LITERARY TERMS

 GLOSSARY OF LITERARY TERMS

Aesthetic Movement: Aestheticism is a term loosely applied to an English literary movement of the second half of the nineteenth century French cult of beauty, associated with Walter Pater and Oscar Wild, whose slogan was ‘Art for art’s sake’. Idea that a work of art is only for enjoyment, not for moral/didactic purpose.

 

Affective fallacy: It is used to refer the supposed error of judging or evaluating a text on the basis of its emotional effects on a reader. The term was coined by W.K. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley in 1949.

 

Allegory: A character, event, or place that represents a real-world problem or occurrence. Through allegory, authors can explore abstract ideas and break them down into understandable information. Ex: The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan is a religious allegory; Absolom and Achitophel by Dryden is a political allegory; Animal Farm by George Orwell; The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne; The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser

 

Allusion: allusions are implicit or indirect reference to a person, place, event, song, myth or any another work of literature.  Ex: T. S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” contained reference to several Greek, Latin, Sanskrit texts.

 

Amanuensis is a person employed to write or type what another person dictates or to copy what has been written by another. It is also used in some academic contexts, when an injured or disabled person is helped by an amanuensis at a written examination.  Before the invention of printing press, each copy of a book typically had to be written by hand, copied page by page.

 

Anacreontic: poems in a meter used by the Greek poet Anacreon. It is a short poem of love and wine. Michael Drayton is master of it.

 

Anti-hero: A central character in a drama or novel who has none of the qualities of hero. Ex. Willy Loman in Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman.; Jimmy Porter in John Osborne’s play ‘Look Back in Anger’

Bathos: There is a descent (fall) from the lofty to the mean thought. This is fall is sudden, not gradual. It is used to provoke laughter. Ex: In Rape of the lock, there is a sudden fall from husbands to lapdogs

Not louder shrieks to pitying Heaven ar cast,

When Husbnads or when lap-dogs breath their last

 

Bibliography:  a list of books/ articles.

 

Burlesque: From Italian burla, a jest, a piece of comic writing imitating a person or style designed to produce ludicrous effect. Ex:  Butler’s Hudibras burlesques the Puritans. Pope’s Rape of the Lock burlesques the foibles of the aristocracy, is known as mock epic.

 

Byronic, Byronism: Terms denoting the characters of Byron and his romantic heroes – fierce love of liberty, blood defiance of a tyrannical world, cynicism, self –pity.

 

Cliché: over used expression. French term which means “a sterotyped plate”.

 

Deconstruction: is an approach to understand the relationship between text and meaning. It was originated by the philosopher Jacques Derrida. It means "breaking down" or analyzing something.  (see criticism notes)

 

Denotation and Connotation:  The denotation of a word or phrase is its explicit or direct meaning or dictionary meaning. The connotation of a word or phrase is the associated or secondary meaning or implied by a word. Ex: home denotes “a shelter that is the usual residence of a person’’ but it connotes a sense of ‘belonging and comfort’.; bird denotes a winged biped, but it connotes peace, intimacy, family bond etc.,

 

Carpediem: Latin term, which means “seize the day”. It is to nake the best enjoyment of the limited span of time. Based on the doctrine of hedonism that pleasure is the highest good of life and the only end of living. Common in early renissanc poetry and Elizabethan literature. (see Cavalier poets)

 

Characters: Round and Flat: Flat character is simple. Round character is complex. These two terms, flat characters and round characters, were first used in E. M. Forster’s Aspects of the novel (1927). Flat characters are two-dimensional, relatively uncomplicated figures whereas round characters are complex characters with many different characteristics.

 

Dialect: a variety of spoken language particular to a geographical region or community. Ex: Ame.E, Br.E, Cockney

 

Dissociation of Sensibility: first used by T. S. Eliot in his essay “The Metaphysical Poets”. It refers to the way in which intellectual thought was separated from the feeling in seventeenth century poetry. (see criticism notes)

 

Ephiphany: a moment when a character has a sudden insight or realization that which changes the rest of the story. Epiphany is an “Aha!” moment. Epiphany is often triggered by a small, everyday occurrence or experience. Epiphany is a distinctive feature of modernist fiction. James Joyce first borrowed the religious term "Epiphany" and adopted it into a profane literary context in Stephen Hero (1904-1906). In that manuscript, Stephen Daedalus defines epiphany as "a sudden spiritual manifestation” Ex: Hamlet’s realization in ship to England.

 

Dystopia: is a community or society that is undesirable or frightening. It is an antonym of utopia, a term that was coined by Sir Thomas More in Utopia (1516), which created a blueprint for an ideal society with minimal crime, violence and poverty. (See the notes at Thomas More’s Utopia in Age of Revial)

 

Utopia: literally an ideal place. A literary work written by Thomas More to illustrate the ideal political state. (See the notes at Thomas More’s Utopia in Age of Revial)

 

Enlightenment: (also known as the Age of Reason) was an intellectual and philosophical movement in Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries. It emphasized the scientific method and increased questioning of religious orthodoxy. Earlier philosophers whose work influenced the Enlightenment included Francis Bacon and René Descartes. Some of the major figures are David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Leibniz, John Locke, Montesquieu, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Adam Smith, and Voltaire. Sapere aude is the Latin phrase meaning "Dare to know"; became associated with the Age of Enlightenment, after Immanuel Kant used it in the essay, "Answering the Question: What Is Enlightenment?" (1784).

