Sonnets & Poetry (21)
English (Shakespearean) Sonnet, Italian (Petrarchan) Sonnet, Iambic Pentameter, Meter, Iamb, Rhyme Scheme, Volta, Alliteration, Assonance, Consonance, Stanza, Octet, Sestet, Quatrain, Couplet, Enjambment, End rhyme, Full rhyme, Near/Off/Half/Slant Rhyme, Sonnet Sequence/Sonnet Cycle/Corona/Crown of Sonnets, Blank Verse
Other Types of Poems (5)
free verse, villanelle, sestina, terza rima, ballads
Other Poetic Techniques (3)
anaphora, epistrophe, inversion
Figurative Language (16)
figurative language, simile, metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, personification, apostrophe, conceit, hyperbole, pun, double entendre, rhetorical question (=erotema), oxymoron, paradox, synesthesia, denotation, connotation
Irony (4)
irony, verbal irony, situational irony, dramatic irony
Narration (5)
narration, first person narration, third person limited narration, third person omniscient narration, stream of consciousness
Writing Style (9)
style, voice, diction, syntax, tone, mood, dialect, colloquialism, vernacular
Character (13)
characterization, direct characterization, indirect characterization, dynamic character, static character, round character, flat character, foil, protagonist, antagonist, tragic hero, antihero
Plot & Events (10)
Plot, exposition, inciting action, rising action, climax, denouement (resolution), flashback, foreshadowing, internal conflict, external conflict,
Other Literary Terms from First Semester (4)
motif, symbol, epigraph, epiphany
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Midyear Exam Literary Vocabulary
Post clear, thorough definitions & clear, appropriate examples (offer an explanation if necessary) by pumpkin time January 13.
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23 comments:
Terri Moody
Characterization- he method used by a writer to develop a character. The method includes (1) showing the character's appearance, (2) displaying the character's actions, (3) revealing the character's thoughts, (4) letting the character speak, and (5) getting the reactions of others.
Direct Characterization- the writer makes direct statements about a character's personality and tells what the character is like.
Indirect characterization- the writer reveals information about a character and his personality through that character's thoughts, words, and actions, along with how other characters respond to that character, including what they think and say about him.
Dynamic character- omeone who undergoes an important, internal change because of the action in the plot. Ebenezer Scrooge, from Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, is a classic example. When we first meet him, he is mean, bitter, and avaricious. Through his experiences with the three ghosts, he becomes generous, kind, and beloved.
Static character- a literary character who remains basically unchanged throughout a work
PERSONIFICATION: the attribution of a personal nature or character to inanimate objects or abstract notions, esp. as a rhetorical figure
Ex: "Flowers danced about the lawn."
http://dictionary.reference.com/
APOSTROPHE: the direct address of an absent or imaginary person or of a personified abstraction, especially as a digression in the course of a speech or composition.
Ex. “O Death, where is thy sting?”
http://dictionary.reference.com/
CONCEIT:
Conceit Poetry Type is where an image or metaphor likens one thing to something else that is seemingly very different. Poets often use a far-fetched simile or metaphor in this style. An example of a conceit can be found in Shakespeare's Sonnet 18
Ex: "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?".
http://www.types-of-poetry.org.uk/14-conceit-poetry-type.htm
HYPERBOLE: obvious and intentional exaggeration and/or an extravagant statement or figure of speech not intended to be taken literally
Ex: This book weighs a ton
http://dictionary.reference.com/
PUN: a play on words, sometimes on different senses of the same word and sometimes on the similar sense or sound of different words.
Ex:“And how many hours a day did you do lessons?” said Alice, in a hurry to change the subject.
“Ten hours the first day,” said the Mock Turtle, “nine the next, and so on.”
“What a curious plan!” exclaimed Alice.
“That's the reason they're called lessons,” the Gryphon remarked: “because they lessen from day to day.”
http://dictionary.reference.com/
Stream of Consciousness: A literary genre that reveals a character's thoughts and feeling as they develop by means of a long soliloquy.
The continuous flow of ideas and feelings that constitute an individual's conscious experience.
