DICTIONARY OF LITERARY TERMSENGLISH IV ADVANCED PLACEMENT

Allegory – usually a story in prose or poetry in which the characters and various elements in the story symbolize ideas or concepts with which the author implies the real meaning of his work. The story is thus an extended metaphor, usually designed to teach an abstract truth (Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress; Spencer’s Faerie Queene; Dante’s Divine Comedy).

Alliteration - a figure of speech formed by repeating the initial consonant sound in several words in close succession.

“That gently, o’er a perfumed sea,The weary, wayworn wanderer bore.”

Poe. “To Helen”

Allusion – A reference in literature or in art to previous literature, history, mythology, pop culture, current events, or the Bible.

“It may be we shall touch the Happy IslesAnd see the great Achilles whom we knew.”

Tennyson. “Ulysses”

Tennyson is alluding to the Happy Isles, or Elysium, where warriors spent the afterlife. He also alludes to Achilles, a heroic leader in the Trojan War. The title itself is an allusion to the hero of the Odyssey, Odysseus.

Anachronism – making reference in a literary work to any person, thing, or event that is incongruous with the historical time of the work. A reference to striking clocks in Julius Caesar would be an anachronism. A well-known example in art is found in Leutze’s famous painting of Washington Crossing the Delaware. The picture shows the colonial flag with the thirteen stars in a circle, but at the time of the crossing, Christmas Night, 1776, the flag had not yet been designed.

Analogy – similarity or resemblance. It is important in argumentation to distinguish between analogy and example. In analogy we argue from the mere similarity of the relationship of two things. We reason that if two things agree with each other in one or more respects, they will probably agree in still other respects. To argue from analogy may, therefore, be illogical and dangerous. Analogy argues the similarity of dissimilar things, but example argues from the similarities of similar things.

Anapest – the poetic foot (measure) that follows the pattern unaccented, unaccented, accented. The poet is usually trying to convey a rollicking, moving rhythm with this pattern.

“I am monarch of all I survey.”William Cowper, “The Solitude of Alexander Selkirk”

Antagonist – the person or the conditions in opposition to the central figure or protagonist. If the antagonist has sinister or scoundrel-like qualities, he is usually called the villain. The antagonist can also be an inanimate thing like the weather, or the sea, or an unfavorable environment. (The storms in The Perfect Storm would be considered the antagonist.)

Anthology – a collection, usually in one volume, of notable or representative pieces of passages of literature.

Anticlimax – an often disappointing, sudden end to an intense situation. It is a sudden letdown or sharp falling off in dignity, tone, or importance. Also, an event or occurrence, especially the last in a series, that is strikingly or ridiculously out of tune or feeling with the previous one.

“The sun was shining on the sea,Shining with all his might;

He did his very best to makeThe billows smooth and bright

And that was odd because it was

The middle of the night.”Carroll “The Walrus and the Carpenter.”

Antithesis – a contrast or opposition of words or ideas, especially when emphasized by the corresponding position of the contrasting words. (The prodigal robs his heir; the miser robs himself.)

“Every sweet hath its sour; every evil its good.”Emerson, “Compensaties”

Antonym – a word of opposite meaning, for example, light is the antonym of dark.

Aphorism – a terse statement that expresses a general truth or moral principle; sometimes considered a folk proverb. “A coward dies many times over; a brave man but once.”

Aposiopesis – a rhetorical devise in which the speaker leaves a sentence incomplete, as if unable or unwilling to continue:

“Oh thou, by what name can I properly call thee?

Apostrophe – a figure of speech in which the absent or dead are addressed as if present, or an inanimate object as though alive.

“Oh death, where is thy sting?” I CorinthiansJohn Donne’s sonnet “Death, Be Not Proud”

Apotheosis – elevating someone to the level of a god. Helen of Troy is considered the apotheosis of beauty.

Archetype – a character, situation, or symbol that is familiar to people from all cultures because it occurs frequently in literature, myth, religion, or folklore.

The archetypal gunslinger, having been forced to kill once more, rides off into the sunset, leaving behind a town full of amazed and awestruck citizens.

Archives – records or documents preserved as evidence of earlier happenings.

Argot – the jargon or secret slang of thieves or tramps.

Argument – a type of discussion, either oral or written, such as a newspaper editorial, in which the speaker or writer gives reasons to show the truth or falsity of a proposition. In making its points and seeking to convince, the argument may employ exposition, narration, or description. The term also means an outline of the plot of a play. In Shakespeare’s time, when a play was presented at court, it was customary to submit such an outline beforehand in order to avoid material that the government might think offensive.

Artistic Indirection – the tasteful and skillful use of symbolism and allegory to heighten the intellectual and emotional effect of a piece of writing.

Aside – a comment made by an actor or actress which the other players are supposed not to hear but which is intended for the ears of the audience.

Assonance – a figure of speech in which the same accented vowel sound is repeated through several words in close succession.

“How now brown cow.”“Yet never breeze did breathe.” Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.”

Asyndeton – a rhetorical devise for securing energy and emphasis by omitting connectives.

“I came, I saw, I conquered” (translated from Caesar’s Gallic Wars)

Atmosphere - the feeling, mood or emotional quality present in a piece of writing.

Autobiography – a biography written by the subject; memoirs of one’s life written by one’s self.

Avant-Garde – Innovating or leading the way or belonging to a new literary school or development, especially a continental or rather “arty” one. Also, a French term for the vanguard or foremost part of an army.

B

Balanced Sentence – a composed sentence in which the co-ordinate clauses very closely, or exactly, correspond in structure and length. An elegant, rhythmic, and emphatic effect can thus be achieved. Also referred to as parallelism: The repeated use of the same grammatical structure in a sentence or series of sentences.

“Our petitions have been alighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded:…” Patrick Henry, “Speech in the Virginia Convention.”

We went to school, to the mall, and then to the movie.

Presented alternately within King Lear are the stories of both King Lear and his daughters, and Gloucester and his sons.

Ballad, Folk – a narrative poem of unknown authorship, usually based upon some old folk legend or tradition. Usually composed in four-line stanzas (quatrains) with the rhyme scheme abcb. Ballads often contain a refrain. One of the most famous ballads was “Barbara Allen”.

Ballad Stanza/Meter – the typical stanza form of the English ballads, it consists of four lines with a rhyme scheme of abcb. The first and third lines are tetrameter (four feet) and the second and fourth are trimeter (three feet).

From The History of John GilpinNow let us sing, “Long Live the king, a And Gilpin, long live he”; bAnd when he next doth ride abroad, c May I be there to see! b

Sometimes a ballad stanza is printed in heptameter (seven feet) couplets. “Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;”

Kipling, “The Ballad of East and West”

Ballade – One of the Old French poetic forms (others are rondeau, the triolet, the villanelle, and the pantoum). This usually has three stanzas of seven, eight, or ten lines. In each stanza the rhymes recur in the same order. Also, each stanza ends with a refrain, and the entire poem with an envoy (postscript) The envoy, commonly about half the stanza length, is usually addressed to an individual. (Chaucer’s “Complaint of Venus”).

Barbarism – any word or expression not accepted in the standard usage of a particular language. Sometimes a word coined from two others. (Lewis Carroll’s chortle is formed from chuckle and snort.) (Time magazine’s cinemactor is formed from cinema and actor.) Occasionally barbarisms achieve wide enough acceptance to be given sanction as legitimate English words.

Bathos – an absurd descent from the sublime or elevated to the ridiculous or commonplace, giving the effect of a let-down or anticlimax. Coming from the Greek word for bottom or depth, this term was first used in its present literary sense by Alexander Pope in the title of his essay “Bathos” (1727). The second of the following lines illustrates bathos, in its sharply descending comparison of the young lady to a clam.

“Down fell that pretty innocent, as falls a snow-white lamb,Her hair dropped round her pallid cheeks, like seaweed on a clam.”

O.W. Holmes, “The Ballad of the Oysterman”

Bibliography – a classified list of writing pertaining to a particular subject or author. Placed at the end of a manuscript or research paper, it enumerates the books, magazines and newspaper articles, interviews, etc., quoted from, referred to, or used generally in the body of the paper. Every formal research paper should have a Bibliography or a Works Cited page.

Billingsgate – coarsely abusive language vituperation (censure, railing, etc.) This word comes from the name of the place associated with this kind of language – a fish market, near the gate by that name in the old wall of London on the Thames River, below London Bridge. It became notorious for strong and abusive language.

“This good-humored billingsgate (aboard ship) is largely monotonous and not significant, mere verbal punctuation of a sort, and its appearance in print annoys some readers.”

Herman Wouk, Note to The Caine Mutiny

Biography – a factual, book-length composition dealing with one main person usually for the whole of his life (Sandburg’s Lincoln; Freeman’s Washington). A Fictionalized Biography takes liberties with the truth to increase readability, to establish some historical thesis of the author, or to romanticize or glorify the subject.

Blank Verse – unrhymed iambic pentameter, for example as found in the speeches of the major characters in Shakespeare’s plays.

“O what a rogue and peasant slave am I” – Hamlet

Bohemian – a follower of literature, or art, who adopts a way of life in a protest against or in difference to the common conventions of society; therefore, a person of irregular life and habits, or a sort of vagabond. The term was applied, for example, to the kind of free and easy unconventional life led by the literary and artistic group in Greenwich Village in the 1920’s and to the “Lost Generation” of American expatriates living in Paris about the same time.

Bowdlerize – to expurgate (eliminate) by omitting or modifying parts considered indelicate or offensive (from D. Thomas Bowdler, an English physician who published an expurgated edition of Shakespeare in 1818).

Burlesque – a humorous imitation in words or actions by treating a trifling subject in mock-heroic vein, or by giving to a serous subject a frivolous or laughable treatment (Cervantes’s Don Quixote).

C

Cacophony – the opposite of EUPHONY. Hence, a series of harsh or disagreeable sounds coming in close succession. The hard C or K, the hard G and the T and D, for example, when occurring close together are liable to produce a discordant effect. (Kick the geese out of the basket.)

