College%20Bound%20English:

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College Bound English

• Literary Terms and Devices
• Selected from
• A Handbook to Literature, 8th Edition
• by William Harmon and C. Hugh Holman

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1. acronym

• A word formed by combining the initial letters or
  syllables of a series of words to for a name, as
  radar, from radio detecting and ranging.

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1. acronym
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2. act (as in drama)

• A major division of DRAMA. In varying degrees
  the fine-act structure corresponded to the fine
  main divisions of dramatic action EXPOSITION,
  COMPLICATION, CLIMAX, FALLING ACTION, and
  CATASTROPHE.

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2. act (as in drama)
Mel Gibson as Hamlet
Kenneth Branagh
Derek Jacobi
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3. adaptation

• The rewriting of a work from its original form to
  fit it for another medium also the new form of
  such a rewritten work.

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3. adaptation
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4. aesthetics

• The study or philosophy of the beautiful in
  nature, art and literature. It has both a
  philosophical dimensionWhat is art? What is
  beauty? What is the relationship of the beautiful
  to other values?

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4. aesthetics(this is a painting by Chuck
Close, entitled Self-Portrait)
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4. aesthetics
PicassosHouse-garden
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5. agrarian

• Literary people living in an agricultural
  society, or espousing the merits of such a
  society, as the Physiocrats did. In literary
  history and criticism, however, the term is
  usually applied to a group of Southern

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5. agrarian
American writers who published in Nashville,
Tennessee, between 1922 and 1925 The Fugitive, a
LITTLE MAGAZINE of poetry and some criticism
championing agrarian REGIONALISM but attacking
the old high-castle Brahmins of the Old South.
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5. agrarian
HamlinGarland
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Literature in its most comprehensive sense is
the autobiography of humanity. -Bernard
Berenson
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6. allegory

• A form of extended METAPHOR in which objects,
  persons, and actions in a narrative are equated
  with meanings that lie outside the narrative
  itself. Thus, an allegory is a story in which
  everything is a symbol. RPMrebellion, open
  thinking, manliness Nursehate, control,
  judgment, conformity

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6. allegory (cont.)

• Samuel Coleridge the traditional distinction
  between a symbol and allegory is that an
  allegory is but a translation of abstract notions
  into picture-language, whereas a Symbol always
  partakes of the Reality which it makes
  intelligible.

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6. allegory
Wizard of Oz
Lord of the Flies
George Orwell1984Animal Farm
William GoldingLord of the Flies
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7. alliteration

• The repetition of initial identical consonant
  sounds or any vowel sounds in successive or
  closely associated syllables, especially stressed
  syllables.

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7. alliteration
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8. allusion

• A figure of speech that makes brief reference to
  a historical or literary figure, event, or
  object. The effectiveness of allusion depends on
  a body of knowledge shared by writer and reader.
  A good example is T.S. Eliots The Waste Land and
  the authors notes to that poem.

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8. allusion

• RPMs shorts refer to Moby Dick, classic book by
  Melville (90).
• Also, to the Bible and Pontius Pilatea patient
  says, I wash my hands of the whole deal (232).
• Harding makes reference to the Lone Ranger,
  Batman, or Zorrosaying RPM is a masked man
  superhero (258).

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8. allusion
Babe the Blue Ox
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9. anachronism

• Assignment of something to a time when it was not
  in existence.

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9. anachronism
Back to the Future
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10. analogy

• A comparison of two things, alike in certain
  aspects particularly a method used in EXPOSITION
  an DESCRIPTION by which something unfamiliar is
  explained or described by comparing it to some
  thing more familiar.
• Will Castle
• Eliza Dorothy Higgins Wizard

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10. analogy

1. find is to lose as construct is tobuild
   demolish misplace materials2. find is to
   locate as feign is topane pretend line mean

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10. analogy
3. find is to kind as feign is topane pretend l
ine mean 4. pane is to pain as weigh is to
scale pounds weight way 5. bring is
to brought as sing is to sang melody
song record
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10. analogy
6. dime is to tenth as quarter is totwenty-five
fourth home coin7. plates is to
dishes as arms is toLegs hands farms
weapons rhlschool.com
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Contemporary literature. Easier to shock than
to convince. -Albert Camus
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11. anapest

• A metrical FOOT consisting of three syllables,
  with two unaccented syllables followed by an
  accented one.

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11. anapest
William Wordsworth
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12. anecdote

• A short NARRATIVE detailing particulars of an
  interesting EPISODE or event. The term most
  frequently refers to an incident in the life of
  an important person and should lay claim to an
  element of truth.

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12. anecdote

• Though anecdotes are often used as the basis for
  short stories, an anecdote lacks complicated PLOT
  and relates a single EPISODE.

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12. anecdote
John Falstaff
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13. annotation

• The addition of explanatory notes to a text by
  the author or an editor to explain, translate,
  cite sources, give bibliographical data, comment,
  GLOSS, or PARAPHRASE.

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13. annotation

• A VARIOUM EDITION represents the ultimate in
  annotation. An annotated BIBLIOGRAPHY, in
  addition to the standard bibliographical data
  includes comments on the works listed.

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13. annotation
Northrop Frye
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14. antagonist

• The character directly opposed to the
  PROTAGONIST. A rival, opponent, or enemy of the
  PROTAGONIST.
• non-character entities can be antagonistic
  (settings or events)

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14. antagonist
Nurse Ratched
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15. anthology

• Literally a gathering of flowers, the term
  designates a collection of writing, either prose
  or poetry, usually by various authors.

