MIDTERM Flashcards
myth
a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events.
folklore
consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales, stories, tall tales, and customs included in the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It also includes the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared.
oral tradition
a community’s cultural and historical traditions passed down by word of mouth or example from one generation to another without written instruction.
narrator
a person who gives an account or tells the story of events, experiences, etc.
focalization
to bring or come to a focus.
characterization
representation
- direct methods: attributions of qualities in description
- indirect methods: infer qualities
genre
- A recognizable and established category of written work
- Employs common conventions the prevent readers from mistaking it from another category.
narrative
a story or account of events, experiences, or the like, whether true or fictitious.
polemic
a controversial argument, as one against some opinion, doctrine, etc
bitter/caustic
severely critical or sarcastic
thesis
a proposition stated or put forward for consideration, especially one to be discussed and proved or to be maintained against objections:
antithesis
The placing of a sentence or one of its parts against another to which it is opposed to form a balanced contrast of ideas, as in “Give me liberty or give me death
debunk
to expose or excoriate (a claim, assertion, sentiment, etc.) as being pretentious, false, or exaggerated
expose
exposition, when you list facts to support your case.
individualism
a social theory advocating the liberty, rights, or independent action of the individual.
intellect
the power or faculty of the mind by which one knows or understands, as distinguished from that by which one feels and that by which one wills; the understanding; the faculty of thinking and acquiring knowledge.
autobiography
written by the person
apostrophe
a rhetorical figure in which the speaker addresses a dead or absent person, or an audience
time
time of telling: the time at which a story is told as opposed to the time at which a story takes place
chronology
sequential order in which events occur
anachrony
a discrepancy between the order of events in a story and the order in which they are presented in the plot:
analepsis
When a narrator recounts events that took place before the present moment in which a story occurs
i.e. flashback: enables a storyteller to fufill background info
essay
a short literary composition on a particular theme or subject, usually in prose and generally analytic, speculative, or interpretative.
allusion
a passing or casual reference; an incidental mention of something, either directly or by implication
Neologism
the introduction or use of new words or new senses of existing words.
short story
a piece of prose fiction, usually under 10,000 words.
gothic novel
A story of terror and suspense, usually set in a gloomy old medieval setting
grotesque
bizarre distortions
uncanny
having or seeming to have a supernatural or inexplicable basis; beyond the ordinary or normal; extraordinary:
symbolism
represents something
imagery
evoke sense expressions
the Fantastic
Possible and impossible are confounded
foreshadowing
to show or indicate beforehand; prefigure:
slave narrative
written account by an escaped or freed slaves or his/her experiences of slavery.
antagonist
a person who is opposed to, struggles against, or competes with another; opponent; adversary.
meter
Pattern measured sound units recurring more or less regularly in lines of verse.
verse
A line of poetry
stanza
A group of verse lines forming a section of a poem and sharing the same structure as all or some of the other sections of the same poem
rhyme
The similarity of sound within words
rhyme scheme
Pattern in which rhymed line endings are arranged in poem or stanza.
4 Categories of Interpretation
- Form: Type of stanza, verse, rhyme scheme, etc.
- Meter: Length and structure of individual verses
- Sound: How words sound: Alliterations, Onomatepoeia
- Meaning: Formal features that affect interpretation: imagery
antihero
a protagonist who lacks the attributes that make a heroic figure, as nobility of mind and spirit, a life or attitude marked by action or purpose, and the like.
intentional fallacy
an assertion that the intended meaning of the author is not the only or most important meaning; a fallacy involving an assessment of a literary work based on the author’s intended meaning rather than on actual response to the work.
Naturalism
-lack of free will
-lower class
-nature is indifferent to man
–detached method of narration and the use of formal tone
-writing sounds objective
a manner or technique of treating subject matter that presents, through volume of detail, a deterministic view of human life and actions.
Realism
2 types: -middle class recording actual life in detail physical- psychological-
Naturalism vs. Realism
Realism seeks to only describe subjects as they really are, naturalism attempts to determine the underlying forces influencing the actions of its subjects.
Transcendentalism
- American Renaissance
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau
- rejected organized religion in favor of an extremely individualistic behavior of the divinity in each human being.
