English Midterm Flashcards
What are the types of writing
Genres
Types of Genres
Poetry, fiction, non-fiction, drama, essay
Epic conventions
In medias res
Invocation to the gods
Irony (situational, dramatic, verbal)
Recognition (literal, self, others)
Epic simile
Poetic conventions: metaphors, imagery, personification, etc.
Epithets
Aphorisms
Foreshadowing
Flashback
Repeated phrases and clauses
Dactylic hexameter
Age of the epic:
9th - 8th century BC
Age of lyric poetry
7th-6th century BC
Age of classical Greek drama:
5th century BC
Virtues:
Faith
Hope
Charity
Justice
Prudence
Chastity
Love
Vices:
Pride
Gluttony
Greed
Lust
Sloth
Wrath
Envy
Assonance:
Repeated vowels
Consonance:
Repeated consonants
Epic
A long narrative about the adventures of a central hero whose experiences represent the social, moral, and political values of a culture
Culture:
A group of people who share religious beliefs, government, language, history, etc
Epithet:
A brief descriptive phrase that captures the essence of a person, place, thing
Motif:
A repeated pattern
Pride/Hubris
Excessive self-confidence
Greed
To take more than one needs in material goods
Gluttony
To take more than one needs in food/drink
Wrath
Excessive anger
Lust
Seek to satisfy physical pleasure at the expense of another’s well-being
Sloth
Excessive laziness
Envy
a feeling of discontented or resentful longing aroused by someone else’s possessions, qualities, or luck.
Warrior Aristocracy
Immortal Gods → Heroic Men → Men
Types of Power:
Physical, Spiritual, Emotional, Social, Material, Verbal/Intellectual
Faith
Believe in the unseen without rational proof
Hope
Expecting the best in unlikely circumstances
Charity
To give w/o the expectation of return
Chastity
Purity of heart
Prudence
To make wise choices
Justice
Fairness
Love
Deep feelings of empathy
Definition of Poetry:
Patterned speech
Verse:
A line of poetry or a stanza of poetry
Poetic Devices:
Alliteration
Imagery
Personification
Simile
Metaphor
Irony
Assonance
Consonance
Onomatopoeia
Symbol
Puns
Refrain
Refrain
a repeated word, line, or group of lines that appears at the end of a stanza
Puns
Play on words
Onomatopoeia
the formation of a word from a sound associated with what is named (e.g. cuckoo, sizzle )
When did closed form start to increase in popularity with American poets?
The 1960’
In the sonnet the turn of thought usually occurs on the ___ line
9th
What is a heroic couplet?
Two rhymed lines of iambic pentameter with the first ending in a lighter pause, and the second more heavily end stopped
What are the four elements of poetry?
Speaker, Audience, Dramatic setting, and theme.
Most common stanza form in English Poetry
quatrain
Speaker
Irony
Types of Irony
Personification
he attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something nonhuman, or the representation of an abstract quality in human form.
Prose vs. Poetry:
Poetry works through what is left out or suggested (ellipsis); poetry is in stanzas, while prose is written in paragraphs; imagery and sound have more importance in poetry than prose; diction is very important in poetry since it is concise
Open Form:
Lines of poetry have no rhyme or meter, and the pattern emerges from within the line of poetry
Closed Form:
Pattern is imposed from outside of the poem
Free Verse:
The line of poetry ends where the thought ends
Blank Verse:
Contains five iambic feet per line and is not rhymed
Meter:
A regular rhythmic pattern in poetry
Stanza:
“Stopping Place or room” - 2 line stanza=couplet, 3 line stanza=tercet, 4 line stanza=quatrain, 5 line stanza= quintet, 6 line stanza=sestet, 7 line stanza=septet, 8 line stanza=octet/octave
Sonnet:
“Little song” - Usually subject is love - Contain 14 lines + specific rhyme pattern and meter - Usually “lyrical”
Three types of sonnets
-English Sonnet or Shakespearean Sonnet
-Petrarchan Sonnet or Italian Sonnet
-Spenserian Sonnet
English or Shakespearian Sonnet
Three quatrains and a rhyming couplet (2 lines) - Rhythm=iambic pentameter - Rhyme Scheme: abab cdcd efef gg - 1st stanza=sets up problem, 2nd stanza=develops problem, 3rd stanza=resolves the problem in 1st stanza, 4th stanza/couplet=theme of poem
Petrarchan or Italian Sonnet
Octave (8 line stanza) and sestet (six line stanza) - Rhythm=iambic pentameter - Rhyme scheme: abba abba (octave) cde cde (sestet) - 1st stanza=presents problem, 2nd stanza=presents resolution to problem
Spenserian Sonnet:
Three quatrains and a rhyming couplet (2 lines) - Rhythm=iambic pentameter - Rhyme Scheme: (Interlocking) abab bcbc cdcd ee - 1st stanza=sets up problem, 2nd stanza=develops problem, 3rd stanza=resolves the problem in 1st stanza, 4th stanza/couplet=theme of poem
Fathers of the English Sonnet
-Henry Howard (Earl of Surrey)
-Sir Thomas Wyatt
Social Protest Poetry:
Reflects on current problems
Lyric Poetry
Short poem expressing the thoughts and feelings of a single speaker; songlike immediacy and emotional force
Villanelle Poetry:
Fixed form developed by French courtly poets of the Middle Ages in imitation of Italian folk song. A villanelle consists of six rhymed stanzas in which two lines are repeated in a prescribed pattern
Ode Poetry:
Type of Lyric Poem that praises a specific thing, place, person, etc. (type of lyrical poetry)
Ballad Poetry:
A song that tells a story
Projective Verse:
Poet composes rhythm by listening to their own death
Visual Poetry:
