Literary Terms
Ross MacKay
This resource was compiled from several on-line sources by my colleague, Ross MacKay, for use in his first-year literature classes. I asked Ross if I could translate it to HTML and post it as an on-line resource - and here it is! (Sept. 11, 2003 Editor's note: newly revised edition still being edited)
Act
A major division in the action of a play,
typically indicated by lowering the curtain or raising the houselights.
Playwrights frequently employ acts to accommodate changes in time, setting,
mood, etc. In longer plays, acts are frequently subdivided into scenes, which
mark the point where new characters enter or a location changes.
Allegory
A
story illustrating an idea or a moral principle in which objects take on
symbolic meanings. In Dante Alighieri’s Divine
Comedy, Dante, symbolizing humankind, is taken by Virgil the poet on a
journey through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise in order to teach him the nature
of sin and its punishments, and the way to salvation.
Alliteration
Used
for poetic effect, a repetition of the initial sounds of several words in a
group. The following line from Robert Frost’s poem Acquainted with the Night provides us with an example of
alliteration:
I have stood still and stopped
the sound of feet.
The
repetition of the ‘s’ sound creates a sense of quiet, reinforcing the meaning
of the line.
Allusion
A
reference in one literary work to a character or theme found in another
literary work. T. S. Eliot, in The Love
Song of J. Alfred Prufrock alludes
(refers) to the biblical figure John the Baptist in the line,
Though I have seen my head
(grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter . . .
In
the New Testament, John the Baptist’s head was presented to King Herod on a
platter.
Ambiguity
A
statement which can contain two or more meanings. For example, when the oracle
at Delphi told Croesus that if he waged war on Cyrus he would destroy a great
empire, Croesus thought the oracle meant his enemy’s empire. In fact, the
empire Croesus destroyed by going to war was his own.
Analogy
The
comparison of two things, which are alike in several respects, for the purpose
of explaining or clarifying some unfamiliar or difficult idea or object by
showing how the idea or object is similar to some familiar one. While simile
and analogy often overlap, the simile is generally a more artistic likening,
done briefly for effect and emphasis, while analogy serves the more practical
purpose of explaining a thought process or a line of reasoning or the abstract
in terms of the concrete, and may therefore be more extended:
You may abuse a tragedy, though
you cannot write one. You may scold a carpenter who has
made you a bad table, though you
cannot make a table. It is not your trade to make tables.
––Samuel
Johnson
Antagonist
A
person or force which opposes the protagonist in a literary work. In Stephen
Vincent Benet’s The Devil and Daniel
Webster, Mr. Scratch is Daniel
Webster’s antagonist at the trial of Jabez Stone. The cold, in Jack London’s To Build a Fire is the antagonist which
defeats the man on the trail. The
antagonist may not be obvious, in which case you could choose a candidate and
discuss why he or she deserves to be thought of as the antagonist. An
antagonist may not even be a person – or may be the same person as the main
character. (See also Protagonist.)
Aside
A brief speech in which a character turns from
the person she is addressing to speak directly to the
audience, a dramatic device for letting the
audience know what she is really thinking or feeling as opposed to what she
pretends to think or feel.
Assonance
The
repetition of vowel sounds in a literary work, especially in a poem. Edgar
Allen Poe’s “The Bells” contains numerous examples:
Hear
the mellow wedding bells . . .
and From the molten-golden
notes . . .
The
repetition of the short ‘e’ and long ‘o’ sounds denotes a heavier, more serious
bell than the bell encountered in the first stanza where the assonance included
the ‘i’ sound in examples such as ‘tinkle’, ‘sprinkle’, and ‘twinkle’.
Bathos
Writing
is bathetic when it strives to be serious (impassioned or elevated) but
achieves only a comic effect because it is anti-climactic. “Anticlimax” is
synonymous with bombast but can also refer to a bathetic effect which is
intentional. In Tom Thumb the Great (1731), Fielding uses anticlimax for the
purposes of satire, as when King Arthur observes the signs of love in his
daughter: “Your eyes spit fire, your cheeks grow red as beef.” Here figurative language that begins with an
ennobling (though bombastic) fire metaphor then descends to the mean level of
raw steak.
Blank Verse
A
poem written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. Consider the following from The Ball Poem by John Berryman:
What is the boy now, who has
lost his ball,
What, what is he to do? I saw it
go
Merrily bouncing, down the
street, and then
Merrily over-there it is in the
water!
