Literary+Terms

=Literary Terms= Go to Dr. Wheeler's site at Carson-Newman College for the source: [|http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/lit_terms.html] Another great site is Professor Lynch's glossary here: [|http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Terms/.] **ALLEGORY**: The word derives from the Greek //allegoria// ("speaking otherwise"). The term loosely describes any writing in verse or prose that has a double meaning. This narrative acts as an extended metaphor in which persons, abstract ideas, or events represent not only themselves on the literal level, but they also stand for something else on the symbolic level. An allegorical reading usually involves moral or spiritual concepts that may be more significant than the actual, literal events described in a narrative. Typically, an allegory involves the interaction of multiple symbols, which together create a moral, spiritual, or even political meaning. Poems, novels, or plays can all be allegorical, in whole or in part. These allegories can be as short as a single sentence or as long as a ten volume book. The label "allegory" comes from an interaction between symbols that creates a coherent meaning beyond that of the literal level of interpretation. Probably the most famous allegory in English literature is John Bunyan's //Pilgrim's Progress// (1678), in which the hero named Christian flees the City of Destruction and travels through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, Vanity Fair, Doubting Castle, and finally arrives at the Celestial City. The entire narrative is a representation of the human soul's pilgrimage through temptation and doubt to reach salvation in heaven. Medieval works were frequently allegorical, such as the plays //Mankind// and //Everyman//. More recent non-mythological allegories include Spenser's //The Faerie Queene//, Swift's //Gulliver's Travels//, Butler's //Erewhon//, and George Orwell's //Animal Farm//.


 * ALLITERATION**: Repeating a consonant sound in close proximity to others, or beginning several words with the same vowel sound. For instance, the phrase " buckets of big blue berries " alliterates with the consonant __//b//__ . Coleridge describes the sacred river Alph in //Kubla Khan// as " Five miles meandering with a mazy motion ," which alliterates with the consonant __ //m// __. The line " apt alliteration's artful aid " alliterates with the vowel sound __//a//__ . One of Dryden's couplets in //Absalom and Achitophel// reads, " In pious times, ere priestcraft did begin, / Before polygamy was made a sin ." It alliterates with the letter __ //p// __. Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself" employs the technique: " I __l__ean and __l__oaf at my ea__s__e ob__s__erving a __s__pear of __s__ummer gra__ss__ ." Most frequently, the alliteration involves the sounds at the beginning of words in close proximity to each other. Alliteration is an example of a rhetorical [|scheme]. Alliteration in which the first letters of words are the same (as opposed to consonants alliterating in the middles or ends of words) is more specifically called **[|head rhyme]**, which is a bit of a misnomer since it doesn't actually involve rhyme in a technical sense. If alliteration also involves changes in the intervening vowels between repeated consonants, the technique is called **[|consonance]**.

**ALLITERATIVE REVIVAL:** The general increase or surge in alliterative poetry composed in the second half of the 14th century in England. Alliteration had been the formalistic focus in Old English poetry, but after 1066 it began to be replaced by the new convention of rhyme, which southern courtly poets were using due to the influence of continental traditions in the Romance languages like Latin and French. Between 1066 and 1300, hardly any poetic manuscripts using the alliterative form survive. There are two theories to explain this absence. Theory number one argues this absence is a quirk of textual history, and that individuals were still writing alliterative verse, but by coincidence none of the manuscripts survive to the modern period, or that the tradition survived in oral form only and was never written down. The second theory suggests that, after alliterative verse had been mostly abandoned, a surge of regionalism or nationalism encouraged northern poets to return to it during the mid- and late-1300s. In either case, during this time, //Piers// //Plowman//, //Sir Gawain and the Green Knight// and other important medieval poems were written using alliterative techniques. See **[|alliteration]**, above, and **[|alliterative verse]**, below.

**ALLITERATIVE VERSE:** A traditional form of Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse poetry in which each line has at least four stressed syllables, and those stresses fall on syllables in which three or four words alliterate (repeat the same consonant sound). Alliterative verse largely died out in English within a few centuries of the Norman Conquest. The Normans introduced continental conventions of poetry, including [|**rhyme**] and octosyllabic couplets. The last surge of alliterative poetry in the native English tradition is known as the **[|alliterative revival]** during the Middle English period. See **[|alliteration]**, above. **ALLUSION:** A reference to literature, art, mythology, or scriptures. Allusion invites the reader to draw parallels between the situation and the work being referenced. **APOSTROPHE:** a kind of formal invocation. Sometimes the invocation is to an absent (or even dead) person: "Milton," writes Wordsworth, "thou shouldst be living at this hour;/ England hath need of thee." At other times, an inanimate object can be invoked: "O you gentle day sky!" Apostrophizing an inanimate object may involve [|personifying] it.

