Running head: LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE LIST OF LITERAY TERMS – PART 4 VOCABULARY
Glossary (1 – 10) is list in alphabetical order with questions to help you write about author’s choices and their effects. Syntactic Structures (10-11) are listed towards the end. Instructions: Find examples or add notes for each of these terms from Macbeth and/or Death of a Salesman. Salesman. Use this list and your notes to prepare for your IOC.
ALLUSION: A reference to another common text (usually towards a very common piece of literature like the Bible—a story where a jealous brother kills his other brother alludes to the Bible story about Cain and Abel). Gives an additional layer of meaning to a text or enlarges its frame of reference. ANTAGONIST: character(s) character(s) in opposition of protagonist protagonist (if evil = villain). ANTICLIMAX: Deliberate drop from the serious and elevated sense of catharsis to the trivial and lowly in order to achieve an intended comic or satiric effect (sometimes referred to as bathos). "He has seen the ravages of war, he has known natural catastrophes, he has been to singles bars." (Woody Allen, "My Speech to the Graduates")
APOSTROPHE: An exclamatory passage where the speaker speaker or writer breaks off in the flow of a narrative or poem to address a dead or absent person, a particular audience, or object object (often personified). personified). Gaev in Chekhov’s Chekhov’s Cherry Orchard addresses addresses a bookcase at length, length, symbol of his past and the family home. Or Shakespeare’s Richard III “O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me!”(5. 3. 198). Or is a figure of speech in which animate or inanimate objects are addressed in the second person (thou, you) as though present. e.g. Rise you rugged rocks and do battle in my cause / The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind. ASIDE: Stage device in which a character expresses thoughts directly to the audience by breaking the fourth wall and is inaudible to the other characters on stage ATMOSPHERE: The mood, feeling, or quality of life in a story as conveyed by the author's choice of language and organization in describing the setting in which the speech and activity of the characters takes place. The atmosphere in which an author makes characters appear and events occur is often important in determining the tone of the particular work.
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE LIST OF LITERAY TERMS – PART 4
BATHOS: The effect resulting from an unsuccessful effort to achieve dignity or pathos or elevation of style; an unintentional anti—climax, dropping from the sublime to the ridiculous. If a novel or play tries to make a reader or spectator weep and succeeds only in making him or her laugh, then the result is bathos. CACOPHONY: Harsh sounds. CATHARSIS: typically a dramatic term: the audience’s emotion evoked by the performance (tragedy arouses the emotion of pity—because a tragic hero’s misfortune is greater than he deserves—and fear—because we recognize similar possibilities in ourselves—the audience). CHARACTER: “persons presented in a dramatic or narrative work, who are interpreted by the reader as being endowed with moral, dispositional, and emotional qualities expressed in what they say and do (dialogue and action)” (See Dynamic, Static, Flat, Round, stock/ stereotype). Does the character grow or deteriorate? Why or why not? How complex is the character? How important are the minor characters? Are the character’s words and actions consistent? Is the character intelligent? Likeable? Insightful? Responsible? Happy? Believable? How do you know?
CIRCUMLOCUTION: Use of too many words to express an idea with the effect of evasion in speech (excessive language, surplus words to direct attention away from the crux of the message or create a grander, yet highly ineffective, effect). CLIMAX: (Aristotle’s term crisis) turning point, moment of greatest tension that fixes the outcome COLLOQUIALISM: Specific jargon/phrases for the time (snap!) typically informal, but the deliberate use of which can be quite striking. •
CONFLICT: struggle between opposing forces, usually resolved by the end of the story (between individuals, protagonist against fate, against the circumstances standing between protagonist and goal, or between opposing
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desires or values in the protagonist’s own temperament) external/internal protagonist vs. o nature, society, another, or self
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE LIST OF LITERAY TERMS – PART 4 CONNOTATION (ANT. DENOTATION): The associated/emotional meaning of a word (“home” has a warmer feel than “house”) Very useful when discussing diction. CONTRAST: The dissimilarity between two or more subjects/objects being compared. COUPLET: Two consecutive rhyming lines of verse typically clinching or emphasising an idea. (In Shakespeare, it often denotes the end of a scene.) DENOTATION (ANT. CONNOTATION): The dictionary meaning of a word (“house” = n. A building in which one resides) DICTION: The writer’s choice of words or vocabulary. DIRECT (ANT. INDIRECT): author intervenes authoritatively in order to describe and often evaluate the motives and dispositional qualities of character How does the author characterize or reveal the characters? What do the author’s description and POV contribute to your understanding of them?
