjointed |
| Stream of consciousness | Like our thought patterns, it often blurs past and present |
| Style | An author or literary movement's distinctive or characteristic use of diction, imagery, syntax, language, or literary devices |
| Style | the way an author uses the sum total of all literary elements in a work |
| Suspense | The uncertainty or anxiety built into a plot |
| Suspense | most often created through foreshadowing, which is used to hint at what is to come |
| Symbol | Something that stands for something else or that represents something larger, such as a concept or idea |
| Symbolism | The use of symbols or a set of related symbols or a sustained use of symbols |
| Symbolism | literary movement in late-nineteenth-century France as a reaction to realist impulses in literature |
| Synecdoche | A figure of speech where a part of something is used to represent the whole (for example, "hands" to refer to manual labor) or where the whole is used to represent the part (for example, "Montréal" is used to refer to the Montréal Canadiens) |
| Synecdoche | A kind of metonymy |
| Theme | A significant abstract idea emerging from a literary work or the statement the work appears to make about its subject |
| Theme | usually indirectly suggested and are generally conveyed through figurative language, imagery, symbols, or motifs |
| Third-person narrator | The narrator of a story told from the perspective of a persona who uses "he" or "she" to recount the story |
| Tone | The author's attitude in a literary text toward the audience or reader reader (i.e., familiar, formal) or toward the subject itself(i.e. satiric, celebratory, ironic). |
| Tragedy | a form of drama or other literary work that usually ends in death or some other non-comedic event |
| Understatement | meiosis |
| Understatement | describing something in terms less grand or important than it deserves or merits, typically to minimize its importance |
| Verse | A term use to describe poetry in general |
| Verse | refers to a single poem |
| Verse | refers to a stanza (erroneously, some critics argue) |
| Accent | the stressed syllable of a polysyllabic word |
| Accent | A recognizable manner of pronouncing words |
| Accentual-syllabic | an extension of accentual verse which fixes both the number of stresses and syllables within a line or stanza. |
| Actions | A real or fictional event or series of such events comprising the subject of a novel, story, narrative poem, or a play, especially in the sense of what the characters do in such a narrative. |
| Amphitheatre | An open-air theater, especially the unroofed public playhouses in the suburbs of London |
| Antihero | A protagonist who is a non-hero or the antithesis of a traditional hero. |
| Apprenticeship Novel | Apprenticeship Novel |
| Arena theatre | A stage arrangement in which viewers sit encircling the stage completely. |
| Arena theatre | also called theater in the round |
| Autobiography | A non-fictional account of a person's life--usually a celebrity, an important historical figure, or a writer--written by that actual person |
| Ballad | a narrative poem consisting of quatrains of iambic tetrameter alternating with iambic trimester |
| Biography | A non-fictional account of a person's life--usually a celebrity, an important historical figure, or a writer. |
| Blank Verse | unrhymed iambic pentameter |
| Blank Verse | Unrhymed lines of ten syllables each with the even-numbered syllables bearing the accents. |
| Body language | a form of mental and physical ability of human non-verbal communication, which consists of body posture, gestures, facial expressions, and eye movements. |
| Burlesque | A work that ridicules a topic by treating something exalted as if it were trivial or vice-versa |
| Calvinism | best known for its doctrines of predestination and total depravity, stressing the total contingency of man's salvation upon the absolute sovereignty of God. |
| Classic | Works created during the Greco-Roman period |
| Classicism | lierature which seeks to be formal and restrained: |
| Climax | The moment in a play, novel, short story, or narrative poem at which the crisis reaches its point of greatest intensity and is thereafter resolved. |
| Comedy | originally, a genre of drama during the Dionysia festivals of ancient Athens. |
| Comedy | in medieval and Renaissance use, any play or narrative poem in which the main characters manage to avert an impending disaster and have a happy ending. |
| Comedy | in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, exclusive connotations of humor arose |
| Conceit | An elaborate or unusual comparison--especially one using unlikely metaphors, simile, hyperbole, and contradiction |
| Connotation | The extra tinge or taint of meaning each word carries beyond the minimal, strict definition found in a dictionary. |
