Appendix
F
Glossary of Literary Terms
The terms briefly defined here are for the most part more fully defined earlier in the text. Hence many of the entries are followed by page references to the earlier discussions.
accent stress given to a syllable.
act a major division of a play.
action (1) the happenings in a narrative or drama, usually physical events (B marries C, D kills E), but also mental changes (F moves from innocence to experience); in short, the answer to the question, “What happens?” (2) less commonly, the theme or underlying idea of a work. (1031)
allegory a work in which concrete elements (for instance, a pilgrim, a road, a splendid city) stand for abstractions (humanity, life, salvation), usually in an unambiguous, one-to-one relationship. The literal items (the pilgrim, and so on) thus convey a meaning, which is usually moral, religious, or political. To take a nonliterary example: The Statue of Liberty holds a torch (enlightenment, showing the rest of the world the way to freedom), and at her feet are broken chains (tyranny overcome). A caution: Not all of the details in an allegorical work are meant to be interpreted. For example, the hollowness of the Statue of Liberty does not stand for the insubstantiality or emptiness of liberty. (144)
alliteration repetition of consonant sounds, especially at the beginnings of words: free, form, phantom. (797)
allusion an indirect reference; thus when Lincoln spoke of “a nation dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal,” he was making an allusion to the Declaration of Independence.
ambiguity multiplicity of meaning, often deliberate, that leaves the reader uncertain about the intended significance.
anagnorisis a recognition or discovery, especially in tragedy—for example, when the hero understands the reason for his or her fall. (1096)
analysis an examination, which usually proceeds by separating the object of study into parts. (42, 743)
anapest a metrical foot consisting of two unaccented syllables followed by an accented one. Example, showing three anapests: “As I came / to the edge / of the wood.” (795)
anecdote a short narrative, usually reporting an amusing event in the life of an important person. (74)
antagonist a character or force that opposes (literally, “wrestles”) the protagonist (the main character). Thus, in Hamlet the antagonist is King Claudius, the protagonist is Hamlet; in Antigone, the antagonist is Creon, the protagonist Antigone.
antecedent action happenings (especially in a play) that occurred before the present action. (1031)
apostrophe address to an absent figure or to a thing as if it were present and could listen. Example: “O rose, thou art sick!” (749)
approximate rhyme see half-rhyme.
archetype a theme, image, motif, or pattern that occurs so often in literary works it seems to be universal. Examples: a dark forest (for mental confusion), the sun (for illumination).
aside in the theater, words spoken by a character in the presence of other characters, but directed to the spectators (i.e., understood by the audience to be inaudible to the other characters). (1032)
assonance repetition of similar vowel sounds in stressed syllables. Example: light/bride. (797)
atmosphere the emotional tone (for instance, joy, or horror) in a work, most often established by the setting.
ballad a short narrative poem, especially one that is sung or recited, often in a stanza of four lines, with 8, 6, 8, 6 syllables, with the second and fourth lines rhyming. A folk or popular ballad is a narrative song that has been transmitted orally by what used to be called “the folk”; a literary ballad is a conscious imitation (without music) of such a work, often with complex symbolism. (675)
blank verse unrhymed iambic pentameter, that is, unrhymed lines of ten syllables, with every second syllable stressed. (819)
cacophony an unpleasant combination of sounds.
caesura a strong pause within a line of verse. (796)
canon a term originally used to refer to those books accepted as Holy Scripture by the Christian Church. The term has come to be applied to literary works thought to have a special merit by a given culture—for instance, the body of literature traditionally taught in colleges and universities. Such works are sometimes called “classics” and their authors are “major authors.” As conceived in the United States until recently, the canon consisted chiefly of works by dead white European and American males—partly, of course, because middle-class and upper-class white males were in fact the people who did most of the writing in the Western Hemisphere, but also because white males (for instance, college professors) were the people who chiefly established the canon. Not surprisingly the canon-makers valued (or valorized or “privileged”) writings that revealed, asserted, or reinforced the canon-makers’ own values. From about the 1960s feminists and Marxists and others argued that these works had been regarded as central not because they were inherently better than other works but because they reflected the interests of the dominant culture, and that other work, such as slave narratives and the diaries of women, had been “marginalized.”