Carpe Diem
A
Latin phrase which translated means “Seize (Catch) the day,” meaning “Make the
most of today.” The phrase originated
as the title of a poem by the Roman Horace (65-8 B.C.) and caught on as a theme
with such English poets as Robert Herrick and Andrew Marvell. Consider these
lines from Herrick’s To the Virgins, to
Make Much of Time:
Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles
today,
To-morrow will be dying.
Catharsis
(Greek – “purging”) The release of the emotions
of pity and fear by the audience at the end of a tragedy. According to
Aristotle, these negative emotions are purged because the tragic protagonist’s
suffering is an affirmation of human values rather than a despairing denial of
them.
Character
(1) Any of the persons involved in a story. (2) The distinguishing moral
qualities and personal traits of a character. They may perform actions, speak
to other characters, be described by the narrator, or be remembered (or even
imagined) by other characters.
Characters to notice in a story are the story’s Narrator, the Main Character
or Protagonist, the Antagonist, characters who are Parallel or Foils for each
other, and sometimes Minor Characters.
Developing (or dynamic) character. A character who during the course of a
story undergoes a permanent change in some aspect of his/her personality or
outlook.
Flat character.
A character who has only one outstanding trait or feature, or at the most a few
distinguishing marks.
Round character.
A character who is complex, multi-dimensional, and convincing.
Stock character.
A stereotyped character: one whose nature is familiar from prototypes in
previous fiction.
Static character.
A character who is the same sort of person at the end of a story as s/he was at
the beginning.
Characterization
The
method a writer uses to reveal the personality of a character in a literary
work. Personality may be revealed (1)
by what the character says about himself or herself; (2) by what others reveal
about the character; and (3) by the character’s own actions.
Comedy
A type of drama, opposed to tragedy, usually
having a happy ending, and emphasizing human
limitation rather than human greatness.
Scornful
comedy: A type of comedy whose main purpose is to expose and ridicule human
folly, vanity, or hypocrisy.
Romantic
comedy: A type of comedy whose likeable and sensible main characters are placed
in difficulties from which they are rescued at the end of the play, either
attaining their ends or having their good fortunes restored. Oftentimes,
romantic comedies conclude with marriages.
Connotation and Denotation
The
denotation of a word is its dictionary definition. The word ‘wall’, therefore,
denotes an upright structure which encloses something or serves as a boundary.
The connotation of a word is its emotional content. In this sense, the word
‘wall’ can also mean an attitude or actions which prevent becoming emotionally
close to a person. In Robert Frost’s Mending
Wall, two neighbors walk a property line each on his own side of a wall of
loose stones. As they walk, they pick up and replace stones that have fallen.
Frost thinks it’s unnecessary to replace the stones since they have no cows to
damage each other’s property. The neighbor only says, “Good fences make good
neighbors.” The wall, in this case, is
both a boundary (denotation) and a barrier that prevents Frost and his neighbor
from getting to know each other, a force prohibiting involvement (connotation).
Consonance
The
repetition of consonant sounds with differing vowel sounds in words near each
other in a line or lines of poetry. Consider the following example from
Theodore Roethke’s Night Journey”
We rush into a rain
That rattles double glass.
The
repetition of the ‘r’ sound in ‘rush’, ‘rain’, and ‘rattles’, occurring so
close to each other in these two lines, would be considered consonance.
Couplet
A
stanza of two lines, usually rhyming. The following by Andrew Marvell is an
example of a rhymed couplet:
Had we but world enough and
time,
This coyness, lady, were no
crime.
Crisis or Climax
The
moment or event in the Plot in which the conflict is most directly addressed:
the main character “wins” or “loses”; the secret is revealed; the ending of the
story becomes inevitable, etc. Example: In Cinderella, the climactic
moment of the plot occurs when Cinderella fits her foot into the glass slipper,
thereby “winning” marriage with the Prince.
In many stories, there are several points in the plot which are
plausible crises. This is especially true when there are several almost-equal
major characters. Try finding the moment which you think is the most important
and discussing why it deserves to be thought of as the crisis of the plot. Or
you could also try explaining why this particular story seems to have no crisis
(if that is how you see it).
Deus ex machina
(Latin – “god from the machine”) The resolution
of a plot by use of a highly improbable chance or coincidence (so named from
the practice of some Greek dramatists of having a god descend from heaven in
the theatre by means of a stage machine to rescue the protagonist from an
impossible situation at the last possible minute).
Diction
An
author’s choice of words. ‘Since words have specific meanings, and since one’s
choice of words can affect feelings, a writer’s choice of words can have great
impact in a literary work. The writer, therefore, must choose his words
carefully. Discussing his novel A
Farewell to Arms during an interview, Ernest Hemingway stated that he had
to rewrite the ending thirty-nine times. When asked what the most difficult
thing about finishing the novel was, Hemingway answered, “Getting the words
right.”
