| A | B |
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| aesthetic purpose, author's | In literary aesthetics (artistry/beauty), authorial intent refers to an author's intent as it is encoded in his or her work. |
| allegory | A story/tale with two or more levels of meaning - literal and symbolic |
| alliteration | Repetition of initial consonant sounds at beginning of words used to give emphasis to words, to imitate sounds, and to create musical effects. Example: "She sells seashells by the seashore." |
| allusion | Reference to a well-known person, place,event, litrary work, or work of art |
| analyze | Analysis of a piece of literature done to have a greater understanding of the work, interpreting author's point of view or theme |
| assonance | Repetition of vowel sounds in conjunction with dissimilar consonant sounds |
| author's argument | When the author is arguing to try to persuade the reader |
| author's purpose | An author writes for many reasons - facts, true information, entertainment, persuasion |
| author's use of stylistic devices | In literature and writing, a stylistic device is the use of any of a variety of techniques to give an auxiliary meaning, idea, or feeling to the literal or written |
| ballad | A simple fixed form narrative poem of folk origin, composed in short stanzas and adapted for singing. |
| blank verse | Poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter lines. Widely used by Elizabethan dramatists like Shakespeare. |
| bibliography | A list of books and articles on a subject. |
| character development | The change in characterization of a dynamic character, who changes over the course of a narrative. |
| chronological organization | The order in which things occur in American literature. |
| classical literature, effect on British Lit | Classical Literature refers to the great masterpieces of the Greek, Roman, and other ancient civilizations: Homer's "Iliad," Ovid's "Metamorphoses," Virgil's "Aeneid," "Oedipus the King" by Sophocles, along with works by other ancient writers in epic, lyric, tragedy, comedy, pastoral, and other forms. |
| cognates | Words in two languages that have a common etymology and thus are similar or identical. For example, the English "kiosk" and the Spanish quiosco are cognates because they both come from the Turkish kosk. |
| classism as theme | Main idea centers on prejudice and/or discrimination on the basis of social class. It includes individual attitudes and behaviors, systems of policies and practices that are set up to benefit the upper classes at the expense of the lower classes. It can also include attitudes and behavior of prejudice and discrimination by members of the lower class to members of the higher class. |
| conceit (type of metaphor) | An extended metaphor with a complex logic that governs a poetic passage or entire poem. By juxtaposing, usurping and manipulating images and ideas in surprising ways, a conceit invites the reader into a more sophisticated understanding of an object of comparison. |
| consonance | Repetition of similar final consonant sounds at the ends of words or accented syllables. |
| contemporary context | Means "as used in these times." You are being asked to take words or phrases from some archaic tome of long ago, and translate the verbiage into modern terminology. |
| content vocabulary | Words that are associated with a particular content area or topic. |
| controlling images | A literary device employing repetition so as to stress the theme of a work or a particular symbol. |
| diary | A daily record, usually private, esp. of the writer's own experiences, observations, feelings, attitudes, etc. |
| diction | Word choice - vocabulary used, appropriateness of words, vividness of language; may be formal and informal. |
| dramatic irony | Irony that is inherent in speeches or a situation of a drama and is understood by the audience but not grasped by the characters in the play |
| dramatic literature, British | Introduced to England from Europe by the Romans and evolved into the mummers' plays. The highbrow and provocative Restoration comedy evolved but was replaced by sentimental comedy, domestic tragedy farces, musical burlesques, extravaganzas and comic operas that competed with Shakespeare productions. Serious drama was replaced by Edwardian musical comedy was supplanted by increasingly popular American musical theatre and comedies. |
| editorial | An article in a newspaper or magazine that expresses the opinion of its editor or publisher |
| end rhyme | The use of rhyme at the ends of lines of poetry, or an example of this |
| epistolary narrative | An epistolary novel is a novel written as a series of documents. The usual form is letters, although diary entries, newspaper clippings and other documents are sometimes used. The epistolary form can add greater realism to a story, because it mimics the workings of real life. |
| essays | Short non-fiction work about a particular subject. |
