Vocab Flashcards
a quality in a literary work of impersonality, of freedom from the expression of personal sentiments, attitudes, or emotions by the author
(subjectivity is the opposite and is based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes or opinions)
Objectivity
First 8 lines of a sonnet
Octave
A formal lyric poem with a serious theme.
Odes often honor people, commemorate events, respond to natural scenes or consider serious human problems. (Percy Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind”)
Ode
when the storyteller’s knowledge extends to the internal states of all the characters. This all-knowing point of view gives the writer greater flexibility and provides the reader with access to all the characters’ motivations and responses to events that may be occurring simultaneously.
(D.H. Lawrence’s “The Rocking-Horse Winner”)
Omniscient point of view
use of words whose sounds echo their meanings, such as buzz, whisper, gargle and murmur
Onomatopoeia
the passing of songs, stories and poems from generation to generation by word of mouth (Beowulf)
Oral tradition
synonymous with hyperbole; an exaggeration
Overstatement
a combination of contradictory terms or ideas (“loving hate” in Romeo and Juliet)
Oxymoron
a word or line reads the same backward as it does forward (Madam, I’m Adam.)
Palindrome
is a brief story that is meant to teach a lesson or to illustrate a moral truth. It is more than a simple story. Each detail of the parable corresponds to some aspect of the problem or moral dilemma to which it is directed. (The prodigal son in the Bible is a parable.)
Parable
a statement that seems to be contradictory but that actually reveals some element of truth.
Paradox
the repetition of a grammatical pattern to express ideas that are related or equal in importance. The parallel elements may be words, phrases, sentences or paragraphs. (“Is it wise / To hug misery / To make a song? Infinitives are repeated here.)
Parallelism
is a restatement in different words. One is not to alter the meaning of the words, merely translate what the writer has said into equivalent words of one’s own.
Paraphrase
a comment that interrupts the immediate subject, often to qualify or explain
Parenthetical
imitates or mocks another work or type of literature. The purpose of a parody may be to ridicule through broad humor, or it may broaden understanding of or add insight to the original work. (Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is a parody on Hamlet.) (Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 130” is a parody of love poetry.)
Parody
a poem presenting shepherds in rural settings, usually in an idealized manner. The language and form are artificial, using formal, courtly speech. Pastoral can also be any literary work that deals with the pleasures of a simple,
rural life or with escape to a simpler place and time—typically in a romanticized or idealized form. (Marlowe’s “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love”)
Pastoral
is the quality in a literary work that arouses feelings of pity, sorrow or compassion in a reader or the audience (the murdering of Macduff’s family in Macbeth)
Pathos
characterized by an excessive display of learning or scholarship
Pedantic
a line of poetry containing five feet. The iambic pentameter is the most common line in English verse written before 1950.
Pentameter
the concluding part of a speech, typically intended to inspire enthusiasm in the audience (Martin Luther King’s speeches, sermons)
Peroration
is the “I” created by an author and through whom the author unravels his perceptions of characters and events (Narrator, Marlowe, is Conrad’s persona in Heart of Darkness.)
Persona
is when a nonhuman object is given human characteristics (Gray’s “Elegy…Churchyard” where “Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth” – the earth is personified.)
Personification
is a technique used by speakers and writers to convince an audience to adopt a particular opinion, perform an action or both (Churchill’s speech of May 19, 1940)
Persuasion
A strong verbal denunciation
Philippic
is used to describe a genre of literature in which the life and adventures of a rogue are chronicled (Defoe’s Moll Flanders and Cervantes’ Don Quixote)
Picaresque
is a sequence of events in a literary work. Two primary elements are characters and a conflict. A plot includes the following: exposition, rising action, climax, and falling action.
Plot
is the perspective from which a story is told. (1) First-person point of view is when the narrator is a character in the work and narrates the action as he/she perceives and understands it. (2) Third-person point of view is when the events and characters are described by a narrator outside the action. Third person omniscient point of view has the narrator all-knowing, seeing into the minds of more than one character. (3) Third-person limited point of view is when the narrator tells the story from the perspective of only one of the characters, so the reader learns only what that character thinks, feels, observes and experiences.
Point of view
a strong verbal or written attack on someone or something (his polemic against the cultural relativism of the Sixties)
Polemic
the repetition of connectives or conjunctions in close succession for rhetorical effect (here and there and everywhere)
Polysyndeton
having or using the style or diction of prose as opposed to poetry; lacking imaginativeness or originality
Prosaic
is the ordinary form of written language and one of the three major types of literature. Most writing that is not poetry, drama or song is considered prose, and prose is found in two major forms: fiction and nonfiction.
