21st-Century Literature and Major World Works

Vocabulary flashcards covering key terms, characteristics, literary forms, contexts, and major author-work pairs from the 21st-Century Literature lecture notes.

21st-Century Literature

Literature created and experienced in the modern period, especially through digital technology, social media, and new forms of storytelling.

Multimodal Literary Text

A literary work that combines different forms of media, such as text, images, audio, video, animation, and hyperlinks.

Interactive Literature

Literature in which readers may participate in or influence how the story develops.

Nonlinear Structure

A storytelling structure that does not follow a strict beginning-middle-end order, allowing readers to choose different links or paths.

Graphic Novel

A story told through words and pictures, usually arranged in panels with speech balloons, visual cues, and sequential storytelling.

Traditional Epic

A long narrative poem originating from oral traditions that tells of heroes, grand deeds, elevated language, and great adventures.

Hypertextual Structure

A story format featuring links, choices, and branching paths where there is no fixed order.

Flash Fiction

An extremely short story that delivers maximum impact with minimum words while still containing a complete narrative.

Web Novel

A novel published online, typically released in serialized chapters over time with an interactive reader community.

Traditional Diary

A private, personal, usually handwritten chronological record meant mainly for the writer.

Modern Blog

A public, shared online personal writing medium that can include photographs, hyperlinks, and interactive features for readers.

Spoken-Word Poetry

Poetry designed to be performed aloud in front of an audience, placing importance on elements like voice, rhythm, sound, emotion, tone, and pacing.

Digital Poetry

Poetry that utilizes digital technology and may include emojis, typography, animation, sound, hyperlinks, and reader interaction without a fixed form.

Traditional Sonnet

A structured poem featuring 14 lines, a specific rhyme scheme, structured meter, and a turning point in thought known as a volta.

Oral Folktale

Traditional community storytelling told through speaking that features characters, plot, and cultural traditions.

Podcast

A digitally produced and distributed audio storytelling medium using voice narration.

Genre Mixing

The practice of combining two or more different literary forms or genres to experiment with traditional storytelling.

Myth

Stories featuring gods, heroes, or supernatural beings that explain origins of the world, natural phenomena, and cultural beliefs.

Speculative Fiction

Stories that explore possible futures, examine technology, address climate or social issues, and challenge current assumptions.

Literary Context

The background or circumstances that help a reader understand a literary work.

Historical Context

Context influenced by major historical events such as war, famine, colonialism, independence, and political changes.

Cultural Context

Context influenced by a society's beliefs, customs, rituals, traditions, and social practices.

Social Context

Context focusing on social conditions and relationships, such as social class, gender roles, and inequality.

Linguistic Context

Context focusing on language and how its meaning changes over time.

Political Context

Context connected to colonial rule, revolution, political conflict, and government conditions.

Biographical Context

Context connected to the author's personal life experiences, family, education, and relationships.

Modern Adaptation

A work that updates dialogue, settings, and context of an older literary work to make contemporary themes relevant to modern audiences.

Chinua Achebe

African author from Nigeria who wrote 'Things Fall Apart'.

Okonkwo

The proud Igbo warrior and main character in Chinua Achebe's 'Things Fall Apart' whose fear of failure and rigid masculinity lead to his downfall.

Gabriel García Márquez

Latin American author from Colombia who wrote 'One Hundred Years of Solitude'.

Magical Realism

A literary concept that combines ordinary everyday life with extraordinary or fantastical events, treating them as normal life.

Macondo

The fictional setting in Colombia where the Buendía family lives across generations in Gabriel García Márquez's 'One Hundred Years of Solitude'.

William Shakespeare

European author who wrote 'Romeo and Juliet', a tragedy set in Verona, Italy about lovers from rival families.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

North American author who wrote 'The Great Gatsby', narrated by Nick Carraway and set in 1920s New York.

Jay Gatsby

The main character in F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel who is obsessed with achieving his dream of being with Daisy Buchanan.

Lu Xun

Chinese author known for social criticism who wrote 'The True Story of Ah Q'.

Rabindranath Tagore

Indian author who wrote 'Gitanjali' and became the first non-European recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913.

Murasaki Shikibu

Japanese author of 'The Tale of Genji', set in aristocratic Heian-era Japan and considered one of the world's first novels.

Homer

Ancient Greek author who wrote 'The Odyssey', an epic about Odysseus's long journey home after the Trojan War.

Jane Austen

European/British author who wrote 'Pride and Prejudice', featuring Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy.

Franz Kafka

European author who wrote 'The Metamorphosis', featuring Gregor Samsa's transformation into an insect-like creature.