Literary Terms Flashcards
The Absurd
Where a characters actions do not make sense
ex. waking up a bug and being worried about how to get to work
Unstressed Stressed
Where every other syllable is stressed (used in iambic?)
Agitprop
Art where the intent was to agitate through propaganda, but today is used to say somethings political agenda was to obvious.
Allegory
A story with a second meaning beneath the obvious
Alliteration
The repetition of initial constants sounds
Consonance
The repetition of constants sounds
Assonance
The repetition of constants sounds
Allusion
A reference made in a work to something in another book
American Renaissance
A flourishing period in American literature before the civil war (American Romanticism) (Moby Dick)
Collective Unconscious
The ideas one is born with
Ex. Fear of the dark
Anachronism
When something is out of its time (1950’s movie with an iPhone)
Anaphora
A figure of speech where the same word or phrase is repeated in successive lines clauses or sentences
Angst
German for anxiety or dread, used by philosophers of existentialism to mean a state of anguish that we feel as we are confronted by the burden of our freedom and the accompanying responsibility to impose values and meaning on an absurd universe
Anti-hero
A central character of a work who lacks the nobility expected of a hero (flawed protagonist)
Apollonian
Creative energy with rules, order and symmetry
Dionysian
Creative energy is wild and frenzied
Oxymoron
A compressed paradox (Jumbo shrimp)
Apology
The justification or defense of a writers ideas
Soliloquy
When a character thinks that are or are alone on stage and tells their thoughts
Apostrophe
A figure of speech in which the speaker addresses a dead or absent person or inanimate object
ex wind
Archetype
A symbol, theme, setting, or character that occurs in so many different times and places it might embody some element of human existence
examples). servant and heroes journey
Asyndeton
A form of verbal compression which consists of the omission of connecting words between clauses
ex. I came I saw I conquered
Augustan Age
Time of Roman Emperor Augustus
Avant-Guard
Cutting edge artists who put themselves in danger by doing things ahead of their time
Avant-Guard
Cutting edge artists who put themselves in danger by doing things ahead of their time
Beat Writers
A little before the hippie movement (early 1960s) where people would recite their (usually subversive) poems to jazz music in suits
Bilduungsroman
German meaning a novel where a character is coming to age
Black or dark comedy
Joking that makes light of serious subjects
Blank verse
Something in iambic pentameter without rhyme (Elizabethan and Shakespearean plays)
Bowdlerize
Editing something so extremely there is nothing that could be offensive
Byronic
Comes from the poet lord Bryron who was very athletic, handsome, and one of the best poets. The term describes a character like him who was body defiant, bitterly self tormenting outcast, proudly rebellious, usually suffering from an unarmed sinl
Cacophony
Harsh sounding words also means loud noise
Euphony
Smooth sounding words
Canon
A body of work accepted by authority
Cantos
Like in Dantes inferno it is the replacements chapters
Caricature
Exaggerates the features of a character
Cataloging
A listing of things
Characterization
How the author describes a character
Chiasmus
Chris crossing of words (fair is fowl, fowl is fair)
Chivalry Romance
Modern is being a gentleman, but for us it means stories about knights
Chores
A group of people who appeared in plays and chants the plot of the play
Closed Couplet
Two lines of verse, usually in the same meter and joined by rhyme, that forms a unit (easily quotable)
Collective Unconscious
The inborn memory which he believed to be th eprimitive source of the archetypes or universal symbols found in legends poetry and dreams
Colloquial
Conversational English (not formal)
Commedia del-arte
Immprov comedic acting companies that performed throughout Europe around Shakespeare time
Conceit
An unusually far fetched or elaborate metaphor/simile that requires thought to understand
Coup de Theatre
An overthrow of the plot (a surprise)
Denouement
A basic plot element where loose ends are tied up (at the end)
Dialectic
The art of formal reasoning (argument)
Didactic
Literature that is meant to instruct or teach
Diphthong
A shift in a vowel sound (beer vs bee r)
Discourse
???
Double entendre
A double meaning (usually sexual)
Free Verse
No set meter or rhyme
Dramatic Monologue
A poem in which a single historical or fictional character other than the poet speaks to the audience (When the character saying the poem is a fictional character)
Dream sequence
A dream sequence in a film or book is when the character is dreaming
Dystopia
An alarming view of the future or society where it is about as bad as it gets
Elegy
A eulogy in the form of a poem
Eulogy
Words of praise for someone who has passed away
Encomium
A speech of praise common in Greek or roman culture (War hero or athlete)
Panegyric
Praie written or as a speech (Roman greek?)