Prose
is the central character in a story, novel or play. The protagonist is always involved in the main conflict of the plot and often changes during the course of the work. The force or person who opposes the protagonist is the antagonist.
Protagonist
is a play on words used to convey two meanings at the same time. (Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet – “Ask for me tomorrow and you shall find me a grave man.” He has just been stabbed, and the pun is on the word “grave” – a serious person or a corpse in the grave.)
Pun
is a four-line stanza, or unit, of poetry.
Quatrain
refers to any effort to offer an accurate and detailed portrayal of actual life. Chaucer is praised for his realistic descriptions of people from all social classes of the 14th century. Shakespeare is praised for his realistic portrayals of character. Realism also refers to a literary method developed in the 19th century. These realists based their writing on careful observations of ordinary life, often focusing on the middle or lower classes. They attempted to present life
objectively and honestly, without the sentimentality or idealism that had characterized earlier literature.
Realism
is a regularly repeated line or group of lines in a poem or song
Refrain
a quality of some fictional narrators whose word the reader can trust. There are both reliable and unreliable narrators, that is, tellers of a story who should or should not be trusted. Most narrators are reliable (Fitzgerald’s Nick Carraway or Conrad’s Marlow), but some are clearly not to be trusted (Poe’s “Tell-Tale Heart”).
Reliability
is a technique in which a sound, word, phrase or line is repeated for emphasis or unity (lines in Blake’s poems “The Lamb” and “The Tyger”)
Repetition
is when the conflict of a plot is ended
Resolution
the art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing, especially the exploitation of figures of speech and other compositional techniques; language designed to have a persuasive or impressive effect, but which is often regarded as lacking in sincerity or meaningful content (All we get from politicians is empty rhetoric.)
Rhetoric
literary techniques used to heighten the effectiveness of expression
Rhetorical devices
It implies that the answer is obvious—the kind of question that does not need to be answered. It is used for rhetorically persuading someone of a truth without argument or to give emphasis to a supposed truth by stating its opposite ironically. Rhetorical questions are often used for comic effect as in Henry IV when Falstaff lies about fighting off eleven men single handedly, then responds to the prince’s doubts, “Art thou mad? Is not the truth the truth?” On the other hand, Iago in Othello uses rhetorical questions for sinister ends, persuading Othello that his loving wife is a whore. Iago hints with questions (“Honest, my lord?” “Is’t possible, my lord?”)
Rhetorical question
Words rhyme when the sounds of their accented vowels and all succeeding sounds are identical, as in amuse and confuse. For true rhyme, the consonants that preceded the vowels must be different. Rhyme that occurs at the end of lines of poetry is called end rhyme, as in Thomas Hardy’s rhyming of face and place in “The Man He Killed.” End rhymes that are not exact but approximate are called off rhyme, or slant rhyme, as in the words come and doom. Rhyme that occurs within a single line is called internal rhyme: “Give crowns and pounds and guineas,” A.E. Housman.
Rhyme
in the plot is where complications usually arise, causing difficulties for the main characters and making the conflict more difficult to resolve. As the characters struggle to find solutions to the conflict, suspense builds.
Rising action
has been a popular narrative form since the Middle Ages. Generally, the term refers to any imaginative adventure concerned with noble heroes, gallant love, a chivalric code of honor, daring deeds and supernatural events. Romances usually have faraway settings, depict events unlike those of ordinary life and idealize their heroes as well as the eras in which the heroes lived. Medieval romances are often lighthearted in tone, usually consist of a number of episodes and often involve one of more characters in a quest. Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur is an example of a medieval romance with its stories of kings, knights and ladies.
Romance
refers to a literary movement that flourished in Britain and Europe throughout much of the 19th century. Romantic writers looked to nature for inspiration , idealized the distant past and celebrated the individual. In reaction against neoclassicism, their treatment of subjects was emotional rather than rational, imaginative rather than analytical. The romance period in English
Literature is generally viewed as beginning with the publication of Lyrical Ballads, poems by Wordsworth and Coleridge.
Romanticism
a character who demonstrates some complexity and who develops or changes in the course of a work
Round character
the tendency to derive pleasure, especially sexual gratification, from inflicting pain, suffering or humiliation on others
Sadism
a long story of heroic achievement, especially a medieval prose narrative in Old Norse or Old Icelandic (long, narrative epic)
Saga
is a type of verbal irony that refers to a remark in which the literal meaning is complimentary but the actual meaning is critical. Sarcasm is the use of irony to mock or to convey contempt. (Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels – “You have clearly proved that ignorance, idleness, and vice are the proper ingredients for qualifying a legislator.”)
Sarcasm
