Terms Glossary 1
IB English Lexicon
allegory
A story or narrative, often told at some length, which has a deeper meaning below the surface.
The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan is a well-known allegory. A more modern example is George
Orwell's Animal Farm, which on a surface level is about a group of animals who take over their
farm but on a deeper level is an allegory of the Russian Revolution and the shortcomings of
Communism.
alliteration
The repetition of the same consonant sound, especially at the beginning of words. For example,
"Five miles meandering with a mazy motion" (Kubla Khan by S.T. Coleridge).
allusion
A reference to another event, person, place, or work of literature, such as “A Daniel come to
judgment,” a Biblical allusion in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. The allusion is usually
implied rather than explicit and often provides another layer of meaning to what is being said.
ambiguity
Use of language where the meaning is unclear or has two or more possible interpretations or
meanings. It could be created through a weakness in the way the writer has expressed himself or
herself, but often it is used by writers quite deliberately to create layers of meaning in the mind of
the reader.
anachronism
Something that is historically inaccurate, for example the reference to a clock chiming in
Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.
anadiplosis
A kind of REPETITION in which the last word or phrase of one sentence or line is repeated at the
beginning of the next, as in these lines from Bartholomew Griffin’s Fidessa:
For I have loved long, I crave reward
Reward me not unkindly: think of kindness,
Kindness becommeth those of high regard
Regard with clemency a poor man’s blindness.
analogy
A comparison of two things, alike in certain aspects; particularly a method used in exposition and
description by which something unfamiliar is explained or described by comparing it to something
more familiar. In argumentation and logic, analogy is frequently used to justify contentions.
Analogy is widely used in poetry but also in other forms of writing; a SIMILE is an expressed analogy,
a METAPHOR an implied one.
analysis
A method by which a thing is separated into parts, and those parts are given rigorous, logical,
detailed scrutiny, resulting in a consistent and relatively complete account of the elements of the
thing and the principles of their organization.
anaphora
One of the devices of REPETITION, in which the same expression (word or words) is repeated at the
beginning of two or more lines, clauses, or sentences. It is one of the most obvious of the devices
used in the poetry of Walt Whitman, as the opening lines from one of his poems show:
As I ebb’d with the ocean of life,
As I wended the shores I know,
As I walk’d where the ripples continually wash you Paumanok.
anecdote
A short NARRATIVE detailing particulars of an interesting EPISODE or event. The term most frequently
refers to an incident in the life of an important person and should lay claim to an element of truth.
Though anecdotes are often used as the basis for short stories, an anecdote lacks complicatedPLOT
and relates a single EPISODE.
antagonist
The character directly opposed to the protagonist.
antithesis
Contrasting ideas or words that are balanced against each other, as in “Man proposes, God
disposes.” Antithesis is the balancing of one term against another. The second line of the
following couplet by Pope is an example: “The hungry judges soon the sentence sign, / And
Terms Glossary 2
wretches hang that jury-men may dine.” Often characterized by similar grammatical structure.
apostrophe
An interruption in a poem or narrative so that the speaker or writer can address a dead or absent
person or particular audience directly.
aside
A dramatic convention by which an actor directly addresses the audience but is not supposed to
be heard by the other actors on stage.
assonance
The repetition of similar vowel sounds. For example: "There must be Gods thrown down and
trumpets blown" (Hyperion by John Keats). This shows the paired assonance of "must", "trum",
"thrown", "blown". Assonance differs from RHYME in that RHYME is a similarity of vowel and
consonant.
asyndeton
A condensed form of expression in which elements customarily joined by conjunctions are
presented in a series without conjunctions. The most famous example is probably Caesar’s “Veni,
vidi, vici” (I came, I saw, I conquered).
atmosphere
The prevailing MOOD created by a piece of writing, particularly – but not exclusively – when that
mood is established in part by SETTING or landscape. It is, however, not simply setting but rather
an emotional aura that helps establish the reader’s expectations and attitudes. Examples are the
comber mood established the description of the prison door in the opening chapter of
Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, the brooding sense of fatality engendered by the description of
Egdon Heath at the beginning of Hardy’s The Return of the Native, the sense of “something rotten
in the state of Denmark” established by the scene on the battlements at the opening of Hamlet, or
the opening stanza of Poe’s “The Raven.”
autobiography
The story of a person’s life as written by that person. Although a common loose use of the term
includes memoirs, diaries, journals and letters, distinctions among these forms need to be made.
