a glossary of literary terms

STEFANIE LETHBRIDGE AND JARMILA MILDORF: Basics of English Studies: An introductory course for students of literary studies in English. Developed at the English departments of the Universities of Tübingen, Stuttgart and Freiburg Glossary ab ovo beginning: the narrative or play starts at the beginning of the story and (usually a narrator) provides all necessary background information before the ‘story proper’ starts. accentual metre: see metre. ad spectatores: ‘to the spectators’: type of utterance in drama where the actor directly addresses the audience. alexandrine: an iambic hexameter. alienation effect / estrangement effect: the audience is distanced from the action presented on stage (by the introduction of narrative elements for instance), the aim is to impede audience involvement in and identification with the characters and conflicts of the story. allegory: a narrative, whether in prose or in verse, in which characters and actions, and sometimes the setting as well, are contrived by the author to make coherent sense on the ‘literal’/primary level of significance and at the same time to signify a second, correlated order of signification. alliteration: the same sound is repeated at the beginning of several words or stressed syllables in words that are in close proximity. alternate rhyme: rhyme pattern abab. amphiteatres: type of theatre or stage, typical for example for theatre performance in classical antiquity (Greece and Rome), amphitheatres had a round stage almost entirely surrounded by the audience. anachronological: non-chronological presentation of events on discourse level. anadiplosis / reduplicatio: (Greek for ”doubling back”) the word or phrase that concludes one line or clause is repeated at the beginning of the next. analepsis: see flashback. analytic plays: plays which start in ultimas res. anapaest: see metre. anaphora: a word or phrase is repeated at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses or lines. antagonist: the (influential) opponent of the protagonist. Basics of English Studies, Version 03/04, Glossary 1 antithesis: opposition, or contrast of ideas or words in a parallel sentence construction. aposiopesis: the speaker fails to complete his sentence, (seemingly) overpowered by his emotions. apostrophe: addressing an absent person, a god or a personified abstraction. apron stage: the apron is that part of the stage which projects beyond the proscenium arch; any stage which consists primarily or entirely of an apron and on which the action is not seen as framed within the proscenium; the apron stage was used in the Elizabethan theatre. aside: a type of utterance in drama where the actor speaks away from other characters, either to himself, secretly to other characters or ad spectatores. assonance: the repetition of the same or similar vowel sounds in the stressed syllables of words that are in close proximity while the consonants differ. asyndeton: the omission of conjunctions to coordinate phrases, clauses, or words where normally conjunctions would be used (opposite of polysyndeton). authorial characterisation: characterisation by the narrator in narratives or in the secondary text of a play. authorial narrative situation: part of the terminology introduced by the critic Franz Stanzel to denote a narrative situation where the narrator is not a character in the story but who knows everything about it. autodiegetic narration: part of the terminology introduced by the critic Gérard Genette to denote a narration where the narrator tells his or her own story. ballad stanza / chevy chase stanza: usually a four-line stanza which alternates tetrameter and trimeter and usually rhyme abxb. ballad: a form of folk poetry or derived from folk poetry, a poem or song which tells a story. bildungsroman (novel of education): a type of novel which depicts the development of the protagonist’s mind and character from childhood to maturity and the acceptance of his or her identity and role in society. biographical criticism: a theoretical approach to literature which focuses on the author’s biography to explicate the text. blank verse: non-ryhming iambic pentameter. block characterisation: an explicit characterisation given in a block, usually when a character is introduced. caesura: a pause that occurs within a line of poetry. catachresis: a mixed metaphor. catastrophe: in Gustav Freytag’s terminology the final stage of development in a tragedy usually involving the death of the protagonist. catenation: the way words are linked in pronunciation. Basics of English Studies, Version 03/04, Glossary 2 catharsis: in Aristotle’s terms the cleansing emotional effect achieved by drama as a result of the audience’s emotional involvement in the plot and the feelings of the characters in the play. chain rhyme: rhyme pattern aba bcb cdc... character: the agents in narrative, narrative poetry or drama. chiasmus: from the shape of the Greek letter ‘chi’ (X); sequence of two phrases or clauses which are parallel in syntax but reverse the order of the corresponding words (a-b, b-a). chorus: a group of people situated on stage and commenting throughout the play on events and the characters’ actions. climax / gradatio (Greek for “ladder”): arrangement of words, phrases, or clauses in an order of ascending power. close reading: a critical practice which closely investigates the composition of texts with regard to their unifying principles. closed structure/ form: the individual acts of a play are tightly connected and logically built on one another, finally leading to a clear resolution of the plot. comedy: a dramatic work in which the materials are selected and managed primarily in order to amuse the audience and make it laugh; the ending is by convention good and resolves previous problems, sub-categories of comedy are, for instance, the comedy of manners, the comedy of humours, romantic comedy or satiric comedy. comment: a narrative mode where the narrator explicitly or implicitly evaluates events or characters in the story. communication model: a model developed by the linguist and critic Roman Jakobson which describes literary communication as a process involving six elements: sender, message, receiver, channel (or contact), context and code. confidant: a close friend of the protagonist in whom he/she can confide and thus disclose his/her innermost thoughts. configuration: the sequential presentation of different characters together on stage. consonance: two or more consonants are repeated, but the adjacent vowels differ. constellation: overall structure of the groups of characters within a play or a narrative. contaminatio: see portmanteau word. continuous rhyme: sequence of the same rhymes: aaaaaa... couplet: a unit of two lines of verse, usually linked by rhyme. covert narrative situation: a narrative situation where the personality of the narrator is hardly noticeable (oppositie: overt narrative situation). dactyl: see metre. deconstruction: a poststructuralist approach to literature