English Literature

East of Eden

John Steinbeck; biblical reference of Cain and Abel; explores themes of free will and moral choice; 1952; novel

Ozymandias

Percy Bysshe Shelley; allusion to Ramesses II (Egyptian pharaoh)?; 1818; English sonnet

Gulliver’s Travels

Jonathan Swift; 1726; satirical novel

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Samuel Taylor Coleridge; 1798; ballad meter

A Tale of Two Cities

Charles Dickens; Paris and London; 1859; historical novel; set before the French Revolution

In Custody

Anita Desai; 1984; novel

King Lear

Shakespeare; King’s descent into madness after granting only 2/3 of his daughters portions of the kingdom; fool attempts to comfort him, but only emphasizes his mistakes and consequences

The Faerie Queene

Edmund Spenser; 1590-1596; allegorical epic

Stream of consciousness writing

Modernism

Heroic couplets

Developed by Alexander Pope; iambic pentameter couplets

A Room of One’s Own

Virginia Woolf; 1929; feminist essay

Lyrical Ballads

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth; 1798

Ode on a Grecian Urn

John Keats; 1819; endurance of art vs. fleetingness of humanity

Paradise Lost

John Milton; 1667; epic poem

Iamb

unstressed/stressed

Linton Kwesi Johnson

Postcolonialism; Jamaican/British; poet and activist; 1952-present

William Blake

English; poet, painter, printmaker; Romanticism; 1757-1827

Richard Aldington

English; writer (many categories), poet; Imagism; 1892-1962

Sprung Rhythm

Gerard Manley Hopkins; approximating speech; set number of stressed syllables per line, varying amount of unstressed syllables, as there is one stressed syllable per foot, but any amount of unstressed syllables.

Doris Lessing

British (Zimbabwe/Southern Rhodesia raised); novelist; woman; 1919-2013

Petrarchan Sonnet

Francis Petrarch; octave abbaabba; sestet cdcdcd/cdecde; iambic pentameter

English Sonnet

Wyatt and Surrey; 3 quatrains and 1 couplet; ababcdcdefefgg

Birthday Letters

Ted Hughes; 1998; poetry collection

A Modest Proposal

Jonathan Swift; 1729; satirical essay

Leaves of Grass

Walt Whitman; 1855-1892

Free Verse

Walt Whitman

Oscar Wilde

Irishman; author, playwright, and poet; Victorian Era; 1854-1900

Lycidas

John Milton; 1637; pastoral elegy

The Waste Land

T. S. Eliot; 1922; modernist

Seamus Heaney

Irishman; poet and playwright; 1939-2013

John Millington Synge

Irishman; playwright, poet, and writer; Irish Literary Revival; Victorian and Edwardian eras; 1871-1909

Joan Lingard

Scottish/Northern Irish; woman; 1932-2022; novelist

Edna O’Brien

Irish; woman; 1960-2019; writer, playwright, and poet; feminist?

A Clockwork Orange

Dystopian novel; 1962; Anthony Burgess

Half a Life

2001; Darin Strauss; memoir

Brave New World

Dystopian novel; Aldous Huxley; 1932

1984/Nineteen Eighty-Four

Dystopian novel; 1949; George Orwell

Things Fall Apart

Chinua Achebe; 1958; postcolonial novel?

Do not go gentle into that good night

Dylan Thomas; 1951; villainelle

Epic

Long, formal narrative poem about a hero’s journey/deeds

Haiku

Japanese short poem, composed of three lines with 5 syllables in the first, 7 in the second, and 5 in the third. Captures an image or moment.

Terza Rima

Composed of tercets linked with chain rhyme (aba bcb), with no stanza limit

Couplet

Two line stanza

Tercet

Three line stanza

Quatrain

Four line stanza

Quintain

Five line stanza

Sestet

Six line stanza

Septet

Seven line stanza

Octave

Eight line stanza

Villainelle

A 19 line poem, divided into 5 tercets and 1 quatrain. The rhyme scheme (stanza independent) is aba for the tercets, and aaba or abaa for the quatrain. In this form, the first line of the first tercet becomes the third line of the second, fourth, and sixth stanzas, and the third line of the first tercet becomes the third line of the third and fifth stanzas (last of the sixth optional)

Rhyme Royal

Invented by Geoffrey Chaucer. This poem is divided into a quatrain and a tercet, or two tercets and a couplet. The rhyme scheme is ababbcc. It is often written in iambic pentameter.

Sestina

This 39 line poem is divided into 6 sestets and a tercet. Instead of a rhyme scheme, it has a word scheme, where the same words are reused at the ends of a line in a specific pattern: ABCDEF, FAEBDC, CFDABE, ECBFAD, DEACFB, BDFECA, and either ECA or ACE for the tercet.

Blank verse

The only restriction is meter. There is no rhyme scheme.

Free verse

No rules.

Heroic couplets

Couplets written in iambic pentameter

Ballad meter

A stanza form, rhyming abcb with the first and third lines’ meter being tetrameter, and the second and fourth lines’ being trimeter.

Pastoral elegy

A song for or about someone who has died, also including themes of idyllic country life.

Dramatic monologue

A character’s monologue, which will usually reveal some of their inner workings, thoughts, or motives.