 

Existentialism: Recent philosophical label applied to several widely different schools of thought. There are Christmas existentialists who follow Kierkegaard. He has stressed the idea that in God man may find freedom from tension; in Him, the finite and the infinite are one. There is also atheistic existentialist who follows Jean Paul Sartre and Martin Heidegger who believe that man is also alone in a godless world. (see criticism notes)

 

Foreshadowing: An indirect reference to something that will occur later in the text. It is a hint to readers something that is to follow or appear later in a story.

Ex: The killing of the albatross in “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner; Appearance of ghost in the intial scenes of Hamlet; The hint of expectation in the title of Waiting for Godot;

 

Imagery, Imagist, Imagism: The Imagist movement in poetry was started by Ezra Pound. (See Modern Age)

 

Intentional fallacy: term used in 20th-century literary criticism to describe the problem inherent in trying to judge a work of art by assuming the intent or purpose of the artist who created it. Introduced by W.K. Wimsatt, Jr., and Monroe C. Beardsley in ‘The

 

Verbal Icon (1954)’, the approach was a reaction to the popular belief that to know what the author intended—what he had in mind at the time of writing—was to know the correct interpretation of the work. (see criticism notes)

 

Incunable is the means "swaddling clothes", or "cradle", which could metaphorically refer to "the earliest stages or first traces in the development". A former term for incunable is fifteener, meaning "fifteenth-century edition", i.e., books printed during the earliest period of typography—i.e., from the invention of the art of typographic printing in Europe in the 1450s to the end of the 15th century (i.e., January 1501).

 

Magnum Opus: Major literary work perhaps the best/masterpiece.

 

Mime: On the modern stage a dumb show in which action is shown by gestures.

 

Myth: a story which is not true, involving supernatural beings or super humans.

 

Mock Heroic: Species of burlesque. Ex. Pope’s Rape of the Lock. Dryden’s Mac Flecknoe.

 

New Criticism: term coined by John Crowe Ransom in his book The New Criticism (1941). It emphasized close reading, particularly of poetry. Associated with Cambridge scholars, especially I. A. Richards and F. R. Leavis. (see criticism notes)

 

Negative Capability: is a phrase first used by Romantic poet John Keats in 1817 to explain the capacity of the greatest writers (particularly Shakespeare) to pursue a vision of artistic beauty. In Keats opinion, some matters to be left unsolved and must be left for imagination. (see criticism notes)

 

Objective Vs Subjective: In an objective work, author presents fictional characters and their feelings, thoughts whereas in Subjective work, author presents his own experience judgments and feelings. Ex: Wordsworth is a subjective poet (in his Prelude, he described his childhood, stoling of birds, eggs and a boat for his child hood pleasure), Shakespeare is an objective writer (he never directly says what he was, what he likes or dislikes). -(See criticism notes under Negative capability and Egoistical Sublime)

 

Objective Correlative: In literary criticism, an objective correlative is a group of things or events which systematically represent emotions. first set forth by T.S. Eliot in the essay “Hamlet and His Problems” and published in The Sacred Wood (1920). (see criticism notes)

Poetic Justice: term invented by Thomas Rhymer, to convey the idea that the evil characters are punished and good are rewarded. It is most common in comedies. If It happens in contrast, it becomes tragedy.

 

Point of View:  mode of narration that an author employs to let the readers “hear” and “see” what takes place in a story, poem, or essay. Three major kinds:

1)   First person point of view:  Narrator participates in the action of the story and narrates the story using first-person pronouns: I, my, mine, we, ours, us etc., Ex: “Call me Ishmael”- in Melville's Moby-Dick.; ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ by Harper Lee; ‘The Great Gatsby’ by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

2)   Second person point of view: employs the pronoun “you.” Here the audience is made a character. Ex: “Sometimes you cannot clearly discern between anger and frustration.”

3)     Third person point of view: Narrator is an outsider/observer without being involved in the action of the story, uses third person pronouns like: he, she, him, her, it, they, them or a name.

A)    Third person omniscient: the narrator knows all the thoughts and feelings of every character.

B)     Third Person Limited Point of View: the narrator is not an omniscient, so his/her knowledge is limited.

 

Stream of Consciousness: term was first used by William James in The Principles of Psychology (1890). It is also called “interior monologue.” Technique in modern fiction which depicts the flow of incoherent thoughts and feelings in the mind of a character. James Joyce’s Ulysses is the supreme example of this technique. Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, Dorothy Richardson’s Pilgrimage, Faulkner’s Sound and the Fury 1929

 

Structuralism: A method of studying phenomena in terms of the relationship of their structures. This method is especially associated with the French anthropologist Claude Levi- Strauss, and French linguist Saussure who believe that all social behavior is structured in codes or sign systems, of which language is the most important and most central. (see criticism notes)

Symbolism: Ordinarily a symbol is an object that represents something else; as the Crescent is the symbol of Islam, the Cross of Christianity. Yeats, Eliot, and James Joyce are called symbolists. The movement was a revolt against realism and naturalism. (see criticism notes)

Theme: is the central idea of the work. Ex: Jealousy in Othello; revenge in Hamlet,

Tone: attitude of the writer towards the reader. Ex: "Lycidas" by John Milton has a mournful tone.