Key Concepts in Poetry and Prose Literature - engl 202 final prep

Form

The manner in which a poem is composed as distinct from what the poem is about.

Tautology

Circular reasoning.

Off-Rhyme

When the ending consonants of a word rhyme (spit/mat, crowd/bough).

Anomaly

Something that doesn't fit into a pre-ordained pattern.

Metaphor

A direct comparison between 2 unlike things; metaphor brings them together.

Simile

Same thing as metaphor, except you use 'like' or 'as'.

Analogical Relations

Faces:crow::petals:bough.

Intentional Fallacy

Fallacy of writer's intention → fallacy is a false, misleading, or unreliable statement.

Motief

A recurring idea or feature in a story, or a distinctive design or element in an image.

Portmanteau

two words combined to make one word such as suitcase, trenchcoat, laptop.

Envoi

Short stanza concluding a ballade.

Poesis

Greek, 'making' or 'creation'.

Howl

Long poetic lines, exceeding the page's spatial marginal limit.

Verse

Colloquial term, sometimes gendered (Google: writing arranged in a metrical rhythm).

Lyric Poetry

Ancient form of poetry, meant to be sung to a melody, hence 'lyrics'.

Enjambment

No punctuation at the end of the line, continuous into the next line.

Endstop

Punctuation at the end of a line.

Couplet

2 lines.

Tercet

3 lines.

Quatrain

4 lines.

Quintain

5 lines.

Sestet

6 lines.

Septet

7 lines.

Octave/Octet

8 lines.

End-Rhyme

Final syllable at the end of a line rhymes.

Internal Rhymes

Internal to the line.

Tenor

The word or phrasing that is the concept.

Vehicle

The word or phrasing that does the comparing.

Personification

giving human characteristics to non human things.

Anthropomorphism

giving non human things human emotions and intentions

Synecdoche

a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa

Metonymy

A figure of speech in which something is referred to by using the name of something that is associated with it

Pathetic Fallacy

The attribution of human emotion or responses to animals or inanimate things, especially in art and literature.

Prosody

the patterns of rhythm and sound used in poetry

Consonance

The repetition of consonant sounds.

Assonance

The repetition of vowel sounds.

Alliteration

when the start of two words repeats the same sounds. can be assonance pr consonance

Apostrophe

An address to a dead or absent person, animal, thing, idea as if it were alive, present, capable of understanding.

Caesura

A pause or breathing place about the middle of a metrical line, generally indicated by a pause in the sense.

Occlude

To prevent the passage (of a thing) by placing something in the way; to shut in/out/off; to cover or hide.

Ekphrasis

The verbal description of a visual object, such as a painting; type of poem.

Meter

A pattern of poetic rhythm.

Accentual Metric System

Iambs, trochees, dactyls, etc. (Shakesperian).

Syllabic Metric System

Marianne Moore.

Accentual-Syllabic Metric System

Some non-English languages.

Quantitative Metric System

Time-based.

Sprung Rhythm Metric System

G.M. Hopkins used this; about movement, works with 'inscape' and 'instress'.

Sonnet

Poetic form, 14 lines, typically contains an octave plus sestet, and a 'volta'.

Volta

'Turn'; 'poetic conceit'.

Petrarchan/Italian Sonnet Type

abbaabba/cdecde or Abbaabba/cdcdcd.

Spenserian Sonnet Type

abab bcbc cdcd ee.

English/Shakespearean Sonnet Type

abab cdcd efef gg.

Poetic Conceit

In poetry an often unconventional, logically complex, or surprising metaphor.

Haecceitas

The thing that makes a thing itself.

Villanelle

19 lines, 5 tercets and one quatrain; A(1)BA(2) ABA(1) ABA(2) ABA(1) ABA(2) ABA(1)A(2).

Oxymoron

a figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction

Ballade

Poetic form, old French, Has an 'envoi', 4 lines, repeats the refrain which runs throughout the poem, troubadours sang them to royalty (ABABBCBC x3 BCBC).

Troubadours

Provencale poet - musician from the Middle Ages, 1100-1350.

Paratext

Material that is both inside and outside the text.

Terza Rima

Poetic form, uses tercets, ends with single or couplet (ABA BCB CDC DED EF).

Ode

A lyric poem that addresses and perhaps celebrates a person, place, thing, idea.

Ars Poetica

'The art of poetry' either explains how to make the stuff, or a poem that meditates upon it.

Confessional Poetry

1960s, USA phenomenon, lyric voice more personal.

Epic Poetry

A long narrative poem that tells the story of a hero's extraordinary adventures and feats.

End Rhyme

When the last syllables in a verse rhyme.

Ernest Hemingway

American Prose writer known for blunt, 'athletic' sentences and exploration of masculinity.

First-person

The main narrative voice uses 'I' or 'we'.

Second-person

The narrative voice addresses 'you,' often used in speculative, fiction, sci-fi or meta-fiction.

Third-person

Narrative primarily uses he/she/they pronouns.

Limited

At its most limited extreme, you only have access to one character's perspective.

Omniscient

At its most extreme, the narrative has a god-like quality with knowledge of the thoughts of every human.

Ecocriticism

Foregrounding the study of the 'natural' world in a text.

Feminism

How gender constructions/dynamics shape the story and how it is told.

Postcolonialism

Attention to the text's imperial setting and cultural consequences.

Katherine Mansfield

New Zealand born, lived in England and Europe, modernist master of the short story.

Plot

The chronological series of events; not to be confused with 'Narrative'.

Narrative

What happens on a page-by-page basis.
For example a short story might begin with a flashback and then jump forward into the present.

Ignorance

Lack of knowledge or information.

Pre-Conscious

A state of awareness that is not fully conscious.

Repression

The act of suppressing thoughts or memories.

Awareness

The state of being conscious of something.

Consciousness

The state of being aware of and able to think and perceive one's surroundings.

Novella

A little novel.

Allegory

A story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one.

Mimesis

Representation or imitation of the real world in art; 'art mirrors life'.

Epistolary novel

A novel that consists of letters of correspondence.

Picaresque

A type of novel that features a 'lowborn' rogue; hijinks ensue.

Bildungsroman

A 'novel of education'; focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist.

Roman à clef

'Novel with a key'; a novel about real events that is overlaid with a façade of fiction.

Conceit

An extended metaphor that makes a surprising comparison between two very different things.

Carrier-Bag Theory

A novel is a bag that stuff is put in to carry around/transport.

Dialogue

A literary form in which two characters discuss ideas.

Epigram

A brief witty statement. It may involve a paradox.

Aphorism

A statement of a life truth, or a general principle; a maxim.

Meta allegory

A work that critiques and recasts traditional allegory to convey a new idea or meaning.

Vivisecting

The controversial act of performing surgery as a test on a living animal for the purpose of scientific research.

Aesthetics

The philosophy or theory of taste or the perception of the beautiful in nature or art.

Aestheticism

A 19th century movement in the arts that privileged beauty and life as art.

An aesthete

Someone interested in beauty, refinement, and/or taste.

Hedonism

The pursuit of pleasure for its own sake.