DYNAMIC (ANT. STATIC): “undergo a radical change, either through a gradual process of motivation and development or the result of a crisis” To what extent does your response to the characters change? If it does, identify where and why the change occurs?
EMPHASIZE: Words/phrases/objects which seem to stand out in comparison to other things around it/them EPIGRAM: A concise, pointed, witty statement in prose or poetry (typically what the internet refers to as notable quotes—which is an ugly word since it’s the abbreviation of quotation) “The truth is rarely pure and never simple” Oscar Wilde EPIPHANY: A "showing forth" or sudden revelation of the true nature of a character or situation through a specific event — a word, gesture, or other action — that causes the reader to see the significance of that character or situation in a new light. James Joyce first popularized the term in modern literature. EQUIVOCATION: Using words that have at least two different definitions (puns perhaps) for explanation or argument to create ambiguity.
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE LIST OF LITERAY TERMS – PART 4 ETHOS (SEE ALSO PATHOS, LOGOS AND BATHOS): Overall disposition/character, the sociology of the character EUPHEMISM: A figurative expression meaning to be less offensive (he is gone now —as opposed to “died”) EUPHONY (ANT. CACOPHONY): Pleasant sounds EXPOSITION: provides essential prior matters, describes setting, introduces major characters, sets mood (describes a person’s frame of mind/state/feeling and indicate the emotional response the author hopes to evoke in the mind of the reader). Flashbacks are interpolated narratives (justified or naturalized as memory, reverie,
or confession) representing events that happen before the ti me at which the work opened ( antecedent action is a significant preceding action to the opening of the story, likely including motivation for the conflict situation). Foreshadowing is of course the opposite and reveals the ending through indirect, subtle clues FALLING ACTION: events after the climax FLASHBACK: See Exposition FLAT (ANT. ROUND): Built around a single idea or quality and presented without individual detail What is the function of any minor characters in the story?
FOIL: by sharp contrast this type serves to stress and highlight the distinctive temperament of the protagonist (originated from a thin gold leaf would be placed under a jewel to enhance its brilliance) GENERALIZATIONS: Hasty generalizations make assertions or conclusions drawn on insufficient evidence; jumping to conclusions. HAMARTIA: In a tragedy, the tragic hero will most effectively evoke pity and terror if he is a round character, has higher than ordinary moral worth ( noble), and suffers a change in fortune from happiness to misery because of a mistaken act led by his hamartia (aka tragic flaw). Hubris or pride or an overwhelming self-confidence leads
the tragic hero to disregard a divine warning or to violate an important moral law. HUBRIS: See Hamartia
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE LIST OF LITERAY TERMS – PART 4 HYPERBOLE: Exaggerated statement (I could just die of laughter) for various effects and emphasis IMAGERY: Being able to picture what is described by words, involves figurative language to be true imagery. However, is still often used to signify all the objects and qualities of sense perception in any piece of literature: concrete or abstract. The use of words or figures of speech to create a mental picture. Imagery exploits all f ive senses to produce a single powerful impression or to create a cluster of impressions that convey a dominant mood. Auditory imagery appeals to the sense of hearing. Gustatory imagery appeals to the sense of taste. Kinetic imagery conveys a sense of motion. Sometimes called KINAESTHETIC
IMAGERY. Olfactory imagery appeals to the sense of smell. Tactile imagery appeals to the sense of touch. Sometimes called HAPTIC IMAGERY. Verbal imagery is created with words (often with a visual analogue — a "mental
picture" is a commonly used metaphor for the operation of verbal imagery). Visual imagery is created with pictures (often with a verbal analogue — many visual
images are pictures of things representing well—known sayings or phrases). INDIRECT (ANT. DIRECT): showing (the dramatic method) or presenting the characters through action and dialogue, so the reader is left to infer motivations and dispositions Do their names convey anything about the character? Are the characters part of an allegory? What do the characters’ speech and behavior reveal about them?
