English Literature: A Theoretical Introduction

Vocabulary flashcards covering core theoretical concepts, key literary and aesthetic terms, historical artworks, and critical schools from Alessandro Vescovi's introduction to English literature.

Placito Capuano (960 AD)

The earliest extant document written in Italian; originally an ordinary legal record of a property transaction between two merchants, it illustrates how historical documents can be reassessed over time and integrated into the literary canon.

Three Ladies Adorning a Term of Hymen (1773)

A 1773 painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds housed in the Tate, exemplifying eighteenth-century Neoclassical aesthetics centered on neat lines, harmonious proportions, and formal perfection.

Snow Storm - Steam-Boat off a Harbour's Mouth (exhibited 1842)

A painting by Joseph Mallord William Turner exemplifying nineteenth-century Romanticism, which discarded neoclassical strictures to focus on dynamic movement, elemental energy, and intense emotion.

Studland Beach (1912)

A 1912 painting by Vanessa Bell (with Duncan Grant's 'Group of Male Nudes' on the verso) that reflects early twentieth-century modernist aesthetics characterized by formal experimentation and exceeding traditional artistic boundaries.

Orature

Oral literature—the first literary form encountered in childhood—comprising works conceived specifically to be performed aloud rather than read silently, including drama, music, fairy tales, carols, and ballads.

Poíēsis (ποίησις)

The ancient Greek noun derived from the verb poiéō (root *poi-, meaning 'to make' or 'to create'), serving as the etymological origin of 'poem' and 'poet' and identifying poetic art as an artificial, human-made creation.

Collocation

A conventional, statistically habitual pairing or sequence of words in natural language (such as 'bad weather sets in') that governs standard usage but can be transcended by poetic innovation.

Logos (λόγος)

The ancient Greek concept of rational discourse, word, and logical order, which Plato considered the foundation of civic life, prompting him to banish poets from his ideal Republic as irrational, muse-inspired madmen.

Persona

Carl Gustav Jung's term for the social mask or outward identity an individual presents to society, contrasted with the concealed, unexpressed 'shadow' self (as exemplified in Stevenson's 'Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde').

Contre Sainte-Beuve

An essay written by Marcel Proust attacking Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve's biographical critical method, arguing that a literary work is the product of an author's deeper, creative 'different self' rather than their ordinary social self.

Implied Author

Wayne C. Booth's theoretical concept designating the authorial persona, perspective, and values constructed strictly through the text itself, which may differ substantially from the actual biographical author.

Intuition (in Benedetto Croce's aesthetics)

In 'Breviario di estetica' (1913), a pre-linguistic insight or internal mental impression that ordinary language cannot articulate and which requires artistic creation to achieve tangible, communicable form.

Epiphany (in James Joyce's works)

A sudden, delicate spiritual manifestation originating from an everyday gesture, a fragment of conversation, or an inward impression, which Joyce believed writers must capture and record with meticulous care.

Moments of Being

Virginia Woolf's phrase describing sudden, highly perceptive flashes of reality and spiritual insight in everyday life, closely paralleling Croce's intuition and Joyce's epiphany.

The Poppy Field near Argenteuil (1873)

An Impressionist landscape by Claude Monet that exemplifies how artistic omission and non-photographic brushwork require viewers to actively participate, project details, and interpret the scene.

Model Reader

A theoretical concept developed by Wolfgang Iser and Robert Jauss representing an idealized reader envisioned by the text who possesses all the competencies, cultural codes, and knowledge required to interpret it.

Tradition and the Individual Talent (1919)

An essay by T. S. Eliot proposing that every new artwork resembles a stone added to an existing heap, altering the overall configuration and relationship of the entire historical literary tradition.

Ready-made Art

An early twentieth-century avant-garde artistic approach that selected manufactured, everyday objects and placed them in an artistic context to redefine art through framing and concept rather than manual craft.

Fountain (1917)

A landmark ready-made artwork by Marcel Duchamp consisting of a porcelain urinal turned on its back and signed 'R. MUTT 1917,' demonstrating that an artwork's status is defined by artistic context and institutional framing.

Elegy

A formal poetic genre dedicated to mourning and commemorating a deceased individual, traditionally progressing through grief, memory, and praise toward the soothing consolation that the person lives on in memory or verse.

Literary Criticism

Derived from the Greek verb krínōmai ('to judge'), the disciplined practice of researching, interpreting, evaluating, and contextualizing literary texts for readers, grounded in textual evidence and critical methodology.

Historicism (Old Historicism)

A traditional critical approach prominent in Italy that examines literary texts in relation to the chronological progression of literary history, comparing works primarily to earlier literary antecedents within the same genre or authorial oeuvre.

New Historicism

A critical approach that interprets literary texts by embedding them within the specific cultural, political, and material historical conditions of the period in which they were written.

Ecocriticism

A contemporary critical school that examines the representation of nature, non-human species, and environmental landscapes in literary works.

Literary Canon

A recognized body of literary works and authors deemed culturally essential for an educated person to read, established in the eighteenth century and shaped by both aesthetic standards and ideological power structures.

Anthology

A curated collection of selected literary extracts or texts; etymologically derived from the Greek ánthos ('flower'), literally meaning 'a collection of flowers.'

School of Resentment

Harold Bloom's term in 'The Western Canon' (1994) designating critics who revise the literary canon on political, moral, or ideological grounds rather than on aesthetic merit and enduring literary influence.

Intertextuality

The presence within a literary text of quotations, direct references, structural echoes, or mythic archetypes derived from prior texts within the broader cultural and literary tradition.