Diaries, journals, and letters are not extended, organized narratives prepared for the public eye;
autobiographies and memoirs are. But, whereas memoirs deal at least in part with public events
and noted personages other than the author, an autobiography is a connected narrative of the
author’s life, with some stress on introspection.
ballad
A narrative poem that tells a story (traditional ballads were songs) usually in a straightforward
way. The theme is often tragic or contains a whimsical, supernatural, or fantastical element.
bildungsroman
A novel that deals with the development of a young person, usually from adolescence to maturity;
it is frequently autobiographical. Dickens’ Great Expectations is a standard example.
blank verse
Unrhymed poetry that adheres to a strict pattern in that each line is an iambic pentameter (a tensyllable line with five stresses). It is close to the natural rhythm of English speech or prose, and is
used a great deal by many writers including Shakespeare and Milton. The freedom through the
lack of RHYME is offset by the demands for variety, which may be obtained by the skillful poet
through a number of means: the shifting of the CAESURA, or pause, from place to place within the
line; the shifting of the STRESS among syllables; the use of the RUN-ON LINE, which permits thoughtgrouping in large or small blocks; the variation in tonal qualities by changing the level of DICTION
from passage to passage; and finally, the adaptation of the form to reflect differences in the
speech of characters and in emotion.
caesura
A conscious break in a line of poetry (“I never had noticed it until / Twas gone, - the narrow
copse,” from Edward Thomas). It is also employed without dashes, as in “To err is human, to
forgive, divine” with the caesura falling between human and to.
catharsis
A purging of the emotions which takes place at the end of a tragedy.
character
A complicated term that includes the idea of the moral constitution of the human personality
(Aristotle's sense of ethos), the presence of moral uprightness, and the simpler notion of the
Terms Glossary 3
presence of creatures in art that seem to be human beings of one sort or another; character is also
a term applied to a literary form that flourished in England and France in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries. It is a brief descriptive SKETCH of a personage who typifies some definite
quality. The person is described not as an individualized personality but as an example of some
vice or virtue or type, such as a busybody, a glutton, a fop, a bumpkin, a garrulous old man, or a
happy milkmaid. Similar treatments of institutions and inanimate things, such as "the character of
a coffee house," also employed the term, and late in the seventeenth century, by a natural
extension of the tradition.
characterization
The creation of imaginary persons so that they seem lifelike.
chiasmus
A pattern in which the second part is balanced against the first but with the parts reversed, as in
Coleridge’s line, “Flowers are lovely, love is flowerlike,” or Pope’s “Works without show, and
without pomp presides.” In general, any elements subject to arrangement can take on this
chiastic or mirror-image design (X-shaped, like the Greek letter chi).
cliché
A phrase, idea, or image that has been used so much that it has lost much of its original meaning,
impact, and freshness: “just the tip of the iceberg”
climax
A rhetorical term for a rising order of importance in the ideas expressed. Such an arrangement is
called climactic, and the item of the climax. Not to be confused with plot: climax.
colloquial
Ordinary, everyday speech and language, including the use of slang, contractions, and lively
conversational rhythms.
comedy
Originally simply a play or other work which ended happily. Now we use this term to describe
something that is funny and which makes us laugh. In literature the comedy is not a necessarily a
lightweight form. A play like Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, for example, is, for the most
part a serious and dark play but as it ends happily, it is often described as a comedy.
conceit
An elaborate, extended, and sometimes surprising comparison between things that, at first sight,
do not have much in common. More common in poetry.
conflict
The struggle that grows out of the interplay of two opposing forces; provides interest, suspense,
and tension.
connotation
An implication or association attached to a word or phrase. A connotation is suggested or felt
rather than being explicit. Connotations may be (1) private and personal, the result of individual
experience, (2) group (national, linguistic, racial), or (3) general or universal, held by all or most
people.