INITIAL INCIDENT: (aka inciting incident, point of attack) first incident which happens in the story on which the rest of the story depends introducing the main conflict IRONY: often used for satire, humour, contrast, moves the audience, exposes hypocrisy and lack of awareness (gap or mismatch between what is being said, and what is intended) Verbal: meaning differs from what is expressed (sarcasm is the crude version of praise
for dispraise) Dramatic: the audience/reader and author are privy to information which a character
is ignorant (can be comic/tragic) Situational: the outcome is incongruous not just opposite with the expectations set up
previously (don’t confuse with opposite expectations because set up is i mportant. E.g. The only thing ironic about Alanis Morisette’s song: “Ironic” is that none of the examples are ironic.)
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE LIST OF LITERAY TERMS – PART 4 Cosmic goes beyond being unfair and is morally tragic. Often so severe that it causes
characters to question God and see the universe as hostile. Such irony suggests people are pawns to cruel forces. JUXTAPOSITION: Strong contrasting situations or characters when placed side by side allow the observer to connect the contrasts in order to develop a point METAPHOR: A direct comparison between two unlike things (You are the apple of my eye.) To see such striking similarity between two normally unlike things can be an indicator of originality, richness of sensation, depth in meaning and understanding Implicit Metaphor (unspecified comparison like “That reed was too frail to survive the
storm of its sorrows” refers to someone’s death perhaps if the term “reed” indicates a person, “storm” is the metaphor for death Mixed metaphor shows layers of comparisons within text Dead metaphor has become so common that we cease to be aware of the comparison
MONOLOGUE: Lengthy speech in a play uttered by a single person at a critical moment, but addresses and interacts with one or more people on stage ( dramatic monologue: indicative of entire poem addressing another) Interior monologue: The character in a novel thinks to his/herself in language and
words , and s/he is conscious of those thoughts Stream of consciousness Represents a free, random succession of thoughts and
sensations in a character’s mind especially when alone in a novel and first person “I” is not used. MOTIF: conspicuous element occurring frequently, not as significant as themes, but have a cumulative effect like a refrain (repetition in a work), and can assume symbolic importance A leitmotif (guiding/leading motif) is the frequent repetition within a single work of a significant element pointing towards a certain theme MOTIVATION: “grounds in the characters’ temperament, desires, and moral nature for their speech and actions” OUTCOME, DENOUEMENT, RESOLUTION: (Aristotle’s term catastrophe typically applied to tragedy where the hero dies as a result of his/her actions) Denouement is French for unknotting which ends in success or failure and all the plot complications are sorted (another word commonly used is resolution) OXYMORON: Two contradictory terms used together (the scene is brief yet tedious; jumbo shrimp for sale) See also Paradox
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE LIST OF LITERAY TERMS – PART 4 PARADOX: Seemingly contradictory, but on reflection, it makes sense, contains its own resolution or truth recognizing complexity in experience. (One who loses her life shall find it or “Nature’s first green is gold”: Robert Frost. Green can’t be gold, but the earliest signs of life in spring are precious like gold.) Antithesis: Contrasting ideas by balancing words of opposite meaning and idea (“And
wretches hang, that jurymen may dine”: Alexander Pope Also see Antithesis under Syntactic Stuctures) Contradiction: Stating or implying the opposite of what has been said or suggested. Oxymoron: Two words of opposite meaning are joined “open secret” suggesting
something quite complex or provocative. PATHETIC FALLACY: Attachment of human traits (especially emotions, thoughts, sensations, feelings) to inanimate objects or nature. Often it emphasizes or expresses the tension and emotions of the main characters and events (nature in reverse in Macbeth reflects the main plot).
