Terms Flashcards
A story or visual image with a second distinct meaning partially hidden behind its literal or visible meaning
Allegory
An indirect reference to an event, person, place or artistic work. The relevance isn’t explained by the author but relies on the audience’s familiarity with what is mentioned
Allusion
Openess to different interpretations
Ambiguity
A central figure in a work that repels the audience with morals or actions but isn’t a villain. May do heroic deeds
Anti-Hero
A term from jungian psychology. Essentially a sterotype around every culture. (I.e. The trickster or flawed hero like Hercules)
Archetype
Cruel humor
Black comedy
Cameras can remain stationary and move side to side,up and down, move along a vehicle, backwards or forward, etc
Camera movement
A body of works considered authentic
Canon
A process in which a character heals though often a painful process
Catharsis
The emotional implications and associations that words may carry as distinguished from their denotative meanings
Connotation
The basic dictionary meaning of a word, as opposed to it’s connotative meaning
Denotation
The end game of a work of fiction, a French word
Denouement
The quality of a narrative or character that leads only to a single conclusion. For ex: a character doomed to fail
Determinism/deterministic
The way of closing a story with an off-stage character who delivers the denouement. Ex. God walking on stage saying the end of a tale
Deus ex machina
Literary word choice
Diction
A work “designed to impart information, advice, or some doctrine of mortality or philosophy.”
Didactic
A world so oppressive that it might be a nightmare for someone from our society
Dystopia
A paradise of some sort- opposite of dystopia
Utopia
A character trait that leads to tragedy. Both in characters who are admirable and awful villains. Ex. Eve’s desire for knowledge
Fatal flaw
An expression that departs from the accepted literal sense or from the normal order if words.
Figure of speech
As a critical term, it can refer to a genre or an established pattern of poetic devices. The structure of a design of any given work
Form
The French word for “type, species, or class of composition”
Genre
A nod of the head
Homage
The sort of pride that is so inflated it binds a character and destroys them. Even entire people. Ex. Macbeth
Hubris
A comprehensive world view pertaining to formal and informal thought, philosophy, and cultural presuppositions
Ideology
A perception of inconsistency (usually but not always humorous) in which an apparently straightforward statement or event is undermined by its context so as to give it a very different significance
Irony
The end shot of planet of the apes. A painted background with matte coloring.
Matte shot
A figure of speech in which one thing, idea, or action is referred to by a word or expression normally denoting another thing, idea, or action as to suggest some common quality shared by the two
Metaphor
An unspecific critical term usually identifying a broad but identifiable literary method, mood, or matter that is not tied exclusively to a particular form or genre
Mode
A design feature of architecture that strips ornament from structures in favor of clean, geometric design, expanses of glass, and exposed building elements
Modernism
How directors connect ideas in a film. Shots are put together.
Montage
A recurrent image; word, or phrase
Motif
Features humans under the influence of outside or internal forces that reduce them to the levels of animals. Prey to their instincts
Naturalism and social Darwinism
Usually an extended realistic fictional prosec
Novel
A statement of expression that is self contradictory
Paradox
The position or vantage point from which is story is told to us
Point of view
A work that intends to stir up controversy
Polemic
Fictional worlds selecting life after a global disaster
Post apocalyptic
Applied to all forms of written or spoken expression not having a regular rhythmic pattern
Prose
Central figure in a text or film
Protagonist
A series of connected shots that establish a location
Scene
Part of a film presented without editing as seen from a single cameras perspective
Shot
A basic element of communication either linguistic or non linguistic that can be construed as having meaning
Sign
The manner in which films and fiction proceed. Has a turning point, a climax, and an endgame
Story arc
The quality of originating and existing in the mind of a perceiving subject and not corresponding to any object outside the mind
Subjectivity
While not explicitly part of the plot, this novel deals heavily with religious ideas and themes
Subtext
Associated with painting a film more than writing it
Surrealism
Something that is itself and also stands for something else. Combines literal and sensuous quality with an abstract or suggestive aspect
Symbol
The way in which words and clauses are ordered and connected so as to form sentehces
Syntax
Dramatic or melodramatic emerge of a plot; setting, or event
Tension
A salient abstract idea that emerges from a literary work’s treatment of its subject matter
Theme
Philosophical I estimation into the nature of beauty and perception of beauty
Aesthetics