Drama
(Greek—“to do” or “to perform”) Drama is
designed to be performed, as opposed to plays, which is a term for works of
dramatic literature.
Drama of the Absurd
A type of drama, allied to comedy, radically
nonrealistic in both content and presentation, that emphasizes the absurdity,
emptiness, or meaninglessness of life.
Editorializing
Writing that departs from the narrative or
dramatic mode and instructs the reader how to think or feel about the events of
a story or the behavior of a character.
Exposition
The
first section of the typical Plot, in which Characters are introduced, the
Setting is described, and any necessary background information is given. Example:
Every fairy tale begins with expository information: “There once was a king and
queen who wanted a child . . .” or “Once upon a time there lived a merchant
with one daughter and two stepdaughters . . .” and so forth. The characters are described and sometimes
named; their family relationships are specified. Think about how much information the story gives at the
beginning. Sometimes there is a lot, and the exposition stretches out;
sometimes the story starts in the middle (or, if you want to use an impressive
Latin term, in medias res) and the
expository information is tucked in unobtrusively as people talk to each other
or it is found inside the narrator’s descriptions. What does this author do
with the exposition and why did he or she make that choice?
Falling Action
The
part of the Plot after the Climax, containing events caused by the climax and
contributing to the Resolution. Example: In most fairy tales, there is
not much falling action: “So they were married and lived happily ever after”
combines the falling action of the marriage and the resolution of everlasting
happiness into one sentence. But in some versions of Snow White, the wicked
queen comes to Snow White’s marriage and is punished: the prince has ordered
someone to make iron shoes, and they have been heated in an oven; the queen is
forced to wear them to dance at the wedding feast, and so she dies. These
events are falling action. Depending on
where you place the story’s crisis, there may not appear to be much falling
action. What events are required to finish the conflict once and for all? Try
to name the events of the falling action, or explain why the crisis and
resolution do not require much (or any) falling action.
Farce
A type of drama related to comedy but
emphasizing improbable situations, violent conflicts, physical action, and
coarse wit over characterization or articulated plot.
Figurative Language
In
literature, a way of saying one thing and meaning something else. Take, for
example, this line by Robert Burns: “My luv is a red, red rose.” Clearly Burns does not really mean that he
has fallen in love with a red, aromatic, many-petalled, long, thorny-stemmed
plant. He means that his love is as sweet and as delicate as a rose. While figurative language provides a writer
with the opportunity to write imaginatively, it also tests the imagination of
the reader, forcing the reader to go below the surface of a literary work into
deep, hidden meanings.
Figure of Speech
An
example of figurative language that states something that is not literally true
in order to create an effect. Similes, metaphors and personification are
figures of speech which are based on comparisons. Metonymy, synecdoche,
synesthesia, apostrophe, oxymoron, and hyperbole are other figures of speech.
Flashback
A
reference to an event which took place prior to the beginning of a story or
play. In Ernest Hemingway’s “The Snows of Kilamanjaro,” the protagonist, Harry
Street, has been injured on a hunt in Africa. Dying, his mind becomes
preoccupied with incidents in his past. In a flashback Street remembers one of
his wartime comrades dying painfully on barbed wire on a battlefield in Spain.
Foil
A
character in a play who sets off the main character or other characters by
comparison. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet,
Hamlet and Laertes are young men who behave very differently. While Hamlet
delays in carrying out his mission to avenge the death of his father, Laertes
is quick and bold in his challenge of the king over the death of his father.
Much can be learned about each by comparing and contrasting the actions of the
two. Finding character foils and explaining the contrasts between them is a
standard type of assignment, though the term may not be used. “Compare and
contrast X and Y” (with characters’ names instead of “X” and “Y”) usually means
either “discuss why X and Y are character foils” or “discuss why X and Y are
parallel characters.”
Foreshadowing
A
method used to build suspense by providing hints of what is to come.
Free Verse
Unrhymed
Poetry with lines of varying lengths, and containing no specific metrical
pattern. The poetry of Walt Whitman provides us with many examples. Consider
the following lines from Song of Myself:
I celebrate myself and sing
myself,
And what I assume you shall
assume,
For every atom belonging to me
as good belongs to you.
I loaf and invite my soul,
I lean and loaf at my ease
observing a spear of summer grass.
Genre
A
literary type or form. Drama is a genre of literature. Within drama, genres
include tragedy, comedy and other forms.
Hubris
(Greek) Extreme pride, leading to
overconfidence, that results in the misfortune of a tragic hero. Hubris leads
the hero to break a moral law, vainly attempt to transcend human limits, or
ignore a divine warning with disastrous results.