- reliance on man’s intuition and conscience
- antimaterialism
- individualism
- the ordinary
- nonconformism
Individualism
a social theory advocating the liberty, rights, or independent action of the individual.
Sensationalism
subject matter, language, or style producing or designed to produce startling or thrilling impressions or to excite and please vulgar taste.
Expansionism
a policy of expansion, as of territory or currency
1803: Thomas Jefferson purchases Louisiana Territory from France
1846-1848-Mexican American War
1849-California seeks admission to Union
-gold rush
Romanticism
- 1800-1860
First half of 19th century, there was a shift in attitudes towards art and creativity
-literary and philosophical theory: individual at the center of life and experience
-rejection of Enlightenment
-valued emotional intensity
-interest in irrational: dreams, delirium, self expression
-natural growth and free development
-freedom and self expression, personal experience
-paved the way for the rise of a celebrity author
Enlightenment
- The Great Awakening
- Investment in intellectualism
- scientific revolution
- induvidualism
- increased social mobility
- rise of literacy
- POLITICS
- Locke, Franklin, Hamilton, Madison, Jefferson
Beginnings to 1700
Early Americans:
-NA’s, Mexicans,
The Malahado Way of Life through The Falling Out with Our Countrymen
by Alvar Nunez Cabeza De Vaca
1490-1558
Mourt’s Relation
1622 by William Bradford and Edward Winslow
A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson
1637-1729 by Mary Rowlandson
1700-1820
-The Enlightement
Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America
by Benjamin Franklin 1784
- Writing about Europeans
- Polemic
The Federalist No. 10
1787 James Madison
-About the Enlightenment
Olaudah Equiano
1745-1797
-captured and inslaved
-born in South Carolina?
-trying to represent slave stories as a whole
Equiano vs. Douglass
-freedom -born into slavery
-bought freedom -got to experience freedom later
-teaching people -escaped and didn’t tell how
-education -activism
1840-1865
Transcendentalism
The American Scholar
1837 Ralph Waldo Emerson -argumentative both HDT and RWH -simplicity, thoughts, reflection
Where I Lived, What I Lived For
Henry David Thoreau
- nonconformism
- allusion
The Fall of the House of Usher
1839
Edgar Allan Poe
-transcendentalism
-gothic
The Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass
1852, 1855
Compared with Equiano, would not say how he excaped
abolitionist for change
Spontaneous Me, When I Heard the Learned Astronomer, Beat! Beat! Drums!
Transcendentalism
Emily Dickinson Readings
Grandmother of poetry
Bartleby, The Scrivener
1853 Herman Melville
-I would prefer not to
1865-1900
Realism and Naturalism
An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge
Realism/Naturalism
Ambrose Bierce
Was The World Made For Man?
Realism/Naturalism
Mark Twain
The Lowest Animal
Realism/Naturalism
Mark Twain
Up From Slavery
Realism/Naturalism
Booker T. Washingtion
Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others
Realism/Naturalism
The Story of an Hour
Realism/Naturalism
Kate Chopin
The Yellow Wallpaper
Realism/Naturalism
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The Art of Fiction
Realism/Naturalism
Henry James
Novel-Writing and Novel- Reading
Realism/Naturalism
William Dean Howell
Zola As a Romantic Writer
Realism/Naturalism
Frank Norris
A Plea For Romantic Fiction
Realism/Naturalism
Frank Norris
To Build A Fire
Realism/Naturalism
Jack London
The Blue Hotel
Realism/Naturalism
Stephen Crane
litotes
A figure of speech by which an affirmation is made indirectly by denying its opposite.
free verse
type of poetry that does not conform to ant regular meter
onomoatopeia
the words that imitate sound
simile
comparison of two unlike things using “like” or “as”
metaphor
same but without using “like” or “as”
Darwinism
Survival of the fittest
Causes of the Enlightenment
- Diversity
- Privileging of Social over Spiritual Concerns
- Colonies Push For Independence from Freedom
Difference Romanticism and Transcendentalism
Same, Romanticism is the American version
Social Darwinism
Applying survival of the fittest, social political, economic fields
Frontier Myth
1890 - All land was claimed, Expansionism ends
