English Concepts Flashcards
Romance
episodic, featuring tales based on legends, other traditional materials. about love/war. aristocratic genre
Novel
tale with single (or major) plot action. strong sense of closure, structure
Fiction
invented story/narrative, anciently told in verse, today told in prose
Narrator
“voice” tells tale to reader/audience. two categories: first (reliable, unreliable) [exist within space of story] or third person (omniscient, limited) [remain outside story, tho not necessarily in world of reader]
Novel
longer prose narrative written with realism. formless, definable by difference from romance
Point of View
position from which events of narrative observed. kind of the narrator. in older fiction, multiple pov are used.
Genre
recognizable/established category of work employing common [shared] conventions, will prevent readers mistaking it from another kind
Convention
established practice (technique, style, structure, subject matter). adopted in literary works by customary/implicit agreement/precedent vs natural necessity
Soliloquy
dramatic convention. when actor doesn’t address another character, simply speaks. thoughts presented
Meter and Rhyme
conventions of poetry. pre 20th century
False Clues
convention of detective novel. detective usually led to false conclusions about who committed a crime
Gunfights
convention of the western. final settling of accounts between hero and villain
Realism
ype of style of writing/seeks to give impression of actual way of life. same world as reader. set of assumptions
Marxism
interested in class
Science Fiction
Form of fantastic, denies its fantastic. world different from now. embodies science as method: hypothesis. allegory of social life based on biology.
Hard–boiled Detective Story
violence normal, corrupt city, forcing hero into underworld of crime, independent of police, street smarts, justice might not be legal, on side of working guys
Classical Detective Crime
a riddle needs solving. Classist; detective is rich and educated, independent of police, crime violation of natural order
Popular Literature
No form, trash, formula
Formula
Don’t deviate from structure. Conformity + deviates from expected in minor ways. Not studied. Fulfill readers expectations + diverging from formula
Archetype
Index tale of types. Formulas. Nuanced predictability. Do not violate readers baseline expectations. Conflicts endemic to human life. Search for love. Family. Relationship to nature
Literary
Art
Western
frontier, 19th century, intersection of civilization/”savagery”, isolated hero, explain character, natural world, self-sufficiency, action-based weight, nature/conflict
Objective Dramatic Method
no narrator, omniscient from narrator, absence of “going behind”
Victorian Literature
physical + moral = limit/boundary, 20th century, more frank
Existentialism
fall into reality, metaphor, falling from a high place. to be human: not be agent who knows. choice, action. thrown into world
Fight Fixing
shows you what you think of the world by why you choose as characters.
Postmodernism Writing
Characters are people, free, independent
1st person
reliable narrator, told from their perspective
3rd person omniscient
narrator knows the thoughts and feelings of all of the characters in the story
third-person limited
adheres closely to one character’s – usually the main character’s – perspective
Narrative
telling of some true or fictional event, or connected sequence of events, told by narrator to audience
