Literature and Understanding Text Flashcards
This type of ‘traditional literature’ is realistic with a moral, and comes off as didactic. Unlike a fable, it ‘can’ be true. (Prodigal Son)
parable
This type of ‘traditional literature’ is a nonrealistic story with a moral, sometimes featuring animals (Aesop)
fable
This type of ‘traditional literature’ is nonrealistic and features magic and stereotypes (Cinderella, Grimm Brothers)
fairy tale
This type of ‘traditional literature’ uses the language of the people and does not always feature a moral (Babe the Blue Ox)
folk tale
This type of ‘traditional literature’ is used to explain phenomena (Thor’s hammer)
myth
This type of ‘traditional literature’ tells exaggerated stories about real people, places, or things (George Washington and the cherry tree)
legend
This 18th-19th century movement originated in Germany and moved to England. It focused on awe, imagination, fancy, freedom, emotion, and the beauty of nature. Authors include Wordsworth, Poe, Goethe, and Mary Shelley.
Romanticism
This 19th century reaction to Romanticism featured a rejection of classical themes and embraced a true-to-life approach. Authors include Flaubert, Tolstoy, George Eliot, and Stephen Crane.
Realism
This 19th century reaction to Realism focused on symbolically evoking the world beyond the five senses and portraying highly complex feelings. Authors include Yeats, Joyce, and TS Eliot. (Includes some modernist writers as well)
Symbolism
This early 20th century movement focused on content and form of work. Its founders believed that knowledge was not absolute, that there was a loss of tradition, and featured the dominance of technology. Authors/contributors include Einstein, Freud, Ezra Pound, Joyce, E.E. Cummings, and Ibsen.
Modernism
This 20th century movement, mostly in art, attempted to free people from false rationality and restrictive structures. It supported socialism, communism, and anarchism. Some contributors were inspired by Freud’s work on dreams and the unconscious. Included are Breton, Aragon, Artaud, and Peret.
Surrealism
This lengthy form of fiction tells realistic stories that could happen–they could take place anywhere as long as the author makes it believable. This form was popularized by Dafoe’s ‘Robinson Crusoe’ and Swift’s ‘Gulliver’s Travels’
novel
This form of fiction originated in France and later moved to England and Germany, portraying an idealized life that is better than true experience. It may include love and/or fantasy. (Malory’s ‘Le Morte D’Arthur)
romance
This form of fiction shows only one character’s ideas and thoughts–the character is round and known in detail by the reader. (St. Augustine and Rosseau)
confession
In this form of fiction, the reader sees the world through the eyes of another and ends up with a different take on a certain aspect because of it (The reader’s take on candy in Roald Dahl’s ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’)
Menippean satire
This term is the author’s attitude
tone
This term describes when the author talks down to the reader
condescension
This term describes a teaching tone in literature
didactic
The type of irony in which there is incongruity between what is said and what is mean is
verbal irony
The type of irony in which there is a difference between what happens and what is expected is
situational irony
This type of irony is when the reader knows more than the character knows
dramatic irony
This literary device conveys fun and laughter
humor
A humorous or ridiculing imitation is this
parody
The excessive use of feeling or emotion in writing
sentimentality
This comparison between two dissimilar things uses “like” or “as”
simile
This comparison between two dissimilar things uses a literal description - “The diving bird was a missile headed for its target”
metaphor
This compares two dissimilar things in order to explain something complex (Professional bullriding can be like rewiring the electric grid to your house–it’s dangerous and if you make one mistake, you might end up on the ground)
analogy
Giving human characteristics to inanimate objects is
personification, also connected to anthropomorphism
A meaningless phrase because of frequent use
cliche
Reference to a historical, literary, or familiar character or event to make an idea understandable
allusion
An author’s choice of words is his or her
diction
The author’s/speaker’s ‘fingerprint’ made up of tone, style, diction, and figurative language
voice
This point of view is when the narrator knows all about the characters and their actions, sharing this with the reader
omniscient
This point of view is when the narrator does not share all info about characters and their actions
limited omniscient
This point of view is similar to an over-the-shoulder view of the action, giving no thoughts or feelings from the characters
objective
This point of view unfolds through the eyes of one central character and can be biased. Uses “I.”
first person singular
This point of view uses “you” and can pose a problem to the reader as they aren’t sure who “you” refers to
second person
In this point of view, the narrator does not participate but can reveal thoughts and feelings. Uses “he” and “she.”
