Literature Flashcards
genre
– any discipline or subcategory of the humanities.
Fiction
a work of literature created from the author’s imagination rather than from fact. Traditionally, fiction has been divided into two categories:
novels and short stories.
Novels
are fictional prose narratives of considerable length, with a plot (the structure of a work of literature) that unfolds from the actions, speech, and thought of the characters.
Short stories
fables
are short prose fictional works that developed as a genre in the 19th century.
narratives designed to enforce a useful truth,
Point of view
represents the perspective from which an author tells a story to the reader.
First person (“I”) –
telling the story through the eyes and speech of one of the characters.
Epistolary
telling the story through letters written by the characters
Third person omniscient
– telling the story through a narrator that may take the viewpoint of any or all characters, or stand outside the characters and comment on the story.
Stream of consciousness –
telling the story through a flow of thoughts, feelings, and memories coming from a specific character’s mind.
Plot
is the structure of a work of literature or theatre. A plot may be closed or open.
closed plot
follows the model praised by Aristotle. It contains three main sections: Exposition, Complication, and Dénouement.
The complication
contains a series of conflicts and decisions that leads to a climax, a turning point in the plot.
The dénouement
is the final resolution of the plot.
An open plot
has little or no resolution. We leave the characters and imagine them carrying on as their personalities would suggest.
Nonfiction
consists of literary works based mainly on fact rather than on imagination.
A biography
Anecdotes
is a written account of a person’s life.
are stories or observations about moments in a biography.
Poetry
is condensed language selected for its sound, suggestive power, and meaning to convey a vivid and imaginative sense of experience.
Narrative poetry
tells a story. One kind of narrative poetry is epic poetry, which is of substantial length and elevated style, such as the ancient Greek poet Homer’s Iliad.
Dramatic poetry
uses dramatic form or technique. The dramatic monologue, a poem written as a speech of an individual character to an imaginary audience, is the major form of dramatic poetry.
Lyric poetry
, originally intended to be sung and accompanied by a lyre (a small harp-like instrument), comprises a brief, subjective work employing strong imagination, melody, and feeling to create a single, unified, and intense impression of the personal emotion of the poet.
The sonnet.
is the most finished form of lyric poetry. Petrarch (1304-1374) in Italian and Shakespeare (1564-1616) in English are the most important writers of these fourteen-line poems