Caesura – a natural pause occurring within a line of poetry. Long lines usually contain caesuras; a single long line may even contain two or more. Variety in the location of caesuras contributes to the rhythmical variety of a passage. The first two of the following lines contain caesuras.

“The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,The insolence of office, and the spurnsThat patient merit of the unworthy takes.”

Shakespeare, Hamlet

A masculine caesura is one that occurs after an accented syllable; a feminine produces a softer rhythm. The first line quoted contains a masculine caesura; the second, a feminine.

Cant – a contemptuous expression for windy, insincere stock phraseology, especially that dealing with politics, law, religion, medicine, education, etc.

Canto – one of the chief divisions of a long poem. The canto is to poetry what the chapter is to prose. (Dante’s Divine Comedy contains 100 cantos.)

Carpe diem – Latin for “seize the day”; frequent in 16th and 17th century court poetry. Expresses the idea that one only goes around once; refers to the modern saying that “life is not a dress rehearsal.”

“Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,Old time is still a-flying;

And this same flower that smiles today,Tomorrow will be dying.

Robert Herrick, “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time”

Caricature – a character drawn with ridiculous exaggeration; for example, when an author takes a physical trait or mannerism of a character and exaggerates it and constantly plays on it for humorous effect. (Mr. Stryver in A Tale of Two Cities, who is always “shouldering” his way through things.)

Catharsis – This term was applied to tragedy by Aristotle to describe an emotional cleansing, purging, or feeling of relief. A tragedy, by evoking these emotions, cleansed the audience of all other, and lesser, emotions and left an after-feeling of relief and uplift. This is part of Aristotle’s theory of tragedy. Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex is a good example of a play capable of exerting this effect.

Chorus – a group of players in Greek drama whose only function in the play is to comment on and interpret the events in the play. In later plays and stories, it is sometimes a single character who serves the function of the chorus. (The state manager in Thornton Wilder’s Our Town.)

Chronicle – a history, especially a bare or simple chronological record of events, without interpretive or literary treatment.

Chronicle History – a type of historical play based upon the chronicles of England, such as Shakespeare’s Henry V.

Circumlocution - the use of many or several words to express an idea that may be expressed by few or one; indirect or roundabout language. (“The consensus of opinion is in the affirmative” instead of simply, “The vote is yes.”)

Classicism – a general term in contrast to Romanticism. It denotes the principles and characteristics of Greek and Roman literature; thus it usually embodies formal elegance, dignity, order, clarity, and serenity.

Cliché’ – a time-worn phrase or expression (the body falling with a dull thud) or an overused situation in a piece of writing such as “a rescue in the nick of time.”

Climax – the point in the plot of greatest excitement, intensity, or impressiveness. The climax may also be the crisis and each episode of a long narrative or each act in a play may have a smaller climax of its own.

Closet Drama – a play intended to be read rather than acted upon a stage, for it usually presents difficulties of production on a stage. (Shelly’s Prometheus Unbound)

Coincidence – an accidental happening or development in the plot, unmotivated by the traits or actions of any of the characters. A certain amount of coincidence is true-to-life, but too much of it can destroy the plausibility of the story.

Colloquialism – a word or expression permissible in informal or conventional language, but not in formal speech or writing (a lot of is colloquial for much or many). Colloquial, in writing, is an informal style that reflects the way people spoke in a distinct time and/or place.

Comedy – a light and amusing drama, usually having a happy ending and usually light and humorous in tone. It also means the phase of a play expressing the comic or cheerful. Bits of comedy are often introduced into tragedies (the gravediggers scene in Hamlet, the knocking at the gate scene in Macbeth). The Comedy of Manners treats satirically the social customs and ways of life, usually of a particular social group (Sheridan’s The School for Scandal). A Tragicomedy is a play that is serious or tragic through most of its action but ends on a happy note as the protagonist finally overcomes his obstacles (Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice). High Comedy emphasizes cleverness and wit. Low Comedy

stresses slapstick, horseplay, misuse of words, and earthy humor. Farce is comedy often based on a ridiculous premise and involving absurd and hilarious complications with little regard for life-like plausibility (Shakespeare’s A Comedy of Errors and Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest). Comic Relief – humor inserted by the author to relieve the audience’s or reader’s emotional tension after a tragic or deeply emotional scene (the comic actions of the drunken porter in the knocking at the gate scene following the murder of King Duncan in Macbeth).

Complication – the twists and turns of the plot from the beginning to the turning point (crisis), as a result of obstacles encountered by the chief characters.

Conceit – an ingenious, fanciful, or affected notion or expression, especially when given in the form of an exaggerated affected, or extended metaphor; a comparison between two startlingly different objects (Edward Taylor’s “Huswifery”).

“She is all States, all princes I;Nothing else is.”

Conflict – the struggle which constitutes the main dramatic quality of the plot A character may contend against forces outside of himself (external struggle). Also, if both opposing forces are tangible, like two fighting groups, the struggle is said to be “external”, and if the two opposing forces are mental (one characters will against another’s) the struggle is said to be “internal”. The four main types of conflict are:

Man vs. manMan vs. selfMan vs. natureMan vs. abstract force

Connotation – the suggestive meaning of a word, apart from its explicit and literal meaning; hence, a secondary or implied meaning, often having emotional overtones. For example, the word home denotes a place where one lives but connotes shelter, affection, warmth, or perhaps, the kind of security stressed in Frost’s “The Death of the Hired Man”:

“Home is the place where, when you have to go there,They have to take you in.”

Connotative – meanings of words are frequently suggested by voice inflections, facial expressions, gestures, and body movements; and are often used as instruments of propaganda.

Convention – a literary convention is a practice that is followed so often in literature that it has become the standard (the happy ending, boy meets girl, etc.).

Couplet – two successive lines of verse that rhyme.

“The lovely lady, Christabel,Whom her father loved so well.”

Coleridge

Couplet, Heroic – is two lines of rhyming iambic pentameter.

“What dire offense from am’rous causes springs, What mighty contests rise from trivial things.”

Crisis – the turning point of the plot; the incident or event that suggests or indicates the outcome of the main struggle; the point at which one is reasonably sure of the outcome of the narrative.

Criterion – a standard, principle, rule or canon by which a literary work is judged. The views that one holds about poetry, for example, are the criteria by which one judges poetry to be good or bad. If one believes, for instance, that all novels must have movement or action, one will condemn a novel like Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter because of its slow moving plot.

Criticism – the art of judging the values and faults of works of art or literature. It does not mean the mere pointing out of deficiencies, but rather, the evaluation or estimation of the total effect, as well as the component aspects, of the literary artistic work. There are many kinds and schools of criticism, placing varying emphasis on form and content. Although Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath received a Pulitzer Prize, it also received massive criticism for his use of the socialist beliefs of Lenin and Marx, while California and Oklahoma banned the novel because he portrayed man’s inhumanity to man by using the socio-economic conditions prevalent in both states during the 1930’s.

Critique – an essay or article in criticism of a literary work; a review. The term implies scholarship and care and, therefore, should not be applied to superficial and careless work.

D

Dactyl – foot of poetry with three syllables, one stressed and two unstressed, almost like a waltz.

“Just for a handful of silver he left us”Robert Browning, “The Lost Leader”

Deductive Reasoning – reasoning from a general principle to a particular case, or drawing from a general premise a conclusion about a specific example; hence, reasoning from the whole to a part. (John reasons that he will not put his hands into the fire because fire always burns any person with whom it comes in contact.) In deduction the regular logical form is called syllogism. Part of the science of logic, it consists of three propositions: a major and a minor premise, and a conclusion. Here is a famous syllogism:

All men are mortal. (Major premise)Socrates is a man. (Minor premise)Therefore, Socrates is mortal. (Conclusion)

A false conclusion, that is, drawing a conclusion not justified by premises is called a non sequitur(Meaning in Latin: “It does not follow.” Example: All boys like sports; Jane likes sports; therefore,

Jane is a boy.”)

Denouement – a name given to the last scene or incident that unites or unravels the knots still remaining in the plot. Very common in detective and mystery stories, the denouement gives the explanation for the yet unexplained mysteries of the plot.

Deus Ex Machina – when the Gods intervene to resolve a seemingly impossible conflict. Primarily refers to an unlikely or improbable coincidence; a “cop-out” ending. Any person or thing or condition artificially introduced into a story or play to solve abruptly a difficulty unsolvable by ordinary means; or an unexpected or improbable occurrence which saves a situation. For example: In Gulliver’s Travels, Gulliver is hoping to get away from the island of Blefuscu and just “happens to find” an empty boat in good condition on the shore.

Dialect – a local or provincial form of language, differing from other forms, especially from the standard or literary form. Thus, one language may contain several dialects, such as the Southern, Yankee, Western, etc. of our language. This term covers both written and spoken forms of language. Dialect, vernacular, lingo, cant, argot, patois and slang all differ from the standard form of a language.

Diction – The deliberate choice of a style of language for a desired effect or tone. Good authors choose words carefully to achieve a particular effect that is formal, informal, or colloquial.

The diction of Hawthorne in The Scarlet Letter is formal, whereas Mark Twain’s diction is often highly informal as evidenced in The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn.

Didactic – a speech, story, essay, poem, or play in which the author’s primary purpose is to instruct, teach or moralize. Most allegories, for example, are didactic. Lowell’s Vision of Sir Launfal and Longfellow’s A Psalm of Life are examples of didactic poems.

Dimeter – meter of two feet in a line of poetry

Distortion – an exaggeration or stretching of the truth to achieve a desired effect.

Dithyramb – a kind of lyric poem in honor of Dionysus or Bacchus. In Greek and Roman mythology these were the gods of wine. Also, dithyramb is a poem in a wild, irregular strain and a speech or writing in a vehement style.

