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Terms,
Terms,
Terms!
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FREYTAG’S PYRAMID
•
•
the turning point of the action in a story or play
• a hinge; a shift
the moment that something happens and there’s no going back
• a axis from which the falling action and resolution result
climax
-
Grete states that Gregor is no longer human in
The Metamorphosis
- Gatsby and Tom exchange verbal fisticuffs in
The Great Gatsby
Mental images and physical experience
evoked by descriptive language
(visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, gustatory, and kinesthetic)
imagery
“The artist's life nourishes itself on the particular, the concrete. . . .
Start with the mat-green fungus in the pine woods yesterday: words
about it, describing it, and a poem will come. . . . Write about the cow,
Mrs. Spaulding's heavy eyelids, the smell of vanilla flavouring in a
brown bottle. That's where the magic mountains begin.” ~ Sylvia
Plath
Suspension
of Disbelief
Temporarily and
willingly setting aside
beliefs about reality in
order to enjoy the
make-believe of a play,
a poem, film, or story.
elasticity
of time
Chronicle of a Death Foretold is
told in a non-linear fashion,
moving freely from past to present
and back again.
In Slaughterhouse Five, Billy
Pilgrim becomes “unstuck in
time.” He travels between periods
of his life, unable to control which
period he lands in.
• The non-chronological
time telling of a tale;
when a writer moves plot
and characters around in
time; past, present, and
future.
• Think Einstein’s theory of
relativity – the claim that
space and time are elastic
and can be warped and
stretched like taffy.
tabula rasa
(TAH-boo-lah RAH-sah)
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/tabula+rasa
• a blank slate; a fresh start
• what we are comes from what we experience and
perceive
• this is the “nurture” in nature vs. nurture
She had no room for gaiety and ease. She
had spent the golden time in grudging its
going. Dorothy Parker, “The Lovely Leave”
alliteration
the repetition of consonant sounds
at the beginning of words
…by the name of Annabel Lee…
…chilling my Annabel Lee…
…the beautiful Annabel Lee…
ballad
A short narrative poem, written to be sung, with a simple
and dramatic action. Ballads tell of love, death, the
supernatural, or a combination of these.
Ballads contain incremental repetition which repeats one
or more lines with small but significant variations that
advance the action.
tone
• Examples: Harper Lee and
Gabriel Garcia Marquez both
write about justice; however,
there is a noticeable difference
in their tones: nostalgic and
innocent vs. journalistic and
neutral.
• Tone = the writer's attitude toward his or her
subject; the mood or moral view developed.
• Tone should be described: formal, playful, sardonic,
optimistic, demeaning, etc.
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
" 'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door;
Only this, and nothing more.“
-The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe,
internal rhyme
rhyme in the middle of a line
“Literary Analysis” = how an
author uses language to…
… create meaning …
… develop character …
… express an idea …
… reflect an attitude …
... convey an experience …
… affect a reader…
… etc …
Remember, language is fluid, flexible, adaptable ~ it can be multiple things at
once.
•
•
•
•
14 lines
iambic pentameter
3 quatrains and 1 rhyming couplet
rhyme scheme = abab cdcd efef gg
English
(or Shakespearean)
Sonnet
• 14 lines
• iambic pentameter
• 2 parts:
o octave with abba abba rhyme
o sestet with cd cd cd rhyme
Italian
(or Petrarchan)
Sonnet
The word lyric derives from the
Greek word for lyre, a stringed
instrument in use since ancient
times.
lyric poetry
Poetry that presents the feelings and
emotions of a poet as opposed to
poetry that tells a story. Sonnets,
odes, and elegies are examples of
lyric poems.
ODE
a poem in praise of
someone or
something;
expressive of
exalted or
enthusiastic
emotion
Ode to My Socks by Pablo Neruda (excerpt)
Mara Mori brought me
a pair of socks
which she knitted herself
with her sheepherder's hands,
two socks as soft as rabbits.
I slipped my feet into them
as if they were two cases
knitted with threads of twilight and goatskin,
Violent socks,
my feet were two fish made of wool,
two long sharks
sea blue, shot through
by one golden thread,
two immense blackbirds,
two cannons,
my feet were honored in this way
by these heavenly socks.
They were so handsome for the first time
my feet seemed to me unacceptable
like two decrepit firemen,
firemen unworthy of that woven fire,
of those glowing socks.