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15. anthology
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Literature is the art of writing something that
will be read twice journalism, what will be
grasped at once. -Cyril Connolly
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16. aside (as in drama)

• A dramatic convention by which an actor directly
  addresses the audience but is not supposed to be
  heard by the other actors on the stage.

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16. aside (as in drama)
Roderigo and Iago
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17. assonance (as in poetry)

• Same or similar vowel sounds in stressed
  syllables that end with different consonant
  sounds. Assonance differs from RHYME in that
  RHYME is a similarity of vowel and consonant.
  Lake and fake demonstrate RHYME lake and
  fate assonance.

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17. assonance (as in poetry)
John Donne
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18. autobiography

• The story of a persons life as written by that
  person.

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18. autobiography
Maya Angelou
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18. autobiography
Charles Bukowski
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19. avant-garde

• Applied to new writing that shows striking (and
  usually self-conscious) innovations in style,
  form, and subject matter.

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19. avant-garde
John Ashbery
Frank OHara
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20. bard

• In modern use, simply a POET. Historically the
  term refers to poets who recited verses
  glorifying the deeds of heroes and leaders to the
  accompaniment of musical instrument such as the
  harp.

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20. bard
Shakespeare
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Our literature is substitute for religion, and
so is our religion. -T.S. Eliot
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21. Bildungsroman

• A NOVEL that deals with the development of a
  young person, usually from adolescence to
  maturity it is frequently autobiographical.

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21. Bildungsroman
Great Expectations
Pip
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22. biography

• A written account of a persons life, a life
  history. LETTERS, MEMOIRS, DIARIES, JOURNALS,
  and AUTOBIOGRAPHIES ought to be distinguished
  from biography proper.

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22. biography

• MEMOIRS, DIARIES, JOURNALS, and AUTOBIOGRAPHIES
  are closely related to each other in that each is
  recollection written down by the subject of the
  work.

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22. biography
Paul Burrell
Princess Diana
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23. black humorCuckoos Nest

• The use of the morbid and the ABSURD for darkly
  comic purposes in modern literature. The term
  refers as much to the tone of anger and
  bitterness as it does to the grotesque and morbid
  situations, which often deal with suffering,
  anxiety, and death.

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23. black humor
Kurt Vonnegut
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24. canon

• In a figurative sense, a standard of judgment a
  criterion.
• In a literal sense, the absolute bestthe hall
  of fameas determined by the qualified
  readership.

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24. canon
Harold Bloom
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25. catharsis

• In the Poetics Aristotle, in defining TRAGEDY.
  Sees it objective as being through pity and fear
  effecting the proper purgation catharsisof
  these emotions,

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25. catharsis

• but he does not explain what proper purgation
  means. Whatever Aristotle means thereby,
  catharsis remains one of the great unsettled
  issues.

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25. catharsis
Irene Jacobin Othello
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To provoke dreams of terror in the slumber of
prosperity has become the moral duty of
literature. -Ernst Fischer
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26. character

• It is a brief descriptive SKETCH of a personage
  who typifies dome definite quality.

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26. character
Lennie Small
Don Quixote
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27. cliché

• From the French word for stereotype plate a
  block for printing. Hence, any expression so
  often used that its freshness and clarity have
  worn off is called a cliché, a stereotyped form.

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27. cliché
Jerry Seinfeld
George W. Bush
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28. climax

• A rhetorical term for a rising order of
  importance in the ideas expressed, Such an
  arrangement is called climatic, and the item of
  greatest importance is called the climax.

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28. climax
H.G. Wells
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29. collage

• In the pictorial arts the technique by which
  materials not usually associated with one
  another, such as newspaper clippings, labels,
  cloth, wood , bottle tops, or theater tickets,
  are assembled and pasted together on a single
  surface.

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29. collage
Edgar Allan Poe
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confidant

• a close friend or associate to whom secrets are
  confided or with whom private matters and
  problems are discussed
• could be the reader, if narrator offers exclusive
  information

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30. conflict

• The struggle that grows out of the interplay of
  two opposing forces. Conflict provides interest
  suspense, and tension.

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30. conflict

• 1.) a struggle against nature2.) a struggle
  against another person, usually the
  ANTAGONIST3.) a struggle against society4.) a
  struggle for mastery by two elements within the
  person

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30. conflict
William Faulkner
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In an incarcerate society, free literature can
exist only as denunciation and hope. -Eduardo
Galeano
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31. consonance

• The relation between words in which the final
  consonants in the stressed syllables agree but
  the vowels that precede them differ, as
  add-read, mill-ball, and torn-burn.

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31. consonance
T.S. Eliot
John Milton
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32. couplet

• Two consecutive lines of VERSE with END RHYMES.

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32. couplet
T.S. Eliot
Ezra Pound
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33. denouement

• Literally, unknotting. The final unraveling of
  a plot the solution of a mystery an explanation
  or outcome.
• Denouement is sometimes used as a synonym for
  FALLING ACTION.

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33. denouement
Scooby-Doo Stories
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34. dialogue

• Conversation of two or more people. Embodies
  certain values1.)advances the action and is not
  mere ornament2.)consistent with the character of
  the speakers.

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34. dialogue

• 3.)gives impression of naturalness without being
  verbatim record4.)presents the interplay of
  ideas and personalities5.)varies according to
  the various speakers6.)serves to give relief
  from passages

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34. dialogue
Ernest Hemingway
James Thurber
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35. diction

• Choice and use of words in speech or writing.

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35. diction
Shirley Jackson
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Literature decays only as men become more and
more corrupt. -Goethe
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36. didactic novel

• Any novel plainly designed to teach a lesson, it
  is properly used as a synonym for the EDUCATION
  NOVEL.

