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American Literature > MIDTERM > Flashcards

MIDTERM Flashcards

1
Q

myth

A

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.

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2
Q

folklore

A

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.

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3
Q

oral tradition

A

a community’s cultural and historical traditions passed down by word of mouth or example from one generation to another without written instruction.

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4
Q

narrator

A

a person who gives an account or tells the story of events, experiences, etc.

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5
Q

focalization

A

to bring or come to a focus.

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6
Q

characterization

A

representation

  • direct methods: attributions of qualities in description
  • indirect methods: infer qualities
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7
Q

genre

A
  • A recognizable and established category of written work

- Employs common conventions the prevent readers from mistaking it from another category.

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8
Q

narrative

A

a story or account of events, experiences, or the like, whether true or fictitious.

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9
Q

polemic

A

a controversial argument, as one against some opinion, doctrine, etc

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10
Q

bitter/caustic

A

severely critical or sarcastic

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11
Q

thesis

A

a proposition stated or put forward for consideration, especially one to be discussed and proved or to be maintained against objections:

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12
Q

antithesis

A

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

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13
Q

debunk

A

to expose or excoriate (a claim, assertion, sentiment, etc.) as being pretentious, false, or exaggerated

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14
Q

expose

A

exposition, when you list facts to support your case.

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15
Q

individualism

A

a social theory advocating the liberty, rights, or independent action of the individual.

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16
Q

intellect

A

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.

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17
Q

autobiography

A

written by the person

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18
Q

apostrophe

A

a rhetorical figure in which the speaker addresses a dead or absent person, or an audience

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19
Q

time

A

time of telling: the time at which a story is told as opposed to the time at which a story takes place

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20
Q

chronology

A

sequential order in which events occur

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21
Q

anachrony

A

a discrepancy between the order of events in a story and the order in which they are presented in the plot:

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22
Q

analepsis

A

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

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23
Q

essay

A

a short literary composition on a particular theme or subject, usually in prose and generally analytic, speculative, or interpretative.

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24
Q

allusion

A

a passing or casual reference; an incidental mention of something, either directly or by implication

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25
Q

Neologism

A

the introduction or use of new words or new senses of existing words.

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26
Q

short story

A

a piece of prose fiction, usually under 10,000 words.

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27
Q

gothic novel

A

A story of terror and suspense, usually set in a gloomy old medieval setting

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28
Q

grotesque

A

bizarre distortions

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29
Q

uncanny

A

having or seeming to have a supernatural or inexplicable basis; beyond the ordinary or normal; extraordinary:

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30
Q

symbolism

A

represents something

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31
Q

imagery

A

evoke sense expressions

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32
Q

the Fantastic

A

Possible and impossible are confounded

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33
Q

foreshadowing

A

to show or indicate beforehand; prefigure:

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34
Q

slave narrative

A

written account by an escaped or freed slaves or his/her experiences of slavery.

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35
Q

antagonist

A

a person who is opposed to, struggles against, or competes with another; opponent; adversary.

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36
Q

meter

A

Pattern measured sound units recurring more or less regularly in lines of verse.

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37
Q

verse

A

A line of poetry

38
Q

stanza

A

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

39
Q

rhyme

A

The similarity of sound within words

40
Q

rhyme scheme

A

Pattern in which rhymed line endings are arranged in poem or stanza.

41
Q

4 Categories of Interpretation

A
  1. Form: Type of stanza, verse, rhyme scheme, etc.
  2. Meter: Length and structure of individual verses
  3. Sound: How words sound: Alliterations, Onomatepoeia
  4. Meaning: Formal features that affect interpretation: imagery
42
Q

antihero

A

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.

43
Q

intentional fallacy

A

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.

44
Q

Naturalism

A

-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.

45
Q

Realism

A 
2 types:
-middle class
recording actual life in detail
physical- 
psychological-
46
Q

Naturalism vs. Realism

A

Realism seeks to only describe subjects as they really are, naturalism attempts to determine the underlying forces influencing the actions of its subjects.

47
Q

Transcendentalism

A
  • 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
48
Q

Individualism

A

a social theory advocating the liberty, rights, or independent action of the individual.