Doggerel – light verse, especially burlesque or comic, often irregular in form. (Burges Johnson’s Sonnets from the Pekinese and Other Doggerel. )

“Candy is DandyBut Liquor is Quicker”

Ogden Nash, “Reflection on Ice-Breaking”

Double-Entendre – an expression usually intended to be humorous which is capable of two interpretations, one of them often indelicate or risque’.

Drama – a composition, in prose or poetry, usually intended to be acted upon a stage, presenting a story by means of characters speaking or acting. The usual division of a drama is into acts (ordinarily from three to five) and scenes.

Dramatic Monologue- a poem of dramatic qualities told entirely by one person to one or more listeners. Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess” is one of the most famous dramatic monologues.

E

Elegy – a lyric poem expressing sadness or grief, usually for the dead Examples: Gray’s “Elegy Written in a County Churchyard”, Milton’s “Lycidas”, and Shelly’s “Adonais”.

Ellipsis – a rhetorical device used for the sake of increased vividness and energy in which a word or words are omitted which are necessary to the complete construction of a sentence but not required for the understanding of it. (“Who steals my purse steals trash.”) An ellipsis is also the use of three dots (…) indicating the omission of words.

Empathy – a somewhat vague term akin to sympathy and applied almost exclusively to the drama, it means the projection of one’s own consciousness into another being. It does not mean that the spectator identifies himself with a character being portrayed, but, rather, that the spectator is able to feel a sense of the reality and universal human qualities of the character, and therefore, a sense of emotional and intellectual rapport with him. But he does not feel that he is the character, nor that he is vicariously experiencing the same emotions.

End-Stopped Line – a line of poetry that ends with a natural pause because the sense is complete. A Run-On Line is one that does not end that way. The first of the following lines is end-stopped; the second is a run-on:

“It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomesThe throned monarch better than his crown.”

Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

Epic – a long narrative poem, relating in lofty style the deeds of a great (usually national) hero of ancient or legendary times. Usually the epic contains supernatural or superhuman elements (for example: one-eyed giants, magic sword, etc.) and frequently deals with a national struggle. (Homer’s Illiad and Odyssey, Virgil’s Aeneid, the English epic Beowulf, and the French Chanson de Roland)

Epigram – a very short poem or prose piece, or a very short passage, expressing a single idea with brevity and cleverness, and often with wit: commonly, a short, pointed saying.

“Hope spring eternal in the human breast” Alexander Pope

Epilogue - an incident or scene occurring after the end of the story or play proper; also a speech in prose or verse addressed by a player to the audience after the end of the play itself. In such a speech, the player

might point out the moral and aid the audience in the interpretation of the play. (The stage manager’s final speech in Wilder’s Our Town.)Epiphany – Eureka! A sudden flash of insight. A startling discovery and/or appearance; a dramatic realization.

Jocasta’s sudden realization that her husband is her son is an epiphanous moment in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex. (That would be an eye-opener!)

Episode – a group of related incidents forming a unit in the plot. Just as an episode is usually made up of a series of incidents, a book-length piece of fiction is usually made up of a series of episodes.

Epitaph – an inscription upon a tomb. Hence, it occasionally means a brief composition characterizing a dead person, and it is expressed as if the deceased himself intended the saying to be inscribed on his tombstone.

Here lies W.C. Fields, On the wholeI would rather be living In Philadelphia

W.C. Fields (1880 –1946)

Essay – a short prose composition, either formal or informal, usually dealing with one central idea and usually expressing the personal point of view of the author.

Euphemism – the use of an agreeable or non-offensive word or expression for one that is harsh, indelicate, or unpleasant; a mild name for something disagreeable. (“passing away” for dying; “casket” for coffin; “fibber” for liar)

Euphuism – the affected style of conversation and writing which became fashionable in the time of Queen Elizabeth. It takes its name from the principal character in John Lyly’s well-known Elizabethan works Euphues and Euphues in England and is characterized by antithesis, alliteration, a profusion of similes and a striving for elegance. It has come to mean an artificial end excessive elegance of language or high-flown diction.

Exposition – explanation or disclosure of information necessary for the reader’s understanding of the situation (discourse). The masterly opening of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick is an excellent example of this kind of exposition.

“Call me Ishmael. Some years ago – never mind how long precisely – having little of no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of everyfuneral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off – then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With philosophical flourish, Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quickly take to the ship. There is noting surprising in this. If they but knew it, all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.”

Some authors insert bits of exposition into their work gradually and unobtrusively. Others do so in larger segments and perhaps too obviously. The inclusion of long pieces of exposition, by slowing down the narrative movement, is apt to discourage reader interest. Exposition is also the term used for one of the four general types of writing (the others being Narration, Description, and Argument). An expositor theme is one expounding, explaining, or appraising some particular idea or subject.

F

Fable – a short story, such as one of Aesop’s Fables intended to reveal some useful truth or precept, especially a story in which animals or inanimate things speak and act like human beings. These animal stories, universal among primitive peoples, are sometimes called Beast Fables.

Fantasy – a highly imaginative piece of fiction containing supernatural elements and accenting charm and whimsicality; something capricious, playful or fanciful. Barrie’s Peter Pan is an example of fantasy.Farce – A kind of comedy that depends on exaggerated or improbable situations, physical disasters, and sexual innuendo to amuse the audience. Many situation comedies on television today might be called farces.

Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew; Brandon Thomas’ Charley’s Aunt and Woody Allen’s Bullets Over Broadway are all examples of farces.

Feminine Ending – when a line of poetry ends on an unstressed syllable, especially one exceeding the general metrical pattern of the poem, the line is said to have a feminine ending. Blank verse (and, in general, all poetry) is often given a more natural and conversational fluidity by the occasional addition of feminine endings as in this example:

“How that might change his nature, there’s the question.”Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar

Feminine Rhyme – is one in which the rhyming words both end on unstressed syllables (motion and ocean; seeing and being, etc.)

Fiction – an invented or imaginary story, whether novel, short story, play or narrative poem. (This term is sometimes limited, however, to just the novel and the short story.)

Figurative Language – Unlike literal expression, figurative language uses figures of speech such as metaphor, simile, metonymy, personification, and hyperbole. Figurative language appeals to one’s senses. Most poetry contains figurative language.

Sweet daughter of a rough and stormy sire,Hoar Winter’s blooming child; delightful Spring!Whose unshorn locks with leavesAnd swelling buds are crowned…

Anna Laetitia Barbauld, “Ode to Spring”

Figure of Speech – a form of expression that deviates intentionally from the ordinary mode of speech for the sake of more powerful, pleasing or distinctive effect. Because of their power in creating pictures or images in the reader’s mind, certain of these figures of speech (particularly simile, metaphor, personification and hyperbole) are often grouped together under the term imagery. The more common figures of speech are alliteration, antithesis, apostrophe, assonance, hyperbole, irony, metaphor, metonymy, onomatopoeia, personification and simile.

Fine Writing - although this term was supposed to denote a writing style free of any impurities and imperfections, it actually means an affected, over-careful, over-refined, flowery style. In speaking of the Far Eastern practice of engaging professional letter writers, the English Theologian John Henry Newman, deliberately shows us an example:

“The man of thought comes to the man of words; and the man of words, duly instructedin the thought, dips the pen of desire into the ink of devotedness, and proceeds to spread over the pages of desolation. Then the nightingale of affection is heard to warble to therose of loveliness, while the breeze of anxiety play around the brow of expectation.”

Newman’s The Ideas of a University

The sentence, “He stretched his nether limbs on the downy couch just as Sol simultaneously pierced the leafy fronds of the verdant foliage”, shows the three most noticeable features of fine writing – the use of polysyllabic words (a word made up of more than three syllables), of too many modifiers, and of foreign words and expressions.

Flashback (sometimes called cutback) – a passage in a play or story which breaks the chronological sequence of the story to deal with and earlier event.

Flat Character – a simple, one-dimensional character who remains the same, and about whom little or nothing is revealed throughout the course of the work. Flat characters may serve as symbols of types of people, similar to stereotypical characters.

Mrs. Micawber, in Dickens’ David Copperfield, is the ever-loyal wife who repeatedlysays, “I never will desert Mr. Micawber. Mme. Ratgnolle is portrayed as a Mother Earthfigure throughout Kate Chopin’s The Awakening.

Focus – the center on which the author seems to concentrate the material of his literary work. The particular point, whether of idea, incident, character, or setting, that the author wishes to stress. The focus may change or remain the same throughout a piece of writing.

Foil – a character used to bring out, by contrast, the traits of another character; hence the distinctive traits of both are emphasized by the dissimilarity of the two characters.

Hawkeye and David Gamut are foils in The Last of the Mohicans and Juliet and the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet.

Foot – unit of meter in a line of poetry. A metrical foot can have two or three syllables. A foot consists generally of one stressed and one or more unstressed syllables. A line may have one foot, two feet, etc. Poetic lines are classified according to the number of feet in a line. The basic types of metrical feet determined by the arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables are:

a. iambic foot- two syllables (unstressed, stressed)b. trochaic foot-two syllables (stressed, unstressed)c. anapestic foot- three syllables (unstressed, unstressed, stressed)d. dactylic foot- three syllables (stressed, unstressed, unstressed)e. spondaic foot- two syllables (stressed, stressed) usually compound words f. pyrrhic foot- two syllables (unstressed, unstressed) rare and found interspersed with other feet.

The basic kinds of metrical lines in poetry are:

a. monometer – one foot lineb. dimeter – two foot linec. trimeter – three foot lined. tetrameter – four foot linee. pentameter – five foot linef. hexameter – six foot lineg. heptameter – seven foot lineh. octometer – eight foot line

Foreshadowing – a device or method for hinting at the outcome of a narrative. It often increases interest by making the reader curious to see if his vague expectations will be fulfilled. Sometimes foreshadowing is done by prophet-like characters (the soothsayer in Julius Caesar), by supernatural characters ( the witches in Macbeth), by a demented character who is thought to have special clairvoyant powers (Pip in Moby Dick), by children or animals, by events (the wine spilling scene in A Tale of Two Cities, or by natural phenomena, such as a storm (Macbeth) or ominous clouds (“The Outcasts of Poker Flats) smoldering volcanoes (Victory) and even the sun breaking through the clouds (The Red Badge of Courage).

