HUM10B VOCAB

Q&A formatted with the question solely being the vocab word and the answer potentially discussing its definition, the text(s), and maybe the importance of the word to the text if it isn't obvious. This will be updated with the student review sessions!! (PB&J's!!!) Note that some are a bit long and you could probably make the argument that each vocab is relevant to more texts, but I'm just highlighting the main ones.

Modernism

Definition Literary movement of the early 20th century broke away from writing conventions, broke down art form into fundamentals.

Texts: Ulysses, Mrs. Dalloway

Relevancy: More experimental structure in both texts. Can try to “force, dislocate, if necessary, language into his meaning.”

Mimesis

Definition: Representation in art of the real or external reality.

Texts: particularlyUlysses, Mrs. Dalloway

Relevancy:

• Mentioned in Ulysses in contrast to Poeisis (other vocab word)

• Woolf describes novels as the “serious mimesis of the everyday”

Poesis

Definition: creating a whole new world in art, new meanings, rather than simply reflecting reality

Text(s): Ulysses

Relevancy: Circe chapter: creating a play out of his existence.

Fenianism

Definition: Irish independence movement, pro-independence via revolutionary overthrow (IRA/IRB)

Text(s): Ulysses

Relevancy: Joyce is sympathetic to Fenianism and is depicting a reality responding to war, violence, and social prejudice in his work.

Cosmopolitan

Definition: Novel dedicated to city.

Text(s): Ulysses, Potentially Mrs. Dalloway

Relevancy: Consider the relationship of the author to the perspective on the city. Do they resent it? Also, see Fenianism relevancy

Metampsychosis

Definition: “Transmigration of souls”

Text: Ulysses

Relevancy: related to Plato’s Republic- souls choosing their lives

Mnemonic

Definition: A verbal technique to remember things

Text: Ulysses

Relevancy: Mnemotechnic of James Joyce' remembering everything I think. Memory palace?

Circadian novel

Definition: Takes place in a 24 hour period

Text: Ulysses, Mrs. Dalloway

Ineluctable modality of the visual

Definition: Using Thomas Aquinas’ Latin commentary on Sense and Sensibilia to make sense of Aristotle’s theory of light and color — quality of form as opposed to substance.

“Refers to the stubborn fact that reality presents itself first and foremost to us through our sight. Because we cannot avoid seeing, we give primacy to the visual aspects of reality”

Text: Ulysses.

Relevancy: Stephen refers to this in Proteus.

Leitmotif

Definition: an associated melodic phrase or figure that accompanies the reappearance of an idea, person, or situation

Text: All of them, but particularly Ulysses

Relevancy: Consider various characters like Stephen thinking about his guilt with his mother. Molly with food, etc.

Anaphora

Definition: Repeating of words at beginning of lines/sentences

Text(s): Mrs. Dalloway

Relevancy: Quite notable with Septimus (human nature for example)

Epistrophe

Definition: Repeating of words at end of lines/sentences

Text(s): Mrs. Dalloway

Polyphony

Definition: The harmonious “singing” of multiple narrative registers to communicate an omnipresent truth

Text(s): Mrs. Dalloway, Ulysses

Relevancy: Clarissa and Septimus displaying different perspectives of how to see life; Stephen and Bloom

Free Indirect Discourse

Definition: Writing technique combining the narration with what the characters think/feel.

Text: Mrs. Dalloway.

Relevancy: Goes into a lot of the characters heads at will even in the same scene, i.e. Septimus and Rezia, etc. etc.

Impressionism

Definition: “19th-century art movement characterized by visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities, ordinary subject matter, unusual visual angles, and inclusion of movement as a crucial element of human perception and experience” (from wiki)

Text: Mrs. Dalloway

Relevancy: Can consider both the longer and more fragmented sentences to try and create the whole without it being overly traditional. Sublime references maybe?

Layering/Facture

Definition: Artistic terms relating to the visible evidence of artistic methodology. For example, being able to see individual brush strokes or splotches of mixed watercolor pigments.

Text: Mrs. Dalloway

Bathos

Definition: rhetorical effect of anticlimax or incongruity created by a sudden or unexpected shift in tone or register from language that is elevated or sublime to the mundane, trivial, or the ridiculous

Text: The Souls of Black Folk.

Relevancy: Ex: “Is it the twilight of nightfall or the flush of some faint-dawning day? Thus sadly musing, I rode to Nashville in the Jim Crow car.” Emphasizes how ridiculous these ideas/practices of segregation can be in comparison to how beautiful the world COULD be.

Anastrophe