Literature Glossary Flashcards
abstraction
- 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
Aesthetic movement
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
Affective fallacy
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
Alexandrine
a line of verse made up of six iambs.
it is a line of poetry written in iambic hexameter
amplification
process of enriching a sentence so it's easier to understand: e.g. "the soup was yuck" to "the soup tasted like vomit"
anachronism
when something is out of sync with the time of the novel
anapest
foot of poetry made up of three syllables
2 unstresseds followed by a stressed
dadaDUM
anaphora
it was the best of times…
anastrophe
usual sentence goes- subject- verb-object
when you intentionally switch it up then it’s anastrophe- used to add emphasis
anthropomorphism
when an object/animal does human things
apostrophe
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
bathos
abrupt shift in tone from high to low
blank verse
-no rhyme scheme but IP
blazon
when the speaker uses LDs like metaphor, simile and hyperbole to describe their lover’s body
cacophony
a big old racket, made by combining lots of harsh, discordant noises.
opposite of euphony
synonym: dissonance
cadence
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
catastrophe
- 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
chiasmus
-type of parallelism
-consists of 2 parallel phrases in which corresponding words/ phrases are placed in opposite order
“ Beauty is truth, truth beauty”
conceit
a kind of metaphor that compares 2 v unlikely things
usually extended metaphors
dactyl
foot made up of 3 syllables
1 s 2 us
DUM-da-da
dadaism
a movement all about rejecting the mainstream
deconstructionism
- 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
didactic
a play/ poem that aims to teach us something
ekphrasis
writing about the visual arts
OtaGU is an example of ekphrasis
elision
until becomes ‘til
because becomes ‘cause
it was becomes ‘twas
end stop
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
epigraph
a short phrase/ quotation that precedes a literary work
-ASND has one
epistle
another name for a letter
epithet
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
flat character v round character
flat- wallpaper
round- 3d
euphony
harmony in sound
opposite of dissonance/ cacophony
Free Indirect Discourse
- 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
free verse
-lacks a regular metre/ rhyme scheme
logos
appealing to your audience using logic and reason
lament
expression of grief, usually in a song or poem
ethos
- all about judging character
- your trustworthy factor
- appeal to the moral character of your audience
malapropism
when someone uses one word when they mean another
masculine and feminine rhyme
- 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
metonymy
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
mimesis
used by critics when talking about whether a book does/ doesn’t represent real, everyday life and nature
neoclassicism
- 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
ottava rima
a poetic form whose stanzas have 8 lines (ottava) and follow an ABABABCCC rhyme scheme
pastoral
countryside
periphrasis
aka circumlocution- when you talk around something instead of just directly saying what it is
refrain
a refrain in poetry is a regularly recurring phrase/ verse, especially at the end of each stanza
slant rhyme
aka near rhyme
ex- dear and door
spondee
a little foot consisting of 2 stresseds
DUMDUM
synecdoche
a figure of speech in which a part of something represents the whole
synesthesia
mixing the senses
ex. a loud t shirt
syntax
sentence structure
tenor
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
trochee
stressed syllable followed by an unstressed
DUMda
opposite of an iamb
verisimilitude
refers to the resemblance a work bears to reality
if a work of lit has verisimilitude, it has a likeness to real life
