Eng 195 F-J

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Story that teaches a lesson or rule of living. The
characters are usually animals that speak and act like
humans. The most famous fables are those attributed to
Aesop, a Greek, Thracian, Phrygian, Babylonian, or Lydian
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storyteller or a group of storytellers who assigned the
name Aesop to a collection of fables popularized in Greece.
Aesop's fables are sometimes referred to as beast fables.

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Fable

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Short verse tale with coarse humor and earthy, realistic,
and sometimes obscene descriptions that present an episode
in the life of contemporary middle- and lower-class people.
The _____ uses satire and cynicism, along with vulgar
comedy, to mock one or several of its characters. Not
infrequently, the ridiculed character is a jealous husband,
a wayward wife, a braggart, a lover, a proud or greedy
tradesman, a doltish peasant, or a lustful or greedy
clergyman. Plot development often depends on a prank, a
pun, a mistaken identity, or an incident involving the
characters in intrigue. The fabliau was popular in France
from 1100 to 1300, then went out of fashion. Chaucer
revived the format in The Canterbury Tales to write “The
Miller’s Tale,” “The Reeve’s Tale,” “The Cook’s Tale,” “The
Shipman’s Tale,” and The Summoner’s Tale.” Not entirely
clear is whether the fabliau was a pastime of the upper
classes as a means to ridicule their social inferiors or of
the middle and lower classes as a means to poke fun at
themselves.

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Fabliau

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In Shakespeare's time, a play manuscript after it has been
edited.

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Fair Copy

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Type of comedy that relies on exaggeration, horseplay, and
unrealistic or improbable situations to provoke laughter.
In a ----, plotting takes precedence over
characterization.

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Farce

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Word, phrase or sentence that (1) presents a “figure” to
the mind of the reader, (2) presents an imaginative or
unusual use of words that the reader is not to take
literally, or (3) presents a special arrangement or use of
words or word sounds that create an unusual effect.
Ordinary language that does not contain a figure of speech
is called literal language. Language that contains a figure
of speech is called figurative language. Figurative
language is also sometimes called imagery because it
presents an image to the mind. Consider the following
sentences:
The leaves blew across the lawn. (Literal language)
The leaves danced across the lawn. (Figurative language)
Notice that the second sentence presents a figure to the
mind of the reader: The leaves are dancing as if they were
people. Obviously, the writer does not mean that the leaves
literally danced. However, they “figuratively” danced. Now
consider the following additional examples:
Mr. Piper harvested a bushel of green vegetables. (Literal
language)
Peter Piper picked four pecks of peppers. (Figurative
language)
The repetition of the "p" in the second sentence is
considered a figure of speech because it presents a sound
to the mind. This glossary contains definitions of various
figures of speech. The most common figures of speech are
Alliteration, Irony, Metaphor, Metonymy, Onomatopoeia,
Oxymoron, Paradox, Personification, Simile, and Synecdoche.

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Figure of Speech

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Device in which a writer describes significant events of an
earlier time or actually returns the plot to an earlier
time. Flashback enables the author to inform the reader of
significant happenings that influence later action.
Vehicles that writers use to return to earlier times
include dreams, memories, and stories told by the narrator
or a character.

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Flashback

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Stage direction in a play manuscript for music introducing
the entrance or exit of a king or another important person.
The music may consist of a short trumpet passage.

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Flourish

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(1) A secondary or minor character in a literary work who
contrasts or clashes with the main character; (2) a
secondary or minor character with personal qualities that
are the opposite of, or markedly different from, those of
another character; (3) the antagonist in a play or another
literary work. A foil sometimes resembles his or her
contrasting character in many respects, such as age, dress,
social class, and educational background. But he or she is
different in other respects, including personality, moral
outlook, and decisiveness. In Sophocles’ play Antigone,
Ismene is a foil of Antigone, her sister. Ismene is
easygoing, soft-spoken, and willing to keep her place.
Antigone, on the other hand, is headstrong, outspoken, and
unwilling to keep her place. Creon is also a foil of
Antigone, and Antigone is a foil of Creon. Creon represents
government law and male dominance; Antigone represents the
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moral law and female rights. They clash. In so doing, one
foil sets off the other. Their quarreling helps to reveal
their personality traits.