Third person
This term describes the devices used by the writer to enhance the flow of words or describes the writer’s formal choices in his or her work
style
Denotation describes a word’s…
precise meaning
Connotation describe’s a word’s
impression or feeling beyond the direct meaning of the word
The repetition of initial sounds in nearby words (crawling cats in the cage)
alliteration
The repetition of vowel sounds in a line is called
We are right for the fight tonight
assonance
“Snap,” “crackle” and “pop” are examples of
onomatopoeia
The flow or cadence of the writing that creates mood or feeling for the reader
rhythm
Descriptive language that creates a mental image for the reader using the five senses
imagery
The opposite of hyperbole, this presents something as less significant then it is
(It’s just a flesh wound)
understatement
Creative and witty use of words, including puns
wordplay
When one person, place, or thing represents something else it is…
(Blood as guilt in ‘Macbeth’)
symbolism
Plot can be presented in these three fashions
chronological, flashback, foreshadowing
The unsettled issues, either internal or external, that drive the plot of a story
conflict
The state of uncertainty, or not knowing, created for the reader
suspense
An exciting, unresolved ending to a story or chapter is a
cliffhanger
Giving a clue or hint to a future action in a story is the use of
foreshadowing
Emotionally-charged words, expressions, or events to provoke a strong reaction in the reader is called
(think Indiana Jones or James Bond movies)
sensationalism
The highest point of interest in a book or story–when a reader says, “Aha! I surely know what will happen now!” is called
climax
The ending of a book, which can be open (all q’s answered) or closed (not all q’s answered)
denoument
In this type of plot, you must read the entire story to have all questions answered (like most novels)
progressive plot
In this type of plot, the individual chapters/stories are stories within themselves (like TV shows and comics)
episodic plot
The structure of a story is mainly made up by these two things
plot and setting
This type of setting in a story is not important to the plot, also called “figurative setting”
backdrop setting
This type of setting is essential to the plot–it could only happen in this place
integral setting
These types of characters are fully described and revealed
round
These types of characters are not fully developed
flat
These types of characters are unchanging through the story
static
These types of characters develop and change through the story
dynamic
Typecasting a character based on nationality, gender, religion, etc. is called
stereotyping
The five methods of character presentation are
Actions, thoughts, speech, appearance, and judgments by narrator/other characters
The main idea or central meaning of the work is its
theme
The _______ of a story is judged by how the reader feels convinced by the characters, setting, and plot
authenticity
Person vs. him/herself is a type of
internal conflict
Person vs nature, person vs person, person vs society, and person vs machine are types of
external conflict
Expository writing like biographies, reports, and essays whose purpose is to inform can be called
nonfiction prose
In poetry, a group of lines with metrical order is called a
stanza
A 14-line fixed-form poem is known as a
sonnet
This type of sonnet contains an octave and sestet. It’s rhyme scheme is abbaabba cdecde. It originated in Italy.
Petrarchan sonnet
This type of sonnet contains three quatrains and a couplet. It’s rhyme scheme is abab cdcd efef gg.
Shakespearean/English sonnet
This is a story poem vast in length that celebrates a hero and uses couplet form w/ equal line lengths (The Iliad)
epic
This is a story poem written in song (Rime of the Ancient Mariner)
ballad
This type of poetry focuses on moving the reader to emotion (Wordsworth and Coleridge)
lyric poetry
This type of lyric poetry is a lament for someone or something
elegy
This type of lyric poetry gives praise to figures and are usually long in length
ode
This form of poetry began with courtly love poems from Medieval times. It features five tercets with an ending quatrain. (Do Not Go Gentle…)
villanelle
This form of poetry features six stanzas of six lines
sestina
A short poem with a clever twist at the end:
Little strokes / Fell great oaks, / A stitch in time / Saves nine (Ben Franklin)
epigram
A five line poem in AABBA, popularized by Edward Lear:
There was a Young Lady whose chin / Resembled the point of a pin; / So she had it made sharp, / and purchased a harp,/ And played several tunes with her chin.