In fact, the literary canon has never been static (in contrast to the biblical canon, which has not changed for more than a thousand years), but it is true that certain authors, such as Homer, Chaucer, and Shakespeare have been permanent fixtures. Why? Partly because they do indeed support the values of those who in large measure control the high cultural purse strings, and perhaps partly because their works are rich enough to invite constant reinterpretation from age to age—that is, to allow each generation to find its needs and its values in them.
catastrophe the concluding action, especially in a tragedy.
catharsis Aristotle’s term for the purgation or purification of the pity and terror supposedly experienced while witnessing a tragedy. (1097)
character (1) a person in a literary work (Romeo); (2) the personality of such a figure (sentimental lover, or whatever). Characters (in the first sense) are sometimes classified as either “flat” (one-dimensional) or “round” (fully realized, complex). (74, 78, 79)
characterization the presentation of a character, whether by direct description, by showing the character in action, or by the presentation of other characters who help to define each other.
cliché an expression that through overuse has ceased to be effective. Examples: acid test; sigh of relief; the proud possessor.
climax the culmination of a conflict; a turning point, often the point of greatest tension in a plot. (1031)
comedy a literary work, especially a play, characterized by humor and by a happy ending. (1415)
comparison and contrast To compare is strictly to note similarities; to contrast is to note differences. But compare is now often used for both activities. (46)
complication an entanglement in a narrative or dramatic work that causes a conflict. (74)
conflict a struggle between a character and some obstacle (for example, another character or fate) or between internal forces, such as divided loyalties. (73, 1031)
connotation the associations (suggestions, overtones) of a word or expression. Thus seventy and three score and ten both mean “one more than sixty-nine,” but because three score and ten is a biblical expression, it has an association of holiness; see also denota-tion. (750)
consistency building the process engaged in during the act of reading, of reevaluating the details that one has just read in order to make them consistent with the new information that the text is providing.
consonance repetition of consonant sounds, especially in stressed syllables. Also called half-rhyme or slant rhyme. Example: arouse/doze. (797)
convention a pattern (for instance, the 14-line poem, or sonnet) or motif (for instance, the bumbling police officer in detective fiction) or other device occurring so often that it is taken for granted. Thus it is a convention that actors in a performance of Julius Caesar are understood to be speaking Latin, though in fact they are speaking English. Similarly, the soliloquy (a character alone on the stage speaks his or her thoughts aloud) is a convention, for in real life sane people rarely talk aloud to themselves.
couplet a pair of lines of verse, usually rhyming. (801)
crisis a high point in the conflict that leads to the turning point. (1031)
criticism the analysis or evaluation of a literary work. (1741)
cultural criticism criticism that sets literature in a social context, often of economics or politics or gender. Borrowing some of the methods of anthropology, cultural criticism usually extends the canon to include popular material—for instance, comic books and soap operas.
dactyl a metrical foot consisting of a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables. Example: underwear. (795)
deconstruction a critical approach that assumes language is unstable and ambiguous and is therefore inherently contradictory. Because authors cannot control their language, texts reveal more than their authors are aware of. For instance, texts (like such institutions as the law, the churches, and the schools) are likely, when closely scrutinized, to reveal connections to a society’s economic system, even though the authors may have believed they were outside of the system. (1744)
denotation the dictionary meaning of a word. Thus soap opera and daytime serial have the same denotation, but the connotations (associations, emotional overtones) of soap opera are less favorable. (750)
dénouement the resolution or the outcome (literally, the “unknotting”) of a plot. (74, 79, 1031)
deus ex machina literally, “a god out of a machine”; any unexpected and artificial way of resolving the plot—for example, by introducing a rich uncle, thought to be dead, who arrives on the scene and pays the debts that otherwise would overwhelm the young hero.
dialogue exchange of words between characters; speech.
diction the choice of vocabulary and of sentence structure. There is a difference in diction between “One never knows” and “You never can tell.” (729)
didactic pertaining to teaching; having a moral purpose.
dimeter a line of poetry containing two feet. (795)
discovery see anagnorisis.
drama (1) a play; (2) conflict or tension, as in “The story lacks drama.”
dramatic irony see irony.
dramatic monologue a poem spoken entirely by one character but addressed to one or more other characters whose presence is strongly felt. (727)
effaced narrator a narrator who reports but who does not editorialize or enter into the minds of any of the characters in the story.