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36. didactic novel
Upton Sinclair
The Jungle
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37. dime novel

• A cheaply printed, paperbound TALE of adventure
  or detection, or originally selling for a bout
  ten cents an American equivalent of the British
  PENNY DREADFUL.

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37. dime novel
Malaeska
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38. discourse

• Mode or category of expression, in grammar, we
  speak of discourse as direct or indirect.
  Discourse refers to ways of speaking that are
  bound by

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38. discourse

• ideological, professional, political, cultural,
  or sociological communities. Way in which the
  use of language in a particular domain helps to
  constitute the objects it refers to.

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38. discourse
Sandra Looney Augustana
John Dudley USD
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39. dynamic character

• A character who develops or changes as a result
  of the actions of the plot.
• Eliza Doolittle, Pip, Marguerite Johnson, Pi
  Patel, Esperanza Cordero

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39. dynamic character
Don Quixote
Sandra Cisneros
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40. dystopia

• Literally, bad place. the term is applied to
  accounts of imaginary worlds, usually in the
  futre, in which present tendencies are carried ou
  to their intensely unpleasant culminations.
  (George Orwells 1984, Ursula K. Le Guins The
  Dispossessed)

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40. dystopia
George Orwells 1984
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It takes a great deal of history to produce a
little literature. -Henry James
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41. elegy

• A sustained and formal poem setting forth
  meditations on death or another solemn theme.
  The meditation often is occasioned by the death
  of a particular person, but it may be generalized
  observation or the expression of a solemn mood.

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41. elegy
Oleg Liubkivsky The Elegy of Far Autumn, 1992
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42. ellipsis

• The omission of one or more words that, while
  essential to a grammatic structure, are easily
  supplied.
• () only three periods!

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43. epic

• A long narrative poem in elevated style
  presenting characters of high position in
  adventures forming and organic whole through
  their relation to a central heroic figure and
  through their development of episodes important
  to the history of a nation or race. The epic
  itself is the product of a single genius.

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43. epic (cont.)

• (1) The hero is of imposing nature
• (2) The setting is vast
• (3) The action consists of deeds of valor or
  superhuman courage
• (4) The supernatural
• (5) A style of sustained elevation
• (6) The poet retains a measure of objectivity

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43. epic
Odysseus
Trojan Horse
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44. epiphany

• Literally a manifestation or showing-forth,
  usually of some divine being. The Christian
  festival of Epiphany commemorates the
  manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles in the
  form of the Magi.

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45. euphemism

• A device in which indirectness replaces
  directness of statement, usually in an effort to
  avoid offensiveness.

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45. euphemism
huskybig-bonedheftyportlyplumpfluffy
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National literature begins with fables and ends
with novels. -Joseph Joubert
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46. exposition (as in a storys plot)

• Its purpose is to explain something.
  Identification, definition, classification,
  illustration, comparison, and analysis.

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46. exposition (as in a storys plot)
Harry Potter
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47. Expressionism

• A movement affecting painting and literature,
  which followed and went beyond IMPRESSIONISM in
  its efforts to objectify inner experience.
  Expressionism was strongest in theater in the
  1920s,

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47. Expressionism (cont.)

• and its entry into other literary forms was
  probably though the stage. In the novel the
  presentation of the objective outer world as it
  expresses itself in the impressions or moods of a
  character is widely used device.

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47. Expressionism (cont.)

• The ANTIREALISTIC NOVEL is also a genre in the
  expressionistic tradition. More recent
  novelists, such as Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Thomas
  Pynchon, Joseph Heller, and Ken Kesey, ca also be
  included in the expressionistic tradition.

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47. Expressionism
The Muse Jeff Buckley
Lady and Her CatMillie Shapiro
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48. falling action

• The second half or RESOLUTION of a dramatic plot.
  It follows the CLIMAX, beginning often with a
  tragic force, exhibits the failing fortunes of
  the hero (in a tragedy) and the successful
  efforts in the COUNTERPLAYERS, and culminates in
  the CATASTROPHE.

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48. falling action
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flat character

• a literary character whose personality can be
  defined by one or two traits and does not change
  in the course of the story

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foil

• A foil character is either one who is opposite to
  the main character or nearly the same as the main
  character. The purpose of the foil character is
  to emphasize the traits of the main character by
  contrast only. A foil is a secondary character
  who contrasts with a major character.

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49. foot (as in poetry)

• The unit of rhythm in verse, whether QUANTITATIVE
  or ACCENTUAL-SYLLABIC.

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49. foot (as in poetry)
William Blake
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50. foreshadowing

• The presentation of material in a work in such a
  way that later events are prepared for.
  Foreshadowing can result form the establishment
  of a mood or atmosphere, as in the opening of
  Conrads Heart of Darkness or the first act of
  Hamlet.

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50. foreshadowing (cont.)

• It can result from the appearance of physical
  objects or facts, as do the clues do in a
  detective story, or from the revelation of a
  fundamental and decisive character trait. In all
  cases, the purpose of foreshadowing is to prepare
  the reader or viewer for action to come.

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50. foreshadowing
Ken KeseyOne Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest
Maya Angelous Caged Bird Sings
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50. foreshadowing
131
Literature is a form of permanent insurrection.
Its mission is to arouse, to disturb, to alarm,
to keep men in a constant state of
dissatisfaction with themselves. -Mario Vargas
Llosa
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51. history play (as in Shakespeare)

• Strictly speaking, any drama whose time setting
  is in some period earlier than that in which it
  is written. It is most widely used, however, as
  a synonym for CHRONICLE PLAY.