consonance
The repetition of the same consonant sounds in two or more words in which the vowel sounds are
different. For example: "And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall, / By his dead smile I knew we
stood in Hell" (Strange Meeting by Wilfred Owen). Where consonance replaces the rhyme, as
here, it is called half-rhyme.
culture
In a state of nature, humankind survives by directly struggling with the environment; in time, the
elements of that struggle – practices, habits, customs, beliefs, traditions – become institutions, the
body of which is known as culture. Because culture changes from place to place and from time to
time, we speak variously of English culture, Elizabethan culture, Victorian culture, working-class
culture, and so forth. For literary purposes, we may speak of a work as both a creature and a
creator of culture; we may study Elizabethan culture through Shakespeare’s plays, and vice versa.
Drama and fiction tend to be popular accounts of cultural and social problems in the first place, so
they are the most interesting subjects for cultural analysis; and certain sorts of work – such as
those explicitly designed to praise or blame in an overtly social context – yield the best results to
such analysis. A cultural approach to literature assumes beforehand that a work exists most
Terms Glossary 4
interestingly as part of a social context.
denotation
The basic meaning of a word, independent of its emotional coloration or associations.
denouement
The ending of a play, novel, or drama where "all is revealed" and the plot is unraveled.
dialect
When the speech of two groups or of two persons representing two groups both speaking the
same “language” exhibits very marked differences, the groups or persons are said to speak
different dialects.
dialogue
Conversation between two or more people. Dialogue, sometimes used in general expository and
philosophical writing, embodies certain values:
1. It advances the action and is not mere ornamentation.
2. It is consistent with the character of the speakers.
3. It gives the impression of naturalness without being a verbatim record of what may have
been said, because fiction is concerned with the “semblance of reality,” not with reality
itself.
4. It presents the interplay of ideas and personalities among the people conversing; it sets
forth a conversational give and take – not simply a series of remarks of alternating
speakers.
5. It varies according to the various speakers participating.
6. It serves to give relief from passages essentially descriptive or expository.
diction
The choice of words that a writer makes. Certain sorts of diction can become an author’s typical
habit and distinctive stylistic signature, as in the combination of question and elliptical absolute
found in many of W.B. Yeats’s most celebrated passages (such as “And what rough beast, its hour
come round at last…” and “What youthful mother, a shape upon her lap…”).
didactic
A work that is intended to preach or teach, often containing a particular moral or political point.
double
entendre
A statement that is deliberately ambiguous, one of whose possible meanings is risqué or
suggestive of some impropriety. NOT a PUN. In Romeo and Juliet, Mercutio executes a notable
double entendre when he tells the Nurse (who has asked about the time of day), “Tis no less, I tell
ye; for the bawdy hand of the dial is now upon the prick of noon.” The entendre here is double
because a dial does have a “hand” and the circumference is marked with “pricks”; by adding
“bawdy” to this statement, Mercutio explicitly doubles the meanings of “hand” and “prick” and
brings out the still-current vulgar sense of the latter.
dramatic
monologue
A poem or prose piece in which a character addresses an audience. Often the monologue is
complete in itself, as in Alan Bennett's Talking Heads.
dystopia
Literally “bad place.” The term is applied to accounts of imaginary worlds, usually in the future, in
which present tendencies are carried out to their intensely unpleasant culminations.
empathy
A feeling on the part of the reader of sharing the particular experience being described by the
character or writer.
end stopped
lines
A verse line with a pause or a stop at the end of it. The absence of enjambment (or run-on lines).
As in Pope’s
All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul.
enjambment
(run-on line)
A line of verse that flows on into the next line without a pause. The first and second lines from
Milton given below, carried over to the second and third, illustrate:
Or if Sion hill
Delight thee more, and Siloa’s brook, that flow’d
Fast by the oracle of God…
Terms Glossary 5
epanalepsis
The repetition at the end of a clause of a word or phrase that occurred at its beginning, as in
Shakespeare’s lines from King John (2.1): “Blood hath bought blood, and blows have answer’d
blows: / Strength match’d with strengthm and power confronted power.”
epiphany
Literally a manifestation or showing-forth; an event in which the essential nature of something – a
person, a situation, an object – was suddenly perceived.