a style of poetry that incorporates graphic and visual design elements to convey its meaning
Concrete Poetry:
Visual poetry composed exclusively for the page in which a picture or image is made of printed letters and words
Prose Poetry:
Poetic language printed in prose paragraphs, but displaying the careful attention to sound, imagery, and figurative language characteristics of poetry
Narrative:
Tells a story
Didactic:
Teaches a lesson
Lyric poem:
A single speaker expressing deep emotions
Dramatic poem
Monologue
All art is _____ and _________
selection, arrangement
Fathers of New Comedy:
Plautus and Terence, two Roman playwrights
Definition of New Comedy:
1.Boy meets girl
2.Boy falls in love with girl
3.Obstacle to their love
4.Obstacle is removed by the end
5.Boy and girl marry,
6.Create a new society with new values based on love
Old Greek Comedy/Attic Comedy vs. New Comedy
Old Greek is political(and dirty) while new comedy = social
Plot:
Action, or what happens
Theme:
Meaning, or what does the action mean → Complete statement
Comedy is about the continuation of life (through marriage) and a change in the social values of a society so that all members may live together harmoniously
Gustav Freytag’s pyramid into the classical, five act division:
Act 1: Intro, Background, Problem;
Act 2: Complications;
Act 3: Climax/Reversal/Turning Point;
Act 4: Falling action;
Act 5: Resolution
Who created the plot pyramid
Gustav Freytag
Four Levels of Society:
Aristocrats, land owners/lovers, mechanicals, the fairies
Bottom:
Weaver - Pyramus
Quince:
Carpenter - Thisbe’s father
Starveling:
Tailor - Thisbe’s mother
Snug:
Joiner - The lion
Snout:
Tinker - Pyramus’ father
Flute:
Bellows-mender - Thisbe
What is a bellows mender?
One who mends bellows. The leather air pump that would blow into furnaces.
What is a tinker?
Repairing metal or tools
What is a joiner?
Tradesperson who builds things by joining wood.
Major Themes of MSND:
Appearance is not reality, infatuation love is like a dream, love is dominant
Dream:
-A series of thoughts, images, and sensations occurring in a person’s mind during sleep
-A cherished aspiration, ambition, or ideal
Dreams in MSND:
-1st Hermia - Heart gets eaten by snake as Lysander watches, feels real (dreams are reality) wakes up with the sense that Lysander left her
-2nd Bottom’s - wakes up and everything is fixed (no longer a donkey head) thinks he dreamt about being Titania’s lover and had the head of a donkey - dream are confusing hard to distinguish
Qualities of Dreams:
Feels real
Intense emotions
Difficult to distinguish dream from reality
Aren’t always good or bad
Deja vu
Reflects our thoughts
Not chronological
You can do things you can’t normally do
No control
Not logical
How are dreams, imagination, love, the writer’s craft (the poet) related to one another in the play?
Acting:
-The art or occupation of performing in plays, movies, or television productions
-Temporarily doing the duties of another person
How is the play the Mechanicals perform symbolic of the whole play?
The play the Mechanicals perform, “Pyramus and Thisbe,” mirrors the main play’s themes of love, misunderstandings, and comedic chaos. Its exaggerated melodrama and absurdity parallel the misunderstandings and comedic elements in the main play, emphasizing the farcical nature of human relationships and the transformative power of love.
How do the three definitions of “changeling” become symbolic of everything that occurs in the play?
-An idiot baby fairy left in the human world
-Turncoat
-Renegade
What do the poet, the lover, and the lunatic have in common, according to Theseus, and explain this idea fully using examples from the play.
They all have compact imagination - sees things no one else sees - organized thoughts from imagination
Lover: sees beauty in things that shouldn’t have
Lunatic: sees bad things that aren’t there, crazy mind
Poet: makes sense of things that aren’t real, finds reality in unknown
Apology
A defense of something
“Things base and vile…so oft beguiled.”
Helena
“The course of true love never did run smooth.”
Lysander to Hermia
“The lunatic, the lover…and a name.”
Theseus to Hippolyta
“If we shadows…no more yielding but a dream.”
Puck to audience
“O spite!…thus much injury.”
Helena to Lysander and Demetrius
“Lord what fools these mortals.”
Puck to Oberon
“If we offend, it is with our good will.”
Quince in the epilogue of Pyramus and Thisbe
“If we imagine no worse of them than they of themselves, they may pass for excellent men.”
Theseus to Hippolyta
“It is the wittiest partition that ever I heard discourse.”
Demetrius to Theseus
“I see a voice!… I can hear my Thisbe’s face.”
Pyramus(Bottom) to Thisbe(Flute)
“Nobody—that’s my name…call me, all my friends.”
Odysseus to Polyphemus
“Come closer…so you can hear our song…fertile earth, we know it all.”
Sirens to Odysseus and his Phaecian crew
“Let both sides seal their pacts…devoted as in the old days.”
Zeus to Athena
“No other Odysseus will ever return…home to native ground at last.”
Odysseus to Telemachus
“So stubborn!…Hell-bent yet again on battle…row for your lives.”
Circe to Odysseus
“Who on his own has ever really known who gave him life?”
Telemachus to Mentor(Athena in disguise)
“Sing to me of the man, Muse…the hallowed heights of Troy.”
Homer to the Muse
“But once your crew has rowed you past the sirens…you must decide for yourself.”
Circe to Odysseus
