Literature Glossary

Question 1

abstraction

Answer 1

• something you can’t directly experience using your 5 senses
• love, war, culture, etc
• you help readers understand abstractions by backing them up w/ concrete language

Question 2

Aesthetic movement

Answer 2

art for art’s sake
art should make you happy- who cares about social, pol messages?
life should imitate art, not the other way around

Question 3

Affective fallacy

Answer 3

in lit criticism, it refers to incorrectly judging a piece of writing by how it emotionally impacts its reader- separate emotions from evaluating the piece because when it comes to emotions, everybody reacts differently

Question 4

Alexandrine

Answer 4

a line of verse made up of six iambs.

it is a line of poetry written in iambic hexameter

Question 5

amplification

Answer 5

process of enriching a sentence so it's easier to understand:
e.g.
"the soup was yuck"
to 
"the soup tasted like vomit"

Question 6

anachronism

Answer 6

when something is out of sync with the time of the novel

Question 7

anapest

Answer 7

foot of poetry made up of three syllables
2 unstresseds followed by a stressed
dadaDUM

Question 8

anaphora

Answer 8

it was the best of times…

Question 9

anastrophe

Answer 9

usual sentence goes- subject- verb-object

when you intentionally switch it up then it’s anastrophe- used to add emphasis

Question 10

anthropomorphism

Answer 10

when an object/animal does human things

Question 11

apostrophe

Answer 11

a term used when a speaker directly addresses someone/ something that isn’t present in the poem
the speaker could be addressing an abstract concept or a even a thing

Question 12

bathos

Answer 12

abrupt shift in tone from high to low

Question 13

blank verse

Answer 13

-no rhyme scheme but IP

Question 14

blazon

Answer 14

when the speaker uses LDs like metaphor, simile and hyperbole to describe their lover’s body

Question 15

cacophony

Answer 15

a big old racket, made by combining lots of harsh, discordant noises.
opposite of euphony
synonym: dissonance

Question 16

cadence

Answer 16

refers to the rhythmic or musical elements of a poem
meter- refers to the regular elements of rhythm (beats, accents and feet), cadence refers to momentary variations in rhythm, like when a line speeds up or slows down
they often repeat/ contrast certain cadences for effect

Question 17

catastrophe

Answer 17

• a pivotal point in the plot of a story, especially classical tragedies
• comes after the climax and before the denouement
• when the hero undergoes his last chunk of suffering

Question 18

chiasmus

Answer 18

-type of parallelism
-consists of 2 parallel phrases in which corresponding words/ phrases are placed in opposite order
“ Beauty is truth, truth beauty”

Question 19

conceit

Answer 19

a kind of metaphor that compares 2 v unlikely things

usually extended metaphors

Question 20

dactyl

Answer 20

foot made up of 3 syllables
1 s 2 us
DUM-da-da

Question 21

dadaism

Answer 21

a movement all about rejecting the mainstream

Question 22

deconstructionism

Answer 22

• v interested in questioning the certainty and stability of texts
• texts wont always mean the same thing because language relies on context and is thus unstable
• before these guys there were structuralists= they believed everything is defined by what it’s not (good is not evil,etc)
• but deconstructionists shat on this idea as they believe that they set up unfair power structures in W culture (men over women, etc)
• they want to deconstruct these oppositions altogether, because they believe they are actually harmful contradictions
• e.g. good is not the absence of evil
• if we live our lives thinking that then we allow unfair power structures to create meaning in our lives and lit

Question 23

didactic

Answer 23

a play/ poem that aims to teach us something

Question 24

ekphrasis

Answer 24

writing about the visual arts

OtaGU is an example of ekphrasis

Question 25

elision

Answer 25

until becomes ‘til
because becomes ‘cause
it was becomes ‘twas

Question 26

end stop

Answer 26

occurs when a line of poetry ends w/ a definitive punctuation mark so each line is its own phrase/ unit of syntax
so you will naturally pause
ex- Bright star

Question 27

epigraph

Answer 27

a short phrase/ quotation that precedes a literary work

-ASND has one

Question 28

epistle

Answer 28

another name for a letter

Question 29

epithet

Answer 29

an adjective/ adjective phrase that’s used to characterise someone/ something. e.g.
R&J= “star-crossed lovers”
sometimes it’s so commonly used it becomes part of a person’s name:
e.g. Catherine the Great

Question 30

flat character v round character

Answer 30

flat- wallpaper

round- 3d

Question 31

euphony

Answer 31

harmony in sound

opposite of dissonance/ cacophony

Question 32

Free Indirect Discourse

Answer 32

• where the narrator reports to the reader the thoughts and feelings of the character
• it’s almost as if he is the character except he’s in 3rd person
• common in modernist lit

Question 33

free verse

Answer 33

-lacks a regular metre/ rhyme scheme

Question 34

logos

Answer 34

appealing to your audience using logic and reason

Question 35

lament

Answer 35

expression of grief, usually in a song or poem

Question 36

ethos

Answer 36

• all about judging character
• your trustworthy factor
• appeal to the moral character of your audience

Question 37

malapropism

Answer 37

when someone uses one word when they mean another

Question 38

masculine and feminine rhyme

Answer 38

• M: a rhyme that matches up single syllables
  e.x. “look a mouse/ run in the house!”
  stronger and more forceful rhyme

-F: a rhyme that matches up 2 syllables:
“i kidnapped some weasels/ and now i have the measles”
F rhyme because the wea and mea rhyme and sels and sles rhyme

Question 39

metonymy

Answer 39

a metaphor in which an object is used to describe something that’s closely related to it
i.e. when you’re talking about the power of the king, you might say “the crown” instead

Question 40

mimesis

Answer 40

used by critics when talking about whether a book does/ doesn’t represent real, everyday life and nature

Question 41

neoclassicism

Answer 41

- a lot had changed since the days of ancient W civilisation, but Enlightenment thinkers had the idea that human nature was stable enough that things weren't that different and didn't have to be expressed differently either
neoclassicists liked:
-order
-moderation
-limits
-structure
-obedience

the romantics hated them lol

Question 42

ottava rima

Answer 42

a poetic form whose stanzas have 8 lines (ottava) and follow an ABABABCCC rhyme scheme

Question 43

pastoral

Answer 43

countryside

Question 44

periphrasis

Answer 44

aka circumlocution- when you talk around something instead of just directly saying what it is

Question 45

refrain

Answer 45

a refrain in poetry is a regularly recurring phrase/ verse, especially at the end of each stanza

Question 46

slant rhyme

Answer 46

aka near rhyme

ex- dear and door

Question 47

spondee

Answer 47

a little foot consisting of 2 stresseds

DUMDUM

Question 48

synecdoche

Answer 48

a figure of speech in which a part of something represents the whole

Question 49

synesthesia

Answer 49

mixing the senses

ex. a loud t shirt

Question 50

syntax

Answer 50

sentence structure

Question 51

tenor

Answer 51

in a metaphor, the tenor is the subject.
I.e. it’s what’s getting re-imagined by the other part of the metaphor (the vehicle)

ex- “I devoured the book”

tenor: reading
vehicle: devoured

Question 52

trochee

Answer 52

stressed syllable followed by an unstressed
DUMda
opposite of an iamb

Question 53

verisimilitude

Answer 53

refers to the resemblance a work bears to reality

if a work of lit has verisimilitude, it has a likeness to real life