Form – the over-all arrangement and organization in a work of literature to give a general effect. Style and structure are sub-divisions of form.

Format – the shape and size of a book, or its general form or arrangement.

Frame – a story in a frame is preceded by a scene presenting the narrator, who is about to tell the story, and often followed by a scene presenting him as he ends it; sometimes but not usually, it is interrupted by glimpses of him in the midst of his recital (James’ The Turn of the Screw, Wharton’s Ethan Frome and Hilton’s Lost Horizon). This kind of story usually involves a flashback.

Free Verse – poetry having no regular meter or rhyme. Most of Walt Whitman’s poetry is free verse.

G

Genre (zhan’ r) – Although possibly borrowed from painting, this term does not mean in literature what it does in fine arts. Genre paintings are those of simple, common, everyday objects, scenery, or people. The paintings of Jean Francois Millet, such as “The Gleaners”, or those of the Dutch school, are good examples. In literature the term means a kind, type, form, or style. For example, the Gothic novel is a genre, and so is the Elizabethan tragedy of blood. In the introduction to their distinguished collection, Criticism, the Foundations of Modern Literary Judgment (Harcourt, Brace, 1948), editors Schorer, Miles, and McKenzie use the word to describe the broad divisions of literature: “We have hoped in other ways, too, to make the range of this collection as great as possible: in the genres (poetry, fiction, drama, and criticism itself) which the authors discuss;…”On the other hand, Alfred Kazin in his study of modern American literature. On Native Grounds,(Doubleday, 1942, 1956) uses the term in a narrower sense, ”The Novel had swiftly and unmistakable, from the late seventies on, become the principal literary genre…”

Gobbledygook ( gob’ l di gook’) – a slang word coined by Congressman Maury Maverick of Texas in imitation of the gobbling of turkeys. It means the inflated, involved, and obscure verbiage often characteristic of the pronouncements of officialdom. (In other words, nonsense often stated by those in positions of authority.)

Gothic – having the characteristics and atmosphere associated with Medievalism or the Middle Ages. Related to Romanticism, Gothicism suggest rugged grandeur, emotional or spiritual appeal and a shadowy mysteriousness. The Gothic Novels were a group written in England in the latter part of the eighteenth century (such as Horace Walpole’s Castle of Otranto) which contains traits that have come to be associated in literature with the term Gothic: a gloomy castle or mysterious house, secret passageways, hidden documents, screams in the night, creaking doors, fearful suspense, etc. Many of these qualities have been handed down to us in modern mystery and adventure stories. The characteristics of Gothic literature are most obvious in the works of Edgar Allan Poe.

H

Hack or Hack Writer – coming from hackney, meaning a horse for riding or driving, or one let out for hire, this now means, in literature, a writer who hires himself out for any sort of literary work or ghost writing; a literary drudge.

Hackneyed – worn-out, like a hired horse; indiscriminate or vulgar use; threadbare, trite, commonplace. Here are some examples of hackneyed expressions:

After all is said and done, along these lines, budding genius, by leaps and bounds, deadly earnest, drastic action, it stands to reason, last but not least, and to relate, needs no introduction, shadow of the goalpost, etc.

Hero – the principal male figure in a narrative, provided he has brave and noble qualities. If he lacks these qualities, but is the central male figure, he is often called simply the protagonist. Mock Heroic is a term used to describe a method of satirizing or mocking conventional or traditional concepts of heroism by giving a ridiculously exaggerated treatment to “heroic” characters or deeds.Hexameter – meter of six feet to a line. A line of six iambic feet is sometimes called an alexandrine.

Historical Present – the present tense when used in telling of past events, as if they were taking place at the time of the recital. The effects of immediacy and excitement are thus often gained for happenings that have already taken place. It is sometimes more aptly called the “hysterical” present.

Homonym – a word pronounced the same as another but having a different meaning (scene and seen).

Hubris – Insolence, arrogance, or pride. In Greek tragedy, the protagonist’s hubris is usually the tragic flaw that leads to his/her downfall.

The swaggering protagonist of Oedipus Rex is ultimately made to suffer because of his hubris. He defies moral laws by unwittingly killing his father and marrying his mother, and then bragging about how his father’s murderer will be punished.

Hymn – a sacred song. (See Lyric)

Hyperbole – a figure of speech using gross or absurd exaggeration for poetic or imaginative effect.

“The cognomen of Crane was not inapplicable to his person. He was tall, but exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs, hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels, and his whole frame most loosely hung together.”

Washington Irving, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”

“Here once the embattled farmers stood And fired the shot heard round the world.”

Emerson, “Concord Hymn”

I

Iambic – poetic meter of one unaccented syllable followed by an accented one. The iambic foot is the most common foot in English.

Ideas – views, attitudes, thoughts, feelings, presented by the author in his work, on such subjects as human nature, life, society, politics, philosophy, morality, religion, art, etc. Sometimes these ideas are explicit (plainly and deliberately presented by the author) and occasionally they are implicit (implied or hinted by the author, at times unintentionally).

Idiom – an expression whose meaning as a whole is different from the meaning of the separate words comprising the expression would lead one to expect. (John has to work. How do you do?) Idiom also means a form or forms of expression characteristic of an author. (Henry James’s idiom is often difficult.)

Idyll (also spelled Idyl) – a poem of moderate length presenting in simple fashion the picturesque scenes or incidents, usually of rustic life (Whittier’s “Snowbound”, Burn’s “The Cotter’s Saturday night”).

Image – a way of representing in a literary work a thought, feeling, attitude, or point of view of the author. It is done by some sort of representation or symbol which graphically sets forth the idea. In a sense, it is a form of metaphor, on a larger scale than an ordinary figure of speech, but not so large as an allegory.

“It is a curious thing that the part played by recurrent images in raising, developing, sustaining, and repeating emotions in the tragedies (of Shakespeare) has not, so far as I know, ever been noticed. It is a part somewhat analogous to the action of a recurrent theme or “motif” in a musical fugue or sonata, or in one of Wagner’s operas…

“(In Romeo and Juliet) the beauty and ardour of young love are seen by Shakespeare as the radiating glory of sunlight and starlight in a dark world. The dominant image is light, every form and manifestation of it: the sun, moon, stars, fire, lightening, the flash of gunpowder, and the reflected light of beauty and love; while by contrast we have night, darkness, clouds, rain, mist, and smoke….

“If we look closely (at Hamlet) we see this is partly due to the number of images of sicknesses, disease or blemish of the body, in the play, and we discover that the idea of an ulcer or tumor, as descriptive of the unwholesome condition of Denmark morally, on the whole the domineering image…”

Caroline Spurgeon, Shakespeare’s Imagery and What It Tells Us

Imagery – a general term in literature for the main sensory figures of speech . Anything that affects or appeals to the reader’s senses; sight, sound touch, taste or smell.

Wait for a while, then slip downstairsAnd bring us up some chilled white wine,And some blue cheese, and crackers, and some fineRuddy-skinned pears. Richard Wilbur, “A Late Aubade”

Impropriety - the use of words in an incorrect sense. (In “perpetrate an act of kindness”, the use of perpetrate is not correct, for that word should be used only with an offensive result.) Also, using a word in the wrong part of speech is a common kind of impropriety.

Incident – any event or occurrence in a narrative. A series of related incidents when forming a unit in a story is called an episode. Therefore, an incident is usually part of an episode.

Induction or Inductive reasoning – the method of modern science, reasoning from a part to a whole, or drawing a general conclusion from particular cases. (From the many times that I have been wakeful after drinking coffee, I conclude that coffee keeps me awake.) The danger of inductive reasoning arises from trying to draw conclusions from too few examples or instances. (Because Bill dislikes horseshoe pitching and ping-pong, a person concludes that Bill dislikes all sports.)

Inflection – the variation of change of form which words undergo to make case, gender, number, tense, person, mood, voice, etc. It also means the modulation of the voice, or change in the pitch or tone of the voice.

In medias res – In literature, a work that begins in the middle of the story. The Odyssey, Medea, and Oedipus Rex all begin in medias res.

Inwardness – a literary term used to describe an author’s emphasis on character analysis, character development, or the psychological interplay of characters.

Irony- a figure of speech using a word apparently to mean one thing but actually implying just the opposite meaning.

“They are all honorable men.” – Julius Caesar

Irony also means a happening or development in a narrative opposite to and as if in mockery of the appropriate or expected result, as when a person’s long efforts, meets with unexpected failure (thus the opposite of poetic justice). Dramatic Irony is a double meaning in the speech of some character, he or his listener being unconscious of one of the meanings; also called Unconscious Irony if it is the speaker who is unconscious of one of the meanings. Sometimes it is only in the light of later events that the hidden irony dawns upon the speaker or his listener or the reader.

J

Jargon – an uncomplimentary term for language full of indirect expressions and long, high-sounding words; also the technical, esoteric vocabulary of a science, art, trade, profession, or some other special group. Jargon frequently implies a certain amount of vanity or affectation on the part of the user. See Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch’s famous essay “On Jargon” in his book, On the Art of Writing (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1916).

In the essay he humorously illustrates jargon in a delightful parody of Hamlet’s “To Be or Not to Be” speech:

“To be, or the contrary? Whether the former or the latter be preferable would seem to admit of the same difference of opinion; the answer in the present case being of an affirmative or of a negative character according as to whether one elects on the one hand to mentally suffer the disfavor of fortune, albeit in extreme degree, or on the other to boldly envisage adverse conditions in the prospect of eventually bringing them to a conclusion…”

L

Legend – any unverifiable story coming down from the past especially one popularly, or logically, accepted as historical but which has not been authenticated, and possibly can never be proved. Usually

there is some vague core of truth or fact to a legend, a characteristic which distinguishes it from a myth. Myth also tends to deal more with gods and to be less logical than legend. Implausible, exaggerated, or supernatural elements are frequently present. Examples are the legends which have grown up, respectively, around Odysseus (or Ulysses), King Arthur, and Paul Bunyan. Because of his or her impressive deeds or universal character traits, the hero or heroine of such a story is also sometimes called a legend. The term can mean, too, a title or brief description under an illustration.