| Costumes | the distinctive style of dress of a particular people, class, or period |
| Crisis | The turning point of uncertainty and tension resulting from earlier conflict in a plot. |
| Decameter | a line of poetry with ten feet |
| Denotation | The minimal, strict definition of a word as found in a dictionary |
| dialect | The language of a particular district, class, or group of persons |
| Dramatic Irony | a situation in a narrative in which the reader knows something about present or future circumstances that the character does not know. |
| Dramatic Irony | when a character acts in a way we recognize to be grossly inappropriate to the actual circumstances |
| Dramatic Irony | the character expects the opposite of what the reader knows that fate holds in store |
| Dramatic Irony | the character anticipates a particular outcome that unfolds itself in an unintentional way. |
| End rhyme | Rhyme in which the last word at the end of each verse is the word that rhymes |
| Epic Novel | a novel where the story is centered on heroic characters, and the action takes place on a grand scale |
| Epigram | An inscription in verse or prose on a building, tomb, or coin |
| Epigram | a short verse or motto appearing at the beginning of a longer poem or the title page of a novel, at the heading of a new section or paragraph of an essay or other literary work to establish mood or raise thematic concerns |
| Epigram | A short, humorous poem, often written in couplets, that makes a satiric point. |
| Exact rhyme | rhyming two words in which both the consonant sounds and vowel sounds match to create a rhyme. |
| Existentialism | A twentieth-century philosophy arguing that individuals must fashion their own sense of meaning in life instead of relying thoughtlessly on religious, political, and social conventions. |
| Exposition | The use of authorial discussion to explain or summarize background material rather than revealing this information through gradual narrative detail. |
| Fable | A brief story illustrating human tendencies through animal characters. |
| Falling Action | The action in a play after the climax |
| Fiction | the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary |
| Found poetry | a type of poetry created by taking words, phrases, and sometimes whole passages from other sources and reframing them as poetry by making changes in spacing and/or lines (and consequently meaning), or by altering the text by additions and/or deletions. |
| Freudian Criticism | A psychoanalytical approach to literature that seeks to understand the elements of a story or character in a story by applying the tripartite model of the psyche developed by Sigmund Freud. |
| Gothic Novel | A type of romance wildly popular between 1760 up until the 1820s that are designed to thrill readers by providing mystery and blood-curdling accounts of villainy, murder, and the supernatural. |
| Haiku | A form of Japanese poetry of three lines with 5/7/5 syllables |
| Hero | characters who, in the face of danger and adversity or from a position of weakness, display courage and the will for self sacrifice for some greater good of all humanity. |
| Heroic Couple | Two successive rhyming lines of iambic pentameter. |
| High Comedy | Elegant comedies characterized by witty banter and sophisticated dialogue |
| Humanism | A Renaissance intellectual and artistic movement emphasizing human culture, reason, learning, art, and education as a means of improving humanity. |
| In media res | Latin for "In the middle of things” |
| In media res | The classical tradition of opening an epic at the midway point of the story. |
| Imagists | believed poets should use common, everyday vocabulary, experiment with new rhythm, and use clear, precise, concentrated imagery |
| Italian (Petrarchan) | has an eight line stanza (abba) followed by a six line stanza(cdecde, cdcdcd, or cdedce). |
| Journal | a daily record of events or business; a diary. |
| Limerick | A five-line closed-form poem in which the first two lines consist of anapestic trimeter, which in turn are followed by lines of anapestic dimeter, and a final line in trimeter. They rhyme in an AABBA pattern. |
| Low Comedy | consists of silly, slapstick physicality, crude pratfalls, violence, scatology, and bodily humor |
| Madrigal | a secular vocal music composition, usually a partsong, of the Renaissance and early Baroque eras. Traditionally, polyphonic madrigals are unaccompanied; the number of voices varies from two to eight, and most frequently from three to six. |
| Medieval | The period of time roughly a thousand years long between the fall of the Roman Empire and the emergence of the Renaissance. |
| Memoir | An autobiographical sketch--especially one that focuses less on the author's personal life or psychological development and more on the notable people and events the author has encountered or witnessed |
