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| a form of verse to be sung or recited and characterized by its presentation of a dramatic or exciting episode in simple narrative form. |
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| a mistake in the form of a word, or a word that results from such a mistake. Strictly speaking, a barbarism results from the violation of an accepted rule of derivation or inflection, as hern for hers, goodest for best, clomb for climbed. Originally it referred to the mixing of foreign words and phrases in Latin of Greek. |
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| In modern use, simply a "poet." Historically the term refers to poets who recited verses glorifying the deeds of Heroes and leaders, to the accompaniment of musical instrument such as the harp. Bard technically refers to the early poets of the Celts. |
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| a term of uncertain origin applied first to the architectural style that succeeded the classic style of the Renaissance and flourished, in varied forms in different parts of Europe, from the late sixteenth century into well into the eighteenth century. The Baroque is a blending of picturesque elements (the unexpected, the wild, the fantastic, the accident" with the more ordered, formal style of the "high" Renaissance. Stressed movement, energy, realistic treatment. |
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| English Translations of Bible |
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| From Caedmon (17th century) to Wycliffe (14th century) there were translations and paraphrases in OLD English and in Middle English of various parts of the bible, all based on the Latin Vulgate. The parts most frequently translated were the Gospels, the Psalms, and the Pentateuch. The Caedmonian poetic paraphrases (17th century) are extent, but Bede's Prose translations of a portion of the Gospel of St. John (17th century)is not. |
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| Influence of Literature (Bible) |
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| The influence of the Bible upon English literature is so subtly pervasive that it can merely be suggested, not closely traced. Much of it's influence has been indirect, through its effect on language and on the mental and moral interests of the English and American people. |
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| Used in several senses. The term may be applied to a subject bibliography; this is a list of books or other printed (or manuscript) material on any chosen topic. A subject bibliography may aim at comprehensiveness, even completeness or it may be a selective list of only such works as are most important, most easily available, most closely related to a book/article to which it may be attached. |
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| the use of the morbid and the absurd for darkly comic purposes in modern fiction and drama. The term refers as much to the tone of anger and bitterness as it does to the grotesque and morbid situations, which often deal with suffering, anxiety, and death. A substantial element in the anti-novel and the Theater of the Absurd. |
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| An Afro-American folk song developed by the Negroes of the Southern United States. Characteristic a short 3 line stanza, melancholy in tone, marked by frequent repetition, and sung slowly in a minor mode. |
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| a verse that lacks two syllables, normally unstressed. If what is lacking amounts to a pyrrhic, then a whole foot is omitted. Usually, however, what is omitted is the unstressed part of an anapest or dactyl, as in Yeat's line "Hearts with one purpose alone (In generally anapestic environment). |
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| The breaking of a word at the end of a line for the sake of a rhyme. The novelty and disruption of this rare device have limited its use largely to various sorts of comic verse, including satire and doggerel. |
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| A Utopian experiment in communal living, sponsored by the Transcendental Club of Boston. The farm, located at West Roxbury, Massachusetts, then nine miles from Boston, was token over in 1841 by a joint stock company, headed by George Ripley and called, in full, "The Brook Farm Institute of Agriculture and Education." |
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| In one sense the sound pattern that precedes a marked pause or the end of a sentence, making it interrogatory, hortatory, pleading, or such. In another sense it is the rhythm established in the sequence of stressed and unstressed syllables in a phrasal unit. In a third and broader sense it is the rhythmical movement of verse or prose when it is read aloud, the modulation produced the rise and fall of the voice, the rhythm that sounds the "inner tune" of a sentence or a verse. |
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| A pause or break in a line of verse. Originally, in Classical literature, the Caesura has not been placed near the middle of a verse. Some poets, however, have sought diversity of rhythmical effect by placing the Caesura anywhere from near the end. In another sense, the Caesura is an instrument of prose rhythm that cuts across and by varying, modifies the regularity of accentual verse. After an unstressed syllable= feminine caesura |
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| In its simplest sense, a standard of judgement; a criterion. Canon is applied to the authorized or accepted list of books belonging in the Christian Bible by virtue of having been declared to be divinely inspired. The term is often extended to mean the accepted list of books of any author. |
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| A section of division of a long poem. Derived from the Latin cantus (song), the word originally signified a section of a narrative poem of such length as to be sung by a minstrel in one singing. |
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| Writing that exaggerates certain individual qualities of a person and produces a Burlesque, ridiculous effect. Caricature more frequently is associated with drawing rather than with writing, since the related literary terms-satire, burlesque, and parody- are more commonly used. Likely to treat merely personal qualities, also lends itself to the ridicule of political, religious and social foibles. A work of fiction, history or biography that traffics excessive distortion of exaggeration may be dismissed as caricature. |
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| "Seize the day." The phrase was used by Horace and has come to be applied generally to literature, especially to lyric poems. Very common theme in the 16th and 17th centuries of English love poetry. |