limerick
This is also known as off-rhyme or near-rhyme
slant rhyme
Rhyming one syllable words for impact is the use of
masculine rhyme
Rhyming multi-syllable words for softness/lightness is the use of
feminine rhyme
Unrhymed poetry with varied metrical patterns is ____ verse
free verse
Unrhymed poetry in iambic pentameter is called (popularized by Shakespeare and Milton)
blank verse
Iambic means ______ and pentameter means _______
Using iambs (unstressed/stressed), five measures per line
“in the FIRE” (unstressed/unstressed/stressed) is an example of
an anapest (think ‘anapest in the FIRE’)
DOUBle DOUBle TOil and TROUBle shows heavy use of (stressed/unstressed)
trochees (think ‘TROUBle trochees’)
TAKE her up / TENderly are both examples of (stressed/unstressed/unstressed)
dactyl (think ‘ten TENderly dactyls’)
This sub-period of literature is the first of the Classial (1200BC-455CE) during the time of ‘The Iliad’ and ‘The Odyssey’
Homeric
This period of literature featured Aesop, Plato, and Socrates
Classical Greek
This period of literature featured Ovid, Virgil, and Horace
Classical Roman
This period of literature featured St. Augustine and St. Ambrose and saw the first composition of The Holy Bilbe
Patristic
This period of literature saw ‘Beowulf’ and ‘The Wanderer’
Old English (Anglo-Saxon)
This period of literature saw advancement in grammars, encyclopedias, and was also the same time as the writing of the Viking sagas
Carolingian Renaissance
This period of literature saw a change in English as well as romances, French fables, and author Marie de France during the 12th Century Renaissance
Middle English
Chaucer, Malory, Petrarch, and Dante were all writers during this period of literature
Late (High) Medieval
Edmund Spenser and Martin Luther wrote during this period of literature
Tudor (part of the Renaissance/Reformation period)
This period of literature featured Shakespeare, Kyd, Marlowe, and Sidney
Elizabethan (part of the Renaissance/Reformation period)
After Elizabeth’s reign was over, playwright Ben Jonson and poet/satirist Jon Donne wrote during this period
Jacobean (part of the Renaissance/Reformation period)
This literature period was during Oliver Cromwell’s dictatorship and featured writers Andrew Marvelle and Sir Thomas Prowne
Commonwealth (part of the Renaissance/Reformation period)
During the Enlightenment/Neoclassical and restoring of the English crown, Dryden, Locke, and Moliere wrote in this period of literature
Restoration
During the Enlightenment/Neoclassical, Swift, Pope, and Voltaire wrote in this period of literature
Augustun
The Age of Johnson was a movement toward romanticism but still neoclassical. It featured these famous (and one of the first) American authors
Ben Franklin and Thomas Paine (Sam Johnson and Boswell in England)
Coleridge, Blake, Keats, Shelley, Goethe, and Austen all wrote during this literary movement
Romantic
Inspired by romanticism, Emerson and Thoreau were at the forefront of this movement
Transcendentalism
Stoker, Poe, and Hawthorne were all writers in this movement inspired by romanticism
Gothic
Sentimental novels and authors Tennyson, Dickens, and Oscar Wilde were important in this literary period
Victorian
A famous naturalist/realist/impressionist American author writing in the Victorian period who wrote ‘The Blue Hotel’
Stephen Crane
Woolf, Yeats, Heaney, Auden, Frost, Flannery O’Connor, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Faulkner are all considered authors of this period of literature
Modern (1914-45)
Langston Hughes is one of the remembered authors of this African-American movement during the modern literature period
Harlem Renaissance
Metafiction, fragmented poetry, and multiculturalism in literature are all part of this period
Postmodern (1945 - present)
This literary criticism theory poses that the meaning of the text is within the reader’s psyche-both conscious and unconscious
Reader response theory
Group debate working toward shared interpretations about a text is this literary criticism theory (Great Books Program)
Shared inquiry theory
This literary criticism theory uses historical social and intellectual currents from the time the author wrote to find meaning in the text
Historicism
This literary criticism theory uses recension (selection and examination of evidence) and emendation (effort to eliminate all errors in even the best manuscripts)
Textual criticism
A literary criticism theory that attempts to male-dominated critical perspective with a female consciousness is called
feminist criticism
Using knowledge of the author’s life experiences to understand a text in theory is called
biographical criticism
This type of criticism focuses on the historical, social, and economic contexts of a work
Cultural criticism
This type of literary criticism theory focuses on formal elements such as language, structure, tone, diction, irony, paradox, metaphor, simile, etc.
Formal criticism
A story in which people, things, or actions represent an idea or generalization about life, and usually have a moral (Pilgrim’s Progress)
allegory
The repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of several lines (I Have a Dream…)
anaphora
A brief story that illustrates or makes a point
anecdote
A wise saying, usually short and witty (An apple a day keeps the doctor away)
aphorism
A natural pause in a line of verse, marked in prosody by a //
caesura
A metaphor or figure of speech, often elaborate, that compares two things that are very different (John Donne used this)
conceit
Repetition of final consonant sounds (stroke of luck)
consonance
Language that intentionally distorts or disguises meaning, which may take the form of a euphemism. (genuine imitation leather used for ‘vinyl’)
doublespeak
In poetry, when one line ends and continues onto the next line to complete meaning, this is the use of
enjambment
The philosophy and literary movement that values human freedom and personal responsibility, and authors include Camus, Sartre, Nietzsche, Kafka, and Beauvoir.
existentialism
A character who acts in contrast of another character is a
foil
This measurement is can be made up of one stressed syllable and any number of unstressed syllables, from zero to four.