PATHOS: Passions, suffering or deep feelings of a character which arouse the audience to react PERSONIFICATION: A type of metaphor giving an inanimate object especially natural phenomena (or abstract idea) human qualities (The house stared ominously over the valley.) (Either of the personification of some non—human being or idea, or of the representation of an imaginary, dead, or absent person as alive and capable of speech and hearing.) PLAUSIBLE: expectation of “consistency”—the character shouldn’t break off and act in a way that’s unreliable to what the author’s presented so far To what extent do you identify with any of the characters? To what extent do you sympathize with them or judge them harshly? Why? In the context of the story, are their actions believable? Why or why not?
PLOT AND STUCTURE: • •
Arrangement of events making up a narrative (unity of action) Effective plots include a sequence (often chronological, sometimes flashbacks, or framing devices are used with parallel openings and endings, or episodic structure or subplots are included, shedding light on the main plot) of incidents bearing a significant and causal relationship to each other (one thing happens
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as a result of something else—a.k.a. cause and effect typically). Plots are deliberate and chosen to create particular effects and won’t necessarily be in chronological order. (Stories are typically events of a
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE LIST OF LITERAY TERMS – PART 4 narrative in chronological order—order in which they occurred following realistic time.) To what extent is the plot unified? How is the story shaped, organized, or designed? What effect does that create? What patterns can you discern in the story’s actions? To what extent are repetition, balance, and contrast important? Why?
POINT OF VIEW: (the angle from which the narrative is seen or told and can shift within a work) Does the point of view shift? If so, where, why, and with what implications for meaning? Is the narrator reliable or fallible? Why or why not? How do you know?
POV FIRST PERSON: •
Description is through the eyes of the character in the action a.k.a. participant; pronouns: we, us, I, and me. •
•
Creates immediacy or realism. (can be a major or minor character)
Innocent— 1st person, through the mind of a character who doesn’t fully
comprehend the situation (child, ignorant, naive, etc.) Often creates an ironic effect because of the contrast between what the narrator perceives and what the reader feels. PREVARICATE: Evade the truth through omission. (similar to equivocation) PROTAGONIST (ANT. ANTAGONIST): Chief character in a work, on whom our interest centers PURPOSE: What the author attempts to accomplish through his/her text RESOLUTION: See Outcome RHYTHM: Stressed and unstressed syllables used in a consistent pattern throughout a poem (iambic pentameter is typically used by Shakespeare—5 stressed then unstressed syllables in each line) However, can be distinguished from the technical, identifiable metre and refer more generally to the flow of sound created by the syllables (steady/irregular?) RISING ACTION: (Aristotle’s term complication) series of intensifications of the conflict leading to the moment of greatest tension which are usually quite suspenseful
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE LIST OF LITERAY TERMS – PART 4 ROUND (ANT. FLAT): “Complex in temperament and motivation and represented with subtle particularity; difficult to describe with any adequacy as a person in real life” SETTING: General locale, historical time, and social circumstances in which action occurs (general and particular settings) which can be important elements in generating atmosphere and often interconnects with plot and character varying in complexity and
importance. The mis-en-scene denotes everything as a whole creating the atmosphere for the text or fostering the expectations as to the course of events. Setting may serve as a passive background; it may function as antagonist; it may be the source of an intricate web of allusions. It is often key to characterization Atmosphere: not to be confused with mood refers specifically to place, setting or
surroundings. (There was a Christmas atmosphere in town.) Where and when is the action of the story set? To what extent are aspects of the setting symbolic? How do you know and what’s the reason for it? Can you imagine the story set in another place or time? Why or why not? Are you familiar with cultural context? Does setting illuminate the characters and events? How?