"Such fools we all are, she thought, crossing Victoria Street. For Heaven only knows why one loves it so, how one sees it so, making it up, building it round one, tumbling it, creating it every moment afresh; but the veriest frumps, the most dejected of miseries sitting on doorsteps (drink their downfall) do the same; can't be dealt with, she felt positive, by Acts of Parliament for that very reason: they love life. In people's eyes, in the swing, tramp, trudge; in the bellow and the uproar; the carriages, motor cars, omnibuses, vans, sandwich men shuffling and swinging; brass bands; barrel organs; in the triumph and the jingle and the strange high singing of some aeroplane overhead was what she loved; life; London; this moment of June."
-Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
Style: The manner of expression of a particular writer, produced by choice of words, grammatical structures, use of literary devices, and all the possible parts of language use.
Some general styles might include scientific, ornate, plain, emotive.
http://www.virtualsalt.com/litterms.htm
Voice: The voice that conveys the poem's tone; its implied attitude toward its subject.
For example, by "viewing" a character's thought processes, by reading a letter written for someone, by a retelling of a character's experiences, etc
http://www.roanestate.edu/owl&writingcenter/OWL/ElementsLit.html
Diction: Word choice and usage as determined by considerations of audience and purpose.
Examples: Formal, Informal
http://www.roanestate.edu/owl&writingcenter/OWL/ElementsLit.html
Syntax--Sentence structure and word order.
http://www.roanestate.edu/owl&writingcenter/OWL/ElementsLit.html
Listen to Yoda talk in Star Wars. “Named must your fear be before banish it you can.”
Enjambment: the continuation of a sentence form one line or couplet into the next with no pause.
(from thefreedictonary.com)
Example: I am not prone to weeping, as our sex
Commonly are; the want of which vain dew
Perchance shall dry your pities; but I have
That honourable grief lodged here which burns
Worse than tears drown.
(From Shakespeare’s The Winter Tale)
End Rhyme: A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds in two or more words.
Example: There was an old man from Peru,
Who dreamt he was eating his shoe.
Full Rhyme: Rhyme where the stressed vowels and following consonants and vowels are identical, but the consonants preceding the rhyming vowels are different.
Example: chain, brain; soul, pole.
Near/Off/Half/Slant Rhyme: two words that have only their final consonant sounds and no preceding vowel or consonant sounds in common
(From dictionary.com)
Example: Stopped, wept.
Protagonist: A main character of a literary work.
Example: Holden Caulfield from Catcher in the Rye.
Antagonist: The principal character in opposition to the protagonist or hero.
Example: Grendel from Beowulf.
Blank Verse
Defn:
n. Unrhymed verse, esp. the unrhymed iambic pentameter most frequently used in English dramatic, epic, and reflective verse.
Example:
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
-Macbeth
Free Verse
Defn:
n. Verse composed of variable, usually unrhymed lines having no fixed metrical pattern.
Example:
Love the earth and sun and the animals,
despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks,
stand up for the stupid and crazy,
devote your income and labor to others,
hate tyrants, argue not concerning God,
have patience and indulgence toward the people,
take off your hat to nothing known or unknown,
or to any man or number of men,
go freely with powerful uneducated persons,
and with the young, and with the mothers or families,
re-examine all you have been told in school or church or in any book,
and dismiss whatever insults your own soul;
and your very flesh shall be a great poem....
-Walt Whitman
Villanelle
Defn:
n. A 19-line poem of fixed form consisting of five tercets and a final quatrain on two rhymes, with the first and third lines of the first tercet repeated alternately as a refrain closing the succeeding stanzas and joined as the final couplet of the quatrain.
Example:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead,
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head)
The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary darkness gallops in.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head).
God topples from the sky, hell’s fires fade:
Exit seraphim and enter Satan’s men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
I fancied you’d return the way you said.
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head).
I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head).
-Sylvia Plath
Sestina
Defn:
a poem of six six-line stanzas and a three-line envoy, originally without rhyme, in which each stanza repeats the end words of the lines of the first stanza, but in different order, the envoy using the six words again, three in the middle of the lines and three at the end.
Example:
Here in this bleak city of Rochester,
Where there are twenty-seven words for "snow,"
Not all of them polite, the wayward mind
Basks in some Yucatan of its own making,
Some coppery, sleek lagoon, or cinnamon island
Alive with lemon tints and burnished natives,
And O that we were there. But here the natives
Of this grey, sunless city of Rochester
Have sown whole mines of salt about their land
(Bare ruined Carthage that it is) while snow
Comes down as if The Flood were in the making.