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51. history play (as in Shakespeare)
King John
134
52. hubris

• overweening pride or insolence that results in
  the misfortune of the PROTAGONIST of a tragedy.
  Hubris leads the protagonist to break a moral
  law, attempt vainly to transcend normal
  limitations, or ignore a divine warning with
  calamitous results.

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52. hubris
Poseidon
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53. hyperbole

• Exaggeration. The figure may be used to heighten
  effect or it may be used for humor.

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53. hyperbole
Kurt Vonnegut
138
54. iamb (as in poetry)

• A foot consisting of an unaccented syllable and
  an accented ( ? ). The most common rhythm in
  English verse.

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54. iamb (as in poetry)
Shakespeare
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55. idiom

• A use of words peculiar to a given language an
  expression that cannot be translated literally.
  To carry out literally means to carry something
  out (of a room perhaps), but idiomatically it
  means to see that something is done, as to carry
  out a command.

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55. idiom
James Thurber
142
Literature is mostly about having sex and not
much about having children. Life is the other way
around. -David Lodge
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56. imagery

• Imagery in its literal sense means the collection
  of IMAGES in a literary work. In another sense
  it is synonymous with TROPE or FIGURE OF SPEECH.

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56. imagery
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Ernest Hemingway
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57. Imagism

• The objectives of Imagist are
• 1.) to use the language of common speech but to
  employ always the exact wordnot the nearly exact
  word
• 2.) to avoid the cliché
• 3.) to create new rhythms as the expressions of a
  new MOOD

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57. Imagism (cont.)

• 4.) to allow absolute freedom in the choice of
  subject
• 5.) to present an image (that is, to be concrete,
  firm, definite in their picturesharsh in
  outline)
• 6.) to strive always for concentration
• 7.) to suggest rather than offer complete
  statements

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57. Imagism (cont.)
Jack KerouacOn the Road
William Carlos WilliamsSelected Poetry
148
58. Impressionism

• A highly personal manner of writing in which the
  author presents materials as they appear to an
  individual temperament at a precise moment and
  from a particular vantage point rather than as
  they are presumed to be in actuality.

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58. Impressionism
Ninfee BiancheClaude Monet 1899
150
59. in medias res

• A term from Horace, literally meaning in the
  midst of things. it is applied to the literary
  technique of opening a story in the middle of the
  action and then supplying information about the
  beginning of the action through flashbacks and
  other devices for exposition.

151
59. in medias res
152
60. internal rhyme (as in poetry)

• Rhyme that occurs at some place before the last
  syllables in a line. In the opening line of
  Eliots GerontionHere I am, an old man in a
  dry monththere is internal rhyme between am
  and man and between I and dry.

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60. internal rhyme (as in poetry)
Li-Young Lee
154
A great literature is chiefly the product of
doubting and inquiring minds in revolt against
the immoveable certainties of the nation.
-H.L. Mencken
155
61. irony

• A broad term referring to the recognition of
  reality different from appearance. Verbal irony
  is a FIGURE OF SPEECH in which the actually
  intent is expressed in words that carry the
  opposite meaning.

156
61. irony
157
62. Künstlerroman

• A form of the APPRENCESHIP NOVEL in which the
  protagonist is an artist struggling from
  childhood to maturity toward an understanding of
  his or her creative mission. The most famous
  Künstlerroman in English is James Joyces A
  Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

158
62. Künstlerroman
Chaim Potok
159
63. limerick

• A form of light verse that follows a definite
  pattern five anapestic lines of which the
  first,second, and fifth, consisting of three
  feet, rhyme and the third and fourth lines,
  consisting of two feet, rhyme.

160
63. limerick
There once was a man from Nantucket,Who kept all
of his cash in a bucket,But his daughter, named
Nan,Ran away with a man,And as for the bucket,
Nantucket.
But he followed the pair to Pawtucket,The man
and the girl with the bucketAnd he said to the
man,He was welcome to Nan,But as for the
bucket, Pawtucket.
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64. masque

• In medieval Europe there existed, partly as
  survivals or adaptations of ancient pagan
  seasonal ceremonies, species of games or
  SPECTACLES characterized by a procession of
  masked figures.

162
64. masque
Edgar Allan Poe
Romeo and Juliet
163
65. maxim

• A concise statement, usually drawn from
  experience and inculcating some practical advice
  an ADAGE. Hoyles When in doubt, win the trick
  is a maxim in bridge.

164
65. maxim
Ask not what your country can do for you ask
what you can do for your country.
John F. Kennedy
165
Literature is doomed if liberty of thought
perishes. -George Orwell
166
66. memoir

• A form of autobiographical writing dealing
  usually with the recollections of one who has
  been a part of or has witnessed significant
  events. Memoirs differ from AUTOBIOGRAPHY proper
  in that they are usually

167
66. memoir

• concerned with personalities and actions other
  than those of the writer, whereas autobiography
  stresses the inner and private life of its
  subject.

168
66. memoir
James Frey, A Million Little Pieces
169
67. metaphysical

• Although sometimes used in the broad sense of
  philosophical poetry, the term is commonly
  applied to the work of the seventeenth-century
  writers called the Metaphysical Poets.

170
67. metaphysical

• They formed a school in the sense of employing
  similar methods and of revolting against the
  conventions of Elizabethan love poetry, in
  particular the PETRARCHAN CONCEIT.

171
67. metaphysical
John Donne
172
68. meter (as in poetry)

• The recurrence in poetry of a rhythmic pattern,
  or the RHYTHM established by the regular
  occurrence of similar units of sound. The four
  basic kinds of rhythmic patters are

173
68. meter (as in poetry) (cont.)

