Reading...
Play button
Play button
Use LEFT and RIGHT arrow keys to navigate between flashcards;
Use UP and DOWN arrow keys to flip the card;
H to show hint;
A reads text to speech;
51 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
|
Novella
|
A "little new thing." A novella is defined by its length, somewhere between a short story (a brief work of prose fiction that can be read in one sitting) and a novel (an extended work of prose fiction that usually requires multiple sittings) (James)
|
|
|
Gothic
|
-Usually set either in the medieval period or in a Catholic European country such as Spain or Italy
-Locale often a gloomy castle with dungeons, subterranean passages, and sliding doors -Develops a brooding atmosphere of gloom and terror -Typical story focused on the sufferings imposed on an innocent heroine by a cruel and lustful villain -Abundant use of supernatural occurrences (which often turn out to have natural causes) -Aim is to evoke horror in the reader (James) |
|
|
Ghost Story
|
Draws upon ancient folklore concerning ghosts, but the conventions of the modern form in English were established in the 19th century
-Designed to evoke terror and unease, characters are confronted by spirits of the returning dead -Closely related to gothic genre, doesn't necessarily take place in a gothic setting, and must feature a ghost (James) |
|
|
Frame Narrative
|
A narrative technique whereby an introductory main story is composed, at least in part, for the purpose of setting the stage for a fictitious narrative or organizing a set of shorter stories, each of which is a story within a story
(James) |
|
|
Uncanny
|
A Freudian concept of an instance where something can be familiar yet foreign at the same time, resulting in a feeling of it being uncomfortably strange or uncomfortably familiar at the same time; paradoxical nature
|
|
|
Realism
|
Portrayal of life in a faithful, accurate manner, unclouded by false ideals, literary conventions, or misplaced aesthetic glorification and beautification of the world; an attempt to reflect life "as it actually is"; similar to mimesis; in general, seeks to avoid supernatural, transcendental, or surreal events; tends to focus as much on the everyday, the mundane, and the normal as events that are extraordinary, exceptional, or extreme.
|
|
|
Hermeneutics
|
The theory and methodology of interpretation
(James) |
|
|
Doppleganger
|
"Double goes"; The ghostly shadow that haunts and follows its earthly counterpart; the negative or evil manifestation of what is actually on the 'inside' of the haunted character
|
|
|
Dramatic Situation
|
The circumstances of the telling of the story; a situation in which people are involved in conflicts that solicit the audience's empathetic involvement in their predicament (Poe)
|
|
|
Irony
|
Broadly speaking, saying one thing and meaning another; a situation where the literal meaning of language doesn't align with the intended meaning
(Poe) |
|
|
Temperance Tale
|
Offers a moralistic narrative warning of the problems of indulgence in alcohol (Poe)
|
|
|
Anachronism
|
Placing an event, person, item, or verbal expression in the wrong historical period
(King) |
|
|
Trickster
|
-An important figure for native writers for it allows us to create a particular kind of world in which the Judeo-Christian concern with good and evil and order and disorder is replaced with the more native convern for balance and harmony
-Shape-shifting and gender-bending figure -S/he is a creative force, transforming the world, sometimes in bizarre and outrageous ways -King's coyote is multiple, existing both in the age of pre-European contact and in the present of contemporary technology (King) |
|
|
Metonymy
|
A thing or concept is not called by its own name, but by the name of something intimately associated with the thing or concept
(King) |
|
|
Iceberg Theory
|
The most important thing in the story is what is never said; the deafening unsaid
(Hemingway) |
|
|
Minimalism
|
Refers to work that is extremely economical in diction and detail; adjectives and adverbs are kept to a minimum, as is narrator comment; characterization is achieved mainly through dialogue
(Hemingway) |
|
|
Modernism
|
Generally refers to art produced during the first part of the 20th century, or more specifically from the outbreak of the Great War (1914) to the end of the 2nd World War (1945). Elements of modernism and modernist fiction:
-Questioning of basic assumptions of realist fiction; that the world and the self were plainly knowable; that language is a transparent and reliable medium of representation; that fiction gives meaning and moral shape to history; that narratives should fall into instructive beginnings, middles, and ending -A general rejection of the Victorian emphasis on the oral and educational duties of art -Experimentation with new forms of mimesis -Visual arts -- more radical shift from representation to abstraction. Also in literature -A turn from an objective, detached mode of narration to the introduction of the impressionistic, flawed, unreliable narrator -Representation of quotidian, every day life. In many modernist works, we appear to simply have a 'slice of life,' that is, a moment in the life of a character which does not seem especially significant or offering any overt moral -A turn 'inward' with the representation of consciousness and elements associated with it, such as memory, reflection, dreams, and interpretation, being a primary concern -A focus on the alienation and isolation of individuals -A willingness to engage with controversial subject matter, including sexuality -Use of new forms of narration, such as stream-of-consciousness, and especially free indirect discourse -An awareness of a major historical shift in cultural values, such as increased skepticism towards religious beliefs -A loss of a sense of common cultural heritage -Indeterminacy: a lack of overt moralizing; much is left for the reader to interpret (Joyce) |
|
|
Mimesis
|
Imitation or representation; Plate and Aristotle understood art as fundamentally mimetic.