Hyperbole
A
figure of speech in which an overstatement or exaggeration occurs as in the
following lines from Act 2, scene 2 of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. In this scene,
Macbeth has murdered King Duncan. Horrified at the blood on his hands, he
asks:
Will all great Neptune’s ocean
wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No. This my
hand will rather
The multitudinous seas
incarnadine,
Making the green one red.
Literally,
it does not require an ocean to wash blood from one’s hand. Nor can the blood
on one’s hand turn the green ocean red. The hyperbole works to illustrate the
guilt Macbeth feels at the brutal murder of his king and kinsman.
Iambic Pentameter
A
metrical pattern in poetry which consists of five iambic feet per line. (An iamb, or iambic foot, consists of one
unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable, i.e. “away.”)
Imagery
A word
or group of words in a literary work which appeal to one or more of the senses:
sight, taste, touch, hearing, and smell. The use of images serves to intensify
the impact of the work. Consider the
following example of imagery in T. S. Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock:
When the evening is spread out
against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a
table.
This
example uses images of pain and sickness to describe the evening, which as an
image itself represents society and the psychology of Prufrock, himself.
Indeterminacy
Several
modern approaches to language and literature propose that the meaning of a text
can never be fully determined or fixed because the immediate meaning of a text
is the result of the particular cultural and social background of the reader;
further, the nature of language itself is such that the author’s original
“intention” cannot itself have been fixed and definite when the work was
originally created, quite apart from the tendency of language to generate its
own meaning over time. That a text is
inevitably indeterminate does not mean that all readings are of equal validity;
it does mean, however, that all meanings we draw from it are partial and
provisional, and that what we write about it is itself a text, open to further
interpretation.
Irony
Irony
takes many forms. In irony of situation, the result of an action is the reverse
of what the actor expected. Macbeth murders his king hoping that in becoming
king he will achieve great happiness. Actually, Macbeth never knows another
moment of peace, and finally is beheaded for his murderous act. In dramatic irony, the audience knows
something that the characters in the drama do not. For example, the identity of
the murderer in a crime thriller may be known to the audience long before the
mystery is solved. In verbal irony,
the contrast is between the literal meaning of what is said and what is meant.
A character may refer to a plan as “brilliant,” while actually meaning that
(s)he thinks the plan is foolish. Sarcasm is a form of verbal irony.
Metaphor
A
figure of speech wherein a comparison is made between two unlike quantities
without the use of the words “like” or “as.” Jonathan Edwards, in his sermon
“Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” has this to say about the moral
condition of his parishioners:
There are the black clouds of
God’s wrath now hanging directly over your
heads, full of the dreadful
storm and big with thunder.
The
comparison here is between God’s anger and a storm. Note that there is no use
of “like” or “as” as would be the case in a simile (See also Simile.)
Metonymy
A
figure of speech in which a word represents something else which it suggests.
For example, “the crown” can be used to refer to the king, “the White House” to
the U.S. government, and “Blake” to the works of Blake.
Motif
A
motif, or topos is a recurring concept or story element in literature. It includes concepts such as types of
incident or situation, as in the parting of lovers at dawn; plot devices, such
as the lady’s love token, which inspires courage in her lover, or the
recognition tokens in plots of mistaken identity; plot formulas, such as the
“loathly lady” who later becomes a beautiful princess, or the “femme fatale”
whose attraction proves deadly; and character types, such as the despairing
lover, conquering hero, or wicked stepmother.
In a more narrow sense, “motif” is also used to describe recurring
elements within particular works, such as phrases, descriptions, or patterns of
imagery.
Myth
An
unverifiable story based on a religious belief. The characters of myths are
gods and goddesses, or the offspring of the mating of gods or goddesses and
humans. Some myths detail the creation of the earth, while others may be about
love, adventure, trickery, or revenge. In all cases, it is the gods and
goddesses who control events, while humans may be aided or victimized. It is
said that the creation of myths was the method by which ancient, superstitious
humans attempted to account for natural or historical phenomena. In Homer’s, The Odyssey, the Greek hero, Odysseus,
is thwarted in his attempt to reach home by an angry Poseidon, god of the sea
and patron of Troy. The Trojan horse,
the trick the Greeks used to gain entrance into the city of Troy when a
ten-year siege had failed, was the plan of Odysseus’ creation. Poseidon, in his
anger, kept Odysseus from reaching home for ten years after the war ended.