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| a list of people, things or attributes. Catalogs, sometimes extended to great length, are characteristic of much primitive literature and of much that is not so primitive as well. |
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| the conclusion of a play, particularly a tragedy; the last of the four parts into which the ancients divided a play. It is the final stage in the falling action, ending the dramatic conflict, winding up the plot and consisting of the actions that result from the climax. |
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| In the poetic's Aristotle, in defining tragedy, sees its objective as being "through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation (catharsis) of these emotions," but he fails to explain what he means by "proper purgation." In medical terms it refers to the discharge from the body of the excess of elements produced by a state of sickness and thus the return to bodily health. The process by which an unhealthy emotional state produced by an imbalance of feelings is corrected and emotional health restored. |
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| loosely used to mean a song, but more particularly the term signifies the intoning of words to a monotonous measure of few notes. Cadence is an important element, dirges are often chanted. Repetition of a few varying musical phrases is a characteristic less melodious than songs, some chants the words come from a prose text. |
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| a complicated term that includes the idea of the moral constitution of the human personality, the presence of moral uprightness, and the simpler notion of the presence of creatures in art that seem to be human beings of one sort or another; character is also a term applied to a literary from that flourished in England and France in the 17/18th centuries (a brief descriptive sketch of a personage who typifies some definite quality). The person is described not as an individualized personality, but as an example of some vice or virtue or type, such as busy body, a glutton, a fop, a bumpkin, etc. |
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| in the lyric, the essay, and the autobiography, the author reveals aspects of his or her own character. 1) The explicit presentation by the author of the character through direct exposition, either in an introductory block or more often piecemeal throughout the work, illustrated through action. 2) the presentation of the character in action with little or no explicit comment by the author, in the expectation actions. 3) the representation from within a character without commenting on the character by the author, of the impact of actions and emotions on the characters inner self, with the expectation the reader will come to a clear understanding of the attributes of the character. |
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| a name of certain forms of historical writing. Chronicles differ from annals in their concern with larger aspects of history. Though there were prototypes in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and French, the comprehensive medieval chronicles in English and their renaissance successors matter most to the student of English literature. |
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| In the singular, classic is usually applied to a piece of literature that by common consent has achieved a recognized superior status in literary history; also an author of similar standing. May be strictly considered as the defining member of a class of whatever sort. |
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| as a critical term, a body of doctrine thought to be derived from or to reflect the qualities of ancient Greek and Roman culture, particularly in literature, philosophy, art, or criticism. Certain definite ideas and attitudes mainly draw from the critical utterances of the Greeks and Romans or developed through an imitation of ancient art and literature. These include restraint, restricted scope, dominance of reason, sense of form, unity of design, and aim and clarity. |
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| From the French word for a stereotype plate; a block for printing. Hence, any expression so often used that its freshness and clarity have worn off is called a cliche, a stereotype form. |
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| In rhetoric a term used to indicate a rising order of importance in the ideas expressed. Such an arrangement is called climactic, and the item of greatest importance is called the climax. The point of highest interest, where at the reader makes the greatest emotional response. |
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| A principle demanding that the parts of any composition be so arranged that the meaning of the whole may be immediately clear and intelligible. Words, phrases, clauses, within the sentences; and sentences, paragraphs, and chapters in larger pieces of writing are units that, by their progressive and logical arrangement make for coherence. |
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| An expression used in informal conversation but not accepted universally in formal speech or writing. A colloquialism lies between the upper level of dignified, formal, academic, or "literary" language and the lower level of slang. |
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| In medieval times the word comedy was applied to nondramatic literary works marked by a happy ending and a less exalted style that that in tragedy. Lighter form of drama; aims to amuse and ends happily. |
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| originally the term, almost synonymous with "idea," "concept," or "conception," implied something conceived in the mind. Implies ingenuity, expressed through an elaborate analogy, may be a brief metaphor, form the framework of an entire poem. 18/19th century; strained, arbitrary, affected and false. |
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| the struggle that grows out of the interplay of the two opposing forces in a plot. Provides interest, suspense, and tension. One of the opposing forces is usually a person, or, if an animal or an inanimate object, is treated as though it were a person. |
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| The emotional implications that words may carry, as distinguished from their denotative meanings. May be 1) private and personal, the result of individual experience. 2) group. 3) general/universal. Depends on usage in a particular linguistic community and climate. |