VILLANELLE
a short poem of fixed
form, written in
tercets, usually five in
number, followed by a
final quatrain, all
being based on two
rhymes; the first and
third lines of the first
stanza are used,
alternatingly, as the
final line of
subsequent stanzas
One Art
by: Elizabeth Bishop
The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something everyday. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
Then practice losing further, losing faster:
places and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.
--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
Source: The Complete Poems 1926-1979 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1983)
haiku
• Traditional Japanese haiku is a three-line poem with seventeen
syllables, written in a 5/7/5 syllable count.
• Focuses on images from nature, emphasizes simplicity, intensity,
and directness of expression.
• Focus on a brief moment in time; a use of provocative, colorful
images; an ability to be read in one breath; and a sense of
sudden enlightenment and illumination.
• This philosophy influenced poet Ezra Pound, who noted the power of haiku's
brevity and juxtaposed images. The influence of haiku on Pound is most
evident in his poem In a Station of the Metro which began as a thirty-line
poem, but was eventually pared down to two:
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.
Poetic Meter, Part I
• When a rhythmic pattern of
stresses recurs in a poem, it
is called meter.
• Metrical patterns are
determined by the type and
number of feet in a line of
verse (poetry).
• Combining the name of a
line length with the name of
a foot concisely describes
the meter of the line.
Line Length:
• 2 feet = dimeter
• 3 feet = trimeter
• 4 feet = tetrameter
• 5 feet = pentameter
• 6 feet = sextameter
• 7 feet = septameter
• 8 feet = octameter
Poetic Meter, Part 2
•
•
•
•
i-AM (say it like Dr. Martin Luther King) IAMBIC
TRO-chee (say it like a tough guy) TROCHAIC
a-na-PEST (say it like you are angry at Ann the PEST) ANAPEST
DAC-ty-lic (say it like you’ve spotted a hugh dinosaur)
DACTYLIC
• SPON-DEE (say it like you are a FOOT-BALL quarterbackk
barking out a signal) SPONDAIC
• pyr-rhic (say it like you are meek and very sor-ry) PYRRIC
• am-PHI-brach (croak it or hop like a frog) AMPHIBRAIC
If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
(Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare)
iambic pentameter
• a line of verse (poetry) consisting of five iambs,
for a total of ten beats per line
• an iamb is one unstressed syllable followed by
one stressed, such as "before"
free verse
poems with
no set meter,
rhyme
scheme, or
defined
structure
Fog
by Carl Sandburg
The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
(Mending Walls by Robert Frost)
blank
verse
verse written in
unrhymed, iambic pentameter
10 beats to a line; stressed/unstressed
Since then – ‘tis Centuries – and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses’ Heads
Were toward Eternity.
slant rhyme
(bending words)
words that almost rhyme
farm - yard
brow - glow
repetition of vowel sounds
assonance
“He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
the repeating of final consonants
consonance
blank and think
strong and string
lady lounges lazily
I am not prone to weeping, as our sex
Commonly are; the want of which vain dew
Perchance shall dry your pities; but I have
That honourable grief lodged here which burns
Worse than tears drown.
~William Shakespeare
enjambment
the continuation of a thought from
one line or stanza to the next
without a syntactical break
The lizard is a timid thing
that cannot dance, fly or sing.
He hunts bugs beneath the floor
and longs to be a dinosaur.
quatrain
a stanza or poem
of four lines
"They lie together now. They sleep apart".
-John Mole, “Coming Home”
caesura
a strong pause within a line;
The pause may come from punctuation or
something else such as a phrase or clause.
In a solitude of the sea
Deep from human vanity,
And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she.
~ Thomas Hardy
tercet
a poem or stanza consisting of
three lines of poetry
One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town
corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I
sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it
snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for
twelve days and twelve nights when I was six.
~Dylan Thomas, A Child’s Christmas in Wales
cadence
the rhythm of language;
the melodic nature of words;
the sound of words on the ear
hamartia
tragic
flaw
• Hamlet=hesitation
• Frankenstein=hubris
• Frodo=the want of a
ring
• Gregor Samsa=
• Jay Gatsby=
deus ex machina
day oos X MAH-kuh-nuh
any improbable device
that resolves
the difficulties of a plot;
when some new event,
character, ability, or
object solves a
seemingly solvable
problem in a sudden,
unexpected way
• the secret documents are in
Russian, one of the spies
suddenly reveals that they
learned the language
• the writers have just lost
funding, a millionaire suddenly
arrives, announces an interest
in their movie, and offers all the
finances they need to make it
• the hero is dangling from the
edge of a cliff with a villain
stepping on his fingers, a flying
robot suddenly appears to save
him
When a narrative (story) begins somewhere
in the middle, usually at some crucial point
in the action
“into the midst of things”
in media res
Examples:
The Odyssey, Star Wars, Forrest Gump,
God of War video game
speech or writing that departs from literal
meaning in order to achieve a special
effect or meaning; speech or writing
employing figures of speech
figurative language
Examples:
simile, metaphor, idioms,
personification, hyperbole
…I would
Love you ten years before the flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews…
-Andrew Marvell, To His Coy Mistress
allusion
a reference to something or
someone outside of the text; it
broadens and enriches the
reader’s experience or
understanding
“Oreo: Milk’s favorite cookie.”