Yet on that ocean Marvell called the mind
An ark sets forth which is itself the mind,
Bound for some pungent green, some shore whose natives
Blend coriander, cayenne, mint in making
Roasts that would gladden the Earl of Rochester
With sinfulness, and melt a polar snow.
It might be well to remember that an island
Was blessed heaven once, more than an island,
The grand, utopian dream of a noble mind.
In that kind climate the mere thought of snow
Was but a wedding cake; the youthful natives,
Unable to conceive of Rochester,
Made love, and were acrobatic in the making.
Dream as we may, there is far more to making
Do than some wistful reverie of an island,
Especially now when hope lies with the Rochester
Gas and Electric Co., which doesn't mind
Such profitable weather, while the natives
Sink, like Pompeians, under a world of snow.
The one thing indisputable here is snow,
The single verity of heaven's making,
Deeply indifferent to the dreams of the natives,
And the torn hoarding-posters of some island.
Under our igloo skies the frozen mind
Holds to one truth: it is grey, and called Rochester.
No island fantasy survives Rochester,
Where to the natives destiny is snow
That is neither to our mind nor of our making.
-Anthony Hecht
Terza Rima
Defn: an Italian form of iambic verse consisting of eleven-syllable lines arranged in tercets, the middle line of each tercet rhyming with the first and last lines of the following tercet.
Example:
I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.
I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,
But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height
One luminary clock against the sky
Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.
-Robert Frost
Literary Vocabulary
Round Character-A round character is a term coined by E.M. Forster and is the direct opposite of a flat character. A round character is extremely realistic, behaving and speaking in a "real life" manner. The character is complex and increases in complexity throughout the story. A round character is capable of contradiction and change with evidence of emotional and psychological development.
Example
Bilbo Baggins, Tolkien, J.R.R. The Lord of the Rings.
http://narrative.georgetown.edu/wiki/index.php/Round_character
Flat Character-Coined by E.M. Forster, a flat character is a term referring to a character who boasts no mental or emotional development. Much like a stock character, a flat character exhibits strong defining characteristics, speech habits, and the like, but still falls short of the complexity of a round character. http://narrative.georgetown.edu/wiki/index.php/Flat_character
Example: Horatio from Hamlet (http://www.123helpme.com/preview.asp?id=19192)
Internal conflict- In literature and drama, a struggle which takes place in the protagonist's mind and through which the character reaches a new understanding or dynamic change.
Example: The Invisible Man, Beowulf, Hamlet, Macbeth
External Conflict- In literature, it is a struggle between the protagonist and another character against nature or some outside force.
Example: Man vs. Man
Man vs. Society
Man vs. Nature
Man vs. Machine
Man vs. Time
TRAGIC HERO: a privileged, exalted character of high repute, who, by virtue of a tragic flaw and fate, suffers a fall from glory into suffering
ex. Hamlet, Romeo
(novella.mhhc.com)
ANTIHERO: a central character in a work of literature who lacks traditional qualities such as courage, physical prowess, and fortitude. Typically they distrust conventional values and are unable to commit themselves to any ideals. Generally, they feel helpless in a world over which they have no control. Usually they accept, and often celebrate, their positions as social outcasts.
ex. Holden Caulfield
(www.novelguide.com)
PLOT: the pattern of events or main story in a narrative or drama
(www.thefreedictionary.com)
EXPOSITON: background information regarding the setting, characters, plot
(www.roanestate.com)
INCITING ACTION: the event or character that triggers a conflict in a story
RISING ACTION: a series of events that builds from the conflict. Begins with inciting force and ends with the climax
(www.orangeusd.k12.ca.us)
Denotation:
A direct specific meaning as distinct from an implied or associated idea.
-Example- Snake: the reptile
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/denotation
Connotation:
The suggesting of a meaning by a word apart from the thing it explicitly names or describes.
-Example- Snake: the lack of reliability and honesty in a person.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Connotation
Irony:
The expression of meaning through the use of language which normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous effect
-Example- Someone winning the lottery and dying the next day.
http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/irony?view=uk
Verbal Irony:
A disparity of expression and intention: when a speaker says one thing but means another, or when a literal meaning is contrary to its intended effect.
-Example- Sarcasm; “Oh Great” when something bad happens.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony#Verbal_irony
Situational Irony:
The disparity of intention and result: when the result of an action is contrary to the desired or expected effect.