| evidence | From a literary source - the most reliable and most direct in relationship to what it is offered to prove. |
| extended metaphor | Developed at length and invovles several points of comparison. As in any metaphor, one thing is spoken of as if it were something else. |
| figurative language | Used to create vivid impressions by setting up comparisons between dissimilar things (i.e., metaphors, similes, personification). |
| figurative meaning | Figurative language or speech contains images. The writer or speaker describes something through the use of unusual comparisons, for effect, interest, and to make things clearer. The result of using this technique is the creation of interesting images. It is not intended to be literal. |
| fixed form poems (ballad & sonnet) | Fixed form poems are those that may be categorized by the pattern of its lines, meter, rhythm, or stanzas. A sonnet is a fixed form of poetry because by definition it must have fourteen lines. Other fixed forms include limerick, sestina, and villanelle. |
| flashback | A flashback is a narrative technique that allows a writer to present past events during current events, in order to provide background for the current narration. |
| foil, in dramatic literature | A character who contrasts with another character (usually the protagonist) in order to highlight various features of that other character's personality, throwing these characteristics into sharper focus. |
| frame narrative | Employs a narrative technique whereby an introductory main story is composed, at least in part, for the purpose of setting the stage for a fictive narrative or organizing a set of shorter stories, each of which is a story within a story. The frame story leads readers from the first story into the smaller one within it. |
| free form poems | Free verse rhythm is often organized based on looser units of cadence rather than a regular meter. |
| genre | A division or type of literature: poetry, prose, drama. |
| heroic couplet | traditional form for English poetry, commonly used for epic and narrative poetry; it refers to poems constructed from a sequence of rhyming pairs of iambic pentameter lines. The rhyme is always masculine. |
| historical background | Historical context is the political, social, cultural, and economic setting for a particular idea or event. In order to better understand something in history, we must look at its context--those things which surround it in time and place and which give it its meaning. In this way, we can gain, among other things, a sense of how unique or ordinary an event or idea seems to be in comparison to other events and ideas. |
| historical setting | A "historical setting" is all the previous activities which make up the setting or mood for that period. For example, what wars had just happened, what was the previous ruler's policies, how were women treated prior to this, how were slaves treated, or did they have slaves. All of the things that were happening prior which shape the person's thinking and actions. |
| hyperbole | It is a deliberate exaggeration or overstatement, often used for comic effect. |
| idioms | Idioms are words, phrases, or expressions that cannot be taken literally. In other words, when used in everyday language, they have a meaning other than the basic one you would find in the dictionary. For example, “break a leg” is a common idiom. |
| imagery patterns | A distinctive style, model or form which creates mental pictures or images using details of sight, sound, taste, touch, smell, or movement. |
| informational materials | Writings which communicate knowledge about a topic. |
| in medias res | Latin for "in the middle of things." To begin a narrative in medias res means to start in the middle of the action. |
| internal rhyme | Rhyme that occurs within a line of verse, as in "the grains beyond age, the dark veins of her mother" (Dylan Thomas). |
| irony | The contrast between what is stated and what is meant, or between what is expected to happen and what actually happens, appearances and reality, expectation and result, or meaning and intention. |
| journal | It is a daily autobiographical account of events and personal reactions. |
| language, specific use of | There are many ways to label or classify language as we learn to better control it—by levels, such as formal, informal, colloquial or slang; by tones, such as stiff, pompous, conversational, friendly, direct, impersonal; even by functions, such as noun, verb, adjective. |
| literal meaning | Literal language refers to words that do not deviate from their defined meaning; uses words in their ordinary senses (oppositve of figurative language). |
| literary period | The concept of literary period also implies a grouping through time. |
| letters | It is a written message orcommunication addressed to a reader or readers and is generally sent by mail. They can be private or public. |
