Introduction and more

Literary history

Theory-based constructs that produce narratives of the past through abstraction, generalization, selection, organization, and combination

Canon formation

selecting and organizing a body of literary works, considered significant or authoritative within a culture

Synchronic studies

analysis of literature at a specific point in time or within a single period

Diachronic studies

study of literature as it evolves through historical change over time

Periodization

The division of literary history into segments, such as authors, periods, or genres.

Elizabethan Age

older designation for a literary period, often associated with Shakespeare

Neutral terms (Periodization)

The modern practice of using centuries to designate periods, avoiding the overlaps and difficulties of older labels

Text-oriented literary histories

focus primarily on the literary works themselves

Context-oriented literary histories

focus on the relationship between the text and its historical context

Prodesse et delectare

A Latin guiding principle based on Horace: 'to profit and to delight'; core conception of literature during the Age of Enlightenment.

Romanticism (England)

end of the 18th century characterized as the 'expression of feelings recollected in tranquillity,' though often not applied to novels, plays, or female authors

Victorian Literature (Didacticism)

emphasizes the didactic function of instructing or teaching the reader

Aestheticism

movement at the end of the 19th century that prioritized art for its own sake, 'there is no such thing as a moral or immoral book'; art mirrors the spectator rather than life

Modernism (Epoch)

the first half of the 20th century, characterized by psychological inward turn and radical innovation to form

High Modernism

A specific timeframe within the Modernist epoch extending from 1915 (or 1910) to 1930.

Psychological realism

A feature of Modernism involving the presentation of consciousness, where 'mind time' (associations) replaces 'clock time' (causal relations).

Novels of Sensibility / Sentimental Novels

A 18th-century genre exemplified by Samuel Richardson's Pamela (1740) and Henry Mackenzie's The Man of Feeling (1771).

The Castle of Otranto (1765)

A work by Horace Walpole used as an example of British literary history from the mid-18th century.

Lady Mary Chudleigh

18th-century author of the 1715 poem 'To the Ladies,' which critiques the marital status of women.

Daniel Defoe

Author of Robinson Crusoe (1722); his preface claims the story is a 'just History of Fact' intended for the instruction and diversion of the reader.

Unreliable Narrator

A narrator who does not speak for or act in accordance with the norms of the work, Wayne C. Booth.

Intratextual Signs

Internal textual signals used to identify unreliability (ex. contradictions) or inconsistencies between story and discourse.

Extratextual Signs

External clues to unreliability based on the reader's world knowledge, mental models of reality, and moral or ethical standards.

Paratextual Signs

Elements surrounding the main text that can provide signals about the reliability of the narration.

Axis of Events (or Facts)

axis of communication where a narrator can distort (misrepresent) or leave out (underrepresent) fictional facts.

Axis of Knowledge, Perception and Understanding

axis where a narrator may provide an insufficient or unwarrantable interpretation of events

Axis of Ethics and Evaluation

axis where a narrator fails to meet the ethical standards of the work

Situatedness

existence of narrative within a specific communicative situation involving an addressee.

Sequentiality

the linear ordering and arrangement of events over time

Experientiality

the way narratives evoke or simulate real-life experience, engaging readers through embodied, cognitive, and emotional processes

Narrative as a mode of thinking

pattern-forming cognitive system that organizes sequentially experienced structures to create tools for thinking.

Narrative as Worldmaking

organising of experience and memory of human happenings primarily in the form of narratives, such as stories, myths, and reasons

Emplotment

the way a sequence of events fashioned into a story is gradually revealed to be a story of a particular kind

Master Story

A dominant historical narrative that represents its period for the understanding of major events

Labelling

The act of naming events to shape their interpretation

Periodisation

The process of dividing history into specific named blocks of time

Hermeneutic Circle

A process where one constitutes first assumptions about the whole from a world view, analyzes the parts, and draws conclusions from the parts to gain a more concise understanding of the whole.

Theory

An explicit, detailed, organized, and consistent system of categories

Model

A formal or graphic representation of a theory or a specific part of a theory

Method

well-defined, planned, and verifiable procedure for dealing with something using categories

Heuristics

using theories, models, and methods to formulate a hypothesis

Draw the Container Model of Communication

Intentional Fallacy

The error of using the author's intellect/intentions as a standard for interpreting a poem, or thinking one can find evidence of true intentions outside the text itself.

Prodesse et delectare

The guiding principle of literature during the Age of Enlightenment, meaning 'to be useful and to delight.', from Horace’s Ars Poetica.

Patronage

The dominant literary system during Early Modern Times used to please or flatter a patron and show learning.

Pernicious Lie

characterized by being made for evil intent

Officious Lie

intended to prevent some danger or procure some good.

Sporting Lie

intended to 'make one merry' or pass away time; the Puritans categorized literature as this form of lying.

Restoration

The historical period noted for the re-establishing of theaters and the introduction of women as actresses, such as Eleanor 'Nell' Gwyn.

Epic preteritum

A specific sign of fictional language characterized by phrases such as 'tomorrow was Christmas'.

Polyvalence Convention

A textexternal convention of literature, identified as a mode of treating and understanding literary texts, which stands in contrast to the Monovalence Convention.

Aesthetic Convention

A textexternal convention for understanding literature, contrasted with the Fact Convention.

Poetic/Literary Language

rich array of stylistic features and 'defamiliarised' use of language

Paratextual Features

elements surrounding a text that influence reader perception, such as covers or titles

Fictional

A term describing texts, genres, or media (ex: Hollywood movies, novels) produced and read according to aesthetic and polyvalent conventions, without claiming factual truth.

Fictitious

A term applied to specific characters, events, or entities that do not exist in the real world.

Mimesis

An Aristotelian concept regarding the relationship between literature and reality, often interpreted as a 'mirror' or 'reflection'.

Poiesis

The modern concept defining the relation of literature to reality, moving away from the traditional misunderstanding of mimesis.

Dimensions of Culture

the Mental dimension, the Social dimension (Society and institutions), and the Material dimension (Texts and other artefacts).

Functions of Culture

Includes standardizing thinking/feeling/acting, enabling communication, identity formation, creating a sense of belonging, and excluding 'others'.