metrical foot/feet
Give the metrical term for lines of one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and eight feet in poetry
monometer, dimeter, trimeter, tetrameter, pentameter, hexameter, septameter, octameter
A literary device in which a story is enclosed in another story is called
frame story
A pair of lines of poetic verse written in iambic pentameter, used by Chaucer
heroic couplet
The flaw that leads to the downfall of the tragic hero
hubris
An expression specific to a certain language that means something different from the literal meaning (come up for air = stop talking)
idiom
The art and science of text interpretation is called
hermeneutics
A type of wordplay in which the speaker mixes up words to accidentally create a different, or opposite meaning (A doctor a day keeps the apple away)
Malapropism
A figure of speech in which one word is substituted for another with which it is closely associated (‘The White House’ stands for the president and people who work there)
metonymy
Oedipus complex refers to Freud’s belief that
people experience complex emotions based on their sexual attraction to the opposite sex parent
A contradictory statement that makes sense (Man learns from history that man learns nothing from history)
paradox
A phrase that consists of two contradictory terms (deafening silence)
oxymoron
The attribution of human feelings and responses to inanimate things or animals (pet rock)
pathetic fallacy
The repetition of a line or phrase of a poem at regular intervals, particularly at the end of each stanza
refrain
Persuasive writing/speaking is also known as
rhetoric
The regular and random occurrence of sounds in poetry
rhythm
A long speech made in a play while no other characters are speaking
soliloquy
A metrical foot consisting of two syllables, both of which are stressed (FOOT-BALL)
spondee (think ‘spondee sports = FOOT-BALL’)
A style of writing that portrays the inner-thoughts of a character, utilized by Joseph Conrad and Virginia Woolf
stream of consciousness
A figure of speech in which a part represents a whole (The word “head” can represent cattle)
synecdoche
The juxtaposition of one sensory image with another that appeals to an unrelated sense (the room was painted a cool blue)
synesthesia
Language spoken by common people who live in a particular region (not dialect)
Vernacular
A type of Japanese poem written in three lines with five syllables, seven syllables, five syllables
Haiku
A poem that tells a story is a
narrative poem
A poem that depicts life in a idyllic, idealized way
pastoral
A genre of literature in which the character cannot find any inherent purpose in life, represented by meaningless actions and events (Kafka’s ‘The Metamorphosis’)
absurdist
A type of comedy in which silly, often stereotyped characters, are involved in far-fetched situations (Comedy of Errors)
farce
Literature that makes fun of social conventions or conditions, usually to evoke change (Swift’s ‘A Modest Proposal’)
satire
A very exaggerated, funny story that is obviously unbelievable, but told as it if were true (Paul Bunyan eating 50 pancakes in 1 minute)
tall tale
A phrase or statement written in memory of a person, especially on a tombstone
epitaph
A byname that accompanies a famous or divine character or person, which can be though of as a nickname, like ‘Alexander the Great’ or ‘Cloud-gathering Zeus’
epithet
A historical account written from personal knowledge, such as Barack Obama’s ‘Dreams from my Father’
memoir
Works including ‘The Epic of Gilgamesh,’ Hebrew scriptures, and the teachings of Confucius fall under this category
Ancient world literature
This group of poets, including Longfellow and Holmes, were from Boston and wrote poems to be read as family entertainment
Fireside poets, 19th C
A group of American writers, including Alan Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, known for its nonconformity, drug-experimentation, interest in Eastern religions, and rejection of materialism.
The Beat Generation, 1950s
A group of poets who wrote in the 1950s, including Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell, and Anne Sexton
Confessional School
This group of poets wrote in the 17th C and wrote for King Charles I, who demanded the fine arts. The poets include Jonson, Carew, Lovelace, and Suckling. The poems often celebrated the English crown or courtly love and used allegorical/classical allusions.
Cavalier poets a.k.a Sons of Ben
This 17th C literary movement in British lit featured early novels written by women and meant to be read by women. It was an early predecessor of the modern romance novel. Authors include Aphra Behn and Eliza Haywood.
Amatory fiction
This 17th C group of poets used extended conceits sometimes about religion and included authors Jon Donne, George Herbert, and Andrew Marvell
metaphysical poets
This 18th C literary movement based chiefly on classical ideals, satire, and skepticism included Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift
The Augustans
Wordsworth and :Coleridge were from the English Lake District and known as this
The Lake Poets
Washington Irving and Nathaniel Hawthorne were both part of this movement
American Romanticism
This “dark” movement in 19th C America was a reaction to transcendentalism and featured authors Poe, Hawthorne, Melville, and Lippard
Dark Romanticism
This late-19th C movement was based on a simplification of style and an interest in poverty and everyday concerns. Notable authors include Flaubert, Tolstoy, Howwels, and Norris.
Realism
This 19th C movement believed that heredity and environment control people. Notable authors include Emile Zola and Stephen Crane.
Naturalism
This principally French movement was based on the structure of thought rather than poetic form or image. It influence Poe and Merril. Authors include Mallarme, Rimbaud, and Valery.
Symbolism
Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Ezra Pound, and Waldo Pierce are collectively know as this, a group of American literary nobles who lived in Paris and other parts of Europe from World War I to the Great Depression.
The Lost Generation