elegy a lyric poem, usually a meditation on a death. (698)
elision omission (usually of a vowel or unstressed syllable), as in o’er (for over) and in “Th’ inevitable hour.”
end rhyme identical sounds at the ends of lines of poetry. (797)
end-stopped line a line of poetry that ends with a pause (usually marked by a comma, semicolon, or period) because the grammatical structure and the sense reach (at least to some degree) completion. It is contrasted with a run-on line. (796)
English (or Shakespearean) sonnet a poem of 14 lines (three quatrains and a couplet), rhyming ababcdcdefefgg. (801)
enjambment a line of poetry in which the grammatical and logical sense run on, without pause, into the next line or lines. (796)
epic a long narrative, especially in verse, that usually records heroic material in an elevated style.
epigram a brief, witty poem or saying.
epigraph a quotation at the beginning of the work, just after the title, often giving a clue to the theme.
epiphany a “showing forth,” as when an action reveals a character with particular clarity.
episode an incident or scene that has unity in itself but is also a part of a larger action.
epistle a letter, in prose or verse.
essay a work, usually in prose and usually fairly short, that purports to be true and that treats its subject tentatively. In most literary essays the reader’s interest is as much in the speaker’s personality as in any argument that is offered.
euphony literally, “good sound,” a pleasant combination of sounds.
explication a line-by-line unfolding of the meaning of a text. (42, 824, 1743)
exposition a setting forth of information. In fiction and drama, introductory material introducing characters and the situation; in an essay, the presentation of information, as opposed to the telling of a story or the setting forth of an argument. (79, 1031)
eye rhyme words that look as though they rhyme, but do not rhyme when pronounced. Example: come/home. (797)
fable a short story (often involving speaking animals) with an easily grasped moral. (72)
farce comedy based not on clever language or on subtleties of characters but on broadly humorous situations (for instance, a man mistakenly enters the women’s locker room).
feminine rhyme a rhyme of two or more syllables, with the stress falling on a syllable other than the last. Examples: fatter/batter; tenderly/slenderly. (796, 797)
feminist criticism an approach especially concerned with analyzing the depiction of women in literature—what images do male authors present of female characters?—and with the reappraisal of work by female authors. (1753)
fiction an imaginative work, usually a prose narrative (novel, short story), that reports incidents that did not in fact occur. The term may include all works that invent a world such as a lyric poem or a play.
figurative language, figures of speech words intended to be understood in a way that is other than literal. Thus lemon used literally refers to a citrus fruit, but lemon used figuratively refers to a defective machine, especially a defective automobile. Other examples: “He’s a beast.” “She’s a witch.” “A sea of troubles.” Literally, such expressions are nonsense, but writers use them to express meanings inexpressible in literal speech. Among the most common kinds of figures of speech are apostrophe, metaphor, and simile (see the discussions of these words in this glossary). (743, 750)
flashback an interruption in a narrative that presents an earlier episode.
flat character a one-dimensional character (for instance, the figure who is only and always the jealous husband or the flirtatious wife) as opposed to a round or many-sided character. (79)
fly-on-the-wall narrator a narrator who never editorializes and never enters a character’s mind, but reports only what is said and done. (100)
foil a character who makes a contrast with another, especially a minor character who helps to set off a major character. (1177)
foot a metrical unit, consisting of two or three syllables, with a specified arrangement of the stressed syllable or syllables. Thus the iambic foot consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. (794)
foreshadowing suggestions of what is to come. (81)
formalist criticism analysis that assumes a work of art is a constructed object with a stable meaning that can be ascertained by studying the relationships between the elements of the work. Thus a poem is like a chair: a chair can of course be stood on, or used for firewood, but it was created with a specific purpose that was evident and remains evident to all viewers. (1742)
free verse poetry in lines of irregular length, usually unrhymed. (819)
gap a term from reader-response criticism, referring to a reader’s perception that something is unstated in the text, requiring the reader to fill in the material—for instance, to draw a conclusion as to why a character behaves as she does. Filling in the gaps is a matter of “consistency building.” Different readers of course may fill the gaps differently, and readers may even differ as to whether a gap exists at a particular point in the text. (10)
gay criticism see gender criticism.
gender criticism criticism concerned especially with alleged differences in the ways that males and females read and write, and with the representations of gender (straight, bisexual...
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