49
Q

Sensationalism

A

subject matter, language, or style producing or designed to produce startling or thrilling impressions or to excite and please vulgar taste.

50
Q

Expansionism

A

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

51
Q

Romanticism

A
  • 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
52
Q

Enlightenment

A
  • The Great Awakening
  • Investment in intellectualism
  • scientific revolution
  • induvidualism
  • increased social mobility
  • rise of literacy
  • POLITICS
  • Locke, Franklin, Hamilton, Madison, Jefferson
53
Q

Beginnings to 1700

A

Early Americans:

-NA’s, Mexicans,

54
Q

The Malahado Way of Life through The Falling Out with Our Countrymen

A

by Alvar Nunez Cabeza De Vaca

1490-1558

55
Q

Mourt’s Relation

A

1622 by William Bradford and Edward Winslow

56
Q

A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson

A

1637-1729 by Mary Rowlandson

57
Q

1700-1820

A

-The Enlightement

58
Q

Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America

A

by Benjamin Franklin 1784

  • Writing about Europeans
  • Polemic
59
Q

The Federalist No. 10

A

1787 James Madison

-About the Enlightenment

60
Q

Olaudah Equiano

A

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

61
Q

1840-1865

A

Transcendentalism

62
Q

The American Scholar

A 
1837
Ralph Waldo Emerson
-argumentative 
 both HDT and RWH
-simplicity, thoughts, reflection
63
Q

Where I Lived, What I Lived For

A

Henry David Thoreau

  • nonconformism
  • allusion
64
Q

The Fall of the House of Usher

A

1839
Edgar Allan Poe
-transcendentalism
-gothic

65
Q

The Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass

A

1852, 1855
Compared with Equiano, would not say how he excaped
abolitionist for change

66
Q

Spontaneous Me, When I Heard the Learned Astronomer, Beat! Beat! Drums!

A

Transcendentalism

67
Q

Emily Dickinson Readings

A

Grandmother of poetry

68
Q

Bartleby, The Scrivener

A

1853 Herman Melville

-I would prefer not to

69
Q

1865-1900

A

Realism and Naturalism

70
Q

An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge

A

Realism/Naturalism

Ambrose Bierce

71
Q

Was The World Made For Man?

A

Realism/Naturalism

Mark Twain

72
Q

The Lowest Animal

A

Realism/Naturalism

Mark Twain

73
Q

Up From Slavery

A

Realism/Naturalism

Booker T. Washingtion

74
Q

Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others

A

Realism/Naturalism

75
Q

The Story of an Hour

A

Realism/Naturalism

Kate Chopin

76
Q

The Yellow Wallpaper

A

Realism/Naturalism

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

77
Q

The Art of Fiction

A

Realism/Naturalism

Henry James

78
Q

Novel-Writing and Novel- Reading

A

Realism/Naturalism

William Dean Howell

79
Q

Zola As a Romantic Writer

A

Realism/Naturalism

Frank Norris

80
Q

A Plea For Romantic Fiction

A

Realism/Naturalism

Frank Norris

81
Q

To Build A Fire

A

Realism/Naturalism

Jack London

82
Q

The Blue Hotel

A

Realism/Naturalism

Stephen Crane

83
Q

litotes

A

A figure of speech by which an affirmation is made indirectly by denying its opposite.

84
Q

free verse

A

type of poetry that does not conform to ant regular meter

85
Q

onomoatopeia

A

the words that imitate sound

86
Q

simile

A

comparison of two unlike things using “like” or “as”

87
Q

metaphor

A

same but without using “like” or “as”

88
Q

Darwinism

A

Survival of the fittest

89
Q

Causes of the Enlightenment

A
  1. Diversity
  2. Privileging of Social over Spiritual Concerns
  3. Print
  4. Colonies Push For Independence from Freedom
90
Q

Difference Romanticism and Transcendentalism

A

Same, Romanticism is the American version

91
Q

Social Darwinism

A

Applying survival of the fittest, social political, economic fields

92
Q

Frontier Myth

A

1890 - All land was claimed, Expansionism ends

American Literature (2 decks)

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