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Foil

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A _____ is a sheet of printing paper folded once to form
four separate pages for printing a book. To better
visualize a _____, hold before you a standard sheet of
typing paper and fold it as you would a letter. You now
have a rectangular piece of paper. Hold it so it opens from
right to left. What you are looking at is Page 1. Now turn
the flap from right to left to open the rectangle. You are
now looking at Pages 2 and 3 separated by a crease. When
you close the right flap over the left, you will be looking
at Page 4. A ____ was considerably larger than a quarto.In
1623, friends and admirers of Shakespeare compiled a
reasonably authentic collection of 36 of Shakespeare's
plays in a ____ edition of more than 900 pages that was
entitled Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories &
Tragedies. The printer and publisher was William Jaggard,
assisted by his son Isaac. This edition became known as The
First _____. Because of the authenticity of this
collection, later publishers used it to print copies of the
plays. Other _____s were printed in 1632, 1663 and 1685. In
1664, a second printing of the 1663 ____ included the
first publication of Pericles, Prince of Athens.

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Folio

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Stories, songs, and sayings transmitted by memory (that is,
orally) rather than by books or other printed documents,
from one generation to the next. ______ thrives
independently of polished, sophisticated literature in the
form of ballads, fairytales, superstitions, riddles,
legends, fables, plays, nursery rhymes, and proverbs.
Englishman William Thoms invented the term ______ in
1846. Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, German scholars who studied
______ in the early 1800's, compiled many tales based on
their research, including the stories of Briar-Rose
(Sleeping Beauty) and Rumpelstiltskin.

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Folklore

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In the courts of England in Shakespeare's time, a ____ was
a comic figure with a quick tongue who entertained the
king, the queen, and their guests. He was allowed to–and
even expected to–criticize anyone at court. Many ______ were
dwarfs or cripples, their odd appearance enhancing their
appeal and, according to prevailing beliefs, bringing good
luck to the court. Actors William Kempe and Richard Armin
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became London celebrities for their performances as fools
in Shakespeare's plays. Armin wrote a book about -----s
entitled Foole Upon Foole; or Six Sortes of Sottes.Egypt's
pharaohs were the first rulers to use ----, notably
Pygmies from African territories to the south.

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Fool

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Each pair of unstressed and stressed syllables makes up a unit called a

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Foot and Feet

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Device a writer uses to hint at a future course of action.
The words “a heart trouble” in the first line of “The Story
of an Hour,” by Kate Chopin, refer to a condition of the
main character, Mrs. Mallard, and ----- the story's
ironic ending, in which Mrs. Mallard dies from shock when
her husband–whom she thought dead–walks through the front
door. Because of -------ing in the opening paragraph of
the story, the ending becomes believable. Shirley Jackson
also uses ----ing in the second paragraph of her
outstanding short story “The Lottery” in the following
sentence: Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full
of stones, and the other boys soon followed his example,
selecting the smoothest and roundest stones. . . . This
sentence --------s the stoning scene at the end of the
story. Another example of ------ing occurs in the
prologue of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. An actor called
“the chorus” recites a sonnet in which he describes the
bitter hatred separating the Montagues and Capulets and
identifies Romeo and Juliet as lovers who had the
misfortune to be born into warring families: “From forth
the fatal loins of these two foes [the Montagues and the
Capulets] / A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life"
(Lines 5-6). Take their life appears to have a doublemeaning:
first, that they come into existence; second, in a
-------ing of events to come, that they go out of
existence by taking their own lives.

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Foreshadowing

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In Shakespeare's time, the original manuscript of a
playwright which was later edited.