| Mock Epic | a long, heroicomical poem that merely imitates features of the classical epic |
| Monologue | a character speaking aloud to himself, or narrating an account to an audience with no other character on stage |
| Moral | a message conveyed or a lesson to be learned from a story or event. |
| Muses | The nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne who had the power to inspire artists, poets, singers, and writers. |
| Narrative poetry | any poem involving events, characters, and what the characters say and do. |
| Nonfiction | the form of any narrative, account, or other communicative work whose assertions and descriptions are understood to be factual. |
| Oedipus Complex | a subconscious incestuous desire of male children to kill their fathers and have sex with their mothers, usurping the father's place in the household. |
| Orchestra | In modern theaters, the ground-floor area on the first floor where the audience sits to watch the play |
| Orchestra | in classical Greek theaters, a central circle where the chorus performed |
| Oriental Tale | is a 1938 short story collection by the French writer Marguerite Yourcenar. The stories share a self-consciously mythological form; some are based on pre-existing myths and legends, while some are new |
| Parable | A story or short narrative designed to reveal allegorically some religious principle, moral lesson, psychological reality, or general truth; teaches by comparison with real or literal occurrences |
| Quatrain | a stanza of four lines, often rhyming in an ABAB pattern |
| Realism | any artistic or literary portrayal of life in a faithful, accurate manner, unclouded by false ideals, literary conventions, or misplaced aesthetic glorification and beautification of the world. |
| Recognition | the moment of tragic recognition in which the protagonist realizes some important fact or insight, especially a truth about himself, human nature, or his situation |
| Resolution | to the outcome or result of a complex situation or sequence of events |
| Rhyme scheme | The pattern of rhyme |
| Rising Action | The action in a play before the climax |
| Romanticism | the artistic philosophy which asserted that reliance upon emotion and natural passions provided a valid and powerful means of knowing and a reliable guide to ethics and living. |
| Romanticism | asserts the unique nature of the individual,imagination and fancy, spontaneity,the human need for emotional outlets, the rejection of civilized corruption, and a desire to return to natural primitivism and escape the spiritual destruction of urban life. |
| Sestet | Any six-line stanza or a six-line unit of poetry |
| Setting | The general locale, historical time, and social circumstances in which the action of a fictional or dramatic work occurs |
| Skene | a building in the front of the orchestra that contained front and side doors from which actors could quickly enter and exit. |
| Slant rhyme | Rhymes created out of words with similar but not identical sounds. In most of these instances, either the vowel segments are different while the consonants are identical, or vice versa. |
| Slapstick | Low comedy in which humor depends almost entirely on physical actions and sight gags |
| Stock character | A character type that appears repeatedly in a particular literary genre, one which has certain conventional attributes or attitudes. |
| Symbol | A word, place, character, or object that means something beyond what it is on a literal level. |
| Sublime | caused the reader to experience elestasis ("transport"). |
| Subplot | A minor or subordinate secondary plot which takes place simultaneously with a larger plot |
| Tercet | A three-line unit or stanza of poetry. It typically rhymes in an AAA or ABA pattern |
| Thrust theatre | A stage that projects out into the auditorium area. Tragicomedy |
| Triolet | A stanza of eight lines using only two rhymes, with the first line repeating three times |
| Trochaic rhyme | Another word for double rhyme in which the final rhyming word consists of a heavy stress followed by a light stress. |
| Troubadours | A medieval love poet of southern France between 1100-1350 who wrote and sang about the theme of fin amour (courtly love). Unities |
| Verbal irony | also called sarcasm |
| Verbal irony | a speaker makes a statement in which its actual meaning differs sharply from the meaning that the words ostensibly express. |
| Victorian | 1837-1901--the years Queen Victoria ruled the expanding British Empire |
| Villanelle | poetry consisting of nineteen lines--five tercets and a concluding quatrain |
| Visual poetry | Poetry that draws much of its power from the way the text appears situated on the page. The lines of text create an actual shape |
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radkwo