• 1.) QUANTITIVE
• 2.) accentual
• 3.) syllabic
• 4.) accentual-syllabic

174
68. meter (as in poetry)
175
69. motif

• A simple element that serves as a basis for
  expanded narrative or, less strictly, a
  conventional situation, device, interest, or
  incident. In literature, recurrent images, words,
  objects, phrases, or actions that tend to unify
  the work are called motives.

176
69. motif (cont.)

• Patterns of day and night, blonde and brunette,
  summer and winter, north and south, white and
  black and the game of chess.
• In books, recurring themes, images, ideas,
  characters, etc.

177
69. motif
CervantesDon Quixote
178
70. mood

• In literary work the mood is the
  emotional-intellectual attitude of the author
  toward the subject.

179
70. mood
180
Literature is both my joy and my comfort it can
add to every happiness and there is no sorrow it
cannot console. -Pliny the Younger
181
71. muses

• Nine goddesses represented as presiding over the
  various departments of art and science. They are
  the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne. In
  literature, their traditional significance I that
  of inspiring and helping poets.

182
71. Muses

• (1)Calliope (epic)
• (2)Clio (history)
• (3)Erato (lyrics andlove poetry)
• (4)Euterpe (music)
• (5)Melpomene(tragedy)

(6)Polyhymnia (sacred choric
poetry) (7)Terpischore (choral dance and
song) (8)Thalia (comedy) (9)Urania (astronomy)
183
71. Muses
http//shekinah.elysiumgates.com/muse/muses.jpg
184
72. Naturalism

• A term best reserved for a literary movement in
  the late nineteenth and early twentieth
  centuries. It draws its name from its basic
  assumption that everything real exists in NATURE,
  and

185
72. Naturalism (cont.)

• conceived as the world of objects, actions, and
  forces that yield their secrets to objective
  scientific inquiry. Naturalism is a response to
  the revolution in thought that science has
  produced. From Freud it gains a vielw of the
  determinism of the iner and subconscious self.

186
72. Naturalism (cont.)

• Naturalist ic worlks tend to emphasize either a
  biological or socioeconomic determinism.
  Pessimistic about human capabilities life is a
  vicious trap frank in portrayal of humans and
  animals being driven by fundamental urgesfear,
  hunger, and sex.

187
72. Naturalism
Stephen Crane
188
73. Nobel prize

• The Swedish chemist and engineer Alfred Bernhard
  Nobel willed the income from practically his
  entire estate for the establishment of annual in
  the literature and other fields.

189
73. Nobel prize (cont.)

• Originally, the literature prize was to go to the
  person who had produced during the year the most
  eminent piece of work in the field of idealistic
  literature in practice, however, the prize
  rewards recipients total career, and some of the
  literature is not notably idealistic.

190
73. Nobel prize
Ernest Hemingway 1954
William Golding 1983
T.S. Eliot 1948
191
74. noir

• An adjective taken over from the phrase FILM NOIR
  to apply to any work, especially one involving
  crime, that is notably dark, brooding cynical,
  complex, and pessimistic.

192
74. noir
http//www.slushpile.net/wp-content/uploads/2006/0
6/irish20noir.jpg
193
75. novel (and nonfiction novel)

• Novel is used in its broadest sense to designate
  any extended fictional narrative almost always in
  prose.
• Nonfiction Novel is a classification offered by
  Truman Capote for his in Cold Blood,

194
75. novel (and nonfiction novel)

• when which a historical event is described in a
  way that exploits some of the devices of fiction,
  including an nonlinear time sequence and access
  to inner states of mind and feeling not commonly
  present in historical writing.

195
75. novel (and nonfiction novel)
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
J.D. Salinger
196
Great literature is simply language charged with
meaning to the utmost possible degree. -Ezra
Pound
197
76. novella

• A short tale or short story, a book of 50-100
  pages longer than a short story, but not as long
  or involved as a NOVEL.

198
76. novella
199
77. ode

• A single, unified strain of exalted lyrical
  verse, directed to a single purpose, and dealing
  with one theme.

200
77. ode
John Keats
201
78. Oedipus Complex

• In psychoanalysis a libidinal feeling that
  develops in a child, especially a male child,
  between the ages of three and six, for the parent
  of the opposite sex. This attachment is generally
  accompanied by hostility to the parent of the
  childs own sex.

202
78. Oedipus Complex (cont.)
Oedipus the Sphinx
203
79. omniscient point of view

• The POINT OF VIEW in a work of fiction in which
  the narrator is capable of knowing, seeing, and
  telling all. It is characterized by freedom in
  the shifting from the exterior world to the inner
  selves of a number of

204
79. omniscient point of view

• characters. A freedom in movement in both time
  and place, and freedom of the narrator to comment
  on the meaning of actions.

205
79. omniscient point of view
Joseph Stalin
George Orwells1984
206
79. omniscient point of view
207
79. omniscient point of view
208
79. omniscient point of view
209
To my mind that literature is best and most
enduring which is characterized by a noble
simplicity. -Mark Twain
210
80. onomatopoeia

• Words that by their sound suggest their meaning
  hiss, buzz, whirr, sizzle.

211
80. onomatopoeia
212
81. oxymoron

• A self-contradictory combination of worlds or
  smaller verbal units. Oxymoron itself is an
  oxymoron, from the Greek meaning sharp-dull.

213
81. oxymoron
214
82. palindrome

• Writing that reads the same for left to right and
  from right to left, such as the word civic or
  the statement attributed to Napoleon, Able was I
  ere I saw Elba.

215
82. palindrome
216
82. palindrome
Racecar I did roll--or did I? Hannah Poop
217
83. parallelism

• Such an arrangement that one element of equal
  importance with another is similarly developed
  and phrased, the principle of parallelism
  dictates that coordinate ideas should have
  coordinate presentation.