-Example- In Macbeth, The witches make an accurate prediction, but Macbeth misinterprets these predictions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony#Situational_irony
Dramatic Irony:
A disparity of expression and awareness: when words and actions possess a significance that the listener or audience understands, but the speaker or character does not.
-Example- In Romeo and Juliet, When Romeo finds Juliet asleep, he assumes her to be dead and kills himself. Upon awakening to find her dead lover beside her, Juliet then kills herself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony#Dramatic_irony
figurative language!
Definition: speech or writing that departs from literal meaning in order to achieve a special effect or meaning, speech or writing employing figures of speech
Examples: similes, metaphors, metonymy, synecdoche.
Simile!
Definition: A figure of speech in which two essentially unlike things are compared, often in a phrase introduced by like or as.
Example: “The realization hit me like a bucket of cold water.”
Metaphor!
Definition:A figure of speech in which a word or phrase that ordinarily designates one thing is used to designate another, thus making an implicit comparison, (without using like/as)
Example:"a sea of troubles"
Metonymy!
Definition:A figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for another with which it is closely associated.
Example: "the sword" used for "military power".
Synecdoche!
Definition: a figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole or the whole for a part, the special for the general or the general for the special.
Example: "ten sails" used for "ten ships"
all definitions/examples from dictionary.com
Narration : a collection of events that tells a story, which may be true or not, placed in a particular order and recounted through either telling or writing
Example: Lord of the Flies
Source: http://www.uncp.edu/home/canada/work/allam/general/glossary.htm#n
First person Narration : narrative told by a character involved in the story. When the narrator uses "I" and describes his or her own experience, thoughts, or feelings, the work is said to be in the first person.
Example:
I resolved, in the depth of my heart, that I would be most moderate … I told her all the story of my sad childhood. Exhausted by emotion, my language was more subdued than it generally was when it developed that sad theme; and mindful of Helen’s warnings against the indulgence of resentment, I infused into the narrative far less of gall and wormwood than ordinary. Thus restrained and simplified, it sounded more credible: I felt as I went on that Miss Temple fully believed me.
-Jane Eyre
Source: http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Terms/first.html
Third person limited narration : a narrative mode in which the reader experiences the story through the senses and thoughts of just one character.
Example: Harry Potter
Source: http://wapedia.mobi/en/Third-person_limited_narrative
Third person omniscient narration : this is a common form of third-person narration in which the teller of the tale, who often appears to speak with the voice of the author himself, assumes an omniscient (all-knowing) perspective on the story being told: diving into private thoughts, narrating secret or hidden events, jumping between spaces and times. Of course, the omniscient narrator does not therefore tell the reader or viewer everything, at least not until the moment of greatest effect. In other words, the hermeneutic code is still very much in play throughout such narrations.
Example:
"And what right did he have to look at him like that?" thought Anna, recalling how Vronsky and looked at Alexei Alexandrovich.
But many other points of view are given equal importance:
The house was big, old, and Levin, though he lived alone, heated and occupied all of it. He knew that it was even wrong and contrary to his new plans, but this house was a whole world for Levin. It was the world in which his father and mother had lived and died. They had lived a life which for Levin seemed the ideal of all perfection and which he dreamed of renewing with his wife, with his family.
Source:
http://www.cla.purdue.edu/english/theory/narratology/terms/omniscient.html
http://fictionwriting.about.com/od/glossary/g/omniscient.htm
Epigraph : a quotation at the beginning of a poem, short story, book chapter, or other piece of literature. The epigraph introduces or refers to the larger themes of the piece: in a way, it may help draw the reader's attention to these ideas, setting the stage. The epigraph, unlike quotations that occur within a work, does not require quotation marks.
Example:
The Cattle are lowing,
The Baby awakes.
But Little Lord Jesus
No crying He makes.
– Slaughterhouse-Five
Source: http://fictionwriting.about.com/od/glossary/g/epigraph.htm
Epiphany : A sudden manifestation of the essence or meaning of something. A comprehension or perception of reality by means of a sudden intuitive realization
Example: The radiance of which he speaks in the scholastic QUIDDITAS, the WHATNESS of a thing. This supreme quality is felt by the artist when the esthetic image is first conceived in his imagination. The mind in that mysterious instant Shelley likened beautifully to a fading coal. The instant wherein that supreme quality of beauty, the clear radiance of the esthetic image, is apprehended luminously by the mind which has been arrested by its wholeness and fascinated by its harmony is the luminous silent stasis of esthetic pleasure, a spiritual state very like to that cardiac condition which the Italian physiologist Luigi Galvani, using a phrase almost as beautiful as Shelley's, called the enchantment of the heart.
