Reading Lit Mid Term

Narrative poem

poem in which a narrator tells a story

genre

type or category of works sharing particular formal or textual features and conventions; especially used to refer to the largest categories for classifying literature—fiction, poetry, drama, and nonfiction.

metaphor

figure of speech in which two unlike things are compared implicitly—without the use of a signal such as the word like or as—as in “Love is a rose, but you better not pick it”

simile

figure of speech involving direct, explicit comparison of one thing to another, usually using the words like or as to draw the connection as in “My love is like a red, red rose”

bildungsroman

literally “education novel”, a novel that depicts the intellectual, emotional, and moral development of its protagonist from childhood into adulthood; sometimes called an apprenticeship novel. This type of novel tends to envision character as the product of environment, experience, nurture, and education rather than of nature, fate, and so on.

novella

work of prose fiction that falls somewhere in between a short story and a novel in terms of length, scope, and complexity. Can be, and have been, published as either books in their own right or as parts of books that include other works

pastoral

work or category of works—whether fiction, poetry, drama or nonfiction—describing and idealizing he simple life of country fold, usually shepherds who live a painless life in a world full of beauty, music, and love

parody

any work that imitates or spoofs another work or genre for comic effect by exaggerating the style and changing the content of the original; subgenre of satire

fiction

any narrative, especially in prose, about invented or imagined characters and action. Tend to be divided into three major subgenres based on length—short story, novella, and novel. Older, originally oral forms include fable, legend, parable, and tale. May also be categorized not by length but by their handling of particular elements such as plot and character.

short story

work of prose fiction (approximately 500 to 10,000 words) that can be read in a single sitting of 2 hours or less and works to crate a single effect. Two types are the initiation story and the microfiction

plot

arrangement of the action. five main parts or phases are exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and conclusion

flashback

plot-structuring device whereby a scene from the fictional past is inserted into the fictional present or is dramatized out of order

foreshadowing

hint or clue to the reader about what will happen at a later moment in the plot

discriminated occasion

a specific, discrete moment portrayed in a fictional work, often signaled by phrases such as “At 5 in the morning” “It was about dusk, one evening in spring” “The day before Lily died”

conflict

struggle between opposing forces. external when it pits a character against something or someone outside himself or herself—another character or characters or some impersonal force. internal when the opposing forces are two drives, impulses, or parts of a single character

rising action

second of the five phases or parts of plot, in which events complicate the situation that existed at the beginning of a work, intensifying the initial conflict or introducing a new one

climax

the third part of plot, the point at which the action stops rising and begins falling or reversing

epiphany

sudden revelation of truth, often inspired by a seemingly simple or commonplace event.

falling action

fourth of the five phases or parts of plot, in which the conflict or conflicts move toward resolution

romance

originally, a long medieval narrative in verse or prose written in one of the Romance languages and depicting the quests of knights and other chivalric heroes and the vicissitudes of courtly love. Later and more broadly, any literary work, especially a long work of prose fiction, characterized by a nonrealistic and idealizing use of the imagination. Commonly today, works of prose fiction aimed at a mass, primarily female, audience and focusing on love affairs

epic

long narrative poem that celebrates the achievements of mighty heroes and heroines, usually in founding a nation or developing a culture, and uses elevated language and a grand, high style. Other epic conventions include a beginning in medias res, an invocation of the muse, a journey to the underworld, battle scenes, and a scene in which the hero arms himself for battle. A mock is a form of satire in which the same language and conventions are used to depict characters, actions, and settings utterly unlike those in conventional ones, usually with the purpose of ridiculing the social milieu or types of people portrayed in the poem.

irony

situation or statement characterized by a significant difference between what is expected or understood and what is expected or understood and what actually happens or is meant.

point of view

perspective from which people, events, and other details in a work of fiction are viewed

central consciousness

character whose inner thoughts, perceptions, and feelings are revealed by a third-person limited narrator who does not reveal the thoughts, perceptions, or feelings of other characters

implied author

the vision of the author;s personality and outlook suggested by the work as a whole. Thus when we make a claim about the author that relies solely on evidence from the work.