Elision
Removing a sylabol by removing a vowel (The –> Th’)
Enjambment
The continuing of a sentence without interruption from one line couplet or stanza to the next
Exemplum
Any story with a clear moral message
Objective Correlation
Changing the setting to affect the mood
Existentialism
A philosophy that focuses on lived human existence. Mostly freedom, responsibility and living in an absurd universe
Expressionism
A movement in the late 1800s to the early 1900s in painting, theater, literature (the arts) that presents the world violently distorted with intense moods and ideas
Romaniticism
Comes after the enlightenment and is was a huge movement from the 1790s to 1850s where art took a turn towards nature, feelings, self-expression, (emotion)
Fabliau
A coarsely humorous short story in poetry (dirty joke)
Farce
A slapstick comedy with unlikely plot
Femininending
11 syllable in iambic pentameter
Feet
A unit of stressed unstressed
Framed Narrative
A story within a story
Futurism
A art movement in the earliest 20th century that focused on the sense of speed
Genres
Types of things
Gothic
A story of terror and suspense normally set in a far away land (Can also apply to architecture)
Grotesque
Abnormal conditions of the mind or body that you would see in a horror story
Halfrhyme
similar consonant ending but differt vowel
Hamartia
A series of mistakes caused by the hubris
Harlem renaissance
A movement in Harlem in early 1900s where art flourished
Couplet
Two lines that go together
Satire
Something that ridicules something
Hyperbole
An exagerattion
Idiom
Expressions that make no sense when translated
Imagery
The mental picture that an author tries to create
In mendias res
When the story opens in the middle of an action
Stream of Consciousness
When an author tries to capture the true thoughts of the character and follows how thoughts actually flow
Irony
Verbal irony is saying one thing but meaning something else, tragic irony is when the main character think one thing is going to happen but you know something else will situational I when you thing something is going to happen but something else does instead
Jacobin
relating to the time period of king James
Lampoon
Satire that attacks someone personally
Latinate
Song words that have Latin roots (trying to make English as much like latin as possible)
Leitmotif??
Something that appears throughout literature
Lítotes
When you understate something with a negative (Climbing mount everest is no easy feat)
Meiosis
An understatement
Malaprop
Funny mispronunciation
Metaphor
Comparing to things without using like or as
Metaphysical Poets
Poets around the time of Renaissance that deal heavily with philosophical stuff
Metonymy
substituting one word fro another closely relating to it (the pen is mightier than the sword)
mimesis
The art of imitation
Minimalist
When less is more
Mise en scene
Everything in front of a viewers eyes in a production
Mockepic
An satire or parody that mocks classical stereotypes of heroes (King who is worried who will carry on his tradition of bad writing)
Modernism
Sweeping term applied to vacant-guard movements (1800s onwards)
Monologue
When there is one person speaking thinking etc
Soliloquy
When the character us aline and expressing deep thoughts, (emotions)
Myth criticism
A way of studying literature that views thoughts and story lines as having a mythic origin
Occupatio
To emphasize somethingby pretending to pass over it
ODe
A lyric poem(strong emotion) directed at someone or something
Oeuvre
A body of work (such as all song by an artist)
Onomatopoeia
ex. boom
Oratory
Speaking
Oxymoron
A very short paradow
Paradox
Self contradicting statement
Parody
satire that imitates
Pathos
In a tragedy where the main character is pitied by the reader
Peripeteia
A sudden reversal of a characters circumstances
Persona
The mask assumed by the author (Holden is not Salinger)
Personification
Giving human qualities to non-human things
Petrarchan (Italian) sonnet
14 lines written in the pattern abba abba cde cde
Picaresque
A story where the main character is a rascal
Poetic Justice
Literature wahrer the bad person is eventually punished and the good rewarded
Poetic license
where the poet breaks grammar and style rules because poetry
Point of View
First and third person
Polemic
A strong verbal or Witten attack on someone or something
Postmodernism
The term applied to the era after modernism from the 1950s to today
Realism
An accurate depiction of reality
Renaissance
A vibrant time of art from 1450 to 1650 then the “painting masters” lived and art changed from 1d to real life
Roman a clef
where the characters in a story are obviously people on real life
Roman a these
A book which puts forth a very clear philosophical or political poet of view
Roman-Flueve
A series of novels with the same characters
Scansion
Determining the beats in a line of poetry
Stanza
A section of a poem
Sublime
A deep intellectual mysterious beauty of something (Pacific Northwest backpack)
Syntax
How the words are arranged in a sentence
Terza Rima
Poem with rhyme pattern abs bob cdc so it links the stanzas
tragedy
Needs hubris, hamartia and ???
Transcendentalism
The closer you get to nature the closer you get to the divine
The unities
A concept (greek) that tragedies should have unity of time, place and action
Utopia
A perfect society
Wit
To be a wit means you were a quick thinker, clever and can express things most can’t put into words. During the enlightenment it was considered a culture and people would even have wits at their party to keep the conversation alive
Zitgist
The spirit of a particular age
