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| The arrangement of two or more ideas, characters, actions, settings, phrases, or words side-by-side or in similar narrative moments for the purpose of comparison, contrast, rhetorical effect, suspense, or character development. |
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A five-line closed-form poem in which the first two lines consist of anapestic trimeter, which in turn are followed by lines of anapestic dimeter, and a final line in trimeter. They rhyme in an AABBA pattern. Typically, they are used in comic or bawdy verse, making extensive use of double entendre. Here is an example typical of the metrical and linear arrangement:
A student from dear old Bryn Mawr
Committed a dreadful faux pas
She loosened a stay
In her new décolleté
Exposing her je ne sais quoi. |
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| a narrator who presents the story as it is seen and understood by a single character and restricts information to what is seen, heard, thought, or felt by that one character |
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song-like poem written mainly to express the feelings of emotions or thought from a particular person, thus separating it from narrative poems. These poems are generally short, averaging roughly twelve to thirty lines, and rarely go beyond sixty lines. These poems express vivid imagination as well as emotion and all flow fairly concisely. Because of this aspect, as well as their steady rhythm, they were often used in song
began in its earliest stage in Ancient Egypt around 2600 BC in the forms of elegies, odes, or hymns generated out of religious ceremonies
William Blake, William Wordsworth, John Keats, and William Shakespeare-who helped popularize the sonnet
remarkable ability to express with such imagination the innermost emotions of the soul. |
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Rhymes that end with a heavy stress on the last syllable in each rhyming word.
Stand still, and I will read to thee
A lecture, love, in Love's philosophy.
These three hours that we have spent
Walking here, two shadows went
Along with us, which we ourselves produced.
But now the sun is just above our head,
We do those shadows tread,
And to brave clearness all things are reduced. |
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| Fiction in which the subject of the story is the act or art of storytelling of itself, especially when such material breaks up the illusion of "reality" in a work. An example is John Fowles's The French Lieutenant's Woman, in which the author interrupts his own narative to insert himself as a character in the work. Claiming not to like the ending to the tale, the author sets his watch back ten minutes, and the storyline backs up ten minutes so an alternative ending can unfold. |
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| A comparison or analogy stated in such a way as to imply that one object is another one, figuratively speaking. When we speak of "the ladder of success," we imply that being successful is much like climbing a ladder to a higher and better position. |
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A recognizable though varying pattern of stressed syllables alternating with syllables of less stress
Each unit of stress and unstressed syllables is called a "foot." |
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Using a vaguely suggestive, physical object to embody a more general idea.
also applies to the object itself used to suggest that more general idea.
the metonym crown in reference to royalty or the entire royal family, or stating "the pen is mightier than the sword" to suggest that the power of education and writing is more potent for changing the world than military force. |
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| used to represent the internal or emotional thoughts or feelings of an individual; can also be used to refer to a character speaking aloud to himself, or narrating an account to an audience with no other character on stage. |
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| A conspicuous recurring element, such as a type of incident, a device, a reference, or verbal formula, which appears frequently in works of literature. For instance, the "loathly lady" who turns out to be a beautiful princess is a common motif in folklore, and the man fatally bewitched by a fairy lady is a common folkloric motif appearing in Keats' "La Belle Dame sans Merci." |
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a traditional tale of deep cultural significance to a people in terms of etiology, eschatology, ritual practice, or models of appropriate and inappropriate behavior.
deals with gods, supernatural beings, or ancestral heroes |
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one who tells a story, the speaker or the “voice” of an oral or written work.
(1) participant (protagonist or participant in any action that may take place in the story), (2) observer (someone who is indirectly involved in the action of a story), or (3) non participant (one who is not at all involved in any action of the story).
the direct window into a piece of work |
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| any extended fictional prose narrative focusing on a few primary characters but often involving scores of secondary characters. The fact that it is in prose helps distinguish it from other lengthy works like epics. |
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| An extended fictional prose narrative that is longer than a short story, but not quite as long as a novel. We might arbitrarily assign an approximate length of 20,000-50,000 words. |
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A long, often elaborate stanzaic poem of varying line lengths and sometimes intricate rhyme schemes dealing with a serious subject matter and treating it reverently
usually much longer than the song or lyric, but usually not as long as the epic poem
written or dedicated to a specific subject. |
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| a narrator who is able to know, see, and tell all, including the inner thoughts and feelings of the characters |
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| The use of sounds that are similar to the noise they represent for a rhetorical or artistic effect. For instance, buzz, click, rattle, and grunt make sounds akin to the noise they represent. |
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| Using contradiction in a manner that oddly makes sense on a deeper level. Jumbo shrimp, sophisticated rednecks, and military intelligence "Cowards die many times before their deaths" |
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a brief and often simple narrative that illustrates a moral or religious lesson.
Extended allegory |
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| an apparently contradictory statement which actually contains some truth |
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| Rhetorically juxtaposing two or more clauses or prepositions together in strings or with few or no connecting conjunctions or without indicating their relationship to each other in terms of co-ordination or subordination |
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imitates the serious manner and characteristic features of a particular literary work in order to make fun of those same features
exaggerating certain traits common to the work, much as a caricaturist creates a humorous depiction of a person by magnifying and calling attention to the person's most noticeable features. |
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An artistic composition dealing with the life of shepherds or with a simple, rural existence. It usually idealized shepherds' lives in order to create an image of peaceful and uncorrupted existence
describes the simplicity, charm, and serenity attributed to country life, or any literary convention that places kindly, rural people in nature-centered activities. |
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A term coined by English critic John Ruskin to identify writing that falsely endows nonhuman things with human intentions and feelings, such as "angry clouds" and "sad trees."
required convention in the classical poetic form of the pastoral elegy, and it is used in the modern poetry of T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and the Imagists. |
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| When poetry consists of five feet in each line, it is written in _______. |
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Adding in superfluous words to extend the message you are trying to give - "beating around the bush", so to speak.