episodic
structure
A term applied to writing containing a series of incidents or episodes that are loosely connected by
a larger subject matter or thematic structure but that could stand on their own. A work that has a
sustained story line or that would not be a complete work without one of its parts does not exhibit
episodic structure.
epistrophe
A rhetorical term applied to the REPETITION of the closing word or phrase at the end of several
clauses, as in Sidney’s “And all the night he did nothing by weep Philoclea, sigh Philoclea, and cry
out Philoclea.” (The New Arcadia)
eponymous
hero
euphemism
The person after whom a literary work, film, etc., is named
farce
A play that aims to entertain the audience through absurd and ridiculous characters and action.
figurative
language
Language that is symbolic or metaphorical and not meant to be taken literally. Embodies one or
more FIGURES OF SPEECH.
figures of
speech
The various uses of language that depart from customary construction, order, or significance.
Figures of speech are of two major kinds: rhetorical figures, which are departures from customary
usage to achieve special effects without a change in the radical meaning of the words; and tropes,
which involve basic changes in the meaning of words.
flashback
A device by which a work presents material that occurred prior to the opening scene of the work.
foil
Applied to any person who through contrasts underscores the distinctive characteristics of
another. (Literally, a ‘leaf” of bright metal placed under a jewel to increase its brilliance)
foreshadowing
The presentation of material in a work in such a way that later events are prepared for.
Foreshadowing can result from the establishment of a mood or atmosphere, as in the opening of
Conrad’s Heart of Darkness or the first act of Hamlet. It can result from an event that adumbrates
the later action, as does the scene with the witches at the beginning of Macbeth. It can result
from the appearance of physical objects or facts, as the clues do in a detective story, or from the
revelation of a fundamental and decisive character trait, as in the opening chapter of Edith
Wharton’s The House of Mirth. In all cases, the purpose of foreshadowing is to prepare the reader
or view for action to come.
form
A term designating the organization of the elementary parts of a work of art in relation to its total
effect; distinguished from content.
free verse
Verse written without any fixed structure (either in meter or rhyme). Very little of published verse
is truly “free” in every respect: poets may give up rhyme and meter, but replace it with parallelism
and anaphora (as in Whitman).
Freytag’s
pyramid
A diagram of the structure of a five-act tragedy (inciting moment, rising action, climax or crisis,
falling action, moment of last suspense). This pyramid has been widely accepted as a heuristic
means of getting at the structure of many kinds of fiction in addition to drama.
genre
A particular type of writing, e.g. prose, poetry, drama. Genre classification implies that there are
Expressing an unpleasant or unsavory idea in a less blunt and more pleasant way. To say “at
liberty” instead of “out of work,” “senior citizens” instead of “old people,” “in the family way”
instead of “pregnant.”
Terms Glossary 6
groups of formal or technical characteristics among works of the same generic kind regardless of
time or place of composition, author, or subject matter.
hyperbole
Deliberate and extravagant exaggeration. The figure may be bused to heighten effect, or it may be
used for humor. Macbeth is using hyperbole here: “No; this my hand will rather / The
multitudinous seas incarnadine, / Making the green one red.”
image
A distinctive element of the language of art by which experience in its richness and complexity is
communicated, as opposed to the simplifying and conceptualizing processes of science and
philosophy. The image is, therefore, a portion of the essence of the meaning of the literary work,
not just decoration. Images may be either literal or figurative, a literal image being one that
involves no necessary change or extension in the obvious meaning of the words, one in which the
words call up a sensory representation of the literal object or sensation; and a figurative image
being one that involves a “turn” on the literal meaning of the words.
imagery
The use of words to create a picture or "image" in the mind of the reader. Images can relate to any
of the senses, not just sight, but also hearing, taste, touch, and smell. "Imagery" is often used to
refer to the use of descriptive language, particularly to the use of metaphors and similes. Patterns
of imagery, often without the conscious knowledge of author or reader, are sometimes taken to
be keys to a deeper meaning of a work. Such patterning is important in fiction, as well contrasting
images of light and dark being among the most conspicuous.