| logic, use of | Logic is the science that investigates the principles governing correct or reliable inference. Being able to 'predict' how systems and people (which are much the same really) will act in certain conditions and situations is a very usefull skill to have. |
| lyric poem | A melodic poem that expresses the observations and feelings of a single speaker. The musical quality is achieved through rhythm and other devices, such as alliteration and rhyme. |
| metaphor | It is a figure of speech that directly compares two unlike things. The identification suggests a comparison between the two things that are identified, as in "death is a long sleep." |
| metonymy | A figure of speech that consists of the use of the name of one object or concept for that of another to which it is related, or of which it is a part, as “scepter” for “sovereignty,” or “the bottle” for “strong drink,” or “count heads (or noses)” for “count people.” |
| Modernism | Grew out of a general sense of disillusionment with Victorian era attitudes of certainty, conservatism, and objective truth. The movement was greatly influenced by the ideas of Romanticism, Karl Marx's political writings, and the psychoanalytic theories of subconscious - Sigmund Freud. |
| Modern Period | Describes the historical timeline after the Middle Ages and can be further broken down into the early period and the late period. European colonisation during the 15th to 19th centuries resulted in the spread of Christianity to Sub-Saharan Africa, the Americas, Australia and the Philippines. The 18th century saw the beginning of secularisation in Europe, rising to notability in the wake of the French Revolution. |
| mood | Atmosphere is the feeling created in the reader by a litereary work or passage. The mood is often suggested by descriptive details. Elements that can influence the mood of a work include its setting, tone, and events. |
| mythic literature, effect on British Lit | Literature that relates or invokes specific motifs, characters, or plot events of universal stories common to a culture or occurring across cultures. Sometimes these stories attempt to explain the unexplainable or teach a cultural value or taboo. This literature is common to most early societies not just Greek and Roman. |
| narrative poem | A poem that tells a story in verse. |
| nonfiction | Prose writing that presents and explains ideas or that tells about real people, places, objects, or events. Essays, biographies, autobiographies, journals, and reports are all examples of nonfiction. |
| novel, history of | A long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century. |
| paradox | A statement that seems to be contradictory but that actually presents a truth. Example: Marianne more in "Nevertheless" says, "Victory won't come / to me unless I go / to it." |
| parody | A humorous imitation of a literary work, one that exaggerates or distorts the characteristic features of the original. |
| pastoral poems | Deal with rural settings, including shepherds and rustic life. Traditionally, pastoral poems have presented idealized views of rural life. |
| periodical (journal/magazine) | A magazine or other journal that is issued at regularly recurring intervals. |
| personification | A figure of speech in which a nonhuman subject is given human characteristics. Example: Hughes "April Rain Song" 'Let the rain sing you a lullaby.' |
| plot events | A sequence of happenings in a literary work. In most fiction, the plot involves both characters and a central conflict: exposition (introduction), inciting incident (rising action - intro central conflict), climax (high pint of suspense), resolution (falling action), denouement. |
| political drama | A political drama can describe a play, film or TV program that has a political component, whether reflecting the author's political opinion, or describing a politician or series of political events. |
| point of view | Perspective or vantage point from which a story is told. Three commonly used points of view are first person, omniscient third person, and limited third person. |
| Postmoderism (Literature) | Postmodernism is a tendency in contemporary culture characterized by the rejection of objective truth and global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. It emphasizes the role of language, power relations, and motivations; in particular it attacks the use of sharp classifications such as male versus female, straight versus gay, white versus black, and imperial versus colonial. |
| prefixes, suffixes, & roots, Greek & Latin | A prefix is an affix which is placed before the stem of a word. A suffix (also sometimes called a postfix or ending) is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. A "root" is the stem from which words are built in Greek and Latin. Note: "affix" is something that is joined or attached to a word - prefix, suffix, endings (i.e., -ed, -ing, etc.) |