-A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Source: http://www.apurnell.com/LitTerms.htm
Stanza: two or more lines of poetry that together form one of the divisions of a poem. The stanzas of a poem are usually of the same length and follow the same pattern of meter and rhyme and are used like paragraphs in a story. (types-of-poetry.org.uk)
Example:
i shall imagine life
is not worth dying,if
(and when)roses complain
their beauties are in vain
but though mankind persuades
itself that every weed's
a rose,roses(you feel
certain)will only smile
- e.e. cummings, “snow”
This poem is composed of two stanzas, each consisting of four lines.
Octet: A collection of eight lines in a poem, with or without a relationship of rhyme or rhythm.
Example: An Italian sonnet traditionally begins with an octet.
Sestet: A collection of six lines in a poem, with or without a relationship of rhyme or rhythm.
Example: An Italian sonnet traditionally ends with a sestet.
Quatrain: A poem or stanza within a poem that consists of four lines.
Example:
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
From William Blake's "The Tyger"
(knowledgerush.com)
Couplet: Two successive lines of poetry which may or may not rhyme, but which often do rhyme and are of the same length.
Example:
“And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she believed with false compare.”
From Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130
Ballad: Any light, simple song, esp. one of sentimental or romantic character, having two or more stanzas all sung to the same melody. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ballad
Example of Ballad Poems – Excerpt
The Mermaid by Unknown author
Oh the ocean waves may roll,
And the stormy winds may blow,
While we poor sailors go skipping aloft
And the land lubbers lay down below, below, below
And the land lubbers lay down below.
www.types-of-poetry.org.uk/05-ballad-poems.htm
Anaphora: The deliberate repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of several successive verses, clauses, or paragraphs. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/anaphora
For example: "We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills" (Winston S. Churchill). http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/anaphora
Epistrophe: The repetition of a word or words at the end of two or more successive verses, clauses, or sentences. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/epistrophe
For example: “I should do Brutus wrong, and Cassius wrong. …” http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/epistrophe
Inversion: Any change from a basic word order or syntactic sequence, as in the placement of a subject after an auxiliary verb in a question or after the verb in an exclamation. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/inversion
For example: “When will you go?” and “How beautiful is the rose!” http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/inversion
Terri Moody
• Characterization- the method used by a writer to develop a character. The method includes (1) showing the character's appearance, (2) displaying the character's actions, (3) revealing the character's thoughts, (4) letting the character speak, and (5) getting the reactions of others.
Example: In Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, Huck’s uses of dialect, running away, his guardian’s feelings about him, and Jim’s response to him all comprises Twain’s characterization of his protagonist.
• Direct Characterization- the writer makes direct statements about a character's personality and tells what the character is like.
Example: "Eliza…was headstrong and selfish." A quote from Jane Eyre, in which Bronte uses Jane to give direct characterization to Eliza.
• Indirect characterization- the writer reveals information about a character and his personality through that character's thoughts, words, and actions, along with how other characters respond to that character, including what they think and say about him.
Example: In Slaughterhouse Five, the way that Billy interacts with the actress Montana might suggest issues about his personal fantasies and frustration he has with married life.
• Dynamic character- someone who undergoes an important, internal change because of the action in the plot.
Example: Ebenezer Scrooge, from Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, is a classic example. When we first meet him, he is mean, bitter, and avaricious. Through his experiences with the three ghosts, he becomes generous, kind, and beloved.
• Static character- a literary character that remains basically unchanged throughout a work.
Example: In Marina series, the White Witch is a static character. That is she is cruel and evil until she dies.
• http://quizlet.com/193298/les-mes-literary-term-test-flash-cards/
• http://www.enotes.com/literary-terms/characterization
• http://www.cliffsnotes.com/WileyCDA/Section/What-is-a-dynamic-character-What-is-a-static-character-How-are-they-different-.id-305408,articleId-7986.html
• http://www.fictionfactor.com/guests/characterization.html
• http://www.shmoop.com/jane-eyre/characterization.html
Brendan Shay
Rhyme Scheme
the pattern of rhymes used in a poem, usually marked by letters to symbolize correspondences, as rhyme royal,
Abbacc etc…
Volta
The place at which a distinct turn of thought occurs. The term is most commonly used for the characteristic transition point in a sonnet, as between the octave and sestet of a Petrarchan sonnet.