irony
At its simplest level, irony means saying one thing while meaning another. It occurs where a word
or phrase has one surface meaning but another contradictory, possibly opposite meaning is
implied. Irony is frequently confused with sarcasm. Sarcasm is spoken, often relying on tone of
voice, and is much more blunt than irony. The effectiveness of irony is the impression it gives of
restraint. The ironist writes with tongue in cheek; for this reason irony is more easily detected in
speech than in writing, because the voice can, through its intonation, easily warn the listener of a
double significance.
loose sentence
A sentence grammatically complete before the end; the opposite of PERIODIC SENTENCE. A complex
loose sentence consists of an independent clause followed by a dependent clause. Most of the
complex sentences we use are loose (the term implies no fault in structure), the PERIODIC SENTENCE
being usually reserved for emphasis, drama, and variety. Loose sentences with too many
dependent clauses become limp. “Although I just ate, I’m still hungry” is periodic; “I’m still hungry,
although I just ate” is loose.
lyric
Originally a song performed to the accompaniment of a lyre (an early harp-like instrument) but
now it can mean a song-like poem or a short poem expressing personal feeling
metaphor
A comparison of one thing to another in order to make description more vivid. The metaphor
actually states that one thing is the other. For example, a simile would be: "The huge knight stood
like an impregnable tower in the ranks of the enemy", whereas the corresponding metaphor
would be: "The huge knight was an impregnable tower in the ranks of the enemy". (See SIMILE and
PERSONIFICATION.)
meter
The regular use of stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry; the recurrence in poetry of a
rhythmic pattern, or the rhythm established by the regular occurrence of similar units of sound.
metonymy
The substitution of the name of an object closely associated with a word for the word itself. We
commonly speak of the monarch as “the crown,” an object closely associated with royalty thus
being made to stand for it.
motif
A dominant theme, subject or idea which runs through a piece of literature. Often a "motif" can
assume a symbolic importance
Terms Glossary 7
narrative
A piece of writing that tells a story
narrator
Anyone who recounts a narrative. See also POINT-OF-VIEW.
onomatopoeia
The use of words whose sound copies the sound of the thing or process that they describe. On a
simple level, words like "bang", "hiss", and "splash" are onomatopoeic, but it also has more subtle
uses
oxymoron
A figure of speech which joins together words of opposite meanings, e.g. "the living dead", "bitter
sweet", etc.
paradox
A statement that appears contradictory, but when considered more closely is seen to contain a
good deal of truth. Richard Bentley’s statement that there are “none so credulous as infidels” is
an illustration, as is “less is more” in Robert Browning’s “Andrea del Sarto.”
parallelism
Such an arrangement that one element of equal importance with another is similarly developed
and phrased. The principle of parallelism dictates that coordinate ideas should have coordinate
presentation. Within a sentence, for instance, where several elements of equal importance are to
be expressed, if one element is cast in a relative clause the others should be expressed in relative
clauses. Conversely, of course, the principle of parallelism demands that unequal elements should
not be expressed in similar constructions. Practiced writers are not likely to attempt, for example,
the comparison of positive and negative statements, of inverted and uninverted constructions, of
dependent and independent clauses. And, for an example of simple parallelism, the sentence
immediately preceding may serve.
pastiche
A French word for a parody or literary imitation. Perhaps for humorous or satirical purposes,
perhaps as a mere literary exercise, perhaps in all seriousness, a writer imitates the style or
technique of some recognized writer or work. In art a picture is called a pastiche when it manages
to catch something of a master’s peculiar style. In music pastiche is applied to a medley or
assembly of various pieces into a single work.
periodic
sentence
A sentence not grammatically complete before its end; the opposite of a LOOSE SENTENCE. The
periodic sentence is effective when it is designed to arouse interest and curiosity, to hold an idea
in suspense before its final revelation.
persona
Literally a mask. The term is widely used to refer to a “second self” created by an author and
through whom the narrative is told. The persona may be a narrator; it can also be not a character
but an “implied author.”
personification
The attribution of human feelings, emotions, or sensations to an inanimate object. Personification
is a kind of metaphor where human qualities are given to things or abstract ideas, and they are
described as if they were a person
perspective
Different from the literary usage of point-of-view in that a story can technically be told in the same
point-of-view but told from a different perspective.