**CONCEIT** (also called a **metaphysical conceit)**: An elaborate or unusual comparison--especially one using unlikely metaphors, simile, hyperbole, and contradiction. Before the beginning of the seventeenth century, the term //conceit// was a synonym for "thought" and roughly equivalent to "idea" or "concept." It gradually came to denote a fanciful idea or a particularly clever remark. In literary terms, the word denotes a fairly elaborate figure of speech, especially an extended comparison involving unlikely **[|metaphors]**, **[|similes]**, **[|imagery]**, **[|hyperbole]**, and **[|oxymora]**. One of the most famous conceits is John Donne's "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning," a poem in which Donne compares two souls in love to the points on a geometer's compass. Shakespeare also uses conceits regularly in his poetry. In //Richard II//, Shakespeare compares two kings competing for power to two buckets in a well, for instance. A conceit is usually classified as a subtype of **[|metaphor]**. Contrast with **[|epic simile]**. **CONNOTATION**: The extra tinge or taint of meaning each word carries beyond the minimal, strict definition found in a dictionary. For instance, the terms //civil war//, //revolution// and //rebellion// have the same denotation; they all refer to an attempt at social or political change. However, //civil war// carries historical connotations for Americans beyond that of //revolution// or //rebellion//. Likewise, //revolution// is often applied more generally to scientific or theoretical changes, and it does not necessarily connote violence. //Rebellion//, for many English speakers connotes an improper uprising against a legitimate authority (thus we speak about "rebellious teenagers" rather than "revolutionary teenagers"). In the same way, the words //house// and //home// both refer to a domicile, but //home// connotes certain singular emotional qualities and personal possession in a way that //house// doesn't. I might own four //houses// I rent to others, but I might call none of these my //home//, for example. Much of poetry involves the poet using connotative **[|diction]** that suggests meanings beyond "what the words simply say." Contrast with **[|denotation]**. **DENOTATION**: The minimal, strict definition of a word as found in a dictionary, disregarding any historical or emotional connotation. Contrast with **[|connotation]**. **DICTION** : A writer’s choice of words, phrases, sentence structures, and figurative language, which combine to help create meaning. Formal diction consists of a dignified, impersonal, and elevated use of language; it follows the rules of syntax exactly and is often characterized by complex words and lofty tone. Middle diction maintains correct language usage, but is less elevated than formal diction; it reflects the way most educated people speak. Informal diction represents the plain language of everyday use, and often includes idiomatic expressions, slang, contractions, and many simple, common words. Poetic diction refers to the way poets sometimes employ an elevated diction that deviates significantly from the common speech and writing of their time, choosing words for their supposedly inherent poetic qualities. **EPIC**: An epic in its most specific sense is a [|**//genre//**] of classical poetry. It is a poem that is **(a)** a long narrative about a serious subject, **(b)** told in an elevated style of language, **(c)** focused on the exploits of a hero or demi-god who represents the cultural values of a race, nation, or religious group **(d)** in which the hero's success or failure will determine the fate of that people or nation. Usually, the epic has **(e)** a vast setting, and covers a wide geographic area, **(f)** it contains superhuman feats of strength or military prowess, and gods or supernatural beings frequently take part in the action. The poem begins with **(g)** the invocation of a muse to inspire the poet and, **(h)** the narrative starts **//[|in medias res]//** (see above). **(i)** The epic contains long catalogs of heroes or important characters, focusing on highborn kings and great warriors rather than peasants and commoners. J. A. Cuddon notes that the term **primary epic** refers to folk epics, i.e., versions of an epic narrative that were transmitted orally in pre-literate cultures; the term **secondary epic** refers to literary epics, i.e., versions that are actually written down rather than chanted or sung (284). Often, these secondary epics retain elements of oral-formulaic transmission, such as staggered intervals in which the poet summarizes earlier events, standardized [|**epithets**] and phrases originally used by singers to fill out dactylic hexameters during extemporaneous performance, and so on. The term //epic// applies most accurately to classical Greek texts like the //Iliad// and the //Odyssey//. However, some critics have applied the term more loosely. The Anglo-Saxon poem [|__//Beowulf//__] has also been called an epic of Anglo-Saxon culture, Milton's //Paradise Lost// has been seen as an epic of Christian culture, and Shakespeare's various History Plays have been collectively called an epic of Renaissance Britain. Other examples include Tasso's //Jerusalem Delivered// and the anonymous //Epic of Gilgamesh//, which is the oldest example known. Contrast with **[|mock epic]**. See **[|epic simile]** below. Click here to a [|download a PDF handout] discussing the epic's conventional traits. **FOIL**: A character that serves by contrast to highlight or emphasize opposing traits in another character. For instance, in Shakespeare's //Hamlet//, Laertes the unthinking man of action is a foil to the intelligent but reluctant Hamlet. The angry hothead Hotspur in //Henry IV, Part I//, is the foil to the cool and calculating Prince Hal. **//HAMARTIA//**: A term from Greek tragedy that literally means "missing the mark." Originally applied to an archer who misses the target, a //hamartia// came to signify a tragic flaw, especially a misperception, a lack of some important insight, or some blindness that ironically results from one's own strengths and abilities. In Greek tragedy, the **[|protagonist]** frequently possesses some sort of //hamartia// that causes catastrophic results after he fails to recognize some fact or truth that could have saved him if he recognized it earlier. The idea of //hamartia// is often ironic; it frequently implies the very trait that makes the individual noteworthy is what ultimately causes the protagonist's decline into disaster. For instance, for the character of Macbeth, the same ambition that makes him so admired is the trait that also allows Lady Macbeth to lure him to murder and treason. Similarly, what ennobles Brutus is his unstinting love of the Roman Republic, but this same patriotism causes him to kill his best friend, Julius Caesar. These normally positive traits of self-motivation and patriotism caused the two protagonists to "miss the mark" and realize too late the ethical and spiritual consequences of their actions. See also //**[|hubris]**//.