SIMILE: A comparison between two unlike things using “like” or “as” within the comparison SOLILOQUY: Stage device in which a character, alone on stage, reveals thoughts aloud; used to conveniently convey character motive, state of mind, guide judgments and responses from the audience STATIC (ANT. DYNAMIC): characters who remain “essentially ‘stable,’ or unchanged in outlook and disposition from beginning to end of a work” STYLE: Difficult to pinpoint, but follows distinctive traits in an author’s work concerning theme, attitude, speaker, tone, diction (emotional/abstract/poetic including word length, language style, sound), syntax (sentence structure, juxtapositions, parallelism, repetition), figurative language (aimed at gaining special effects), sound, organization of details (note deliberate shifts), and supportive detail (data or images used to support attitude which could be factual/opinionated, rational/irrational) SUBPLOT: (or double plots which are familiar in Elizabethan drama) a secondary story should serve to broaden our perspective on the main plot and enhance rather than diffuse the overall effect of the narrative
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE LIST OF LITERAY TERMS – PART 4 SUBTEXT: especially in drama, the inferences made through action and expression of character SYMBOL: Anything which signifies/represents/evokes a concept or idea of wider, abstract significance; a range of reference beyond the literal understanding of the object/subject (conventional or determined throughout the text: roses represent love, walls divisions) THE GREAT CHAIN OF BEING: Grounded in ideas about the nature of God and from the Greek philosophers and developed by thinkers in the age of the Enlightenment specifically with the Elizabethan picture of the world as a gradation of
existing species in an hierarchy of status extending from the lowliest condition to God (Alexander Pope compresses the concepts in Epistle I of his Essay on Man) THEME: A general concept, implicit or asserted, which a text is designed to incorporate and make persuasive to the reader revealing some truth/understanding about/observation of life. All of the elements appear to deliberately point towards theme(s). (Narratives may have multiple, single or no themes. Don’t confuse with a moral or just idea in the story. Themes aren’t necessarily statements about what one should or shouldn’t do. Also in literature, themes are not one word, but statements about life). Is the story optimistic or pessimistic? What universal situations and general values are involved? Does the narrator/main character arrive at any insights? Why or why not? How? Does the story leave you with any insights?
TONE: The author’s attitude (reflects position/emotions regarding the matter) towards the subject (sarcastic, matter-of-fact, sardonic, playful, formal, intimate, ironic, condescending, etc.) largely created by diction and choice of detail. Suggesting a “tone of voice” from the author which may not be the same as a narrator’s voice. Tone is the author’s emotional meaning and not to be confused with speaker (invented narrator or persona). Ambiguity: Language and tone are (deliberately) unclear and may have two or more
interpretations or meanings. Ambivalence: The writer’s attitude to, for example, a character or event is not clear-
cut, but may seem to hold at least two responses (Marlow’s attitude to Kurtz in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness—understanding and critical perhaps?) Didactic: Describes the tone or intention to preach such things as morals, politics,
religious perspectives. Tendency falls towards the negative connotation. VERISIMILITUDE: achievement of an illusion of reality in the audience (typically dramatic term)
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE LIST OF LITERAY TERMS – PART 4
SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES ANACOLUTHON: Lack of grammatical sequence; a change in the grammatical construction within the same sentence, leaving the first part broken or unfinished. •
And then the deep rumble from the explosion began to shake the very bones of--no one had ever felt anything like it.
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Be careful with these two devices because improperly used they can--well, I have cautioned you enough.
ANAPHORA: The repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses or lines. ANTISTROPHE: Repetition of the same word or phrase at the end of successive clauses. ANTITHESIS: is the placement of ideas in sharp contrast; the direct contrast of structurally parallel word-groupings. Thus an antithetic sentence is a balanced sentence in which ideas or words are in opposition, more strikingly so because of the balance. e.g. To err is human, to forgive divine ; sink or swim; stand or fall POLYSYNDETON: The repetition of conjunctions in a series of coordinate words, phrases, or clauses. The rhetorical effect of polysyndeton, however, often shares with that of asyndeton a feeling of multiplicity, energetic enumeration, and building up. The multiple conjunctions of the polysyndetic structure call attention to themselves and therefore add the effect of persistence or intensity or emphasis to the other effect of multiplicity. The repeated use of "nor" or "or" emphasizes alternatives; repeated use of "but" or "yet" stresses qualifications.
References Abrams, M. H. A Glossary of Literary Terms 6 th Ed. Harcourt Brace College Publishers: 1988. Corrigan, Timothy and Patricia White. The Film Experience: An Introduction 2nd Ed. Bedford/ St. Martin’s: 2009. Stephen, Elizabeth. IB Language A1 (English) (including World Literature and Oral Assessment) Higher and Standard Level International Baccalaureate Study and Revision guide. Oxford Study Courses: 2003.
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE LIST OF LITERAY TERMS – PART 4
