Literary Terms

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Accent

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stress given to a syllable

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Anapest

Back 2

a metrical foot consisting of two unaccented syllables follwed by an accented one

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Apostrophe

Back 3

address to an absent figure or to a thing as if it were present and could listen ("O rose, thou art sick!")

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Cadence

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the natural rise and fall of the voice

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Caesura

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a strong pause within a line of verse

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Catalog

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a list or enumeration

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Conceit

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a fanciful and elaborate figure of speech that makes a surprising connection between two seemingly dissimilar things

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Consonance

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repitition of consonant sounds, especially in stressed syllables (aka half rhyme/slant rhyme)

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Controlling image

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employing repitition so as to stress the theme of a work or a particular symbol

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Elision

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omission (usually of a vowel or unstress syllable)

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End rhyme

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identical sounds at the end of lines of poetry

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Enjambment

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a line of poetry in which the grammatical and logical sense run on, without pause, into the next line or lines

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Euphony

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literally, "good sound" - a pleasant combination of sounds

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Foot

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a metrical unit consisting of two or three syllables, with a specified arrangement of the stressed syllable or syllables, an iambic foot has a stress then unstressed syllable

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Heroic couplet

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an end-stopped pair of rhyming lines of iambic pentameter

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Iamb

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a poetic foot consisting of an unaccented syllable followed by an accented one (alone)

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Internal rhyme

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rhyme within a line

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Italian Sonnet

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a poem of fourteen ines, consisting of an octave (abbaabba) and a sestet (cdecde or cdccdc)

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Metaphysical conceit

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a conceit which is especially startling, complex, and ingenious that makes a surprising connection between two dissimilar things

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Meter

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A pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables

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Petrarchan conceit

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conceits used to describe the beauty of the lady for whom they wrote (hair of cold, lips of cherry red, etc)

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Turn

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the transition from octet to sestet in a sonnet

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Villanelle

Back 23

a poem with five stanzas of three lines rhyming aba and a concluding stanza of four lines, rhyming abaa the first and third lines of the first stanzza rhyme; theentire first line is repeated as the third line of the second and fourth stanzas; the entire third line is repeated as the third line of the third and fifth stanzas; these two lines form the final two lines of the last (four-line) stanza

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Aposipesis

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breaking off a sentence before its finish at times to express an overwhelmed emotional response

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Chiasmus

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the reversal of grammatical structures in succesive phrases or clauses

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Litotes

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the opposite of hyperbole; a kind of irony that deliberately represents something as much less than it really is

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Polyptoton

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repeating a word, but in a different form; using a cognate of a given worde in close proximity

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Syllepsis

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the use of a word understood differently in relation to two or more other words, which it modifies or governs; this combination of paralellism and incongruity often has a witty or comical effect ("Rend your heart, not your garments")

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Synaesthesia

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the conflation or concurrent rendering of two or more senses to describe one - especially wen one sense is used to describe another

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Zeugma

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similar to syllepsis in that each involving a yoking of words, however, this technically involves the incongruity, ("He maintained a flourishing business and racehorse")

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A priori

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assumed fact, not prove (assuming)

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Ad hominem

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"to the man"; a diversionary tactic that seeks to attack the supporter of a cause rather than his or her own argument or beliefs; can simply be done in name-calling; it can be circumstantial, or it can cause hypocrisy.

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Begging the question

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assumed that part of the arument is true without supporting it; any statement that begins with "the fact is" without establishing its factuality, is probably heading towards this fallacy

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Circular reasoning

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also known as tautology; a type of begging the question, resulting when someone tries to prove a pooint by offering a reworded version o fthe same statement as evidence.

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Circumlocution

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the use of unecessary wordy and indirect language

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False analogy

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whens omething is compared, but a relationship between the two is not established; most analogies have at least a small degree of falsity, but some have no logical connection whatsoever

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Non sequitur

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"does not follow" when there is no logical connection between the hypothesis and fact

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Red herring

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a diversionary tactic that attempts to make someone stay from his or her attention from the real argument by introducing a strong statement in place

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Reduction and absurdum

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a popular satiric, whereby the author agrees enthusiastically with the basic attitudes or assumptions he wishes to satirize, and by pushing them to a logically ridiculous extreme

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Single-cause fallacy

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when a conclusion is forced without sufficient evidence or that the evidence can be explained more sensibly by a different hypothesis; a forced hypothesis

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Slippery slope

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a series of unacceptable events, an improper use of ifthen propositions; it asserts that if A happens, then B will, the C, then....etc

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Digression

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a passage or section that deviates from the central theme in speech or writing

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Malapropism

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an act or habit of misusing words ridiculously, esp. by the confusion of words that are similar in sound

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Metafiction

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fiction that discusses, describes, or analyzes a work of fiction or the convention of fiction

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Antecedent

Back 45

the word to which a pronoun refers

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Antithesis

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a contrast of ideas expressed in a grammatically balanced statement

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Apposition

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places side by side two coordinate elements, the second of which serves as an explanation or modification of the first

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Compound-complex

Back 48

contains two or more principal clauses and one or more subordinate clause

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Direct object

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receives the action and completes the meaning of the verb

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Indirect object

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receives transitive verb's action, but indirectly

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Intransitive verb

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refers to an incomplete action

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Inverted sentence

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involves constructing a sentence so the predicate comes before the subject

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Lexicon

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the vocabulary of a particular language, field, social class, person, etc.

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Loose sentence

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makes complete sense if brought to a close before the actual ending.

