14-15 Lit Flashcards
A movement in the intellectual life of the young America that remained a force until the Civil War. Emphasized the individual’s ability to apprehend truths that lay higher or deeper than mere experience could garner.
American transcendentalism
idea that human beings are the center of the universe and the most important living things in it, above all other forms of life
anthropocentrism
adjective describing something that has been caused or generated by human beings or human behavior
anthropogenic
refers to the attribution of human qualities to non-human entities; talking animals are one example.
anthropomorphism
nonfiction writing that uses the craft of the fiction writer, including such techniques as personification, anthropomorphism, the development of a narrative persona, episodic narration, irony, apostrophe, symbolism, and so on
creative nonfiction
phrase that describes a branch of the current environmental movement that posits the inherent value of all living things and opposes anthropocentrism
Deep Ecology
refers to any explicit concern for the effects of human activity on the natural world; also describes a widespread twentieth-century movement to limit, mitigate, or solve problems caused by the human degradation of nature galvanized by concerns about pollution
environmentalism
poetry that is not constrained by conventional formal restrictions of rhyme, meter, or line and stanza length
free verse
a mode - set of plot elements, themes, and motifs - that crosses genres; arose as a major aesthetic mode in the arts in the 18th century as a cultural reaction to that era’s obsession with Enlightenment ideals; protagonist is often pursued by mysterious antagonist with occult and violent tendencies who is cruel and driven by lust; setting frequently evokes the Middle Ages and France/Spain.
The Gothic
phrase used to describe the 18th & 19th century expansion of production fueled by capitalism and its various markets & industries, as well as the political hegemony of the European bourgeoisie & the exploitation of non-European peoples for labor and natural resourses
Industrial Revolution
short poem that generally expresses a single emotion or sentiment by means of literary tropes (metaphor or metonymy) and figures of speech (personification & prosopopeia)
lyric
a movement in literature and the arts that began in Western European countries (Britain, France, & Italy) just before WWI and lasted until just after WWII; characterized by an emphasis on historical discontinuity & a commitment to newness, and technical experimentation & innovation
modernism
storytelling with the recounting of a story; form of verbal expression with a beginning, middle, and end, plot, character development, and a narrative voice/persona
narrative
refers to nonfiction essays of varying lengths (esp written after late 18th cent) that are characterized by a profound concern for a particular place and its biota; generally accompanied by spritual or theological reflections
nature writing
refers to an ideologically charged mode of thinking about Asia/North Africa and the 19th cent study of Near, Middle, & Far Eastern nations and peoples; marked by the belief that Asian/North African peoples, while diverse, share certain characteristics that contrast markedly with the inhabitants of the West.
Orientalism
refers to literature or art set in the countryside that celebrates rural life and either explicitly or implicitly compares it with urban life
pastoral
term that initially was used to describe a shift in post-WWII creative art and architecture that strove toward a new aesthetic sensibility in reaction to modernism. The term is now more commonly used to describe art produced after the last 1960’s; literary texts often emphasize pastiche (mixed media), historical context, the local (as opposed to international), and uncertainty as to setting, narrative persona, and plot
postmodernism
late 18th/early 19th cent movement in literature, music, and art that emphasized emotionality, energy, experimentation with the forms of self-expression, and personal experience over tradition, control, normative values, and received opinions and forms.
romanticism
fourteen-line lyric poem; can be Italian or English
sonnet
divided into an octave with rhymes ABBA ABBA and sestet with rhymes CDCDCD or CDECDE; strong “turn” at end of octave such that the sestet becomes a riposte
Italian sonnet
contains three quatrains (4 lines each) and a concluding couplet (2 lines), rhyming ABAB CDCD EFEF GG
English sonnet
the voice or persona in which an author or poet chooses to deliver a narrative or poem
speaker
conceptual category from the philosophical discourse of aesthetics used to describe an overwhelming sensory experience in which the perceiver is awestruck and emotionally transported by an immensely powerful experience of the natural world, such as an alpine or arctic landscape, a storm at sea, a catarct or waterfall, or anything containing immense energy and the power to destroy the perceiver.
The Sublime
this period is notable for the expansion of the British Empire over approximately one-fourth of the Earth’s surface as well as for the passage of numerous reform laws by Parliment; the political era corresponded with the height of the Industrial Revolution, in which English literature flourished, esp poetry and the novel
Victorian Period