| prose | The ordinary form of written language. It is a major genre - fiction and non-fiction. |
| Realism | The presentation in art of the details of actual life. As a literary movement that began during the 19th C. which stressed the actual as opposed to the imagined or the fanciful. |
| Renaissance | A cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century. It encompassed a resurgence of learning based on classical sources, the development of linear perspective in painting, and gradual but widespread educational reform. |
| Renaissance literature, characteristics of | Period of literature which promoted the imitation of reality, as a 'mirror to life,' more than mere imitation of the classical masters was promoted. Shakespeare's dramas speak volumes about it. |
| satire | Writing that ridicules or criticizes individuals, ideas, institutions, social conventions or other works of art or literature. |
| seminal ideas (of time and place) | Highly influential in an original way; constituting or providing a basis for further development. |
| setting, historical | Time and place of the action. Time can include not only the historical period - past, present, or future, but also a specific year, season, or time of day. It may provide a background for the action. It may be a crucial element in the plot or central conflict. It may also create a certain emotional atmosphere, or mood. |
| speeches | The faculty or power of speaking; oral communication; ability to express one's thoughts and emotions by speech sounds and gesture. |
| simile | A figure of speech that makes a direct comparison betwen two subjects, using either "like" or "as." Example: "The trees looked like pitch forks against the sullen sky." |
| slant rhyme | An "approximate" rhyme occuring when the rhyming sounds are similar, but not exact, as in "prove" and "glove." |
| sonnet | A fourteen line fixed form poem focused on a single theme. |
| stage directions, in drama | Give information about costumes, lighting, scenergy, properties, the setting, and the characters' movements and ways of speaking. |
| structure | The relationship or organization of the component parts of a work of art or literature. |
| style | A writer's style includes word choice, tone, degree of formality, figurative language, rhythm, grammatical structure, sentence length, organization--in short, every feature of a writer's use of language. |
| symbolism, patterns of | Anything that stands for or represents something else. An object that serves as a symbol has its own meaning, but it also represents abstract ideas. Writers sometimes use conventional symbols in their work, but they also create symbols of their own through emphasis or repetition. |
| synecdoche | A figure of speech in which a part is used to represent the whole (for example, ABCs for alphabet) or the whole for a part ("England won the World Cup in 1966"). |
| syntax | In linguistics, the study of the rules that govern the ways in which words combine to form phrases, clauses, and sentences. Syntax is one of the major components of grammar. |
| theatre of the absurd | Used to describe the work of Albert Camus, and other absurdist writers. Works depict the absurdity of human experience. The individual is isolated. Arises from surrealism and expressionism. |
| theme | A central message or insight into life revealed by a literary work. It is a generalization about people or life that is communicated through the literary work. The theme may be stated directly or imlied. |
| tolerance, as theme | Message of insight into life which reveals a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward those whose opinions, practices, race, religion, nationality, etc. |
| tone | The writer's attitude toward his or her subject, characters, or audience. It may be formal or informal, friendly or distant, personal or pompous. |
| topic | A subject or conversation; Also called theme. In linguistics the part of a sentence that announces the item about which the rest of the sentence communicates information, often signaled by initial position in the sentence or by a grammatical marker. |
| traditional literature, effect on Am Lit | Also called theme. Stories passed down orally throughout history. (Examples include: folk tales, fairy tales, myths, legends, and epics.) In contemporary literature, many authors have used the form of traditional literature for various reasons, such as examining the human condition from the simple framework a traditional story provides. |
| transcendentalism | In 1830s and 1840s, core belief in an ideal spiritual state that "transcends" the physical and empirical and is realized only through the individual's intuition, rather than through the doctrines of established religions. |
| underlying meaning | A meaning that is implied or is present but not obvious; implicit. |
| understatement | To state or represent less strongly or strikingly than the facts would bear out; set forth in restrained, moderate, or weak terms. |