Ex: I have observed that within the time I subsituted for your class, the class participated in behaviours that were most unruly and displeasing in general vs. Your class misbehaved when I subsituted for you. |
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An external representation of oneself which might or might not accurately reflect one's inner self, or an external representation of oneself that might be largely accurate, but involves exaggerating certain characteristics and minimizing others.
An external representation of oneself which might or might not accurately reflect one's inner self, or an external representation of oneself that might be largely accurate, but involves exaggerating certain characteristics and minimizing others.
the speaker in Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal." Here, the Irish author Swift, outraged over Britain's economic exploitation of Ireland, creates a speaker who is a well-to-do English intellectual, getting on in years, who advocates raising and eating Irish children as a means of economic advancement
Geoffrey Chaucer's narrator in The Canterbury Tales, who presents himself as poetically inept and somewhat dull. |
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| A figure of speech where animals, ideas or inorganic objects are given human characteristics. |
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| Petrarchan (Italian) Sonnet |
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| eight line stanza (called an octave) followed by a six line stanza (called a sestet). The octave has two quatrains rhyming abba, abba, the first of which presents the theme, the second further develops it. In the sestet, the first three lines reflect on or exemplify the theme, while the last three bring the poem to a unified end. The sestet may be arranged cdecde, cdcdcd, or cdedce. |
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| the action of a narrative drama |
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| vantage point from which a story is told |
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| The French term for a linguistic blending. |
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(1) In original Greek tragedy- either the action or a set of introductory speeches before the first entry (parados) of the chorus. Here, a single actor's monologue or a dialogue between two actors would establish the play's background events
(2) In later literature- a section of any introductory material before the first chapter or the main material of a prose work, or any such material before the first stanza of a poetic work. |
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| the mechanics of verse poetry--its sounds, rhythms, scansion and meter, stanzaic form, alliteration, assonance, euphony, onomatopoeia, and rhyme. (2) The study or analysis of the previously listed material. This is also called versification. |
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| The main character in a work, on whom the author focuses most of the narrative attention. |
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the usually humorous use of a word in such a way as to suggest two or more of its meanings or the meaning of another word similar in sound.
figure of speech which consists of a deliberate confusion of similar words or phrases for rhetorical effect, whether humorous or serious |
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| a stanza of four lines, often rhyming in an ABAB pattern. Three of those form the main body of a Shakespearean or English sonnet along with a final couplet |
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| A line or set of lines at the end of a stanza or section of a longer poem or song--these lines repeat at regular intervals in other stanzas or sections of the same work. Sometimes the repetition involves minor changes in wording |
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| A term used in stylistics to refer to a variety of language used in specified kinds of social situation: thus a formal one differs from an informal one, usually in vocabulary, pronunciation, and if written, punctuation |
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| the art of presenting ideas in a clear, effective, and persuasive manner |
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The varying speed, loudness, pitch, elevation, intensity, and expressiveness of speech, especially poetry.
In verse- it is normally regular; in prose it may or may not be regular. |
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| Another term for verbal irony--the act of ostensibly saying one thing but meaning another. |
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| An attack on or criticism of any stupidity or vice in the form of scathing humor, or a critique of what the author sees as dangerous religious, political, moral, or social standards. |
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The act of "scanning" a poem to determine its meter.
the student breaks down each line into individual metrical feet and determines which syllables have heavy stress and which have lighter stress. |
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| A dramatic sequence that takes place within a single locale (or setting) on stage; serve as the subdivision of an act within a play. |
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| The general locale, historical time, and social circumstances in which the action of a fictional or dramatic work occurs; |
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| Shakespearean (English) Sonnet |
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| three quatrains; each rhymed differently, with a final, independently rhymed couplet that makes an effective, unifying climax to the whole. Its rhyme scheme is abab, cdcd, efef, gg. Typically, the final two lines follow a "turn" or a "volta," (sometimes spelled volte, like volte-face) because they reverse, undercut, or turn from the original line of thought to take the idea in a new direction. |
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| An analogy or comparison implied by using an adverb such as like or as, in contrast with a metaphor which figuratively makes the comparison by stating outright that one thing is another thing. |
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| A trope in which accidental events occur that seem oddly appropriate, such as the poetic justice of a pickpocket getting his own pocket picked. However, both the victim and the audience are simultaneously aware of the situation |
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| Rhymes created out of words with similar but not identical sounds. In most of these instances, either the vowel segments are different while the consonants are identical, or vice versa. This type of rhyme is also called approximate rhyme, inexact rhyme, near rhyme, half rhyme, off rhyme, analyzed rhyme, or suspended rhyme. |
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A monologue spoken by an actor at a point in the play when the character believes himself to be alone. The technique frequently reveals a character's innermost thoughts, including his feelings, state of mind, motives or intentions.
often provides necessary but otherwise inaccessible information to the audience. The dramatic convention is that whatever a character says in a soliloquy to the audience must be true, or at least true in the eyes of the character speaking |
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An arrangement of lines of verse in a pattern usually repeated throughout the poem.
has a fixed number of verses or lines, a prevailing meter, and a consistent rhyme scheme.
subdivision of a poem, or it may constitute the entire poem. |
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| Writing in which a character's perceptions, thoughts, and memories are presented in an apparently random form, without regard for logical sequence, chronology, or syntax. Often such writing makes no distinction between various levels of reality--such as dreams, memories, imaginative thoughts or real sensory perception. |
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