**//HUBRIS//** (sometimes spelled //Hybris//): The Greek term //hubris// is difficult to translate directly into English. It is a negative term implying both arrogant, excessive self-pride or self-confidence, and also a //**[|hamartia]**// (see above), a lack of some important perception or insight due to pride in one's abilities. It is the opposite of the Greek term //**[|arête]**//, which implies a humble and constant striving for perfection and self-improvement combined with a realistic awareness that such perfection cannot be reached. As long as an individual strives to do and be the best, that individual has //arête//. As soon as the individual believes he has actually achieved //arête//, however, he or she has lost that exalted state and fallen into //hubris//, unable to recognize personal limitations or the humble need to improve constantly. This leads to overwhelming pride, and this in turn leads to a downfall. **HYPERBOLE**: the trope of exaggeration or overstatement **IRONY**: The recognition of the difference between reality and appearance. Cicero referred to irony as "saying one thing and meaning another." Irony comes in many forms. **Verbal irony** (also called **sarcasm**) is a [|trope] in which a speaker makes a statement in which its actual meaning differs sharply from the meaning that the words ostensibly express. Often this sort of irony is plainly sarcastic in the eyes of the reader, but the characters listening in the story may not realize the speaker's sarcasm as quickly as the readers do. **Dramatic irony** (the most important type for literature) involves a situation in a narrative in which the reader knows something about present or future circumstances that the character does not know. In that situation, the character acts in a way we recognize to be grossly inappropriate to the actual circumstances, or the character expects the opposite of what the reader knows that fate holds in store, or the character anticipates a particular outcome that unfolds itself in an unintentional way. Probably the most famous example of dramatic irony is the situation facing Oedipus in the play //Oedipus Rex//. **Situational irony** (also called **cosmic irony**) is a trope in which accidental events occur that seem oddly appropriate, such as the poetic justice of a pickpocket getting his own pocket picked. However, both the victim and the audience are simultaneously aware of the situation in situational irony. Probably the most famous example of situational irony is Jonathan Swift's //A Modest Proposal//, in which Swift "recommends" that English landlords take up the habit of eating Irish babies as a food staple. **MACROCOSM** (Cf. [|microcosm]): The natural universe as a whole, including the biological realms of flora and fauna, weather, and celestial objects such as the sun, moon, and stars. See discussion under **[|chain of being]**. **MICROCOSM** (cf. [|**macrocosm**]): The human body. Renaissance thinkers believed that the human body was a "little universe" that reflected changes in the macrocosm, or greater universe.