Leitmotif of Leitmotiv (lit’ mo tef’) – this term apparently borrowed from Wagnerian music drama, where it means a melodic phrase or passage recurring through a musical work at each appearance of an idea, person, or situation associated with the passage. Hence, in literature it means a lesser or minor theme or idea which recurs throughout a literary work. For example, the English scholar, J. Dover Wilson, in What Happens in Hamlet (Cambridge University Press, 1937) suggests that comments by various characters on Hamlet’s instability before some of his appearances form a leitmotiv in the play.Limerick – a humorous poem of five anapestic lines of which the first, second, and fifth have three feet and rhyme. Limericks were popularized by the Englishman, Edward Lear, in his Book of Nonsense (1846).

“As a beauty I am set on a star, There are others more handsome, by far,

But my face—I don’t mind it, For I am behind it. It’s the people in front get the jar.” – Euwer

A true limerick, however, is one in which the last line is almost the same as the first.“There was an old man of Calcutta, Who perpetually ate bread and butter; Till a great bit of muffin, on which he was stuffing, Choked that horrid old man of Calcutta.” – Lear

Lingo – a humorous or uncomplimentary term applied to a foreign language or any strange style of speech which is not easily or readily understood.

Linguistics or Linguistic Study – the scientific study of human speech in all its phases, including origin, structure, phonetics, meanings history, and grammar.

Litotes – Affirmation of an idea by using a negative understatement. This is the opposite of hyperbole.

He was not averse to taking a drink.She is no saint.

Local Color - the term used to describe any of the various ingredients an author uses to suggest characteristics or peculiarities of locale of his literary work. The expression thus covers all details dealing with the local scene, local attitudes and customs, local dialect, local characters, and typical local happenings. If one of the author’s main purposes is to give an intimate or vivid picture of a certain place and period, his work may be described a “local color” story (Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, Thomas Hardy’s The Return of the Native).

Localism – an expression or word usage peculiar to a specific locality (pinkie is used for little finger in New York and vicinity).

Loose Sentence – a sentence so constructed that the thought may be completed well before the end, the latter part consisting only of extra modifiers and less important material.

He fired at the bear, which was black, as it slowly moved toward him from under the shadows of a tree that had fallen.

Lost Generation – a name applied (first by Gertrude Stein) to a group of American expatriates of literary and artistic bent who lived in Europe, especially in Paris, during the 1920’s. Many of them, veterans of World War I, were characterized by their bitter disillusionment over spiritual failure of the war and by their persistent attempts to forget their disillusionment in various kinds of thrill-seeking. Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises gives a well-known picture of their outlook on life.

Lyric – a song or short poem expressing an emotion or thought. Lyric, Narrative and Dramatic constitute the three general divisions of poetry. Among the many different kinds of Lyric poems are:

a. Elegy – expressing sadness or grief, usually for the dead (Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Chuchyard”, Milton’s “Lycidas”, Shelley’s “Adonais”).

b. Hymn – a sacred song of praise or adoration of God. (The ancient hymns collected in the Old Testament are called Psalms.)

c. Occasional Poem – one written for a special occasion or to commemorate a notable event (Emerson’s “Concord Hymn”, Tennyson’s “Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington”).

d. Ode – which expresses a lofty or noble sentiment with appropriate dignity of style (Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn”).

e. Sonnet – a poem of fourteen lines usually in iambic pentameter. The three main types of sonnets are the Italian or Petrarchan (named after the Italian poet Petrarch) and the English or Shakespearean (perfected by Shakespeare) and the Miltonic (devised by Milton). The Italian consists of an octave or eight-line unit rhymed abba, abba , and a sestet or six line unit rhymed cde, cde or cde, dce, or cdc, dcd, etc. Between octave and sestet there must be a definite change in thought; thus the octave may present a general idea and the sestet a concrete application, or the octave may recite a specific experience and the sestet moralize on it, etc. (Keats’s “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer”). The English or Shakespearean sonnet follows a rhyme scheme of abab, cdcd, efef, gg, the first twelve lines constituting the first unit of the poem and the last two giving an application or a summary to the first unit (Shakespeare’s “XXX Sonnet”, “When to the sessions of sweet silent thought.”) The Miltonic follows the Petrarchan rhyme scheme, but runs the octave into the sestet without a break in thought, so the thought of the whole poem thus continues steadily to the end (Milton’s “On His Blindness”).

Sonnet Sequence – a series of sonnets connected by some thread of thought (Elizabeth Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese).

M

Malaproprism (from Mrs. Malaprop in Sheridan’s play The Rivals) - a ludicrous blunder in the use of words, committed by using a word which sounds like the intended one, but whose meaning is absurdly different.

The people in Hardy’s novels are mostly farmers and pheasants.In almost every book there is some inclination of a moral teaching.

Masculine Ending – one ending on a stressed syllable.

“Where ignorant armies clash by night.”Matthew Arnold, “Dover Beach”

Masculine Rhyme - one ending on accented syllables (before and restore, today and delay)

Masque – (also spelled Mask) – a form of dramatic performance in vogue especially in the 16th and 17th centuries, in which the players wore masks and usually represented mythological or allegorical characters. The acting ordinarily consisted only in dancing and dumb show.

Melodramatic – a term used to describe any literary work abounding in romantic sentiment, sensationalism, violence, and exaggerated situations, such as narrow escapes, wild pursuits, etc. If, however, the use of violence and sensationalism is logical and meaningful to the author’s purpose (as in Faulkner’s Light in August), the work is not necessarily melodramatic.

Metamorphosis – a radical change in a character, either physical or emotional

In Kafka’s aptly titled The Metamorphosis, a man is transformed overnight into a large bug. In the movie The Fly, a scientist gradually changes, because of his experimentation, from a man into a fly.

Metaphor – a figure of speech giving an implied comparison without using like or as between two essentially unlike things.

The red sun was a wafer pasted in the sky.The jet left its calling card across the sky.

Metathesis (me tath’ e sis) – the transposition of letter, sounds, or syllables of words (such as in a Spoonerism). For example, Shakespeare is thought to have formed the name of his character Sir John Falstaff by metathesis from that of the actual person Sir John Fastolph (the vowel sounds of the last name having been interchanged). Samuel Butler’s Erewhon is a metathesis of the word nowhere.

Meter – a definite and systematic rhythm established in a poem. The principal kinds are monometer, dimeter, trimeter, tetrameter, pentameter, and hexameter.Metonymy – a figure of speech that replaces the name of something with a word or phrase closely associated with it (similar to synecdoche)

Do you prefer Melville or Hawthorne (that is, their books)?The pen (that is, the writer) is mightier than the sword (soldier).The child likes a sweet dish (that is, the contents).The private saluted the “brass”. (Indicates a military officer)Wall Street is full of “suits”! (businessmen)

Metrical Romance – a narrative poem, ordinarily dealing with knights and ladies, romantic in theme, more pretentious than the ballad and shorter and less heroic than the epic (Scott’s “Lady of the Lake”, Keats’s “Eve of St. Agnes”).

Metrical Tale – resembling in form but simpler than the metrical romance, it deals with every-day people and affairs (Tennyson’s “Enoch Ardea”, Mansfield’s “Dauber”).

Miracle Play – a type of dramatization that began in the Middle Ages and formed an early part of the development of modern drama. Growing out of the Church, the miracle plays enacted miracles from the Bible and the lives of saints (Noah).

Mixed Metaphor – an inappropriate and often ridiculous combining of incongruous elements in the same metaphor.

“During this crisis he was wandering through a dark forest and couldn’t find the key.” (key and dark forest do not belong in the same image; path would be more appropriate here than key).

Monody – In Greek literature this meant a funeral song, a dirge or a lyric ode sung by a single voice, as in a tragedy. Hence, it has come to mean a kind of elegiac poem in which a single person laments. Milton” “Lycidas”, Shelley’s “Adonais”, and Arnold’s “Thyrsis” are monodic.

Monologue – a conversation or speech that implies a listener (or listeners) who is present but never gets a chance to talk. (Benchley’s The Treasurer’s Report, Dorothy Parker’s “The Waltz”, Ring Lardner’s “The Haircut”). With a soliloquy there is no one else present except the speaker.

Mood – the general emotional feeling conveyed by a piece of literature. The mood may change, however, during the course of the work.

Moral Tone – the general attitude toward good and evil conveyed by a piece of literature or revealed by an author in his work.

Morality Play - a kind of allegorical play which developed in the Middle Ages and was a forerunner of modern drama. By the use of characters representing such abstractions as Charity, Faith, Vice, etc., a moral lesson was taught (Everyman).

Motif or Motiv (mo tef’) – This is probably appropriated from the fine arts, where it means a distinctive element in design , a characteristic feature of the work, or a particular type of subject for artistic treatment. In music it means a leading phrase or passage that recurs in varied forms during the course of a composition, or throughout a major part of the composition, such as a movement or symphony. In literature it can mean a type of incident or a particular situation that is reproduced throughout a literary

work. Mostly, however, motif is used in the sense of a predominant theme or central idea recurrent in a work of literature.

For example, the “Noble Savage” is a motif used by both Cooper and Melville; the “Survival of the Fittest” motif is common in both Jack London and Frank Norris; the “Perfect Whole” motif is frequently used by Emerson; the “Moral Purity of Children” in seen in works by Salinger and Wordsworth; “Imperialism” is seen in Kipling’s works; being “Buried Alive” or “Entombment” is a frequent motif of Poe, etc. Needless to say, a literary work often contains a number of motifs.