Irregular ode

An ode that does have meter and rhyme, but no set scheme.

Epic catalogue

A long, detailed list characteristic of epic poetry.

Alexandrine

A line with 6 iambic feet.

Literary ballad

A literary form which imitates folk ballads, though is more elaborate and complex. It is usually of a romantic nature, and usually rhymes.

Elegiac stanza

A quatrain written in iambic pentameter, with a rhyme scheme of abab. It is usually written about things or people past.

Popular ballad

An anonymously authored, narrative poem, transmitted orally and sometimes along with music. They contain much repetition, use commonly spoken language, and typically focus on the climax of a dramatic event.

Antithesis

A literary device combining two seemingly contradictory ideas to make a point.

Romanticism

A style focused on emotions, intended, through whatever method it is used in, to move the reader emotionally. Its main era was approximately 1800-1850, although its influence is still prevalent throughout creative works up until the modern day. Poetry was a popular form of writing during its heyday, and the main ideals were emotion, imagination, and individualism.

Neoclassicism

A style heavily drawing upon Grecian styles. It spanned the Restoration, the Augustan age, and the age of Johnson. It is very classical and formal in its execution. It lasted from the 1760s to the 1840s and 1850s.

Expressionism

Emerged as a revolt against realism and naturalism, looking to achieve psychological and spiritual reality as opposed to recording facts. Franz Kafka and James Joyce were two major followers of this style. It lasted from 1905 to the 1930s, and was rooted in Germany.

Naturalism

A philosophical idea, interested in studying humans in how they relate to and interact with nature. It believes that the only forces that operate in the universe are natural laws and forces. It emerged from realism, having a focus on determinism and scientific objectivity. In literature, it often portrays the struggle of humans against nature. It sees the actions of people as pre-determined by their circumstances and upbringing.

Abstractionism

A style which does not refer to any concrete ideas or specific examples, intended to bring the reader or viewer into a new perspective.

Sentimental

Most prevalent in the late 18th century. A style focused greatly on emotions, using them to advance the plot, show the vulnerabilities of characters, and examine sentiment.

Pastoral

A style focusing on idyllic rural or country life.

Imagism

Prevalent in the early 20th century as part of the modernism movement. Ezra Pound and Hilda Doolittle founded this style, which focuses on the power of images to communicate and forward plots.

Style

The specific way something is written, including many factors such as word choice, tone, literary devices used, and what is being written about. It can be inherited from a literary period, or developed personally.

Post colonialism

A style focused on colonialization and its effects. Its motive is to explain the impacts of colonialism, and it is often political, social, and potentially religious in content.

Symbolism

Having a thing or idea stand for more than its literal meaning. This can be used to convey deeper meaning, subtly convey things, and evoke more emotion than saying things straight out. It will often lead to double meanings, and is sort of the love child of allusions and metaphors.

Personification

Assigning human traits to animals, objects, or ideas. It can help make the unfamiliar easier to connect with, evoke empathy, and deepen meaning.

Chivalric romance

Combining prose and narrative verse, this form was popular among medieval aristocracy. It would often deal with marvels, heroes, grand quests, and the like, and the plot would be moved by emotion most of all.

Mock epics

Satires and parodies, making fun of the classical hero stories.

Conceit

THE COMPARISON OF TO ONLIKE THINGS IN A CLEVER WAY

Metaphysical conceit

Used by 17th century metaphysical poets, this would create an analogy between the abstract (soul, for example) and the physical. John Donne used this literary device.

Pathetic fallacy

Attributing human emotions and responses to inanimate objects and animals. A form of personification.

Synecdoche

Referring to a part by the whole, or the whole by a part.

Metonymy

Referring to something through something related to it.

Ecolge

A pastoral poem written in an classical style.

Pathos

A quality in a character that evokes pity or sadness.

Roman a clef

A novel portraying real people and events under different names.

Novel of manners

A realistic story focusing on customs and conversations of a specific class of people. It can be used to highlight class differences. Jane Austen was a prominent author of this style of novel.

Epistolary novel

A novel composed of a series of documents, usually letters.

Chronicles

A historical account of events in order. There is no narrator and no external commentary on the characters, situations, or consequences of actions. C.S. Lewis wrote a prominent fictional version of this.

Social novel

A novel dramatizing a prevailing social problem through its effects on characters. Setting is a prominent influence, and perhaps character, in this type of novel.

Vignette

Brief glimpses into a character’s life.

Aphorism

A pithy observation containing a general truth.

Parallelism

The use of successive verbal constructions that correspond in structure, sound, meter, meaning, etc.

Prosody

The study and use of meters and versification forms.

Versification

Creating verses and poetry.

Medieval era

From approximately 476 AD to the 15th century and the start of the Renaissance in Italy, this era was defined by religious influence, and feudal and chivalric values. Literature would often serve educational, spiritual, and moral purposes. Allegory and epic narratives, as well as ballads, were prevalent.

Geoffrey Chaucer

Medieval era; 1343-1400; invented Rhyme Royal; Englishman

King Arthur

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; Morte d’Arthur; The Faerie Queene; Idylls from the King

John Donne

1571/1572-1631; poet; metaphysical poetry