Lit Crit

Middle English Period - The period of English literature that saw such some sort, written or unwritten, typically characterized momentous events as the Black Death and the by imagination, emotion, significant meaning, sense Peasants' Revolt and produced the notable works impressions, and concrete language, is the The Canterbury Tales and Le Morte Darthur

Meditation - A work—usually religious or philosophical-in which serious subjects are handled in a reflective, contemplative manner

Poem - the type of composition described as a cultural artifact of some sort, written or unwritten, typically characterized by imagination, emotion, significant meaning, sense, impressions, and concrete language.

Idiolect - One person's particular language—- including vocabulary, syntax, pronunciation— slightly different from everybody else's

Apocope - The part of a word, most often accomplished by the omission of a final vowel preceding an initial vowel, as in “th’ orient”.

Antonomasia - A figure of speech in which a proper name is substituted for a general idea that it represents

Avant-garde - A military metaphor drawn from the French and applied to a new writing that shows striking Innovations in style, form, and subject matter

Jeremiad - A work that foretells destruction because of the evil of a group

Spondee - What composed of two extended syllables, as in “ football”

Pitch - A potentially significant quality of articulated sound, determined by relative frequency, intensity, and volume

Feudalism - System of social and political organization that prevailed in Western Europe during much of the medieval period

Petrarchan conceit - An elaborate comparison in which a poet expresses the beauty, cruelty, and charm of the Beloved and the suffering of the forlorn lover

Expatriate - It's used to label those, such as Henry James, T. S. Elliot and Ezra Pound, who leaves their native lands to reside somewhere else

Paragoge - The addition of an extra letter, syllable, or sound at the end of a word, as in “dearie” for “dear”

Dialectic - in the broadest sense, simply the art of argumentation or debate, but now often referring to the tradition of continuing debate or discussion of eternally resolved issues

Tautology - The use of repetitious words, repeating an idea without adding force or clarity

Tezra Rima - A three-line stanza, supposedly devised by Dante, that rhymes aba bcb cdc and so on

Cognate - The term applied to words descended from a common linguistic ancestor

Psalm - Not that time that could be applied to a brief statement of wisdom

Begging the Question - A fallacious form of argument in which a conclusion is presented although a premise has not been proved

Requiem - A chance embodying a prayer for the repose of the dead

Recension - A revision or editing of a manuscript

Ratiocination - A process of reasoning from data to conclusions, brought to literary significance by Poe

Didacticism - Instructiveness in a work, especially moral, ethical, or religious instructiveness

Caricature - Writing that exaggerates certain qualities of a person and produces a burlesque, ridiculous effect

Stanza - Term describing the recurrence grouping of two or more verse lines in terms of length, metrical form, and often rhyme schemes

English Sonnet - The sonnet that consists of three quatrains followed by a couplet

School of Night - Another name given it to the metaphysical poets

Anthology - Literally a “gathering of flowers,” the term designating a collection of writing, usually by various authors

Epistolary - Literature, usually prose fiction, entirely or partly written as letters (correspondence between or among people)

iamb - The most common rhythm in English verse, a foot consisting of an unaccented syllable followed by an accented syllable

Leitmotif - A recurrent repetition of some word, phrase, situation or idea that tends to unify a work through its power to recall earlier events

Chantey - A sailors’ song marked by strong Rhythm and often used to accompany certain forms of repetitious hard labor

Dramatic irony - A term applied to the recognition that the words are actions of a character may carry a meaning unperceived by the character but understood by the audience

Metathesis - The interchange of position between sounds and a word, as in “perty” for “pretty”

Epiphany - Literally, a manifestation or showing forth, usually of a divine being, but also used to designate an event in which the essential nature of something is suddenly perceived

Spoof - A light, satirical parody of a work, style, or genre

Oxymoron - A self contradictory combination of words or smaller verbal units

Portmanteau words - Words formed by telescoping two words into one, as the making of “cosplay” from “costume” and “roleplay”

Surrealism - A movement in arts emphasizing the expression of the imagination as realized in dreams and presented without conscious control

Suspension of disbelief - A phrase coined by Samuel Taylor Coleridge to describe an audience is willingness to withhold questions about truth, accuracy, or probability

Ernest Hemingway - Not among the authors to make meaningful contributions to American Literature of the 19th century

John Steinbeck - American author of The Pearl, The Grapes of Wrath, and Of Mice and Men

To bowdlerize a piece of writing is to… remove material considered offensive

Rudyard Kipling - The 19th century English author of The Jungle Book, Barrack-Room Ballads, Puck of Pook’s Hill, and Kim

Louise Gluck - The most recent American winner (2020) of the Nobel Prize for literature, recognized for “her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal”

Not one of the works of important 20th century Irish author James Joyce… Pygmalion

Caedmon - The first English poet known by the name, author of Hymns

E. M. Forster - The author of A Passage to India, A Room with a View, and posthumously published Maurice

Ockham’s Razor - The philosophical principle that states the “entities should not be multiplied Beyond necessity,” often label the principle of parsimony

Kailyard School - The group of Scottish writers whose work dealt idealistically with village life in Scotland

Period of the Confessional Self - The period of American literature that saw uncertainty, revolts, cynicism and a strong turning inward of many American writers

Impressionistic criticism - The type of criticism that emphasizes how the work of art affects the critic

Naturalism - The application of the principles of scientific determinism to literature which formed the basis of a literary movement of the late 19th century and early 20th centuries

Not one of the works of William Shakespeare… The Spanish Tragedy

Samuel Pepys - The most famous diary in english, kept between January 1, 1660 and May 29, 1669 is by

Oxford English Dictionary - Easily the greatest of all English dictionaries

Reggae - A style of music, song, and performance originating in Jamaica that became popular in the 1970s, featuring a strongly accented rhythm and religious and political subjects

Lollards - The name for the followers of John Wycliffe, who inspired a religious reform in England in the late 14th century

Modern English is said to have emerged in.. c.1500