personification
the giving of human characteristics
to inanimate objects
“It went zip when it moved and bop when it stopped,
And whirr when it stood still.
I never knew just what it was and I guess I never will.”
Tom Paxton, “The Marvelous Toy”
onomatopoeia
a literary device in which the sound
of a word is related to its meaning
“I hate intolerant people.”
~ Gloria Steinem
oxymoron
a figure of speech composed of
contradictory words or phrases:
a contradiction in terms
Collateral damage is an
unfortunate and inevitable
part of war.
euphemism
an inoffensive expression that is
substituted for one that is considered
offensive or harsh
“I was helpless. I did not know what in the world
to do. I was quaking from head to foot, and could
have hung my hat on my eyes, they stuck out so far.”
~ Mark Twain, “Old Times on the Mississippi”
hyperbole
deliberate exaggeration for emphasis
“The swiftest traveler is he that goes
afoot.”
~ Henry David Thoreau, Walden 1854
paradox
a statement that appears to be
contradictory but, in fact, has some truth
"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the
War Room."
Peter Sellers as President Merkin Muffley in Dr. Strangelove, 1964
irony
a situation or statement
in which the actual outcome or meaning
is opposite
to what was expected
“I have to have this operation. It isn't
very serious. I have this tiny little
tumor on the brain.”
Holden Caulfield in The Catcher In The Rye, by J. D. Salinger
litotes (lie-tuh-tees)
understatement
“…the sound of Griffith’s punches echoed in the
mind like a heavy axe in the distance
chopping into a wet log.”
~Norman Mailer
simile
an explicit comparison between two
unlike things with the use of
“like” or “as”
You are an intricate mosaic vase, with so many glass
pieces to your being. All labeled by various colors and
shapes. Reds, blues, oranges, gigantic, small, sharp. Your
colors represent who and what you will always be—
extended metaphor
A comparison between two unlike things that
continues throughout a series of sentences in a
paragraph or lines in a poem.
"Bright star, would I were steadfast as
thou art"
~John Keats
apostrophe
An address to the dead or unborn as if
living; to the inanimate as if animate;
to the absent as if present
a word or phrase associated with a person that
denotes traits of
his or her character or personality
epithet
Examples:
Richard the Lion-Hearted” is an epithet of Richard I
Poseidon = the earthshaker
Elements of Shakespearean Tragedy:
• the action revolves around a tragic hero
•
•
•
•
•
hero has internal and external conflicts
humor is used to relieve the dark mood
supernatural incidents occur
hero’s motivation is desire for revenge
chance happenings precipitate tragic
catastrophes
Romeo & Mercutio
House & Wilson
Batman & The Joker
Jay Gatsby & Tom Buchanan
Holmes & Watson
Dumbledore & Voldemort
Squidward & Spongebob
Hamlet & Forbinbras
foil
characters who contrast
with each other in order to
highlight particular qualities
To be or not to be
That is the question…
soliloquy
~ Hamlet
a character, alone on stage, thinking out
loud; allows a playwright to directly
reveal the character’s private thoughts
and emotions
Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop
and look around once and awhile, you
could miss it.
~Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
aside
Words spoken by an actor directly
to the audience, which are not
"heard" by the other characters on
stage during a play.
An example of this is the dueling scene in
Act V of Hamlet in which Hamlet dies,
along with Laertes, King Claudius, and
Queen Gertrude.
catastrophe
The action at the end of the falling
action of a tragedy that initiates the
denouement of a play.
Moments thereof:
• Oedipus gouges his eyes out after learning he’s
killed his father and married his mother.
• The final fight scene in Hamlet.
catharsis
The release or purging of emotions at the end of a
play; a welcome release from tension and anxiety.
