Literary Terms in Action
Monique and AJ
AP English 12
Setting


1.
2.
Def.: the time and place in which the events in a
work of fiction, drama, or narrative poetry occur.
Examples:
The Odyssey is ancient Greece, but various episodes
are set in such places as Odysseus’s native island of
Ithaca, Helen and Menelaus’s palace in Sparta, and
the home of the gods on Mount Olympus.
In A Thousand Splendid Suns, the main setting is
Kabul. However, the setting includes a time span of
several decades.
Dramatic Monologue


1.
2.
Def.: a poem that is spoken by a fictional narrator
who is clearly different from the author in age,
situation, or gender. The major purpose of this is for
the reader to reveal, often unwittingly, significant
aspects of his/her qualities, values, and experiences,
which are inferred by the reader.
Examples:
T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock,” in
which the narrator is a prudish , self-conscious guest
at a cocktail party.
In the movie “Pulp Fiction”, Samuel Jackson’s
character gives a dramatic monologue about Ezekiel
25:17, revealing his past as a gangster.
Epigram


1.
Def.: (from the Greek word for “inscription”). Is a
witty saying in either verse or prose, concisely
phrased and often satiric.
Examples:
In “Epigram” Samuel Taylor Coleridge cleverly
defines the form in a verse that exemplifies it:
What is an Epigram? A dwarfish whole,
Its body brevity, and wit its soul.
Martial and Epigrams

The Roman poet Martial wrote twelve books of
epigrams, over a thousand individual poems.
"I felt a little ill and called Dr. Symmachus.
Well, you came, Symmachus, but you brought 100 medical students with
you.
One hundred ice-cold hands poked and jabbed me.
I didn't have a fever, Symmachus, when I called you –but now I do.”
Book V, No. 9
In Latin,

dē Symmachō medicō discipulīsque eius centum
languēbam: sed tū comitātus prōtinus ad mē
vēnistī centum, Symmache, discipulīs.
centum mē tetigēre manūs Aquilōne gelātae;
nōn habuī febrem, Symmache: nunc habeō.