218
83. parallelism
219
84. paraphrase

• A restatement of an idea in such a way as to
  retrain the meaning while changing the diction
  and form. A paraphrase is often an amplification

220
84. paraphrase

• of the original for the purpose of clarity,
  though the term is also used for any rather
  general restatement of an expression or passage.

221
84. paraphrase
222
85. parody

• A composition imitating another, usually serious,
  piece. It is designed to ridicule a work or its
  style or author.

223
85. parody
224
Ernest What is the difference between
literature and journalism? Gilbert Oh!
journalism is unreadable, and literature is not
read. -Oscar Wilde
225
86. persona

• Literally, a mask. The term is widely used to
  refer to a second half created by an author and
  through whom the narrative is told.

226
86. persona

• The persona can be not a character but an
  implied author that is, a voice not directly
  the authors but created by the author and
  through which the author speaks.

227
86. persona
John Berryman
228
87. personification

• A figure that endows animals, ideas,
  abstractions, and animate objects with human
  form the representing of imaginary creatures or
  things as having human personalities,
  intelligence and emotions.

229
87. personification
230
88. Petrarchan Sonnet

• The ITALIAN SONNET A SONNET divided into an
  OCTAVE rhyming abbaabba and a SESTET rhyming
  cdecde.

231
88. Petrarchan Sonnet
Petrarch
232
89. plot

• Although an indispensable part of all fiction and
  drama, plot is a concept about which there has
  been much disagreement. A plot, Aristotle
  maintained, should have unity

233
89. plot

• it should imitate one action and that a whole,
  the structural union of the parts being such
  that, if any one of them is displaced or removed,
  the whole will be disjointed and disturbed.

234
89. plot
235
90. pragmatism

• A term, first used by C.S. Peirce in 1878,
  describing a doctrine that determines value
  through the test of consequences or utility.

236
90. pragmatism
237
Literature always anticipates life. It does not
copy it, but molds it to its purpose. -Oscar
Wilde
238
91. prelude

• A short poem, introductory in character, prefixed
  to a long poem or to a section of a long poem.
  Rarely, as in the case of Wordsworths famous
  Prelude, a poem so entitled may itself be
  lengthy, although Wordsworths Prelude was
  written as an introduction to a much longer but
  incomplete work.

239
91. prelude
240
92. prologue

• An introduction most frequently associated with
  drama and especially common in England in the
  plays of Restoration and the eighteenth century.

241
92. prologue
242
93. Prose poem

• A POEM printed as a PROSE, with both margins
  justified.

243
93. Prose poem
244
94. protagonist

• The chief character in a work. The word was
  originally applied to the first actor in early
  Greek drama. The actor was added to the CHORUS
  and was its leader

245
94. protagonist

• hence the continuing meaning of protagonist and
  the first or chief player. In Greek drama
  AGON is contest, the protagonist and the
  ANTAGONIST, the second most important character,
  are contestants.

246
94. protagonist (cont.)
Pip fromGreat Expectations
Batman/Spiderman
247
95. proverb

• A saying that briefly and memorably expresses
  some recognized truth about life originally
  preserved by oral tradition, though it may be
  transmitted in written literature as well.
  Proverbs may owe their appeal to metaphor,
  antithesis, a play on words, rhyme, or
  alliteration or parallelism.

248
95. proverb
249
One may recollect generally that certain
thoughts or facts are to be found in a certain
book but without a good index such a
recollection may hardly be more available than
that of the cabin boy,who knew where the ships
tea kettle was because he saw it fall
overboard. -Horace Binney
250
96. Pulitzer Prize

• Annual prizes for journalism, literature, and
  music, awarded annually since 1917 by the School
  of Journalism and the Board of Trustees of
  Columbia University. The prizes are supported by
  a bequest from Joseph Pulitzer.

251
96. Pulitzer Prize
John Steinbeck 1940Grapes of Wrath
Margaret Mitchell 1937Gone with the Wind
252
97. quatrain

• A stanza of four lines. Robert Frosts In a
  Disused Graveyard consists of four quatrains, in
  iambic tetrameter, each in a different rhyme
  scheme.

253
97. quatrain
254
98. Realism

• Realism is, in the broadest literary sense,
  fidelity to actuality in its representation a
  term loosely synonymous with VERISIMILITURD and
  in this sense it has been a significant element
  in almost every school of writing.

255
98. Realism
256
99. refrain

• One or more words repeated at intervals in a
  poem, usually at the end of a stanza. The most
  regular is the use of the same line at the close
  of each stanza (as is common in BALLAD).

257
99. refrain
258
100. Renaissance

• This word, meaning rebirth, is commonly applied
  to the period of transition from the medieval to
  the modern world in Western Europe.

259
100. Renaissance

• Commonwealth Interregnum (1649-1660), Early
  Tudor Age (c. 1500-1557),Elizabethan Age
  (1558-1603),Jacobean Age (1603-1625),Caroline
  Age (1625-1642)

260
100. Renaissance
261
The oldest books are only just out to those who
have not read them. -Samuel Butler
262
101. requiem

• A chant embodying a preayer for the repse of the
  dead a dirge a solemn mass beginning as in
  Requiem aeternam dona eis, Donime. In our time
  the word has been broadened to mean almost
  anything sad.

263
101. requiem
264
107. resolution (as in plot)

• The events following the CLIMAX. Synonym for
  FALLING ACTION.
• Shows what is resolved in the end of a work.