Motivation – the impulse, purpose, or incentive that is responsible for the behavior of the character.

Mouthpiece – a character, sometimes called a Puppet through whom an author presents what are obviously his own ideas, feelings, or attitudes (Undershaft, the munitions maker in Bernard Shaw’s Major Barbara).

Mystery Play – a type of drama similar to the miracle play and one which also originated during the Middle Ages. Taking its name from the religious mysteries of the Bible, it dramatized Scriptural stories and often events from the life of Christ. It obviously has no connection with the present popular use of the term to designate a crime or murder story.

Myth – Probably arising out of man’s desire to explain some of the mysteries of his world, a myth is a purely fictitious narrative usually involving supernatural persons, actions, or events, and often embodying some popular explanation or conception of natural or historical phenomena. It is distinguished from allegory (which is metaphorical and didactic) and legend (which usually has a vague nucleus of truth). The Labors of Hercules, such as his diverting of a river to cleanse the Augean Stables are myths. The gods usually figure prominently in the background. Scholars of mythology have called attention to the amazing similarity of the myths of various peoples.

Mythology – a body of myths, especially that relating to the gods and heroes of a people and to their religious traditions, for example, Greek, Norse, Polynesian, American Indian mythology. Bullfinch’s Mythology is the best-known collection.

N

Narrative – any work that tells a story or gives an account of related happenings. A Narrative Poem is simply one that tells a story. Byron’s “The Prisoner of Chillon”,” Browning’s “Incident of the French Camp”.

Naturalistic – a general term, in a class with Realistic and Romantic, which describes any literature deliberately and consciously stressing the thesis that, just as in Nature, all life is a struggle for survival. Naturalism therefore emphasizes painful and ugly details of life. An outgrowth of Realism, it developed toward the end of the nineteenth century partly as a result of the growing acceptance of the Nature theories of Darwin and other scientists. Emile Zola in France is regarded as the father of Naturalism in literature (Jack London’s Call of the Wild, Dreiser’s Sister Carrie and An American Tragedy, Dostoievsky’s Crime and Punishment).

New Criticism – a contemporary school of criticism associated in particular with several American poets and critics, such as John Crowe Ransom and Allen Tate, which is absorbed in textual analysis, in studying the structural properties, the form and technique of poems, and in the “poetic strategy” of the poet.

Non Sequitur – meaning in Latin “it does not follow”, this expression is applied to an idea or conclusion that does not necessarily follow clearly or logically from the previous statement or premise. See Deductive Reasoning. (Since man has split the atom, nothing is impossible.)

Novel – a book-length invented or fictitious narrative.

Novella – an Italian term used to describe a kind of narrative or tale shorter than a novel and characterized by a compact plot with a point (Chaucer’s Pardoner’s Tale).

O

O. Henry Ending – a method or device popularized by O. Henry for concluding a story. It is a sudden unexpected development or ironic twist with which the story ends. In “The Ransom of Red Chief”, for example, the kidnapped boy proves such a difficult charge for the kidnappers that at the end they pay the boy’s parents to take him off their hands.

Objective – a fairly general term used to describe any piece of writing not slanted or colored by the author’s own personal feelings or thoughts; hence it applies to writing in which the author presents his material in an impersonal and detached way. Objective Characterization consists in portraying the person’s character as seen from the outside, by his words and actions, his appearance, his visible reactions to various situations, and the opinions of him held by other persons. This method does not permit the author to disclose the thoughts and feelings of the character directly to the reader. Hence the reader can understand these thoughts and feelings only as they are implied in the various ways mentioned. Objective characterization is lifelike, for it is the way we form our impressions in real life of a person’s character.

Octameter – poetic meter of eight feet to a line.

Octave – a unit made up of the first eight lines of a Petrarchan or Italian sonnet. (See Lyric.)

Ode – a lyric expressing a lofty or noble sentiment in appropriate dignified language. (See Lyric.)

Onomatopoeia – a figure of speech in which the sound is suggestive of the meaning. Words such as meow, clip-clop, whirr, clang, pop, and bang are all examples.

“And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain” Poe’s “The Raven”

“Booth led boldly with a big bass drum.” Vachel Lindsey’s “General William Booth Enters into Heaven.”

Oxymoron – (ok’ si mo ron) – a figure of speech using for epigrammatic effect a contradictory or incongruous combination of terms (cruel happiness, happy sadness, fresh frozen).

“The skies, the fountains, every region near Seem’d all one mutual cry. I never heard So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.”

- Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

P

Palindrome (pal’ in drom) – a word, verse, or sentence that is the same when read backwards or forwards.

Madam, I’m Adam.Able was I ere I saw Elba. (credited to Napoleon)

Parable – a short simple story having a moral or rather obvious symbolical or spiritual meaning; an earthly story with a “heavenly” meaning (the Parables of the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, etc.)

Paradox – a seemingly-contradictory statement or situation, which, on closer examination, may prove to be real or true.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of timesDickens , A Tale of Two Cities

”The best thing about temptation is yielding to it.”Oscar Wilde, The Portrait of Dorian Gray

Paraphrase – a free rendering of the sense of a passage, usually in the reader’s own words.

Parody – a composition imitating with ludicrous exactness but ordinarily on a ridiculous subject, the style and mannerisms of some serous composition (F.B. White’s “Across the Street and in to the Grill”, a parody of Hemingway’s Across the River and Into the Trees). To enjoy parody, one must be familiar with the original.

Here is the first stanza or Wordsworth’s “She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways”.“She dwelt among the untrodden ways Beside the springs of Dove A Maid when there were none to praise And very few to love:”

And here is Hartley Coleridge’s parody of it, which makes fun of Wordsworth:“He lived among the untrodden ways To Rydal Lake that lead: A bard whom there were none to praise And very few to read.”

Pastoral – a term describing a piece of writing dealing with rustic or country life, usually emphasizing a quiet atmosphere (Burns’s “The Cotter’s Saturday Night” and Whittier’s “Snow-Bound”). (See Idyll.)Pathetic Fallacy – an uncomplimentary term devised by John Ruskin, the Victorian critic and writer, to describe what he felt was an artificial use of personification, or of imputing to inanimate objects’ feelings that they do not possess (the cruel, hungry sea).

Pathos – a feeling or tender sorrow, ordinarily rather temporary and superficial, often accompanied by a sort of melancholy pleasure. It should be distinguished, therefore, from more genuine, deep-seated, and universal emotions. The deaths of Romeo and Juliet represent pathos.

Patois (pa twa or pat wa) a somewhat contemptuous term for a provincial or illiterate dialect (the French patois of New Orleans.

Pentameter – meter of five feet to a line. (See Versification.)

Periodic Sentence – a sentence in which the words are so set down that the meaning is not completed until the end or near the end, and thus the emphasis of the sentence comes at the finish.

Raising his rifle and taking careful aim at the bear, he fired.(Compare with Loose Sentence.)

Personification – a figure of speech ascribing human or life-like qualities to inanimate things.

Derisive Death hurled his spear at the crouching hag.

“But look the morn, in russet mantle clad,Walks o’er the dew of you high eastern hill.” – Shakespeare’s Hamlet

Phraseology – the grouping or arrangement of words, a narrower term than style.

Plagiarism – the stealing or appropriation of the ideas or literary creations of someone else and using them as one’s own.

Picaresque (from picaro, the Spanish for vagabond or rogue – a designation applied to a narrative whose central figure is a vagabond or wanderer who travels about having a loosely connected series of adventures in various places (Cervantes’s Don Quixote, Fielding’s Joseph Andrews and Tom Jones, Twain’s Huckleberry Finn).

Plot – the chain or succession of events in a story. A long and complicated plot is often made up of a series of episodes, which in turn are made up of a series of incidents. It can also have one or more subplots, less important than the main plot but which moves along with it, sometimes crossing back and forth over it, and usually resolved with it at the end of the story (Dickens’s Oliver Twist and A Tale of Two Cities both have complex plots and several subplots).

Poetaster (po’ et as ter; po et as’ ter) (pronounced so the last two syllables rhyme with master) an uncomplimentary term meaning a petty or paltry poet; a writer of poor or trashy verse. The Latin diminutive ending aster here denotes inferiority. The word does not means one who tastes poetry.

Poetic Justice – the appropriateness or justice of a character’s receiving the reward or punishment he deserves, such as when a good character is rewarded or a bad one punished. It is all the more striking, although occasionally too contrived, if he is paid back in a fitting or appropriate way, as when a bad person is caught in his own trap. A spectacular contrived example occurs in Dickens’s Oliver Twist when Bill Sikes, who has brutally murdered Nancy, tries to flee across a London rooftop and in doing so, accidentally hangs himself.

Poetic License – the liberty an author takes in departing from strict fact, form, or rule for the sake of artistic effect.

Point of View of Narrator – the point of view from which the story is told. A story is said to be told in the first person if it is related exclusively from the position of a single character who uses I throughout (Poe’s short stories). Examples of stories in the second person are rare. It is called third person if the point of view is restricted to that of a single character referred to always by name or by a pronoun in the third person. There is also the all-seeing eye or omniscient point of view in which the author uses the third person but does not limit the point of view to that of just one person. He tells the story from the vantage of the all-seeing eye or an omniscient being who looks down upon all his characters alike. If in using this method, the author discloses the thoughts and emotions of his characters, he is said to be using Subjective Characterization. If he simply reveals their words and actions, he is said to be using Objective Characterization. A story told exclusively from the point of view of a single character gains intimacy and realism, but makes it difficult for the author to present a scene or incident from the all-seeing eye, which enables the author to tell what is happening simultaneously in various places, gives a broader scope, and provides the author with more freedom to work in his own comments.

Precis – a concise statement, summary or abstract, shorter than a paraphrase.