** **METER**: A recognizable though varying pattern of stressed syllables alternating with syllables of less stress. Compositions written in meter are said to be in **verse**. There are many possible patterns of verse. Each unit of stress and unstressed syllables is called a "**foot**." The following examples are culled from M. H. Abrams' //Glossary of Literary Terms//, seventh edition, which has more information. You can also [|click here] to download a PDF handout giving examples of particular types of feet, or [|click here] for a longer PDF handout discussing meter and scansion. **  **Iambic** (the noun is "**iamb**" or "**iambus**"): a lightly stressed syllable followed by a heavily stressed syllable.

Example: "The cúrfew tólls the knéll of párting dáy." (Thomas Gray, "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.") **Anapestic** (the noun is "**anapest**") two light syllables followed by a stressed syllable: "The Assyrian came dówn like a wólf on the fóld." (Lord Byron, "The Destruction of Sennacherib.") **Trochaic** (the noun is "**trochee**") a stressed followed by a light syllable: "Thére they áre, my fífty men and wómen." **Dactylic** (the noun is "**dactyl**"): a stressed syllable followed by two light syllables: "Éve, with her básket, was / Déep in the bélls and grass."

Iambs and anapests, since the strong stress is at the end, are called "rising meter"; trochees and dactyls, with the strong stress at the beginning with lower stress at the end, are called "falling meter." Additionally, if a line ends in a standard iamb, with a final stressed syllable, it is said to have a masculine ending. If a line ends in a lightly stressed syllable, it is said to be feminine. To hear the difference, read the following examples aloud and listen to the final stress: **Masculine Ending**:

"'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house,

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse."

**Feminine Ending**: "'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the housing,

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mousing."

We name a metric line according to the number of "**[|feet]**" in it. If a line has four feet, it is **tetrameter**. If a line has five feet, it is **pentameter**. Six feet, **hexameter**, and so on. English verse tends to be pentameter, French verse tetrameter, and Greek verse, hexameter. When scanning a line, we might, for instance, describe the line as "iambic pentameter" (having five feet, with each foot tending to be a light syllable followed by heavy syllable), or "trochaic tetrameter" (having four feet, with each foot tending to be a long syllable followed by a short syllable). Here is a complete list of the various verse structures:
 * **//Monometer//**: one foot
 * **//Dimeter//**: two feet
 * //**Trimeter**//: three feet
 * //**Tetrameter**//: four feet
 * //**Pentameter**//: five feet
 * //**Hexameter**//: six feet
 * //**Heptameter**//: seven feet
 * //**Octameter**//: eight feet
 * //**Nonameter**//: nine feet


 * OXYMORON**: A form of paradox (see below), the juxtaposition of two contradictory ideas. The apparent contradiction reveals a deeper truth. Examples: sweet sorrow, living death, hurts so good, deafening silence.