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| The use at the ends of verses of words in which the final consonants in the stressed syllables agree but the vowels that precede them differ. As "add-read," "bill-ball," and "born-burn." Also sometimes called half rhyme and slant rhyme. |
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| an image or metaphor that runs throughout and determines the form or nature of a literary work. |
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| the exclusive legal right to publish or reproduce for sale works of literature and art. A copyright is designed to protect an author, artist, or published from having others make and sell copies of works without permission. |
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| two lines of verse with similar end rhymes. A two-line stanza with both grammatical structure and idea complete within itself, but the form has gone through numerous adaptations. |
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| the analysis, study, and evaluation of individual works of art, as well as the formulation of general methodological or aesthetic principles for the examination of such works. Less to do with judgments of value, importance, more to do with descriptive analysis. |
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| Dark Ages (5-11th centuries) |
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| The medieval period. Use of the term is vigorously objected to by most modern students of the Middle Ages, since it reflects the now-discredited view that the period was characterized by intellectual darkness- an idea that arose from lack of information about medieval life. Period was characterized by intellectual, artistic, and even scientific activity that led to high cultural attainments. |
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| Denoting the decline, or degeneration, or deterioration that commonly makes the end of a great period. Decadent qualities include self-consciousness, a restless curiosity, an oversubtilizing refinement, confusion of genres, and often moral perversity. |
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| a critical term loosely describing what is proper to a character, subject, or setting in a work. |
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| a brief exposition of a term designed to explain its meaning. |
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| The religion of those who believe in a God who rules the world by establishing laws but not in the divinity of Christ or the inspiration of the Bible. "Natural" religion, based on reason and a study of nature as opposed to "revealed" religion. |
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| the specific, exact meaning of a word. Independent of its emotional coloration or associations. |
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| the final unraveling of the plot in Drama, or fiction; the solution of the mystery, the explanation or outcome. Implies an ingenious untying of the knot of intrigue, involving not only a satisfactory outcome of the main situation, but an explanation of all the secrets and misunderstandings connected with the plot complication. (Tragedy/comedy) |
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| The belief that all apparent acts of the will are actually the result of causes that determine them. |
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| The employment of some unexpected and improbable incident in a story or play to make things turn out right. (author solves a difficult solution by a forced invention). |
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| In the broadest sense, simply the art of argumentation or debate, but the term is customarily used in one of its more restricted senses. (Beauty vs. Truth) |
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| When the speech of two groups or of two persons representing two groups both speaking the same "language" exhibits very marked differences; the groups of persons are said to speak different dialects. |
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| conversation of two or more people. |
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| The use of words in oral or written discourse, now ordinarily divided into vocabulary (words and other small units considered one by one in terms of plain or fancy, current or archaic, Germanic or Latinate, native or foreign, and so forth) and syntax (the order or arrangement of words considered as forma), patterns construable as simple or complex, ordinary or extraordinary, loose or periodic, complete or fragmentary, and so forth. |
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| At different times during their five hundred years of development, English dictionaries have emphasized different elements and have passed through an evolution as great as any of our literary forms or tools. Arrange words alphabetically, give explanations, derivations, pronunciations, illustrate quotations, along with idioms, synonyms, and antonyms. |
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| Although the term is often applied to any novel, plainly designed to teach a moral lesson. |
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| poetry that is intended primarily to teach a lesson. |
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| Instructiveness in a literary work, one of the purposes of which appears to be to give guidance, particularly in moral, ethical, or religious matters. Since all literary art exists in order to communicate something - an idea, a teaching, a precept, an emotion, an attitude, a fact, an autobiographical incident, a sensation - the ultimate question of didacticism in a literary work appears to be one of the authors actual purpose. |
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| Aristotle called drama "imitated human action." A story told in action by actors who impersonate the characters of the story. |
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| the words or acts of a character in a play may carry a meaning unperceived by the character but understood by the audience. |
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| a poem that reveals "a soul in action" through the speech of one character in a dramatic situation. The character is speaking to an identifiable but silent listener at a dramatic moment in the speaker's life. The circumstances surrounding the conversation, one side of which we "hear" as the dramatic monologue, are made clear by implication in the poem, and a deep insight into the character of the speaker may result. |
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| introduction, rising action, climax/crisis, falling action, catastrophe. Determined by the necessities of developing this dramatic conflict. (Tying and untying of a knot) |
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