Premise – a previous statement or proposition from which another is inferred. The major premise is the one that contains the major term, the first proposition of a regular syllogism. The minor premise is the one that contains the minor term, that is, the second proposition of a regular syllogism. (See Syllogism.)

Prologue – an incident or episode occurring before the beginning of a story or play proper; also a speech in prose or verse addressed by an actor to the audience before the beginning of the play itself. The purpose of prologue is to give the reader or audience an explanation as to what the piece is going to be about, to hint at what moral or ideas to look for in it, or perhaps to settle the audience and arouse their interest. (Thornton Wilder’s Our Town has a prologue.)

Prosody (pros’ o di) – the science or art of versification (See Versification). The systematic study of metrical structure including all forms of rhymes, meters and stanzas. It can also mean a particular system or theory of versification or of metrical composition, such as T.S. Eliot’s or Robert Frost’s prosody.

Protagonist – the chief person in a narrative or play who receives most of the author’s attention. If he has brave and noble qualities, he may also be called the hero (or if a woman, heroine). Sometimes a number of persons or whole social group may be the protagonist.

Proverb – an old and often repeated saying expressing some practical wisdom.

A rolling stone gathers no moss. A soldier fights upon his stomach.

Provincialism – a word or expression peculiar to a province or a district some distance from a cultural center; a dialectical or local word, phrase or idiom. Examples of two Maine provincialisms are “to come afluking” (to come in a hurry) and “to gaffle aholt” (to grab hold).

Psychological Novel, Story, or Play – one emphasizing the inward or mental qualities of the characters, and in which the plot unfolds or develops as a result of these mental traits. Hence the author’s stress is on mental interplay rather than external happenings.

Pun – a verbal humor evoked by playing on different meanings of the same word or of different words of the same sound.

“A mender of bad soles”(souls) – Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar

Puppet – a wooden and lifeless character having no individualized traits, used by the author for some momentary necessity of the plot, or as a kind of ventriloquist’s dummy for expressing the author’s thoughts or feelings.

Purple Patch – usually used in a uncomplimentary sentence, it means a sudden heightening of rhetorical style by shifting to a passage of highly colored poetic prose.

Purpose – the author’s literary or artistic intention, the specific type of interest or effect that the author aims to produce by the story as a whole. It does not mean the author’s desire to make money, gain fame, express his personality, etc. “Entertainment” is too broad a word, by itself, to state the author’s purpose adequately.

Q

Quatrain – a four-line stanza of poetry.

“I never saw a moor, I never saw the sea; Yet know I how the heather looks, And what a wave must be.” – Emily Dickenson’s Chartless

R

Realistic –a general term used to describe any literature marked by lifelikeness and a faithful adherence to the ordinary probability of human nature, even when such details are trivial or unpleasant. Hence realistic is the opposite of romantic.

Redundancy – the use of more words than are needed to express one’s meaning, especially the use of extra words meaning about the same thing as some of those already used.

John felt full of life; keenly alert, and far from sluggish.

Tautology, pleonism, and periphrasis all mean about the same as redundancy.

Refrain – a recurring phrase or passage in a poem.

“Quote the Raven, “Nevermore.” - Poe

Repartee – humor based on a clever, quick, and witty reply, for example, the conversation between Hamlet and the gravediggers.

Repetition – A word or phrase used more than once to emphasize an idea.

Coleridge’s line “Water, water everywhere”, which is repeated several times in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, serves to emphasize the frustration of a situation where a man is dying of thirst while surrounded by water.

Resolution – the outcome of the crisis or turning point; the part of the plot from the crisis to the end of the story. It ordinarily carries the effect of inevitability or the fulfillment of fate, or a logical or artistic outcome of the circumstances of the crisis.

Rhetoric – the art of written prose composition, exclusive of poetry and speech. The term can also mean a skillful use of language or, sometimes, an artificial elegance of expression.

Rhetorical Question – a question a speaker or writer asks for dramatic or literary effect or which he intends to answer himself.

“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?”Patrick Henry’s “Speech in the Virginia Convention.”

Rhyme – (also spelled Rime) – the recurrence of an identical vowel sound, usually at the end of a line, the consonant structure being different before the identical sounds in the two words. Internal Rhyme is the rhyme of a vowel sound in the middle of a line with one at the end.

“The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew.” Coleridge – The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Rhyme Royal (named for one of its first users, James I of Scotland) consists of stanzas of seven iambic pentameter lines rhymed ababbcc (Chaucer’s “The Clerk’s Tale”, Masefield’s “The Dauber”).

Rhythm – the more or less regular recurrence of an accent or beat. In a longer piece of literature the term Emotional Rhythm is sometimes used to describe the rise and fall of emotional intensity. A skillful writer builds up, in a more or less regular pattern, the reader’s emotions and lets them subside (for they cannot be held long at an emotional pitch). Romantic – a name applied to any literature that gives an artificial, fanciful, exaggerated, or extravagant view of life. It is recognizable through its reliance on happy-ever-after endings, coincidence, surprise, thrilling adventures, stock characters, and heroes and heroines who are too “good” and villains who are overly “bad”. There is little or no emphasis on inwardness nor on character development.

Romanticism – a general term having an extensive and complicated philosophical basis. Jean Jacques Rousseau, the eighteenth century French philosopher, is credited with being the father of the Romantic Movement. The opposite of Classicism, Romanticism is subjective and personal rather that restricted and detached, spontaneous and free rather than restricted and conventional, imaginative rather than reserved, simple rather than stately, warm and lyrical rather than cold and measured. It stresses the beauty of Nature and a belief in Nature as a source of human inspiration and emphasizes the simple dignity of the common man and the wonder to be found in simple everyday life. (Compare with Classicism.)

Rondeau (ron’ do; ron do’) – An Old French verse form ordinarily consisting of thirteen lines and an unrhymed refrain taken from the beginning of the first line. The rhymes and refrains are generally arranged aabbaaab refrain aabba.

“In Flanders fields the poppies blew Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours so hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields.” -McCrea, “In Flanders Fields”

Round Character – one who is complex and multi-faceted, like a real person.

S

Saga – Originally a medieval narrative, historical or legendary, or both, of an Icelandic hero or family, it is now used loosely in the sense of history, chronicle, or legend (Galsworthy’s The Forsyte Saga, W. N. Burns’s The Saga of Billy the Kid).

Satire – the ridiculing of human follies, weaknesses, abuses, or vices, whether of an individual or a group (Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, Sinclair Lewis’s Main Street, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World).

Scansion – indicating by symbols ( ) or voice stress the meter or poetry, foot by foot, including any irregularities; and identifying the correct meter and type of foot (for example, anapestic trimeter).

Science Fiction or Scientific Romance – a type of romantic story or novel whose chief source of interest is its scientific or quasi-scientific discoveries, inventions, experiments, etc. Regarded as having originated with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818), this kind of narrative was brought into considerable popularity by Jules Verne and H. G. Wells and continues to have a wide vogue today, especially in the inter-planetary space stories. The eccentric scientist has become a stock character (Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, H.G. Well’s The Time Machine, The Invisible Man.).

Semantics – the science of the meaning of words.

Sensibility – a term applied to the exaggeratedly tender emotional reactions of characters in some of the English novels of the latter part of the eighteenth century (Mackenzie’s Man of Feeling, Sterne’s Tristram Shandy).Sentimentality – exaggerated, artificial, or affected feeling, especial of a tender or mawkish kind. Sentiment, on the other hand, is commonly used in good sense for an honest and sincere feeling.

Sestet – any stanza of six lines, but usually the unit formed by the last six lines of a Petrarchan or Italian sonnet. (See Lyric.)

Setting – the place, time, and the chief circumstances depicted in a piece of literature. By the circumstances are meant the main conditions, such as a snowstorm, a war, an epidemic, a voyage, etc. The setting of The Red Badge of Courage, for instance, is an unidentified battle area during several days of the Civil War.

Simile - a figure of speech ordinarily using like or as, as expressing a comparison between two essentially unlike things.

“The red sun was pasted in the sky like a wafer.” Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage

A Homeric Simile is one rather lofty in feeling that begins with an as clause and concludes with a main thought introduced by so.

“As beats the rhythm of a mighty band, so beats my heart for you.”

Slang – popular, breezy, inelegant, unauthorized language, usually having a temporary vogue, or a popularity restricted to a general group or an occupation, for example, college slang, baseball slang, etc.

Social Consciousness – a piece of writing or an author either of which exhibits a sympathy toward the problems of the poorer classes is said to have social consciousness. For example, Dickens or his books may be said to have or show social consciousness.

Social Criticism - literature revealing any social, economic, or political problem contains social criticism. (Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath).

Socratic Method – a method of argumentation by which a person seeks to convince another by adopting the role of the humble inquirer, and through a series of questions leads the other person gradually to admit the truth of the questioner’s side.

Solecism – any blunder in grammar or usage (between you and I, he don’t, different than me, etc.) A person who makes one of these errors is said to have committed a solecism.

Soliloquy – an author’s method of disclosing the secret or inner thoughts of a character by having him speak his thoughts aloud to himself (Hamlet’s “To Be or Not to Be” speech, Macbeth’s “Tomorrow and tomorrow” speech).

Sonnet – Traditionally, a love poem of fourteen lines constructed in iambic pentameter, but in contemporary poetry, themes and form vary. (See Lyric.)

Spondee – a foot of two syllables, both accented equally (stone-deaf). Rarely, however, is a whole line spondaic.

Spoonerism – a ludicrous language slip formed either accidentally or purposely by transposing the first letters or sounds of two words in close succession (half-warmed fish for half formed wish, kissed my mystery lecture for missed my history lecture¸ Sheats and Kelley for Keats and Shelley. The Rev. W.A. Spooner, born in England in 1844, and later warden at New College, Oxford, became well known for committing these linguistic blunders when he grew excited.

Stanza – a recurring unit or a repeated brief division of a poem, separated by spaces to make for easier reading or to show change in thoughts or time.