Narrator
The
voice telling the story. This voice might belong to a Character in the story
whom other characters can see, hear, interact with, etc.; or the voice might appear to belong to the
author. The narrator may fit into one or more of these categories:
First-person narrator: stands out as a character and refers to himself or
herself, using “I.” Example: Jane Eyre narrates Charlotte Bronte’s novel Jane Eyre, which allows Bronte to let
her readers know just how the limitations of Jane’s life galled her, and how
Jane secretly fell in love with her employer, Mr. Rochester.
Second-person narrator: addresses the reader and/or the Main Character as
“you” (and may also use first-person narration, but not necessarily). Example:
This technique is rarely used, except briefly; Beatrix Potter addresses the
readers near the end of Peter Rabbit in
order to underline the “proper” moral which the bulk of the story undermines.
Another brief example is the opening of each of Rudyard Kipling’s Just-So Stories, in which the narrator
refers to the child-listener as “O Best-Beloved.”
Third-person narrator: not a character in the story; refers to the story’s
characters as “he” and “she.” This is probably the most common form of
narration, so I won’t give a specific example.
Limited Narrator: can only tell what one person is thinking or feeling. Example: in Peter Rabbit, we don’t find out what Mr.
McGregor thinks about, or what Mother rabbit thinks about, or what Flopsy,
Mopsy, and Cottontail thought about – only what Peter thinks about.
Omniscient narrator: not a character in the story; can tell what any or all characters are
thinking and feeling. Example: In Cinderella, several important plot events,
such as the finding of the glass slipper, take place when Cinderella herself is
not present; in these scenes, the audience sometimes knows what other
characters, like the Prince or the stepmother, are thinking.
Reliable narrator: everything this narrator says is true, and the narrator knows
everything that is necessary to the story.
Unreliable narrator: may not know all the relevant information; may be intoxicated or
mentally ill; may lie to the audience. Example: Edgar Allan Poe’s narrators are
frequently unreliable. Think of the delusions that the narrator of The Tell-Tale Heart has about the old
man, or consider the lying narrator in Poe’s Black Cat.
The
type of narrator telling the story can be vitally important to you as the
reader or interpreter, especially if the narrator is unreliable. Not every
unreliable narrator is as easy to spot as Poe’s in The Tell-Tale Heart; there may be a lot of scholarly debate about
whether a given narrator is reliable or not, and obviously you need to know how
much of the narration you can trust. If you cannot trust the narrator to tell
you what happened, then just summarizing the events of the story can be very
challenging. A first-person narrator may easily be a little unreliable, since
everyone wants to tell his/her own story in a way which shows himself or
herself in a good light. If the narration is limited, why has the author chosen
to show readers only this person’s thoughts? If the narrator addresses the reader
directly, does that draw you in or alienate you? All these issues and more
arise when discussing the narrators.
(See also Point of View.)
Onomatopoeia
A
literary device wherein the sound of a word echoes the sound it represents. The
words “splash.” “knock,” and “roar” are examples. The following lines end Dylan
Thomas’ Fern Hill:
Out of the whinnying green
stable
On to the fields of praise.
The
word “whinnying” is onomatopoetic. “Whinny” is the sound usually selected to
represent that made by a horse.
Oxymoron
A
combination of contradictory terms, such as used by Romeo in Act 1, scene 1 of
Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet:
Why then, O brawling love! O
loving hate!
O heavy lightness, serious
vanity;
Misshapen chaos of well-seeming
forms!
Feather of lead, bright smoke,
cold fire, sick health!
Another
oxymoron would be “Microsoft Works.”
Paradox
A
situation or a statement that seems to contradict itself, but on closer
inspection, does not. These lines from John Donne’s Holy Sonnet 10 provide an example:
That I may rise, and stand,
o’erthrow me.
The
poet paradoxically asks God to knock him down so that he may stand. What he
means by this is for God to destroy his present self and remake him as a holier
person.
Parallel Character
A
person whose role in the story is mostly important because of his or her
likeness to another Character, especially the Main Character. Example:
In the children’s novel The Secret Garden
by Frances Hodgson Burnett, the main character Mary Lennox is a spoiled, neglected
child who eventually learns to care for a garden and to feel sympathy for
others. Partly, she is able to change because of her interactions with her
cousin Colin Craven, who is even more spoiled and even more neglected. Colin’s
role in the story is to show Mary and the reader how badly she needs to change,
before she becomes as friendless and helpless as Colin. Parallel characters often have Subplots of
their own, which reflect the main Plot and its Themes. Understand the parallel
characters, and the main character and the overall theme(s) of the story will
be easier to understand.
Parody
A
literary work that imitates the style of another literary work. A parody can be
simply amusing or it can be mocking in tone, such as a poem which exaggerates
the use of alliteration in order to show the ridiculous effect of overuse of
alliteration. (See also Satire.)
