Forms of Prose Flashcards
Historical Fiction
A fiction that is set in a particularly historic and/or prehistoric period. It can include fiction based on mythologies (e.g. Greek mythologies)
Picaresque
Fiction involving first-person narrative by a protagonist/Picaro. Picaro is a hero/heroine from a low social class. Picaresques have a lot of comedy and satire towards society and are usually episodic and the story is structureless (chapters can stand on their own)
Gothic
Came up as a movement in the 18th century against the Enlightenment period where Christianity, logic, and reason were key to everything. Gothic involves the exact opposite: horror, supernatural, madness, mystery, and revenge.
Psychological
Often delve deeper into the character’s insides. Uses stream of consciousness, interior monologues, or flashbacks. Psychological novels compel the readers to interpret the text using these three techniques
Novels of Manners
novels that observe, explore, comment, and analyze the social behaviors of a specific place and time.
WESTERN-WORLD SENTIMENTAL NOVELS
These novels, as their titles, emphasize the emotions of love and sentimentalism.
EPISTOLARY NOVELS
Novels that are composed of series of letters by their characters. Samuel Richardson is a huge representative of epistolary novel authors.
PASTORAL NOVELS
Novels that idealize country life. (goes with romanticism hand in hand “idealization of nature”)
Opposite of industrialism.
BILDUNGSROMAN
“coming-of-age novels” or novels about youth trying to understand the meaning of life, his/her identity, spiritual understanding etc.
E.g. Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield (1850) and Great Expectations (1861), D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye(1951), William Golding’s Lord of the Flies(1955)
ROMAN À CLEF
Novel with a KEY. They’re novels that the reader needs a real life-time reference/understanding of the event in order to fully understand the novel.