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Periodic statement

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makes sense only when the end of the sentence is reached

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Rhetorical question

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question to which no answer is expected or to which only one answer is plausible

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Transitive verb

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communcates action of the subject

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Catharsis

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Aristotle's term for the purgation or purification of the pity adn terror supposedly experienced while witnessing a tragedy.

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Dues ex machina

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literally, a "god ouut of a machine"; any unexpected and artificial way of resolving the plot

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Harbringer

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anything that foreshadows a future event; omen; sign

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Repartee

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a quick, witty reply

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Animism

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a belief that spirts or souls are present in all living things

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Anthropomorphism

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Attribution of human motivation, characteristics, or behavoioir to inanimate objects, animals, or natural phenomena

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Dialectic

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the art or practice of logical discussion as employed in investigating the truth of a theory or opinion

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Gothic

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a term used to describe literary works that contain primitive, medieval, wild mysterious, or natural elements

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Humanism

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an intellectual movement of the Renaissance that restored the study of the classics and focused on examining human life here and now.

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Intentional fallacy

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an assertion that the intended meaning of the author is not the only or most important meaning; a fallacy involving an assessment of a literary work based on the author'sintended meaning rather than on actual response to the work

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Metaphysics

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the branch of philosophy that treats of first principles, includes ontology and cosmology, and is intimately connected with epistemology

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Microcosm

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a little world; a world in miniature

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Mysticism

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a doctrine of an immediate spiritual intuition of truths believed to transcend ordinary understanding or of a direct, intimmate union of the soul with God through contemplation or ecstasy

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Nihilism

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the principles of a Russian revolutionary group, active in the latter half of the 19th century, holding that existing social and political institutions must be destroyed in order to clear the way for a new state of society and employing extreme measures, including terrorism and assassination.

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Socratic

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of or pertaining to Socrates or his philosophy, followers, etc,. or to the Socratic method

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Sophistry

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a subtle, tricky, superficially plausible, but generally fallacious method of reasoning

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Stoicism

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a systematic philosophy, dating from around 300 BC, that held the principles of logical thought to reflect a cosmic reason instantiated in nature

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Tabula Rasa

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anything existing unditrubed in its original pure state

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Utilitarianism

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the ethical doctrine that virtue is based on utility, and that conduct should be direct toward promoting the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people

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Counter reformation

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the movement within the Roman Catholic Church that followed the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century.

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Elizabethan

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1558-1603; studied: Shakespeare’s sonnets, Marlowe’s poetry, and Doctor Faustus, Donne’s metaphysical poetry, Spenser, Raleigh; events: Elizabeth assumes throne and survives attempts at her life as well as attempts to force her to marry.

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Enlightenment

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one of the names historians have applied to the eighteenth century (the age of reason)

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Existentialism

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a philosophical attitude associated esp. with Heidegger, Jaspers, Marcel, and Sartre, and opposed to rationalism and empiricism, that stresses the individual's unique position as a self-determining agent responsible for the authenticity of his or her choices.

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Intentional fallacy

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an assertion that the intended meaning of the author is not the only or most important meaning; a fallacy involving an assessment of a literary work based on the author's intended meaning rather than on actual response to the work.

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Jacobean

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1603-1625; studied: Shakespeare’s late tragedies, appearance of Shakespeare’s sonnets, Donne’s sermons and meditations; events: ascension of James I, King James translation of the Bible

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Modernism

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a broad trend in literature and other arts, from approximately 1890 to 1940, that reflected the impact of works like Sigmund Freud’s writings on psychology.

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Neoclassicism

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the revival of classical standards and forms during the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

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Post-structuralism

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refers to the intellectual developments in continental philosophy and critical theory which were outcomes of twentieth-century French philosophy.

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Pre-raphaelistism

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the doctrine or practice of a school of modern painters who profess to be followers of the painters before Raphael. Its adherents advocate careful study from nature, delicacy and minuteness of workmanship, and an exalted and delicate conception of the subject.

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Restoration

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1660-1700; studied: Paradise Lost, restoration drama – decadent, witty satire; events: Charles II reigns 1660-1685, James II (Catholic) reigns 1685-1688, Bloodless Revolution, William and Mary reign 1689-1702.

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Romanticism

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a literary, artistic, and philosophical movement that developed as a reaction against neoclassicism in the late eighteenth century and dominated the early nineteenth century.

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Tudor

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1500-1557; studied: Wyatt, “Whoso List to Hunt”; events: Henry VIII kills More, Boleyn, etc., reformation and establishment of Anglican Church.

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Byronic hero

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A kind of hero found in several of the works of Lord Bryron; the hero is melancholy and rebellious young man, distressed by a terrible wrong he has committed in the past

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Duplicity

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deceitfulness in speech or conduct; speaking or acting in two different ways concerning the same matter with intent to deceive; double-dealing.

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Dystopia

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a society characterized by humna misery, as squalor, oppression, disease, and overcrowding

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Epithet

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an adjective or other descriptive phrase that is regularly used to characterize a person,place, or thing

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Equivocation

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a fllacy caused by the double meaning of a word

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Ethos

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the moral element in dramatic literature that detemrines a character's action rather than his or her thought or emotion

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Perosna

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literally, a mask; the "I" or a speaker of a work, sometimes identifid with th eauthor but usually better regarded as the voice or mouthpiece created by the author.

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Romance

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historically, a medieval verse narrative chronicling the adventures of a brave knight or other hero who must undertake a quest and overcome great dnager for love of a noble lady or high ideal