Stock Character - a character who has been used so much in literature that he has become a conventional and recognizable type (the honest friend, the talkative old woman, the bragging soldier, the suave gambler, the simple country boy, the blundering drunkard, the super sleuth, the eccentric scientist, etc.).

Stream of Consciousness – the jumbled, frequently incoherent, half-formed ideas, images, memories, thoughts, desires, etc., that stream through a character’s consciousness. A form of subjective characterization, it enables the author to reveal rather completely the character’s psychological make-up (James Joyce’s Ulysses).

Strophe (stro’ fe) (rhymes with trophy) – Coming from the Greek word for turn, this meant the Greek choral dance the movement of the chorus in turning from one side to the other of the performance area. In poetry, it means the strain or the part of the choral ode sung during the strophe. The antistrophe was the part in answer to the strophe.

Structure – The particular way in which parts of a written work are combined.

The structure of a sonnet is 14 lines. The structure of a drama is a certain number of acts and scenes. Plot structures a novel, and poems are organized by stanzas. Other structural techniques include chronological, nonlinear, flashback, and stream of consciousness.

Style- an author’s distinctive manner of expression. It comprises such factors as his use of words (diction), his sentence structure and phraseology, and his use of figures of speech and other rhetorical forms. Style is the writer’s “voice”.

Hemingway’s style is simple and straightforward. Fitzgerald’s style is poeticand full of imagery. Virginia Woolf’s style varies but she is often abstract.

Subjective – a term applied to any piece of literature in which the author plainly reveals his personal thoughts, his feelings, or his interpretations of life.

Subjective Characterization – the kind in which an author tells the reader exactly what is going on in the minds of his characters.(Compare with Objective Characterization.)

Subplot – a plot of less importance than the main plot. It may begin or end at a different time from the main plot, cross and re-cross it several times, or merge eventually with it. (The grave-robbing activities and family life of Jerry Cruncher form a sub-plot in A Tale of Two Cities.)

Surprise – an unexpected turn of events often used by an author to introduce or remove obstacles, heighten interest, or add suspense (Robinson Crusoe’s discovery of the footprint in the sand).

Surprise Ending – a sudden ironic outcome of a prose narrative (See O. Henry Ending.)

Suspense – intense eagerness to learn the outcome. It is created through delaying the outcome by interposing fresh obstacles, by interrupting the chain of events with a descriptive passage, or by turning temporarily to another plot or subplot, etc.

Syllogism – a pattern or form for deductive reasoning. (See Deductive Reasoning).

Symbol – a character, object, or happening which stands for something else of deeper or wider meaning. It is, therefore, often means of expressing the invisible. (Mr. Scratch symbolizes the devil or wickedness in Stephen Vincent Benet’s The Devil and Daniel Webster, the brackish well symbolizes the evil curse on the Pyncheon house in The House of the Seven Gables, the scene in which the French noble requires four servants to serve him is hot chocolate symbolizes class distinction in A Tale of Two Cities.

Syntax – The way in which words, phrases, and sentences are ordered and connectedMany of Mark Twain’s characters speak in dialect, so their syntax is ungrammatical.

“Jim, this is nice,” I says. “I wouldn’t want to be nowhere else but here. Pass me along another hunk of fish and some hot cornbread.”

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Schenedoche (si nek’ do ke) (rhymes with Schenectady) – a figure of speech, akin to metonymy, in which the part stands for the whole (100 rifles for 100 men with rifles), the whole for the part (the navy is here; that is a warship has arrived), the name of the material for the thing (the swordsman drew his steel, that is, his sword). The species for the genus. The genus for the species. The difference between synecdoche and metonymy is that the former seems to involve a whole and part association, whereas metonymy seems to involve any sort of mental or emotional association of two words. However, metonymy appears to be coming more and more to be used to cover both terms.

T

Tetrameter – poetic meter of four feet to a line. (See Versification.)

Theme – One meaning of the theme of a piece of literature is its topic, what it is fundamentally about, briefly generalized. Frequently the theme may be stated in a number of ways, all more or less meaning the same thing. The theme of The Red Badge of Courage, for example, might be put: a youth’s struggle for manhood, the effects of war on a young man, etc. Theme can also mean the underlying idea in a piece of literature; the main moral, social, economic, or intellectual thought which runs through the whole work and which the piece of literature seems to have been written to exemplify, illustrate, implement, or elaborate on. In this sense, the theme of Silas Marner is the power of love in re-building a person’s faith in life. In Vanity Fair it is the hypocrisy and shallowness of the fashionable society of its day. The line of demarcations between theme and thesis is sometimes hard to draw. Generally speaking, however, it would appear that a theme is underlying or submerges; whereas a thesis stands out above the surface.

Thesis – a specific proposition, point, or idea that a work of literature aims to prove, illustrate, or make convincing. It could be a theory, a reform, a moral lesson, or a systematic attack on something. An author may sometimes sacrifice breadth, impartiality, and naturalness of plot and character for the sake of a thesis. The thesis of Sinclair Lewis’s Main Street, for instance, is that American life is narrow, uncultured, and standardized. In Thomas Hardy’s The Return of the Native it is that human life is subject to the whims of an impersonal fate.

Threnody – a song of lamentation; a dirge or funeral song. (Seem Monody.)

Tone – the general quality, feeling, mood, temper, spirit, etc. (similar to Mood). Various kinds of tone are intellectual, moral, emotional, aesthetic, etc.) Tone refers to the author’s attitude toward the subject, and often sets the mood of the piece.

Tour De Force – a feat of power or skill. It is said of any piece of literature in which the author’s purpose has been to display his literary skill or power at some phase of writing, or his special knowledge of some difficult or esoteric field of information. Tour De Force sometimes suggests showing off, but it is mostly

used in a complementary sense (Poe’s “The Bells” shows skill at use of sounds; Galsworthy’s Old English exhibits skill a writing a successful play with only one character).

Tragedy – loosely speaking, any literary composition having a tragic theme. It is, however, a term most frequently applied to the drama. Usually it means a serious play in which the protagonist is overcome by the obstacles with which he is contending. Aristotle’s theory of tragedy was that it should imitate a serious, complete, and important action in such a way as to bring about an emotional purging of the audience through pity and terror. He also said that tragedy must be unified in time and action (see Unities) and expresses in noble, rhythmic, and harmonious language. In Greek tragedy such things as battles and murders were not acted on a stage, but were announced by messengers. The Greek theory of tragedy was the destruction of some noble person through Fate. In a Shakespearean tragedy there is shown the destruction of some noble person through some passion, flaw, or limitation in his nature (Macbeth’s ambition). This is called the tragic flaw theory of tragedy.

Tragi-Comedy – (See Comedy.)

Triolet (tri’ o let) – One of what are called the Old French forms, this is a stanza of eight lines, in which the first line is repeated as the fourth and seventh, and the second as the eighth. Its rhyme scheme is abaaabab:

“Wee Rose is but threeYet coquettes she already.I can scarcely agree Wee Rose is but three, When her archness I see!Are the sex born unsteady?Wee Rose is but three Yet coquettes she already.”

- Arlo Bates

Triplet – (also called a Tercet) – a stanza of three lines.

Trochaic – adjective describing a foot of poetry made up of an accented and then unaccented syllable.

Turning Point – (See Crisis.)

U

Understatement –a statement for dramatic or humorous effect of less importance than the occasion would warrant. (A soldier knowing that he is dying says, “I am hurt.”)

Unity – the sense of oneness, harmony, or singleness of effect given by a literary composition. The Three Unities means the unities of time, action and place, which were principles governing the structure of drama derived from Aristotle’s Poetics by writers of the French classical school (Moliere, etc.). They required that the action of a play occur in one place, within one day, and within one tightly knit main plot. Most other dramatists, however, have been much freer in their interpretation of the unities.

Universality – a literary work is said to have universality if it contains some everlasting truth about human life, that is, if its ideas, situations, characters, or incidents are true to life, not only for the time of the work but for all times—past, present, and future. One of the universal qualities of Hamlet, for example, is its theme: youth’s shocked and depressing discovery of deceit and treachery in the world. A universal character in it is Polonius, the self-advancing schemer. A universal situation is exemplified in the dueling scene when Queen Gertrude shows her concern for her son Hamlet’s welfare.

V

Vernacular – generally speaking, this means one’s mother tongue, but is used more often in the sense of the language of the ordinary or common people, as opposed to the language of the literary or educated.

Versification – metrical composition. The most generally used meters in English are the Iambic, Trochaic, Anapestic, and Dactylic. The Iambic foot consists of one unaccented syllable followed by one accented one ( ). Grays’s “Elegy” is an example of iambic pentameter:

“The curfew tolls the knell of parting day. The lowing herds winds slowly o’er the lea.”

The Trochaic is the opposite, an accented foor followed by an unaccented one ( ). Milton’s “”L’Allegro” is an example of trochaic tetrameter, although a syllable is omitted in the last foot of the line:

“Haste the, nymph, and bring with thee Jest and youthful jollity.”

The Anapestic has two unaccented syllables followed by an accented one ( ). Here is an illustration of anapestic tetrameter from Browning’s “How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix”:

“Not a word to each other as we kept the great pace”

The opposite of anapestic is Dactylic. Which has one accented syllable followed by two accented ones ( ). This sample is from Longfellow’s “Evangeline” and is dactylic hexameter with the last foot incomplete:

“This is the forest primeval; the murmuring place and the hemlocks.”The Spondaic is made up of two accented syllables (stone-deaf). A line entirely spondaic is very rare. Among the least common forms are the Pyrrhic, two unaccented syllables (in the); the Amphibrach, composed of an unaccented, accented, and unaccented (unkindly); and the Amphimacer, its opposite, made up of an accented followed by an unaccented, then another accented (cedar wood).

Villain (any scoundrel-like, treacherous, or evil opponent of the hero (see Antagonist.)

Vulgarism – a word or expression which is common but not in good use. It does not necessarily connote coarseness (ain’t).