Literary Criticism Terms (D)

Dactylic Trimeter

Three feet per line of a long syllable followed by two short syllables.

Dandyism

A literary style used by the English and French Decadent writers of the last quarter of the nineteenth century. The term is derived from a word that means someone who gives exaggeratedly fastidious attention to dress and appearance. It is marked by excessively refined emotion and preciosity of language.

Darwinism

Thought affected by the research and theories of Charles Darwin, especially The Origin of Species, which advances the idea of the evolution of biological species by a process of selection.

Dead Metaphor

A figure of speech used so long that it is now taken in its denotative sense only, without the conscious comparison or analogy to a physical object once conveyed.

Débat

A type of composition usually in verse — highly popular in the Middle Ages — and in which two contestants — frequently allegorical —debate a topic and refer it to a judge. May reflect the influence of the "pastoral contest" in Theocritus and Virgil. It was particularly popular in France, where the subjects ranged over most human interests, such as theology, morality, politics, courtly love, and social questions. In England, it tended to be religious and moralistic. The best English example is The Owl and the Nightingale.

Decadents

A group of late nineteenth — and early twentieth-century writers — principally in France but also elsewhere in Europe and America — who held that art was superior to nature and that the finest beauty was that of dying or decaying things. In both their lives and their art, they attacked the moral and social standards of their time.

Della Cruscans

A late-eighteenth-century group of poets, including Robert Merry, Hannah Cowley, and Hester Thrale. Merry, having belonged to the Della Crusca academy in Florence, used "Della Crusca" as a pen name. The group enjoyed short-lived success between 1785 and 1790, until the affectations of their writing provoked two mordant satires by William Gifford: The Baviad in 1791 and The Maeviad in 1795. This group was also mocked in Southey's "Amatory Poems of Abel Shufflebottom."

Dénouement

Literally, "unknotting." The final unraveling of a plot; the solution of a mystery; an explanation or outcome. This implies an ingenious untying of the knot of an intrigue, involving not only a satisfactory outcome of the main situation but an explanation of all the secrets and misunderstandings connected with the plot complication. May apply to both tragedy and comedy although the common name for a tragic one is a catastrophe. The final scene of Shakespeare's Cymbeline is a striking example of how clever and involved a dramatic denouement may be: exposure of villain, clearing up of mistaken identities and disguises, reuniting of father and children, and reuniting of husband and wife. Sometimes used as a synonym for falling action.

Deus Ex Machina

The employment of some unexpected and improbable incident to make things turn out right, In the ancient Greek theater, when gods appeared, they were lowered from the "machine", or structure, above the stage. Such abrupt but timely appearance of a god — when used to extricate characters from a situation so perplexing that the solution seemed beyond mortal powers — was referred to in Latin as this. The term now characterizes any device whereby an author solves a difficult situation by a forced invention.

Dialect

When the speech of two groups or of two persons representing two groups both speaking the same "language" exhibits very marked differences, the groups or persons are said to speak different forms of this term (a personal version of a language is sometimes called an "idiolect"). If the differences are very slight, they may be said to represent "subdialects" rather than this term. If the differences are so great that the speakers cannot understand one another, they may speak different languages.

Digressions

The insertion of material often not closely related to the subject in a work. In a well-knit plot, one of these violates unity. In the familiar essay, it is a standard device, and it was sometimes used in the epic.

Dirge

A wailing song sung at a funeral or in commemoration of death; a short lyric of lamentation.

Discordia Concors

A term used by Samuel Johnson for "a combination of dissimilar images or discovery of occult resemblances in things apparently unlike" in metaphysical poetry. It translates from Latin to mean "harmony in discord".

Dissonance

Harsh and inharmonious sounds; a marked breaking of the music of poetry, which may be intentional, as it often is in Browning and Hardy.

Dissonance Rhyme

No literary definition. Potentially references the rhyme of harsh and inharmonious words.

Doctrinaire

An adjective applied to one whose attitude is controlled by preconception and who disregards other points of view as well as practical considerations. This view is likely to be theoretical, dogmatic, narrow, and one-sided, as compared with practical and broad-minded. Criticism such as Samuel Johnson's may be this because it is controlled by a limited code of critical doctrines. Literature itself may be called this term when written, like some of Carlyle's books, to demonstrate such a doctrine as "hero-worship" or the "gospel of work"; or like a novel of William Godwin's, to preach a social doctrine. Politically, the word was applied to the constitutional royalists in France after 1815.

Documentary Novel

A form of fiction in which there is an elaborate piling up of factual data frequently including such materials as newspaper articles, popular songs, legal reports, and trial transcripts. The term was used by F. O. Matthiessen to characterize the massive amount of factual detail used in the novels of Theodore Dreiser (usually written by naturalistic novelists).

Dolce Stil Nuovo

The "sweet new style" (called so in Dante's Purgatory) that flourished among lyric poets in certain romance languages during the thirteenth century, with a premium on lucidity and complex musicality. This style, which contributed to Dante's adoption of the Tuscan vernacular and terza rima for his Comedy, was the chief precursor and exemplar of modern rhymed verse in Indo-European languages.

Dopplegänger

German, "double goer." A mysterious double; a common figure in literature. Poe's "William Wilson" and Conrad's The Secret Sharer concern characters haunted by the image of a double. Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray varies the theme — so that the doubling function belongs to a painting.

Dramatic Irony

The words or acts of a character may carry a meaning unperceived by the character but understood by the audience. Usually, the character's own interests are involved in a way that they cannot understand. The irony resides in the contrast between the meaning intended by the speaker and the different significance seen by others.

Dramatic Monologue

A poem that reveals a "soul in action" through the speech of one character in a dramatic situation.

Dramatis Personae

The characters in a drama, a novel, or a poem. The term is also applied to a listing of the characters in the program of a play, at the beginning of the printed version of a play, or sometimes at the beginning of a novel. Such a list often contains brief characterizations of the persons of the work and notations about their relationships.

Dumb Show

A pantomimic performance used in a play. The term is applied particularly to such specimens of silent acting as appeared in Elizabethan drama. This provided a spectacular element and was often accompanied by music. Sometimes, it employed allegorical figures such as those in the morality play and the masque. Sometimes it foreshadowed coming events or provided comment like that of the chorus. Sometimes, it appeared as prologue or between acts, and sometimes, it was an integral part of the action, being performed by the characters of the play proper.

Dynamic Character

A character who develops or changes as a result of the actions of the plot.

Dystopian

Literally, "bad place." The term is applied to accounts of imaginary worlds, usually in the future, in which present tendencies are carried out to their intensely unpleasant culminations.