It is the result of understanding that, despite tragedy,
suffering is an affirmation of human values rather
than a despairing denial of them.
excessive pride or self-confidence, coupled with
a lack of humility; arrogance; it’s the kind of
pride that comes before a fall
hubris
Examples: Hitler, Oedipus’ father, Victor
Frankenstein, Penn State Assistance Coach Jerry
Sandusky
The
Byronic
Hero
(named after poet Lord Byron)
Examples:
Batman
The Phantom of the Opera
Dr. Gregory House
Capt. Jack Sparrow
Heathcliff (Wuthering
Heights)
Severus Snape (Harry Potter)
Mr. Rochester (Jane Eyre)
Edward Cullen (Twilight)
Tyler Durden (Fight Club)
• a melancholy and rebellious young
man, distressed by life’s pains and
injustices
• extremely charismatic but may act
reprehensibly
• passionate; dark; attractive; brooding
verisimilitude
The sense that what one
reads is "real," or at least
realistic and believable. The
believability of a narrative;
the extent to which a story
appears realistic, likely, or
plausible.
Note that even fantasy novels and science
fiction stories that discuss impossible events
can have verisimilitude if the reader is able to
read them with suspended disbelief.
veritas = truth
similis = similar
epistolary fiction
• A novel written as a series of letters, documents
or diary entries.
And, of course, you could never
forget these friends
from last year…
"Our transportation crisis will be solved by a
bigger plane or a wider road, mental illness
with a pill, poverty with a law, slums with a
bulldozer, urban conflict with a gas, racism
with a goodwill gesture.“
~ Philip Slater, The Pursuit of Loneliness
parallelism
a set of similarly structured
words, phrases or clauses
“I'm not afraid to die. I'm not afraid to live. I'm not afraid to
fail. I'm not afraid to succeed. I'm not afraid to fall in love.
I'm not afraid to be alone. I'm just afraid I might have to
stop talking about myself for five minutes.”
Kinky Friedman, When the Cat's Away
anaphora
repetition of a word, phrase, or clause at the
beginning of two or more sentences in a row:
this is a deliberate form of repetition and
helps make the writer’s point more coherent
“…it was the spring of hope, it was the winter
of despair…”
~ Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
antithesis
the placing of opposing words within
the same sentence
to emphasize their disparity
“All books from that store are new.
These books are from that store.
Therefore, these books are new.”
syllogism
a form of reasoning in which two
statements are made and a conclusion
is drawn from them
While pondering the stars and deciding
never to fall in love again, nor even date,
our heroine fell asleep and dreamed.
periodic sentence
a long sentence where your main point
is at the end
“There’s no stigmata connected with
going to a shrink.”
~Little Carmine in The Sopranos
malapropism
absurd or humorous misuse of a word,
especially by confusion
with one of similar sound
“Take thy face hence.”
~ William Shakespeare, Macbeth
synecdoche
using part of a thing
to represent the whole thing
"I flee who chases me, and chase who flees me."
~Ovid
"Fair is foul, and foul is fair."
~William Shakespeare, Macbeth
chiasmus
a type of antithesis; the second half of an
expression is balanced against the
first with the parts reversed
A B B A pattern
The White House asked the television
networks for air time on Monday night.
metonymy
a figure of speech that uses the name of an
object, person, or idea to represent
something with which it is associated, such
as using “the crown” to refer to a monarch
"Oh, my piglets, we are the origins of war--not
history's forces, nor the times, nor justice, nor the
lack of it, nor causes, nor religions, nor ideas, nor
kinds of government--not any other thing. We are
the killers."
Katharine Hepburn as Eleanor of Aquitaine in The Lion in Winter, 1968
polysyndeton
the repetition of conjunctions
in a series of coordinate
words, phrases, or clauses
“Anyway, like I was saying, shrimp is the fruit of the sea.
You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, saute it. Dey's
uh, shrimp-kabobs, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo. Pan fried,
deep fried, stir-fried. There's pineapple shrimp, lemon
shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup,
shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp
burger, shrimp sandwich. That--that's about it.”
Bubba in Forrest Gump, 1994
asyndeton
the omission of conjunctions between
words, phrases, or clauses
“For no government is better than the men who
compose it, and I want the best, and we need the
best, and we deserve the best.”
Senator John F. Kennedy, speech at Wittenberg College, Oct. 17, 1960
epistrophe
the repetition of a group of words
at the end of successive clauses
“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to
anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to
suffering. I sense much fear in you.”
~ Frank Oz as Yoda in Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menance
anadiplosis
repeats the last word of one
phrase, clause, or sentence at or very near
the beginning of the next