Theory of Literature Final Exam Review

This set of vocabulary flashcards covers key schools of thought, theoretical concepts, and structural terms from the Theory of Literature course across all 12 units.

Russian Formalism

A school of thought where form is considered the essence of literature; it asserts that external contexts like biography, history, and sociology are irrelevant to literary analysis.

Immanentism

The belief that meaning is found entirely within the text itself.

Defamiliarisation

A technique where literature makes the familiar strange to renew the reader’s perception.

New Criticism

A 1930s USA movement emphasizing close reading and formal unity, viewing the text as self-contained and rejecting outside contexts.

Intentional Fallacy

The rejection of the author's intention as a valid way to analyze a literary text.

Affective Fallacy

The rejection of the reader's emotional response as a basis for literary analysis.

Structuralism

A theory viewing literature as a system of signs where words gain meaning through relations and opposites within a system governed by codes and rules.

Synchronically

The analysis of language as it exists in a specific moment in time rather than through its historical development.

Sublimation

A Lacanian concept involving the transformation of sexual drives into socially valued activities like art.

Marxism

A theory that views literature as a product of social and economic conditions, reflecting class struggle, modes of production, and the ideology of the ruling class.

Poststructuralism & Deconstruction

Critical approaches that challenge fixed meanings and binary oppositions, suggesting that meaning is deferred, proliferating, and lacks a single stable truth.

Judith Butler

A key figure in Gender Studies who proposed that gender is performative and enacted through repeated behaviors rather than being innate.

Objectivist Attitude

The view that meaning is inside the text and aesthetic properties are absolute, permanent, and intrinsic.

Anti-objectivist Attitude (Neo-Pragmaticism)

The view that meaning is constructed by society and based on social conventionalism, identity, and power dynamics.

Phono-symbolism

The connection established between specific sounds and emotions within a text.

Denotative

The literal, objective, or 'dictionary' definition of a word.

Connotative

The cultural, emotional, or ideological associations attached to a word.

Literariness

The qualities that make a text literature based on established cultural standards, genres, and traditions.

Poeticity

The active force that disrupts ordinary communication to create a fresh aesthetic experience by twisting traditional rules.

Transreason (Zaum)

The deliberate use of words for their emotional punch or texture rather than for logical, dictionary meanings.

Morphology

The study of the internal structure of words.

Syntax

The study of how words combine to form larger sequences and their specific functions within those structures.

Hyperbaton

The inversion of normal word order for poetic effect or emphasis.

Enjambment

A mismatch between metre and syntax where a sentence or thought carries over from one line of verse to the next without pause.

Pleonasm

The use of more words than are necessary to convey meaning, such as 'I heard it with my own ears.'

Coupling Theory

Samuel R Levins' idea that poetry occurs when words are linked in two different ways at the exact same time (e.g., through sound and syntax).

Textual Dynamization (Tinianov)

A concept viewing literature as a living thing where words interact dynamically and lose their mundane meanings once they enter a poem.

Monosemy

A characteristic of standard language aiming for one clear meaning to avoid confusion.

Polysemy

A characteristic of literary language that embraces multiple layers of meaning.

Verisimilitude

An Aristotelian concept meaning literature does not have to be true, only credible or believable.

Possible Worlds Theory

The idea that a literary text creates its own intentional world with its own specific rules.

Diurnal Imaginary

Symbols characterized by Gilbert Durand as heroic, light, and clear-cut.

Nocturnal Imaginary

Symbols characterized by Gilbert Durand as mythical, intimate, dark, and cyclical.

Reception Theory (Jauss)

The study of how a reader's culture and past reading experience (Horizon of Expectations) influence their interaction with a text.

Aesthetic Distance

The gap between what readers expect to happen based on genre and what actually occurs in the text.

The Maxim of Quality (Grice)

The real-life expectation that people tell the truth, a rule which is waived when engaging with literature.

Architextuality (Genette)

The concept that no text exists in a vacuum and every book belongs to a genre model or 'architext'.

Lyric

A subjective genre where the poet speaks in their own voice, often characterized by a 'retreat into the self'.

Extradiegetic Narrator

A narrator who is outside the story, acting as the voice telling it.

Intradiegetic Narrator

A narrator who is a character within the story being told.

Homodiegetic Narrator

A narrator who is a character in the story they are currently telling.

Free Indirect Speech

A mode of speech where the narrator’s voice and a character’s internal thoughts merge without 'said' tags.

Conative (Appellative) Function

A language function in drama and essays aimed at provoking a reaction or persuading the reader/receiver.

Essay

The fourth major literary genre, characterized as an exposition of a topic with original insight and stylistic intent, often classified under didactic genres.