B List Literary Devices

Question 1

a sung poem, first taking shape in the later Middle Ages, that recounts a dramatic story; passed down orally through generations; arising in the romantic period, the literary version attempts to capture the sentiments of the common people in the same way the traditional version had

Answer 1

ballad

Question 2

a movement of American writers in the 1950s who saw American society as oppressively conformist; these writers rejected mainstream values, seeking ways to escape through drugs, various forms of spirituality, and/or sexual experimentation; writers celebrated freedom of expression and held generally anti-establishment views about politics; writing rejected conventional norms of structure and diction

Answer 2

Beat movement

Question 3

a novel that explores the maturation of the protagonist, with the narrative usually moving the main character from childhood into adulthood; aka a coming-of-age story

Answer 3

bildungsroman

Question 4

unrhymed iambic pentameter; most commonly used verse form in English because it is the verse form that comes closest to the natural speech patterns

Answer 4

blank verse