plot
The sequence of events in a poem, play, novel, or short story that make up the main storyline
point of view
The vantage point from which an author tells a story. A narrative is typically told from first person
(“I”) or third person (“he”); second person (“you”) is rare.
polysyndeton
The use of more conjunctions than is normal. Milton’s Satan for example “pursues his way, / And
swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies.”
prose
Any kind of writing which is not verse - usually divided into fiction and non-fiction
protagonist
The main character or speaker in a poem, monologue, play, or story
pun
A play on words that have similar sounds but quite different meanings. An example is Thomas
Terms Glossary 8
Hood’s: “They went and told the sexton and the sexton tolled the bell.”
repetition
Reiteration of a word, sound, phrase, or idea. One of the most notable examples is Poe’s “The
Bells” where repetition is present in rhyme, in meter, and in stanza forms.
rhetoric
Originally, the art of speaking and writing in such a way as to persuade an audience to a particular
point of view. Now this term is often used to imply grand words that have no substance to them.
There are a variety of rhetorical devices, such as the rhetorical question - a question which does
not require an answer as the answer is either obvious or implied in the question itself. (See
APOSTROPHE, EXEMPLUM.)
rhyme
Corresponding sounds in words, usually at the end of each line but not always. The
correspondence of sound is based on the vowels and succeeding consonants of the accented
syllables, which must be preceded by different consonant sounds. The types of rhyme are
classified according to two schemes: (1) the position of the rhymes in the line, and (2) the number
of syllables involved.
rhyme scheme
The pattern of the rhymes in a poem. For the purpose of analysis, rhyme schemes are usually
presented by the assignment of the same letter of the alphabet to each similar sound in a stanza.
rhythm
The "movement" of the poem as created through the meter and the way that language is stressed
within the poem. In both prose and poetry the presence of rhythmic patterns lend both pleasure
and heightened emotional response, for it establishes a pattern of expectations and it rewards the
listener or reader with the pleasure of a series of fulfillments of expectation. In poetry three
different elements may function in a pattern of regular occurrence: quantity, accent, and number
of syllables. In prose, despite the absence of the formal regularity of pattern here described for
verse, cadence is usually present.
satire
The highlighting or exposing of human failings or foolishness within a society through ridiculing
them. Satire can range from being gentle and light to being extremely biting and bitter in tone, e.g.
Swift's Gulliver's Travels or A Modest Proposal, and George Orwell's Animal Farm
setting
The background against which action takes place. The elements making up a setting are:
1. The geographical location, its topography, scenery, and such physical arrangements as the
location of the windows and doors in a room
2. The occupations and daily manner of living of the characters
3. The time or period in which the action takes place, for example, epoch in history or season
of the year
4. The general environment of the characters, for example, religious, mental, moral, social,
and emotional conditions.
When setting dominates, or when a work is written largely to present the manners and customs of
a locality, the result is local color writing or regionalism.
simile
A comparison of one thing to another in order to make description more vivid. Similes use the
words "like" or "as" in this comparison. A simile is generally the comparison of two things
essentially unlike, on the basis of resemblance in one aspect. It is not a simile to say, “My house is
like your house” even though a comparison does exist.
soliloquy
A speech in which a character, alone on stage, expresses his or her thoughts and feelings aloud for
the benefit of the audience, often in a revealing way
sonnet
A fourteen-line poem, usually with ten syllables in each line. There are several ways in which the
lines can be organized, but often they consist of an octave and a sestet
stanza
The blocks of lines into which a poem is divided. (Sometimes these are, less precisely, referred to
as verses, which can lead to confusion as poetry is sometimes called "verse".)
Terms Glossary 9
stream of
consciousness
A technique in which the writer records thoughts and emotions in a "stream" as they come to
mind, without giving order or structure
structure
The way that a poem or play or other piece of writing has been put together. This can include the
meter pattern, stanza arrangement, and the way the ideas are developed, etc.Often authors
advertise their structure as a means of securing clarity (as in some college textbooks), whereas at
other times their artistic purpose leads them to conceal the structure (as in narratives) or
subordinate it altogether (as in some INFORMAL ESSAYS). In fiction, the structure is generally
regarded today as the most reliable as well as the most revealing key to the meaning of the work.