Pathos
A
Greek term for deep emotion, passion, or suffering. When applied to literature,
its meaning is usually narrowed to refer to tragic emotions, describing the
language and situations which deeply move the audience or reader by arousing
sadness, sympathy, or pity. There are
many examples in Shakespeare’s King Lear,
such as Cordelia’s acceptance of defeat:
We are not the first / Who with
best meaning have incurred the worst.
Pathos
which seems excessive or exaggerated becomes melodramatic or sentimental, and
when its disproportion to its subject results from anticlimax, pathos becomes
bathetic. Modern tastes usually prefer pathetic effects achieved through
understatement and suggestion, rather than an extended focus upon suffering,
though some movies still attract large audiences by offering a good cry.
Persona
The
persona was the mask worn by an actor in Greek drama. In a literary context,
the persona is the character of the first-person narrator in verse or prose
narratives, and the speaker in lyric poetry. The use of the term “persona” (as
distinct from “author”) stresses that the speaker is part of the fictional
creation, invented for the author’s particular purposes in a given literary
work. The persona may be completely
different from the author, as in the naive narrator of Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726), or may seem
to be identifiable with the author, as in the lyric poems of Wordsworth and
Keats. But even in the latter case the persona can only be an aspect of the
author – a mood or attitude adopted for the purposes of a particular work, and
which changes subtly or drastically from one work to another.
Personification
A
figure of speech in which something nonhuman is given human characteristics.
Consider the following lines from Carl Sandburg’s Chicago:
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the big shoulders.
Carl
Sandburg description of Chicago includes shoulders. Cities do not have
shoulders – people do. Sandburg personifies the city by ascribing to it
something human – “shoulders.” “Justice
is blind” is another example.
Plot
The
structure of a story, or the sequence in which the author arranges events in a
story. The structure of a five-act play often includes the rising action, the
climax, the falling action, and the resolution. The plot may have a protagonist
who is opposed by antagonist, creating what is called, conflict. A plot may
include flashback or it may include a subplot which is a mirror image of the
main plot. For example, in Shakespeare’s, King
Lear, the relationship between the Earl of Gloucester and his sons mirrors
the relationship between Lear and his daughters.
Point of View
Point
of view is the perspective from which a narrative is presented; it is analogous
to the point from which the camera sees the action in cinema. The two main
points of view are those of the third-person
(omniscient) narrator, who stands outside the story itself, and the first-person narrator, who participates
in the story. The first type always uses third-person pronouns (“he,” “she,”
“they”), while the latter narrator also uses the first-person (“I”). The all-knowing third-person narrator may choose
to guide the reader’s understanding of characters and the significance of their
story. This type of narrator may be intrusive (commenting and evaluating, as in
the novels of Austen, Dickens, and Tolstoy), or unintrusive (describing without
much commentary, as in Flaubert’s Madame
Bovary [1857] and Hemingway’s short stories). Another possibility is the limited omniscient narrator, who
describes in the third-person only what is experienced by a few characters or
one alone. The first-person narrator is
a character within the story and therefore limited in understanding. He or she
might be an observer who happens to see the events of the story (as in Conrad’s
Heart of Darkness [1902]), or play a
minor role in the action (as in Melville’s Moby-Dick
[1851]), or might be a protagonist (as in Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye [1951]).
Other points of view include the self-conscious narrative, which draws
attention to its own fictional nature (as in Fielding’s Tom Jones [1749]); its cousin the self-reflexive narrative, which
describes an act of fictional composition within its story (like a
play-within-a-play); and the fallible or unreliable narrator, as in Henry
James’ The Turn of the Screw (1898). (See also Narrator.)
Protagonist
The
hero or central character of a literary work. In accomplishing his or her
objective, the protagonist is hindered by some opposing force either human (one
of Batman’s antagonists is The Joker), animal (Moby Dick is Captain Ahab’s
antagonist in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick),
or natural (the sea is the antagonist which must be overcome by Captain Bligh
in Nordhoff and Hall’s Men Against the
Sea,” the second book in the trilogy which includes Mutiny on the Bounty; the
sea is also the protagonist in Stephen Crane’s story, “The Open Boat.”).
There may be more than one character who is important enough to be called
“main”; there may not be any character who seems to qualify. In those cases,
figuring out whether there is a main character and who it is may be an
interesting and even difficult interpretive job. (See also Antagonist.)
Pun
A
play on words wherein a word is used to convey two meanings at the same time.
The line
below,
spoken by Mercutio in Shakespeare’s Romeo
and Juliet, is an example of a pun.