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Foul Papers

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Story with a plot structure in which an author uses two or
more narrators to present the action. The first narrator
sets the scene and reports to the reader the details of a
story told by a character. (In some frame tales, the first
narrator reports the details of several stories told by
several narrators.) In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Captain
Robert Walton–a minor character–is the first narrator. He
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sets the scene and listens to the story told by Victor
Frankenstein, the main character. All of the information
Walton reports to the reader is in the form of letters
written to his sister. Thus, Frankenstein is a frame tale
in that it is like a framed painting: Walton's story is the
frame, and Frankenstein's story is the painting. Some frame
tales–such as Chaucer's “Canterbury Tales” and Boccaccio's
“The Decameron”–have several narrators telling stories
"inside the frame." One famous frame tale–the “Arabian
Nights” (also called “The Thousand and One Nights”)–has
only one narrator, a sultan's bride named Scheherazade, who
tells many tales "inside the frame," including the wellknown
stories of Sindbad the Sailor, Aladdin and his magic
lamp, and Ali Baba and his magical command "Open sesame!"

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Frame Tale

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Form of poetry that ignores standard rules of meter in
favor of the rhythms of ordinary conversation. In effect,
_______ liberates poetry from conformity to rigid
metrical rules that dictate stress patterns and the number
of syllables per line. French poets originated _________
(or vers libre) in the 1880s, but earlier poems of American
poet Walt Whitman (1819-1892) and other writers exhibited
characteristics of ________. Although _____
generally contains no metrical patterns it may contain
other types of patterns. For examples, see "When Lilacs
Last in the Door-Yard Bloom'd."

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Free Verse

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Excessive boasting; incessant bragging. Perhaps the most
famous braggart in all of literature is Sir John Falstaff,
the rotund knight (Henry IV Part I, Henry IV Part II) who
is brave in words but timid in deeds.

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Gasconade

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Type or kind, as applied to literature and film. Examples
of ______ are romance, horror, tragedy, adventure,
suspense, science fiction, epic poem, elegy, novel,
historical novel, short story, and detective story.

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Genre

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Anglo-Saxon minstrel who sang or recited poetry. _______
traveled from place to place but sometimes found employment
in the court of a monarch.

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Gleeman

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Adjective describing writing that contains wise, witty
sayings (aphorisms)

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Gnomic (NO mik)

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Wandering student of Medieval Europe who made merry and
wrote earthy or satiric verses in Latin. _____ sometimes
served as jesters or minstrels

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Goliard (GAWL yerd)

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Literary genre focusing on dark, mysterious, terrifying
events. The story unfolds at one or more spooky sites, such
as a dimly lit castle, an old mansion on a hilltop, a misty
cemetery, a forlorn countryside, or the laboratory of a
scientist conducting frightful experiments. In some ________
novels and short stories, characters imagine that they see
ghosts and monsters. In others, the ghosts and monsters are
real. The weather in a Gothic story is often dreary or
foul: There may be high winds that rattle windowpanes,
electrical storms with lightning strikes, and gray skies
that brood over landscapes. The _____ genre derives its
name from the _____ architectural style popular in Europe
between the 12th and 16th centuries. Gothic structures–such
as cathedrals–featured cavernous interiors with deep
shadows, stone walls that echoed the footsteps of
worshippers, gargoyles looming on exterior ledges, and
soaring spires suggestive of a supernatural presence. See
also Southern Gothic.

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Gothic Fiction

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Book on the lives of saints; scholarly study of the lives
of saints.

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Hagiography

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Serious character flaw of the main character (protagonist)
of a Greek tragedy. Often, this flaw is great pride, or
hubris. But it may also be prejudice, anger, zealotry, poor
judgment, an inherited weakness, or any other serious
shortcoming.

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Hamartia

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Stage direction in a play manuscript indicating that
entering characters are playing ______, which are
Elizabethan oboes.

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Hautboys [OH bwah]

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Seven Feet

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Heptameter

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Unit of two rhyming lines in iambic pentameter. Following
is an example:
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What dire offence from am'rous causes springs,
What mighty contests rise from trivial things
(Lines 1 and 2, The Rape of the Lock, by Alexander Pope)

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Heroic Couplet

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six feet

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Hexameter

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Comedy that relies on wit and subtle irony or sarcasm. _____ usually focuses on the everyday life of upper
classes. It is generally verbal rather than physical. See
also Low Comedy.

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High Comedy

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A clergyman's talk that usually presents practical moral
advice rather than a lesson on a scriptural passage, as in
a sermon.

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Homily

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Great pride that brings about the downfall of a character
in a Greek drama or in other works of literature.

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Hubris or Hybris

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Eight-line stanza (French).