Ex. Petrarchan sonet….
First eeight lines
a b b a a b b a
Last six lines with (volta)
c d c d c d
c d d c d c
c d e c d e
c d e c e d
c d c e d c
Ex:
So here an example of a sonet with a volta.
"London, 1802"
Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart;
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life's common way,
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.
Alliteration
The repetition of the same sounds or of the same kinds of sounds at the beginning of words or in stressed syllables, as in "on scrolls of silver snowy sentences" (Hart Crane). Modern alliteration is predominantly consonantal; certain literary traditions, such as Old English verse, also alliterate using vowel sounds.
Ex:
"Dewdrops Dancing Down Daisies" by Paul Mc Cann
Don't delay dawns disarming display .
Dusk demands daylight .
Dewdrops dwell delicately
drawing dazzling delight .
Dewdrops dilute daisies domain.
Distinguished debutantes . Diamonds defray delivered
daylights distilled daisy dance .
Assonance
he repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds in the stressed syllables (and sometimes in the following unstressed syllables) of neighbouring words; it is distinct from rhyme in that the consonants differ although the vowels or diphthongs match: sweet dreams, hit or miss.
Ex: Dead in the middle of little Italy, little did we know that we riddled two middle men who didn't do diddily
Consonance
the repetition of identical or similar consonants in neighbouring words whose vowel sounds are different (e.g. coming home, hot foot). The term is most commonly used, though, for a special case of such repetition in which the words are identical except for the stressed vowel sound (group/grope, middle/muddle, wonder/wander)
Ex:watch her pitcher teach her orchard features
Sources
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Can_you_give_five_examples_of_alliteration
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Can_you_give_me_at_least_10_different_examples_for_assonance
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_are_the_examples_of_consonance
http://www.sonnets.org/basicforms.htm
Double Entendre: a word or expression used in a given context so that it can be understood in two ways, esp. when one meaning is risqué.
In English: A word used so that it has two meanings, one that is indelicate.
Example: Something Went Wrong in Jet Crash, Experts Say
Source: Dictionary.com
Rhetorical Question (erotema): a question asked solely to produce an effect or to make an assertion and not to elicit a reply.
In English: A question used to make a point, not to get an answer.
Example: "Why are you so stupid?"
Source: Dictionary.com
Oxymoron: a figure of speech by which a locution produces an incongruous, seemingly self-contradictory effect.
In English: A phrase that contradicts itself, ex. “cruel kindness”
Example: The silence was deafening.
Source: Dictionary.com
Paradox: any person, thing, or situation exhibiting an apparently contradictory nature.
In English: Something that seems to contradict itself
Example: "War is peace." "Freedom is slavery.” "Ignorance is strength."
Source: Dictionary.com
Synesthesia: A condition in which one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another, as when the hearing of a sound produces the visualization of a color.
In English: When one sense makes you think of something with another sense.
Example: The smell of apple pie made him think of home.
Source: Dictionary.com
Motif: a recurring subject, theme, idea, etc., esp. in a literary, artistic, or musical work.
In English: Something that keeps coming up throughout a story or song.
Example: Love, colors, music, animals, etc.
Source: Dictionary.com
H. Ono
English (Shakespearean) Sonnet:
A sonnet is a fourteen-line poem in iambic pentameter with a carefully patterned rhyme scheme. The Shakespearean Sonnet consists of three quatrains and a couplet--that is, it rhymes abab cdcd efef gg. (http://www.utm.edu/departments/english/everett/sonnet.htm)
Ex. (http://www.springfield.k12.il.us/schools/springfield/eliz/Sonnets.html)
So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse, (A)
And found such faire assistance in my verse, (B)
As every Alien pen hath got my use, (A)
And under thee their poesy disperse. (B)
Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to sing, (C)
And heavy ignorance aloft to flie, (D)
Have added feathers to the learned's wing, (C)
And given grace a double majestie. (D)
Yet be most proud of that which I compile, (E)
Whose influence is thine and born of thee, (F)
In others'works thou dost but mend the style (E)
And arts with thy sweet graces graced be. (F)
But thou art all my art, and dost advance (G)
As high as learning my rude ignorance. (G)
Italian (Petrarchan) Sonnet:
The Italian sonnet is divided into two sections by two different groups of rhyming sounds. The first 8 lines is called the octave and rhymes: (http://www.sonnets.org/basicforms.htm)
a b b a a b b a
The remaining 6 lines is called the sestet and can have either two or three rhyming sounds, arranged in a variety of ways:
c d c d c d
c d d c d c
c d e c d e
c d e c e d
c d c e d c
The exact pattern of sestet rhymes (unlike the octave pattern) is flexible. In strict practice, the one thing that is to be avoided in the sestet is ending with a couplet (dd or ee)
Ex.