Mercutio
has just been stabbed, knows he is dying and says:
Ask for me tomorrow and you
shall find me a grave man.
Mercutio’s
use of the word ‘grave’ renders it capable of two meanings: a serious person or
a
corpse
in his grave. In Edwin Arlington
Robinson’s poem, “Richard Cory,” the line He was a gentleman from sole to crown
contains a pun on “sole,” which hints at the trouble in Cory’s “soul.”
Rhetorical Question
A
rhetorical question implies that the answer is obvious – the kind of question
that does not need
actually
to be answered. It is used for rhetorically persuading someone of a truth
without argument,
or
to give emphasis to a supposed truth by stating its opposite ironically. Rhetorical questions are often used for
comic effect, as in Shakespeare’s Henry
IV, Part 1 (1597) when Falstaff lies about fighting off eleven men
single-handedly, then responds to the prince’s doubts, “Art thou mad? Is not
the truth the truth?” On the other hand, Iago uses rhetorical question for
sinister ends, persuading Othello that his loving
wife
is a whore. Iago hints with questions (“Honest, my lord?” “Is’t possible, my
lord?”), encouraging
Othello
to view his own unjustified suspicions as foregone conclusions.
Resolution
The
part of a story or drama which occurs after the climax and which establishes a
new norm, a new state of affairs – the way things are going to be from then on.
Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet
climaxes with the death of the two lovers. Their deaths resolve the feud
between the two families. In the play’s resolution, Lords Capulet and Montague
swear to end their feud and build golden monuments to each other’s dead child.
In the resolution of the film Star Wars,”
Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Chewbacca are given medals by Princess Lea for
destroying the death star and defeating the empire. Is there a resolution section
in the story you are examining? If so, what needs to be explained or
re-evaluated? If not, why doesn’t the story need resolution – or why has the
author chosen to leave certain matters in the story unresolved? Answering
questions like this can often be useful and interesting. (See also Plot.)
Rising Action
The
second section of the typical Plot, in which the Main Character begins to
grapple with the story’s main conflict; the rising action contains several
events which usually are arranged in an order of increasing importance. Example: In most versions of Cinderella,
Cinderella finds out about the ball, is forbidden to go by her stepmother, gets
magical help, acquires at least one beautiful dress, goes to the ball, dances
with the prince, and runs away before the ball is over. These events are all
part of the rising action. Another example of rising action is in a mystery
novel: the events that take place in between the initial crime and the capture
of the criminal (in most cases) are the rising action, which is also the
section in which the clues are placed.
Not all the events of a long or complicated story are part of the rising
action. Some events belong to Subplots;
or in the case of the mystery novel, may exist only to distract you from the
really important rising action. Identifying the events that are really part of
the rising action can in some cases be a rewarding interpretive activity. (See also Plot.)
Satire
A
piece of literature designed to ridicule the subject of the work. While satire can
be funny, its aim is not to amuse, but to arouse contempt, and hopefully to
“correct” vice or folly. Jonathan swift’s Gulliver’s
Travel satirizes the English people, making them seem dwarfish in their
ability to deal with large thoughts, issues, or deeds. Satire arouses laughter
or scorn as a means of ridicule and derision, with the avowed intention of
correcting human faults. Common targets of satire include individuals (personal satire), types of people,
social groups, institutions, and human nature. Like tragedy and comedy, satire
is often a mode of writing introduced into various literary forms; it is only a
genre when it is the governing principle of a work. In direct satire, a first-person speaker addresses either the reader
or a character within the work (the adversarius) whose conversation helps
further the speaker’s purposes, as in Alexander Pope’s Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot (1735).
Indirect satire uses a
fictional narrative in which characters who represent particular points of view
are made ridiculous by their own behaviour and thoughts, and by the narrator’s
usually ironic commentary. In Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726) the hero narrating his own adventures
appears ridiculous in taking pride in his Lilliputian title of honour, “Nardac”;
by making Gulliver look foolish in this way, Swift indirectly satirizes the
pretensions of the English nobility, with its corresponding titles of “Duke”
and “Marquess.” (See also Irony.)
Setting
The
place(s) and time(s) of the story, including the historical period, social
milieu of the characters, geographical location, descriptions of indoor and
outdoor locales, etc.
Short Story
A
short fictional narrative. It is difficult to set forth the point at which a
short story becomes a short novel (novelette), or the page number at which a
novelette becomes a novel. Here are some examples which may help in determining
which is which: Ernest Hemingway’s Big
Two-Hearted River is a short story; John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men is a novelette; and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is a novel.