265
107. resolution (as in plot)
266
102. rhyme scheme

• The pattern in which RHYME sounds occur in a
  stanza. Rhyme schemes, for the purpose of
  analysis, are usually presented by the assignment
  of the same letter of the alphabet to each
  similar sound in a stanza.

267
102. rhyme scheme
268
103. rhythm (as in poetry)

• The passage of regular or approximately
  equivalent time intervals between definite events
  or the recurrence of specific sound or kinds of
  sound.

269
103. rhythm (as in poetry)
270
104. rising action

• The part of a dramatic PLOT that has to do with
  the COMPLICATION of the action. It begins with
  the EXCITING FORCE, gains the interest and power
  as the opposing groups come into CONFILICT (the
  hero usually being in the ascendancy), and
  proceeds to the CLIMAX.

271
104. rising action (cont.)
272
105. romance

• The term romance has had special meanings as a
  kind of fiction since the early years of the
  novel.

273
105. romance
274
What one knows best iswhat one has learned not
from books but as a result of books, through the
reflections to which they have given
rise. -Chamfort
275
106. Romanticism

• The freeing of the artist and writer from
  restraints and rules and suggesting that phase of
  individualism marked by the encouragement of
  revolutionary political ideas. The term
  designates a literary and philosophical theory

276
106. Romanticism

• that tends to see the individual at the center of
  all life, and it places the individual,
  therefore, at the center of art, making
  literature valuable as an expression of unique
  feelings and particular attitudes.

277
106. RomanticismWilliam Worsdworth
278
round character

• A round character is a major character in a work
  of fiction who encounters conflict and is changed
  by it. Round characters tend to be more fully
  developed and described than flat, or minor
  characters.

279
round characterChief Bromden
280
108. satire

• A work or manner that blends a censorious
  attitude with humor and wit for improving human
  institutions or humanity. In America, Eugene
• the use of irony, sarcasm, ridicule, or the like,
  in exposing, denouncing, or deriding vice, folly,
  etc.

281
108. satire

• ONeill, Edith Wharton, Sinclair Lewis, George
  Kaufman and Moss Hart, John P. Marquand, and
  Joseph Heller have commented satirically on human
  beings and their institutions. Two major types
  FORMAL SATIRE and INDIRECT SATIRE.

282
108. satire
283
109. scansion

• A system for describing conventional rhythms by
  dividing lines into FEET, indicating the
  locations of binomial ACCENTS, and counting the
  syllables.

284
109. scansion
285
110. schema

• The mental connections made in the mindwhat
  controls learning and behavior.
• Psychologically, that which fascinates and
  compels.

286
110. schema (cont.)
Laurence Fishburnefrom Othello
287
The easiest books are generally the best, for
whatever author is obscure and difficult in his
own language certainly does not think
clearly. -Lord Chesterfield
288
111. science fiction

• A form of fantasy in which scientific facts,
  assumptions, or hypotheses form the basis, by
  logical extrapolation, of adventures in the
  future, on other planets in other dimensions in
  time or space, or under new variants of
  scientific law.

289
111. science fiction
Alien vs. Predator
290
111. science fiction
Ray Bradbury
291
112. semantics

• The study of meaning sometimes limited to
  linguistic meaning and sometimes used to
  discriminate between surface and substance.

292
112. semantics
Michel Foucault
293
113. semiotics

• The study of the rules that enable social
  phenomena, considered as SIGNS, to have meaning.
  When semiotics is used in literary criticism, it
  deals not with the simple relation

294
113. semiotics

• between sign and significance, but with literary
  conventions, such as those of prosody, genre, or
  received interpretations of literary devices at
  particular times.

295
113. semiotics
Jacques Derrida
296
114. Sentimentalism

• The term is used in two senses (1) an
  overindulgence in emotion, especially the
  conscious effort to induce emotion in order to
  enjoy it (2) an optimistic overemphasis of the
  goodness of humanity (SENSIBILITY).

297
114. Sentimentalism
298
115. Shakespearean Sonnet

• The ENGLISH SONNET, rhyming abab cdcd efef gg. It
  is called the Shakespearean sonnet because
  Shakespeare was its most distinguished
  practitioner.

299
115. Shakespearean Sonnet
300
Let us answer a book of ink with a book of flesh
and blood. -Ralph Waldo Emerson
301
116. short story

• A short story is a relatively brief fictional
  NARATIVE in PROSE, it may range in length from
  the SHORT-SHORT STORY of 500 words up the the
  long-short story of 12,000 to 15,000 words.

302
116. short story
303
117. sonnet

• A poem almost invariable of fourteen lines and
  following one of several set rhyme schemes. The
  two basic sonnet types are the ITALIAN or
  PETRARCHAN and the ENGLISH or SHAKESPEAREAN.

304
117. sonnet
Petrarch
305
118. stage directions

• Material that an author, editor, prompter,
  performer, or other person adds to a text to
  indicate movement, attitude, manner, style, or
  quality of a speech, character, or action. Some
  of the simplest and oldest are enter, exit or
  exeunt, and aside.

306
118. stage directions
307
119. static character

• A character who changes little if at all. Things
  happen to the static characters without modifying
  their interior selves. Opposite of dynamic.

308
119. static character
Henry Higgins
309
120. stanza

• A recurrent grouping of two or more verse lines
  in terms of length, metrical form, and, often,
  rhyme scheme. However, the division into stanzas
  is sometimes mad according to thought as well as
  form, in which case the stanza is a unit like a
  prose paragraph.

310
120. stanza
311
I dont like to read books they muss up my
mind. -Henry Ford
312
121. stock character

• Conventional character types. A high-thinking
  vengeance-seeking hero, disguised romantic
  heroine, melancholy man, a court fool, and a
  witty clownish servant are examples.