"London, 1802"
Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart;
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life's common way,
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.
H. Ono
Iambic Pentameter:
The most common meter in English verse. It consists of a line ten syllables long that is accented on every second beat. (dictionary.com)
Ex.
Paradise Lost
by
John Milton
Chapter 1 - Book 1
Of Man's first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste
Brought death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,
Sing, Heavenly Muse, that, on the secret top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That shepherd who first taught the chosen seed
In the beginning how the heavens and earth
Rose out of Chaos: or, if Sion hill
Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook that flowed
Fast by the oracle of God, I thence
Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song,
That with no middle flight intends to soar
(http://www.types-of-poetry.org.uk/70-iambic-pentameter.htm)
Meter:
The meter in poetry involves exact arrangements of syllables into repeated patterns called feet within a line. Meters are regularized rhythms, an arrangement of language in which the accents occur at apparently equal intervals in time. Each repeated unit of meter is called a foot.
The number of metrical feet in a line are described as follows:
Dimeter — two feet
Trimeter — three feet
Tetrameter — four feet
Pentameter — five feet
Hexameter — six feet
Heptameter — seven feet
Octameter — eight feet
The meter in poetry involves the exact arrangements of syllables into repeated patterns called feet within a line. (http://www.types-of-poetry.org.uk/73-meter-literary-term.htm)
Ex.
Of Man's first disobedience (da – dum, da – dum)
(http://www.types-of-poetry.org.uk/70-iambic-pentameter.htm)
Iamb:
An unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one (http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0072405228/student_view0/poetic_glossary.html#foot)
Ex.
to-DAY
Sonnet Sequence/Sonnet Cycle/Corona/Crown of Sonnets:
a group of sonnets composed by one poet and having a unifying theme or subject.
Ex.
Shakespears Sonnets 1 to 126 are addressed to or concern a young man; Sonnets 127-152 are addressed to or concern a dark lady (dark in the sense of her hair, her facial features, and her character), and Sonnets 153-154 are fairly free adaptations of two classical Greek poems. (http://records.viu.ca/~Johnstoi/eng366/sonnets.htm)
Tone: the writer's attitude toward the material and/or readers.
Ex.Tone may be playful, formal, intimate, angry, serious, ironic, outraged, baffled, tender, serene, depressed, etc.
taken from: http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/lit_term.html
Mood: The atmosphere or emotional condition created by the piece, within the setting. Mood refers to the general sense or feeling which the reader is supposed to get from the text; it does not, as a literary element, refer to the author’s or characters’ state of mind
Ex. The mood of Macbeth is dark, murky and mysterious, creating a sense of fear and uncertainty.
taken from: http://mrbraiman.home.att.net/lit.htm
Dialect - the language of a particular district, class, or group of persons. It encompasses the sounds, grammar, and diction employed by a specific people as distinguished from other persons either geographically or socially. Dialect, as a major technique of characterization, is the use by persons in a narrative of distinct varieties of language to indicate a person’s social or geographical status, and is used by authors to give an illusion of reality to fictional characters. It is sometimes used to differentiate between characters.
Ex. Mark Twain used dialect in his Huckleberry Finn to differentiate between characters, such as when Huck and Jim are discussing Jim’s freedom:
Jim: “We’s safe, Huck, we’s safe! Jump up and crack yo’ heels! Dat’s de good ole Cairo at las’, I jis knows it!”
Huck: “I’ll take the canoe and go see, Jim. It mightn’t be, you know.”
taken from: http://www.enotes.com/literary-terms/dialect
Colloquialism - a word or phrase used in an easy, informal style of writing or speaking. It is usually more appropriate in speech than formal writing. Colloquialisms appear often in literature since they provide a sense of actual conversation and use the pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary of everyday speech.