The
short story, or tale, has many of the same characteristics as the novel.
Generally, all details of a short story are arranged to achieve a single
effect. The action moves rapidly, with minimal complication or detail of
setting, and the significant characteristics of the protagonist’s life are
revealed economically through a central incident. Short stories range from the short short-story (as few as five
hundred words in length) to the novelette or novella (a more complex story but
still lacking the breadth of a novel). An example of the latter type is Joseph
Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1902). In
between these two types is the
short
story proper, which Edgar Allan Poe (one of its originators) described as “the
prose tale.” The
fable
and folk tale are precursors of the short story form.
Simile
A
figure of speech which takes the form of a comparison between two unlike
quantities for which a basis for comparison can be found, and which uses the
words “like” or “as” in the comparison, as in this line from Ezra Pound’s
“Fan-Piece, for Her Imperial Lord”: “clear as frost on the grass-bade”; In this line, a fan of white silk is being
compared to frost on a blade of grass. Note the use of the word “as.” (See also Metaphor.)
Sonnet
A
lyric poem of fourteen lines whose rhyme scheme is fixed. The rhyme scheme in
the Italian form as typified in the sonnets of Petrarch is abbaabba cdecde. The
Petrarchian sonnet has two divisions: the first is of eight lines (the octave),
and the second is of six lines (the sestet). The English, or Shakespearean
sonnet is divided into three quatrains (four-line groupings) and a final
couplet. The rhyme scheme is abab cdcd
efef gg. The meter is iambic
pentameter. The change of rhyme in the English
sonnet is coincidental with a change of theme in the poem. The structure of the
English sonnet explores variations on a theme in the first three quatrains and
concludes with an epigrammatic couplet. In Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29, the subject
shifts towards a conclusion in the third quatrain and ends with the epigram:
For thy sweet love rememb’red
such wealth brings,
That then I scorn to change my
state with kings.
In
sonnet sequences, or cycles, a series of sonnets are linked by a common theme.
Though sonnets began as love poetry and were introduced to England as such by
Thomas Wyatt, the form was extended to other subjects and other structures by
Donne, Milton and later writers such as Shelley, Keats, Dylan Thomas, and e. e.
cummings.
Subplot
A smaller
story embedded in the main story you are reading. Often subplots have important
likenesses to the main Plot, which will help you understand the story better as
a whole; in other stories, subplots fill in what would otherwise be logical
gaps in the main plot.
Subtext
A
term denoting what a character means by what (s)he says when there is a
disparity between diction and intended meaning. In irony a character may say
one thing and mean something entirely different. The real meaning of the speech
is the subtext.
Symbolism
A
device in literature wherein an object represents an idea. In Willaim Blake’s The Lamb, the speaker tells the lamb
that the force that made him or her is also called a lamb:
Little lamb, who made thee?
Little lamb, who made thee?
Little lamb, I’ll tell thee,
Little lamb, I’ll tell thee!
He is called by thy name,
For he calls himself a lamb.
The
symbol of the lamb in the above lines corresponds to the symbolism of the lamb
in Christianity wherein Christ is referred to as “The Lamb of God.”
Synecdoche
A
figure of speech wherein a part of something represents the whole thing. Thus, the head of a cow might substitute for
the whole cow. Therefore, a herd of
fifty cows might be referred to as “fifty head of cattle.” In Alfred Lord Tennyson’s Ulysses, Ulysses refers to his former
companions as “free hearts, free foreheads.”
In Lycidas Milton refers to
corrupt clergy as “blind mouths.”
Theme
An
ingredient of a literary work which gives the work unity. The theme provides an answer to the
question, “What is the work about?”
Each literary work carries its own theme(s). The main theme of Robert Frost’s Acquainted with the Night is loneliness. Shakespeare’s King Lear contains many themes, among
which are blindness and madness. Unlike
plot, which deals with the action of a work, theme concerns itself with a
work’s message or contains the general idea of a work.
Tone
Tone
expresses the author’s attitude toward his or her subject. Since there are as
many tones in literature as there are tones of voice in real relationships, the
tone of a literary work may be one of anger or approval, pride or piety – the
entire gamut of attitudes toward life’s phenomena. Here is one literary
example: The tone of John Steinbeck’s short novel Cannery Row is nonjudgemental. Mr. Steinbeck never expresses
disapproval of the antics of Mack and his band of bums. Rather, he treats them
with unflagging kindness.
Tragedy
A type of drama, opposed to comedy, in which
the protagonist, a person of unusual moral or intellectual stature or
outstanding abilities, suffers a fall in fortune because of some error of
judgment, excessive virtue, or flaw in her/his nature.