protagonist

most neutral and broadly applicable term for the main character in a work, whether male or female, heroic or not heroic

antagonist

a character or a nonhuman force that opposes or is in conflict with the protagonist

flat character

are relatively simple, have a few dominant traits, and tends to be predictable

round character

are complex and multifaceted and act in a way that readers might not expect but accept as possible

archetype

a character, ritual, symbol, or plot pattern that recurs in the myth and literature of many cultures. Emerge from—and give us a clue to the workings of—the collective unconscious, a reservoir of memories and impulses that all humans share without being consciously aware of.

setting

time and place of the action in a work of fiction, poetry, or drama. spatial, temporal. general and particular.

symbol

person, place, thing, or event that figuratively represents or stands for something else. Often the thing or idea represented is more abstract and general, and the object is more concrete and particular.

allegory

a literary work in which chracters, actions, and even settings have two connected levels of meaning. Elements of the literal level signify a figurative level that often imparts a lesson or moral to the reader

myth

originally and narrowly, narrative explaining how the world and humanity developed into their present form and, unlike folktale, generally considered to be true by the people who develop it. Many, though not all, feature supernatural beings and have a religious significance or function within their culture of origin. Creation and explanatory. More broadly and especially in its adjectival form, any narrative that obviously seeks to work like one in the first and more narrow sense, especially by portraying experiences or convey truths that it implies are universally valid regardless of culture or time

figurative language

language that uses figures of speech

trope

any word or phrase that creates a figure in the mind of the reader by effecting an obvious change in the usual meaning or order of words, by comparing or identifying one thing with another

imagery

broadly defined, any sensory detail or evocation in a work; more narrowly, the use of figurative language to evoke a feeling, to call to mind an idea, or to describe an object.

rhetoric

art and scholarly study of effective communication, whether in writing or speech

allusion

brief, often implicit and indirect reference within a literary text to something outside the text, whether another text or any imaginary or historical person, place, or thing. Footnotes often explain

metonymy

figure of speech in which the name of one thing is used to refer to another associated thing. “the white house”

oxymoron

figure of speech that combines two apparently contradictory elements

personification

figure of speech that involves treating something nonhuman, such as an abstraction, as if it where a person by endowing it with human like qualities

synecdoche

type of metonymy in which the part is used to name or stand in for the whole. “hands” “wheels”

theme

broadly and commonly, a topic explored in a literary work. More narrowly and properly, the insight about a topic communicated in a work

moral

rule of conduct or maxim for living communicated in a literary work

style

distinctive manner of expression; expressed through diction, rhythm, imagery, etc.

tone

attitude a literary work takes toward its subject or that a character in the work conveys, especially as revealed through diction

Progressive Era

focused on social reform and realism, and often depicted the struggles of everyday people

poetry

one of the three major genres of imaginative literature, which has its origins in music and oral performance and is characterized by controlled patterns of rhythm and syntax; compression and compactness and an allowance for ambiguity; a particularly concentrated emphasis on the sensual, especially visual and aural, qualities and effects of words and word order; and especially vivid, often figurative language

prose poem

a poem written in sentence that appears as a block of test without line breaks

sonnet

fixed verse form consisting of fourteen lines usually in iambic pentameter

elegy

since the Renaissance, usually a formal lament on the death of a particular person, but focusing mainly on the speaker’s efforts to come to terms with his or her grief. Mor broadly, any lyric in sorrowful mood that takes death as its primary subject

dramatic poem

structured so as to present a scene or series of scene, as in a work of drama

lyric poem

a short, emotional work that expresses the speaker’s feelings and is often written in the first person

narrative poem

poem in which a narrator tells a story

ballad

a verse narrative that is, or originally was, meant to be sung. Originally a folk creation, transmitted orally from person to person and age to age characterized by relatively simple diction, meter, rhyme scheme; by stock imagery; by repetition; and often by a refrain

syntax

word order; the way words are put together to form phrases, clauses, and sentences

diction

choice of words. Often described as either informal or colloquial if it resembles everyday speech, or as formal if it is instead lofty, impersonal, and dignified. Determines tone

epithet

characterizing word or phrase that precedes, follows, or substitutes for the name of a person or thing

apostrophe

figure of speech in which a speaker or narrator addresses an abstraction, an object, or a dead or absent person

persona

the voice or figure of the author who tells and structures the work and who may or may not share the values of the actual author