-Plato: Mimesis potentially dangerous, leading us away from the true and ideal -Aristotle: Mimesis meeting a fundamental human desire to imitate and represent (Joyce) |
|
|
Free Indirect Discourse
|
When the third person narrative perspective 'overlaps' with a character's thoughts; thoughts are presented indirectly rather than quoted directly
(Joyce) |
|
|
Epiphany
|
Signifies a manifestation of God's presence within the created world; Joyce adapted the term to secular experience to signify a sudden sense of radiance and revelation that one may feel while perceiving a commonplace object
(Joyce) |
|
|
Allegory
|
A narrative in which the characters and actions, and sometimes the setting, are contrived by the author to make coherent sense on the literal or primary level of signification, and at the same time to signify a second, correlated order of signification.
(Faulkner) |
|
|
Fabula
|
The basic narrative, the actions of the story in chronological order
(Faulkner) |
|
|
First Person Narration
|
A story is narrated by one character at a time, speaking for and about themselves; may be singular (I), plural (we), or multiple, as well as being an authoritative, reliable, or deceptive "voice" and represents point of view in the writing
(Faulkner) |
|
|
Third Person Narration
|
Each character is referred to by the narrator as "he," "she," "it," or "they"; the narrator must be merely an unspecified entity or uninvolved person that conveys the story, but not a character within the story being told
(Mansfield) |
|
|
Unreliable Narration
|
Narration that describes what is being witnessed accurately, but misinterprets those events because of faulty perception, personal bias, or limited understanding; often the writer will leave clues so that readers will perceive the unreliability and question the interpretations offered
|
|
|
Aestheticism
|
19th century art movement that emphasized aesthetic values more than socio-political themes; "Art for Art's Sake" (L'art pout l'art); the Arts should provide refined sensuous pleasure, rather than convey moral or sentimental messages; Art need only be beautiful
|
|
|
Allusion
|
A casual reference in literature to a person, place, event, or another passage of literature, often without explicit identification
|
|
|
Denouement
|
The outcome or result of a complex situation or sequence of events, an aftermath or resolution that usually occurs near the final stages of the plot; the unraveling of the main dramatic complications
|
|
|
Personification
|
Abstractions, animals, ideas, and inanimate objects are given human character, traits, abilities, or reactions
|
|
|
Epigraph
|
A phrase, quotation, or poem that is set at the beginning of a document or component; may serve as a preface, summary, counter-example, or to link the work to a wider literary canon, either to invite comparison or to enlist a conventional context
|
|
|
Flaneur
|
Pedestrian who wanders/meanders aimlessly, or without a specific purpose (Rhys)
|
|
|
Heteroglossia
|
Other/different tongue; different or other languages or discourses; question of style; different ways in which we speak given a particular context; all works of fiction are inherently heteroglossic; hierarchy of language - some languages are accorded more authority or prestige
(Rhys) |
|
|
Pathetic Fallacy
|
Nature is personified and represented as in tune with or sympathetic to human emotion
(Rhys) |
|
|
Picaresque
|
A picaresque novel concerns the escapades of a roguish character who lives by his wits and shows little alteration of character through the succession of his adventures; realistic in manner and episodic in structure; often satiric in aim and tend towards crude humour and bawdy representations (representations of sexuality)
(Kroetsch) |
|
|
Episodic
|
Composed of a sequence of otherwise self-contained episodes held together by the fact that they happen to one character
(Kroetsch) |
|
|
Intrusive Narrator
|
One who not only reports, but also comments on and evaluates the actions and motives of the characters, and sometimes expresses personal views about human life in general
(Demeter in Kroetsch) |
|
|
Intertextuality
|