| universal connections | Nothing in the world stands by itself. Every object is a link in an endless chain and is thus connected with all the other links. And this chain of the universe has never been broken; it unites all objects and processes in a single whole and thus has a universal character. We cannot move so much as our little finger without "disturbing" the whole universe. The life of the universe, its history lies in an infinite web of connections. |
| universal theme | A message about life that can be understood by most cultures. Many folktales and examples of classic literature address universal themes such as the importance of courage, the effects of honesty, or the danger of greed. |
| Western European Literature | Western literature refers to the literature written in the languages of Europe, including the ones belonging to the Indo-European language family as well as several geographically or historically related languages such as Basque, Hungarian, and so forth. Western literature is considered one of the defining elements of Western civilization. |
| word choice, author's use of | It is the diction or writer's or speaker's word choice. |
| works cited | Broadly, a citation is a reference to a published or unpublished source (not always the original source). |
| comedy (dramatic literature) | Work that is light and often humorous or satirical in tone and that usually contains a happy resolution of the thematic conflict. |
| dramatic monologue | A speech or performance given entirely by one person or by one character. |
| imperialism, as theme | The policy of extending the rule or authority of an empire or nation over foreign countries, or of acquiring and holding colonies and dependencies. |
| 18th C/ Restoration/ Neo-Classical Literature | Publication of a number of significant pieces of political and philosophical writing that had been spurred by the actions of the period of time between the reign of one monarch and the next. neoclassicism does not seek to re-create art forms from the ground up with each new project. It instead exhibits perfect control of an idiom. |
| Example: O could I flow like thee, and make thy stream / My great example, as it is my theme! / Though deep yet clear, though gentle yet not dull; / Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full. | heroic couplet |
| heroic elegy | A poem or song composed in elegiac couplets especially as a lament for a deceased person. |
| history/development of British Lit | Old English; Middle English, Renaissance, Early Modern, 18th century, Romanticism, Victorian, Modernism, Post-modern, Post WWII |
| Medieval literature, characteristics of | 1066-1485 saw the emergence of literature distinguished by its setting - a world much unlike the one that the writers lived in. These fantasy realms were often perfect lands—with chivalrous knights, beautiful damsels, and magical powers. There were many popular characters which appeared and reappeared, including the ever-popular King Arthur. |
| Medieval Period | One of the three major periods: classical civilization (or Antiquity), the Middle Ages, and the modern period. It is "Middle" in the sense of being between the two other periods in time, ancient times and modern times and marked by feudalism and castle building. |
| monologue, in dramatic literature | Speech or performance given entirely by one person or by one character. |
| 18th C/ Restoration/ Neo-Classical Period | The names given to this period are confusing: Restoration, 18th Century, Neoclassical, Augustan. Chronologically the period covers from 1660 to around 1800. Counterfeiting and façades are very important, and there is both a willful suppression of the immediate past and a glorification of the more distant, classical Roman past. It is also a period of conscious self-awareness—people looked at themselves and kept asking "Am I playing my role correctly?" AKA Augustan Period |
| 18th C/ Restoration/ Neo-Classical Lit | Literature emphasized self-reflection (diaries, letters, and essays). Newspaper and periodical, the novel, the popular ballad, and the theatre find widespread public audiences. Age of the penny dreadful and lending library. Journalism becomes first-time power. Writers influencing politics with Horatian and Juvenalian satire, to odes, and to mock-epics to skewer political stances. Age of conversation—the novel, for instance, begins with epistolary form, as a story told in a collection of letters. Poets performed conversations through miscellanies, commonplace books, and anthologies; and especially in imitations. Age of the invention of copyright (Statute of Anne in 1710), and the footnote. Wit affects literary style particularly in the heroic couplet, the rhymed, end-stopped couplet of iambic pentameter. Printing press proliferation, the cheapness of paper, and rise of literacy and economic status meant that more people could participate in reading. |