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Huitain

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Exaggeration; overstatement. Examples: (1) He [Julius
Caesar] doth bestride the narrow world like a Colossus, and
we petty men walk under his...huge legs.–Shakespeare.
(Caesar has become a giant.) (2) Ten thousand oceans cannot
wash away my guilt. (3) Oscar has the appetite of a
starving lion.

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Hyperbole

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Poem focusing on the simplicity and tranquillity of rural
life; prose work with a similar focus. ____ is derived
from the Greek eidýllion (little picture or image). The
Greek poet Theocritus (300-260 B.C.) developed this genre.

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Idyll

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Unstressed + Stressed .........Two
Syllables

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Iamb and Iambic

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In a Shakespeare play, an introductory event that precedes
Act 1. For additional information, see The Taming of the
Shrew.

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Induction

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Latin phrase for “in the middle of things,” meaning that a
story begins in the middle of the plot, usually at an
exciting part. The writer of the story later uses flashback
to inform the reader of preceding events. The Greek poet
Homer originated this technique in his two great epics,
“The Iliad” and “The Odyssey.”

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In Medias Res

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The struggle in a work of literature between a person and himself or herself.

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Internal Conflict

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_____(anastrophe) of the normal word order, as in a man forgotten
(instead of a forgotten man) or as in the opening lines of
Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Kubla Kahn": In Xanada did Kubla
Kahn / A stately pleasure dome decree (instead of In
Xanadu, Kubla Kahn decreed a stately pleasure dome). Here
is another example, made up to demonstrate the inverted
word order of anastrophe:
In the garden green and dewy
A rose I plucked for Huey

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Inversion

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In ancient Greece and Rome, poets generally requested a
muse (goddess) to fire them with creative genius when they
began long narrative poems, called epics, about godlike
heroes and villains. This request appeared in the opening
lines of their poems. In Greek mythology are nine muses,
all sisters, who were believed to inspire not only poets
but also historians, flutists, dancers, singers,
astronomers, philosophers, and other thinkers and artists.
If one wanted to write a great poem, play a musical
instrument with bravado, or develop a grand scientific or
philosophical theory, he would ask for help from a muse by
“invoking the muse.” The muse of epic poetry was named
Calliope [kuh LY uh pe].

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Invocation of the Muse

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Dogmatic or arbitrary statement made without supporting
evidence. This Latin term means He said [it] himself.

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Ipse Dixit

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(1) Saying the opposite of what is meant, or verbal irony;
(2) result or ending that is the opposite of what is
expected, or situational irony; (3) situation in which the
audience attending a dramatic presentation grasps the
incongruity of a situation before the actors do, or
dramatic irony. Examples: (1) "What a beautiful day,"
Maxine said, opening her umbrella. (2) In the movie,
“Planet of the Apes,” an astronaut who lands on another
planet where intelligent apes rule discovers a startling
irony at the end of the movie: When looking over a vast
wasteland, he sees the head of the Statue of Liberty and
realizes he was on earth all the time. Apparently, a
nuclear war had destroyed humankind while he was timetraveling.
While in his Einsteinian time warp, the apes
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had evolved to an almost human level. (3) In “Oedipus Rex,”
by Sophocles, Oedipus is unaware that he has married his
own mother even though the audience is well aware of the
incestuous union.

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Irony

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Vocabulary understood by members of a profession or trade
but usually not by other members of the general public.
Cerebrovascular accident is medical jargon for stroke; perp
is police jargon for perpetrator, a person who commits a
crime. Jargon can also refer to writing or speech that
makes no sense–gibberish.

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Jargon

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Witty writing; clever wording; jest; pun, ingenious turn of
phrase. A literary work with jeu d'esprit is quick-witted
but not necessarily profound. The literal English
translation of this French term is play of the spirit or
play of intelligence.

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Jeu d'esprit (Pronounce the eu like the oo in wood;
pronounce esprit as uh SPREE)

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Pun; play on words.

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Jeu de mots (Pronounce the eu like the oo in wood;
pronounce de as duh; pronounce mots as moh)

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Itinerant minstrel in medieval England and France who sang
songs (his own or those written by others) and told
stories.

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Jongleur