The theory that any text is essentially a mosaic of quotations or references to other texts; A literary text is not a 'closed system' in isolation but is always involved in a dialogue, intentional or not, with other texts; The term includes our understanding of literary allusions and what they bring to a text, satire's dependence on a familiarity with the satirized text and notions of literary influence
(Kroetsch) |
|
|
Menippean Satire
|
Chaotic of fragmented in organization; Conventionally written in prose; Targets of satire are numerous and difficult to identify with certainty, but intellectual pursuits and pretensions are a common target; The satire tends to be gentle and humorous; in Kroetsch, Demeter's attempts to fully record history and his academic pedantry are satirized
|
|
|
Carnival(esque)
|
Inversion of hierarchies in which the lower orders become rulers briefly and vice versa; Abolishment of the boundaries between public and private spheres; Mocking challenger to 'serious' official culture; Essential comedic structure which focuses on fertility and rebirth; The focus on renewal suggests a popular resistance to authority that promises change
(Kroetsch) |
|
|
Historiography
|
"Writing history"; The attempt to recover and represent in writing a true description or narrative of past events; Emphasizes the contingency of writing as a method
-One of the hallmarks of postmodernism is a skepticism toward traditional Western historiographic methods (Kroetsch) |
|
|
Feminist Criticism
|
Some work to advance texts written by women, to uncover or make visible a tradition of women's writing as opposed to the predominantly male-authored texts which dominate the literary canon; Others view the literary text as a document which reflects and advances dominant ideologies, including the ideological construction of gender and gender relations
(Kroetsch) |
|
|
Canon
|
The body of 'great books' by 'great authors' that make up a literary tradition, whether considered broadly (such as the 'Western tradition') or more narrowly ('the English tradition')
(Kroetsch) |
|
|
Phallocentric
|
Focusing on the phallus and reducing all sexual difference to its primacy (i.e., men are defined as possessing the phallus, women as lacking it)
(Kroetsch) |
|
|
Phallus
|
The imaginary and symbolic value taken on by the biological penis, which might include power, authority, order, and creativity
(Kroetsch) |
|
|
Archetype
|
A universally understood symbol or term, or pattern of behaviour; A prototype upon which others are copied, patterned, or emulated
(Kroetsch) |
|
|
Gynesis
|
The product of an intersection between postmodernism and feminism in which both sexes get thrown into a metonymic confusion of gender
(Kroetsch) |
|
|
Epic
|
Historically, a poetic form; Length; Hero is a great national or cosmic importance; Setting is ample in scale; Superhuman deeds in battle (and battles in general); Gods/superhuman beings take an interest in and intervene in human affairs; Told in a grand style; Begins in medias res (in the middle of things); Catalogues (i.e., genealogies: Hazard's incomplete and speculative; hockey players - like a pantheon [list of gods] mythic)
(Kroetsch) |
|
|
Postcolonial
|
A theoretical approach to literature - Seeks to analyze the global effects of European imperialism on the literatures produced both in colonized spaces and, to a lesser extent, in the metropolitan centres themselves; Taxonomical term - Refers to the literature written in English outside of the UK and the US, including Canada, India, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Nigeria, Trinidad, etc. (former colonies of Great Britain)
(Mistry) |
|
|
Anti-Pastoral
|
A text that deliberately undermines the conventions of the pastoral; nature as an idyllic place looked upon nostalgically for retreat and recuperation
(Atwood) |
|
|
Bildungsroman
|
A novel of development
|
|
|
Mimicry
|
(Postcolonial) Describes the ambivalent relationship between colonizer and colonized. When colonial discourse encourages the colonized subject to 'mimic' the colonizer, by adopting the colonizer's cultural habits, assumptions, institution, and values, the result is never a simple reproduction of those traits. Rather it is a 'blurred copy' of the colonizer that can be quite threatening. This is because mimicry is never very far from mockery, since it can appear to parody whatever it mimics. Mimicry therefore locates a crack in the certainty of colonial dominance, an uncertainty in its control of the behaviour of the colonized
(Robinson) |