Ex. From Huckleberry Finn:
-“You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, but that ain’t no matter.”
Taken from: http://www.enotes.com/literary-terms/colloquialism
*Vernacular: The standard native language of a country or locality.
Ex. The vernaculars of New York City.
Taken from: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/vernacular
Climax- when the conflict of the plot is resolved; the "turning point" of the story
EX. Jane Eyre, when Jane discovers Bertha.
Denouement (resolution)-series of events that follow the climax, serves as the conclusion, releases tension and anxiety
EX. Once Jane discovers Bertha, she re-evaluates her life and leaves Rochester
Flashback- an interruption in a sequence of events that allows the writer to present past events during a current narrative in order to provide the reader with background information
EX. Slaughter House Five- pretty much throughout the story
Foreshadowing- provides vague advance indications of things to come
EX. In J.E. the servents are always very secretive and whisper behind Jane's back, we later discover they knew about Bertha all along. Their secretive actions make us curious about what they know before we discover Rochester's secret.
First let me say that you guys did a great job. I'm impressed with what you found, with your paraphrases, and with your examples.
Foil & symbol fell through the cracks. Here they are.
Foil: a foil is a character used by an author to contrast with another character (usually the protagonist), e.g. Fortinbras (fighting for worthless land) and Laertes ("I would cut his throat i' the church") are foils for Hamlet (who is angry at himself for not taking decisive action).
Symbol: a physical object that represents a concept. In works of literature the concepts represented are complex and contextual, e.g. the fires in _Wide Sargasso Sea_ & _Jane Eyre_.
Here are a few more notes...
Voice: the voice includes tone (the writers attitude) but also encompasses the writers style (syntax, diction, & characteristic techniques)
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Enjambment: the continuation of a sentence *FROM* one line or couplet into the next with no pause. :-)
Near/Off/Half/Slant Rhyme: {if the words appear at the end of a line & almost rhyme you can call it slant rhyme -- or half rhyme or near rhyme or off rhyme.}
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Villanelle
Stephen Dedalus writes a villanelle in _A Portrait_.
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Round character: (the following sentences from the end of the definition Marissa found are excellent.)
"The character is complex and increases in complexity throughout the story. A round character is capable of contradiction and change with evidence of emotional and psychological development."
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Anti-hero
Billy Pilgrim is definitely an anti-hero. It could be argued that many of the other protagonists from the novels we've studied this year are also anti-heroes.
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Plot: the key word is "pattern". Not just what happens but the "pattern" of what happens.
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Inciting action: (Invisible Man)
An example of inciting action -- what starts the main conflict -- occurs in _Invisible Man_ when IM takes Mr. Norton to the Golden Day & is then kicked out of the college by Bledsoe. This "incites" the NYC scenes & eventually IM's first major existential crisis when his identity is questioned at the hospital after the paint factory explosion.
***
Ballad
Ballads also typically have an A-B-C-B rhyme scheme & alternating lines of 4 stressed syllables (8 total syllables) & 3 stressed syllables (six total syllables)
All in a hot and copper sky
The bloody Sun, at noon,
Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the Moon.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, lines 111 – 114
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Inversion {note} in poetry inversion occurs for musical purposes (to maintain a rhythm or create a rhyme) or for other artistic reasons (emphasis, delay, etc.)
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Double entendre:
"Include Your Children When Baking Cookies" (Yahoo Answers) can be read two ways, no? That's a double entendre.
Although, some say that a double entendre's second meaning must be sexual. Shakespeare's plays are filled with double entendres. Her Hamlet is asking his so-called friends if they've had good fortune lately. Fortune (or lady luck) is *personified* in the dialogue:
HAMLET
Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of her
favors?
GUILDENSTERN
Faith, her privates we.
GUILDENSTERN
Yes, we’re the privates in her army.
HAMLET
In the secret parts of Fortune? Oh, most true. She
is a strumpet.
"Something went wrong in jet crash" is an example of "understatement" not double entendre. Unless "jet crash" is new slang.
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Synesthesia in literature is often like this: The sunrise was a symphony of color. (This, of course, is also a metaphor.)
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Climax: not when the conflict is resolved but when the decisive moment when the story turns.
{The resolution is the denouement. The last chapter of _Jane Eyre_ serves this function, as does the Epilogue of _Invisible Man_, no?
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