In the contemporary criticism of poetry, too, structure is used to define not only verse form and
formal arrangement but also the sequences of images and ideas that convey meaning.
style
The individual way in which a writer has used language to express his or her ideas.Style combines
two elements: the idea to be expressed and the individuality of the author. From the point of
view of style it is impossible to change the diction to say exactly the same thing; for what the
reader receives from a statement is not only what is said, but also certain CONNOTATIONS that
affect the consciousness. Just as no two personalities are alike, no two styles are exactly alike. It
has been observed that even infants have individual styles. Even in so limited a medium as Morse
code, each sender has a style, called a “fist.”
A mere recital of some categories may suggest the infinite range of manners the word
style covers: we speak, for instance, of journalistic, scientific, or literary styles; we call the
manners of other writers abstract or concrete, rhythmic or pedestrian, sincere or artificial,
dignified or comic, original or imitative, dull or vivid, low or plain or high. But if we are actually to
estimate a style, we need more delicate tests than these; we need terms so scrupulous in their
sensitiveness as to distinguish the work of each writer from that of all other writers, because, as
has been said, no two styles are exactly comparable.
A study of styles for the purpose of analysis will include, in addition to the infinity of
personal detail suggested above, such general qualities as: DICTION, sentence structure and variety,
IMAGERY, RHYTHM, REPETITION, COHERENCE, emphasis, and arrangement of ideas. There is a growing
interest in the study of style and language in fiction.
subplot
A subordinate or minor story in a piece of fiction. This secondary plot interest, if skillfully handled,
has a direct relation to the main plot.
suspense
Anticipation as to the outcome of events, particularly as they affect a character for whom one has
sympathy. Suspense a major device for securing and maintaining interest. It may be either of two
major types: in one, the outcome is uncertain and the suspense resides in the question of who or
what or how; in the other, the outcome is inevitable from foregoing events and the suspense
resides in the audience’s anxious or frightened anticipation, in the question of when.
symbol
Like images, symbols represent something else. In very simple terms a red rose is often used to
symbolize love; distant thunder is often symbolic of approaching trouble. Symbols can be very
subtle and multi-layered in their significance
synecdoche
A figure of speech in which a part of something is used to stand for the whole thing or the whole
signifies the part. To be clear, a good synecdoche ought to be based on an important part of the
whole, and usually, the part standing for the whole ought to be directly associated with the
subject at hand. Thus, under the first restriction we say “threads” for “clothes” and “wheels” for
“car,” and under the scone we speak of infantry on the march as “foot” rather than as “hands” just
as we use “hands” rather than “foot” for people who work at manual labor.
syntax
The way in which sentences are structured. Sentences can be structured in different ways to
achieve different effects.
technique
The sum of working methods or special skills. Technique may be applied very broadly, as when
Terms Glossary 10
one says, “The symbolic journey is a major technique in Joyce’s Ulysses,” or very narrowly to refer
to the minutiae of method, or in an intermediate sense, as in STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS. In all cases,
however, technique refers to how something is done rather than to what is done. Technique,
FORM, STYLE, and “manner” overlap somewhat, with technique connoting the literal, mechanical, or
procedural parts of execution.
theme
A central idea. In nonfiction prose it may be thought of as the general topic of discussion, the
subject of the discourse, the THESIS. In poetry, fiction, and drama it is the abstract concept that is
made concrete through representation in person, action, and image. No proper theme is simply a
subject or an activity. Both theme and thesis imply a subject and a predicate of some kind – not
just vice in general, say, but some such proposition as “Vice seems more interesting than virtue
but turns out to be destructive.” “Human wishes” is a topic or subject; the “vanity of human
wishes” is a theme.
tone
The tone of a text is created through the combined effects of a number of features, such as
diction, syntax, rhythm, etc. The tone is a major factor in establishing the overall impression of the
piece of writing
understatement Saying less than is actually meant, generally in an ironic way. When someone says “pretty fair” but
means “splendid,” that is an understatement.
verisimilitude
The term indicates the degree to which a work creates the appearance of truth.
zeugma
A device that joins together two apparently incongruous things by applying a verb or adjective to
both which only really applies to one of them, e.g. "Kill the boys and the luggage" (Shakespeare's
Henry V).