313
121. stock character

• Eliot's Gerontion is a gerontionthe world
  itself is the name of a favorite stock character
  of Greek (and later) comedy the geezer, codger,
  little old man.

314
121. stock character
Tom Robinson in To Kill a Mockingbird
315
122. Stream of Consciousness

• The total range of awareness and emotive-mental
  response of an individual, form the lowest
  prespeech level to the highest fully articulated
  level of rational thought.

316
122. Stream of Consciousness
James Joyce
317
123. Surrealism

• A movement in art emphasizing the expression of
  the imagination as realized in dreams and
  presented without conscious control.

318
123. Surrealism
William Burroughs
319
124. symbolism

• In its broad sense symbolism is the use of one
  object to represent or suggest another or, in
  literature, the serious and extensive use of
  SYMBOLS. Men people in world Nurse
  oppression Chief oppressed peoples McMurphy
  change, hope, awareness Control panel ???
  Ward society Monopoly mens attempt to
  control something

320
124. symbolism
321
125. symposium

• A Greek world meaning a drinking together or
  banquet. The world later came to mean discussion
  by different persons of a single topic or a
  collection of speeches or essays on a given
  subject.

322
125. symposium
323
One always tends to overpraise a long book,
because one has got through it. -E.M. Forster
324
126. synopsis

• A summary of the main points of a composition so
  made as to show the relation of parts to the
  whole an ABSTIACT. A synopsis is usually more
  connected than an outline, because it is likely
  to be given in complete sentences.

325
126. synopsis
326
127. syntax

• Syntax is the rule-governed arrangement of worlds
  in sentences. Syntax seems to be that level of
  language that most distinguishes poetry from
  prose.

327
127. syntax
328
128. tall tale

• A kind of humorous tale, common on the American
  frontier, that uses realistic detail a literal
  manner, and common speech to recount
  extravagantly impossible happenings, usually
  resulting form the superhuman abilities of a
  character.

329
128. tall tale
Pecos Bill and Slue-Foot Sue
330
128. tall tale
John Henry
331
129. Theatre of the Absurd

• A term invented by Martin Esslin for the kind of
  drama that presents a view of the absurdity of
  the human condition by abandoning of usual or
  rational devices and by the used of nonrealistic
  form.

332
129. Theatre of the Absurd

• It expounds and existential ideology and views
  its task as essentially metaphysical. The most
  widely acclaimed play of the school is Samuel
  Becketts Waiting for Godot (1953).

333
129. Theatre of the Absurd
Samuel Beckett
334
130. theme

• A central idea. Both theme and thesis imply a
  subject and a predicate of some kindnot just
  vice in general, say, but some such proposition
  as Vice seems more interesting than virtue but
  turns out to be destructive.

335
130. theme
336
All good books are alike in that they are truer
than if they had really happened. -Ernest
Hemingway
337
131. thesis

• An attitude or position on a problem taken by a
  writer or speaker with the purpose of proving or
  supporting it. The term is also used for the
  paper written to support the thesis.

338
131. thesis
339
132. tone

• Tome has been used for the attitudes toward the
  subject and toward the audience implied in
  literary work. Tone may be formal, informal,
  intimate, solemn, sombre, playful, serious,
  ironic, condescending, or many another possible
  attitudes.

340
132. tone
341
133. tour de force

• A feat of strength and virtuosity. Tour de force
  is used in criticism to refer to works that make
  outstanding demonstrations of skill.

342
133. tour de force
343
134. tragedy

• A term with many meanings and applications. In
  drama it refers to a particular kind of play, the
  definition of which was established by
  Aristotles Poetics, in narrative, particularly
  in Middle Ages, it refers to a body of work
  recounting the fall of a persons of high degree.

344
134. tragedy
345
135. tragic flaw

• The theory that there is a flaw in the tragic
  hero that causes his or her downfall. The
  theory has been revised or refuted by criticism
  that considers the supposed flaw as an integral
  and even defining part to the protagonist's
  character.

346
135. tragic flaw
347
I do not read a book I hold a conversation with
the author. -Elbert Hubbard
348
136. Transcendentalism

• A reliance of the intuition and the conscience, a
  form of idealism a philosophical ROMANTICISM
  reaching America a generation or two

349
136. Transcendentalism

• after it developed in Europe.
  Transcendentalists believed in living close to
  nature and taught the dignity of manual labor and
  in democracy and individualism.

350
136. Transcendentalism
Thomas ColeThe Voyage of Life Youth 1842
351
136. Transcendentalism
Henry David Thoreau
Ralph Waldo Emerson
352
137. trope

• In rhetoric a trope is a FIGURE OF SPEECH
  involving a turn or change of sensethe use of
  a word in a sense other than the literal in this
  sense figures of comparison as well as ironical
  expressions are tropes.

353
137. trope
Example of irony
354
137. trope
Example of irony
355
138. utopia

• A fiction describing an imaginary ideal world.
  DYSTOPIA, meaning bad place, is the term
  applied to unpleasant imaginary places, such as
  those in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and
  George Orwells 1984.

356
138. utopia
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
357
139. verse (as in poetry)

• Used in two senses (1) as a unit of poetry, in
  which case it has the same significance as STANZA
  or LINE and (2) as a name given generally to
  metrical composition.

358
139. verse (as in poetry)
Robert Lowell
Sylvia Plath
359
140. vignette

• A SKETCH or brief narrative characterized by
  precision and delicacy. The term is also applied
  to SHORT-SHORT STORIES less than 500 words in
  length.

360
140. vignette
Sandra Cisneros
361
Books are a narcotic. -Franz Kafka