**PARADOX** (also called oxymoron): Using contradiction in a manner that oddly makes sense on a deeper level. Common paradoxes seem to reveal a deeper truth through their contradictions, such as noting that "without laws, we can have no freedom." Shakespeare's //Julius Caesar// also makes use of a famous paradox: "Cowards die many times before their deaths" (2.2.32). **PERSONIFICATION:**  Assigning human qualities to inanimate objects, abstract ideas, or forces of nature. POINT OF VIEW:   **SATIRE**: An attack on or criticism of any stupidity or vice in the form of scathing humor, or a critique of what the author sees as dangerous religious, political, moral, or social standards. Satire became an especially popular technique used during the Enlightenment, in which it was believed that an artist could correct folly by using art as a mirror to reflect society. When people viewed the satire and saw their faults magnified in a distorted reflection, they could see how ridiculous their behavior was and then correct that tendency in themselves. The tradition of satire continues today. Popular cartoons such as //The Simpsons// and televised comedies like //The Daily Show// make use of it in modern media. Conventionally, **formal satire** involves a direct, first-person-address, either to the audience or to a listener mentioned within the work. An example of formal satire is Alexander Pope's //Moral Essays//. **Indirect satire** conventionally employs the form of a fictional narrative--such as Byron's //Don Juan// or Swift's //Gulliver's Travels//. Ridicule, irony, exaggeration, and similar tools are almost always used in satire. **Horatian satire** tends to focus lightly on laughter and ridicule, but it maintain a playful tone. Generally, the tone is sympathetic and good humored, somewhat tolerant of imperfection and folly even while expressing amusement at it. The name comes from the Roman poet Horace (65-8 BCE), who preferred to ridicule human folly in general rather than condemn specific persons. In contrast, **Juvenalian satire** also uses withering invective, insults, and a slashing attack. The name comes from the Roman poet Juvenal (60-140 CE), who frequently employed the device, but the label is applied to British writers such as Swift and Pope as well. Compare with **[|medieval estates satire]** and **[|spoof]**. **SYNECDOCHE**: A rhetorical trope involving a part of an object representing the whole, or the whole of an object representing a part. For instance, a writer might state, "Twenty eyes watched our every move." Rather than implying that twenty disembodied eyes are swiveling to follow him as he walks by, she means that ten people watched the group's every move. When a captain calls out, "All hands on deck," he wants the whole sailors, not just their hands. When a cowboy talks about owning "forty head of cattle," he isn't talking about stuffed cowskulls hanging in his trophy room, but rather forty live cows and their bovine bodies. When La Fontaine states, "A hungry stomach has no ears," he uses synecdoche and **[|metonymy]** simultaneously to refer to the way that starving people do not want to listen to arguments. In the New Testament, a similar synecdoche about the stomach appears. Here, the stomach represents all the physical appetites, and the heart represents the entire set of personal beliefs. Paul writes: Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them. For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple. (Romans 16:17)
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Likewise, when Christians pray, "Give us this day our daily bread," they aren't asking God for bread alone, but rather they use the word as a synecdoche for all the mundane necessities of food and shelter. In the demonic play //Faust//, Marlowe writes of Helen of Troy, "Was this the face that launched a thousand ships, / And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?" The //thousand ships// is a synecdoche for the entire Greek army: i.e., men, horses, weapons, and all. Likewise, the //towers// are a synecdoche; they are one part of the doomed city's architecture that represents the entire city and its way of life. Helen's //face// is a decorous synecdoche for Helen's entire body, since her suitors were presumably interested in more than her visage alone. Eliot writes in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" that Prufrock "should have been a pair of ragged claws / Scuttling across the floor of silent seas." Here, the synecdoche implies the incompleteness of the poetic speaker. Prufrock is so futile and helpless, he shouldn't even be a complete crab, only the crab's claws scuttling along without a complete body, brain, or sense of direction. Henry IV implies that the city of Paris deserves some honorable ceremony when he claims, "Paris is well worth a mass," and so on. ** TONE .** The writer's attitude toward his readers and his subject; his mood or moral view. A writer can be formal, informal, playful, ironic, and especially, optimistic or pessimistic.

**TRAGEDY**: A serious play in which the chief character, by some peculiarity of psychology, passes through a series of misfortunes leading to a final, devastating **[|catastrophe]**. According to Aristotle, **//[|catharsis]//** is the marking feature and ultimate end of any tragedy. He writes in his __[|//Poetics//]__ (c. 350 BCE): " Tragedy is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; . . . through pity [//eleos//] and fear [//phobos//] effecting the proper purgation [//catharsis//] of these emotions " (Book 6.2). Traditionally, a tragedy is divided into five acts. The first act introduces the characters in a state of happiness, or at the height of their power, influence, or fame. The second act typically introduces a problem or dilemma, which reaches a point of crisis in the third act, but which can still be successfully averted. In the fourth act, the main characters fail to avert or avoid the impending crisis or **[|catastrophe]**, and this disaster occurs. The fifth act traditionally reveals the grim consequences of that failure. See also **//[|hamartia]//**, **//[|hubris]//**, **//[|anagnorisis]//**, **//[|peripeteia]//**, and **//[|catharsis]//**. Click the following links to download a handout discussing [|medieval tragedy], some [|general thoughts about tragedy], or a [|comparison of comedy and tragedy].