which owes its development to the writings of the French philosopher Jacques Derrida. Basics of English Studies, Version 03/04, Glossary 3 Deconstructive theory claims the basic instability of all meaning and it explores the heterogeneity of meaning in literature. decorum: the diction, theme or action which are thought appropriate in literary texts or theatre performances, concepts of decorum change over time. defamiliarisation: an effect of literary (‘poetic’) texts: ‘deviations’ from ordinary language use (foregrounded properties/artistic devices) disrupt the modes of everyday perception and renew the reader’s capacity for fresh sensation. dénouement: solution at the end of the plot. description: a narrative mode that represents things that can be seen, heard or felt in some way. One distinguishes between the description of place, the description of time and the description of character. dialogue: utterance in drama or narrative which involves two or more characters speaking. diction: the choice and use of words in a text. diegesis: the verbal representation of events. discourse: the level of transmission, HOW a story is told. discourse-time: the time it takes to tell the story. drama: the form of composition designed for performance in the theatre, in which actors take the roles of the characters, perform the indicated action, and speak the written dialogue. dramatic irony: involves a situation in a play or narrative in which the audience or reader shares with the author or narrator knowledge of present or future circumstances of which a character is ignorant. In that situation, the character unknowingly acts in a way we recognise to be grossly inappropriate to the actual circumstances, or expects the opposite of what we know fate holds in store, or says something that anticipates the actual outcome, but not at all in the way that the character intends. dramatic monologue: a type of poem consisting of the speech of a single character which, often unintentionally, reveals the speaker’s character or thoughts. dramatis personae: the characters in a play. duration: a category in the analysis of the relation between story-time and discourse time. There are five basic sub-categories: summary, scene, pause, ellipsis, stretch. dynamic character: a character that undergoes a development throughout the narrative or play. elegy: a poem which presents a sustained meditation on a solemn theme, usually death. elision: unstressed syllables are not pronounced in a particular line in order to make the line fit the metre. Basics of English Studies, Version 03/04, Glossary 4 ellipsis: a word or phrase in a sentence is omitted though implied by the context. Also a category in the analysis of the relation between story time and discourse time when discourse skips to a later part in story time. embracing rhyme: rhyme pattern abba. end-rhyme: rhyme at the end of a line. end-stopped line: a syntactical unit comes to a close at the end of the line. epanalepsis: see redditio. epic theatre: a theatrical movement originating with Bertolt Brecht which developed in reaction against realistic theatrical traditions and attempts to prevent the audience’s emotional involvement and identification with characters or plot using effects (alienation or estrangement effects) such as a narrator for instance to constantly emphasise the ‘artificial’ (i.e. non- realistic) nature of the theatre event. epic: a long narrative, usually in verse, which deals with an event of major national or cultural importance written in a sublime style. episodic: see loose plot. epistolary novel: a type of novel where the narrative is conveyed entirely by an exchange of letters. epistrophe: a word or expression is repeated at the end of successive phrases, clauses or lines. epithalamion: a poem celebrating a wedding. epizeuxis: see geminatio. eponymous hero: the name of the protagonist is also the title of the narrative or play. euphemism: substitution of an agreeable or at least non-offensive expression for one whose plainer meaning might be harsh or unpleasant. event: something that happens in the story (with a discernable agent: action, without agent: happening). existent: a character in a story or the setting. expansion: syllables that are usually unpronounced are pronounced in a particular line of poetry in order to make the line fit the metre. experiencing I: in a homodiegetic narrative situation the narrator’s perception of events at the time of their occurence (compare narrating I). explicit characterisation: a characterisation which is made directly either by the narrator or another character. exposition: the beginning of a play, in this part the audience is informed about the ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘where’, ‘when’ and ‘why’ of the events which are to follow. falling action: the fourth part in Gustav Freytag’s model to describe the overall structure of plays, in this part new tension is created through further events that delay the final catastrophe or dénouement. farce: sub-genre of comedy that presents highly exaggerated and caricatured types of characters and often an unlikely plot. Basics of English Studies, Version 03/04, Glossary 5 feminine rhyme: a two-syllable rhyme. figura etymologica: see polyptoton. figural characterisation: characterisation made by characters in the narrative or play. figural narrative situation: the term introduced by the critic Franz Stanzel to denote the narrative situation of heterodiegetic narrator and internal focalisation. first person narrative situation: the term used by the critic Franz Stanzel to denote a narrative situation where the narrator is also a character in the story and refers to him- or herself using the first person pronoun (equivalent to Genette’s homodiegetic narration). flashback / analepsis: an event is presented later than it would take place in a natural chronology of the story. flashforward / prolepsis): future events of the story are anticipated at the discourse level, an event is made present at discourse level earlier than it would take place in the assumed chronology of the story. flat character: a character who has only few character traits and does not develop or change during the play; term introduced by the writer and critic E.M. Forster. focalisation: an aspect of narratiion which deals with the question ‘who sees’, ‘whose perspective is adopted?’ External focalisation has the centre of perception outside the story and thus this type of focaliser is also called narrator focaliser, in internal focalisation the focus of perception of a character in the story is adopted. This type of focaliser is thus also called character focaliser. foil character: a character who represents a sharp contrast to the protagonist and thus serves to stress and highlight the protagonist’s distinctive temperament. foot: the single unit of stress and non-stress in any given metre. free indirect discourse: see interior monologue. free verse: type of verse using irregular patterns of stress and numbers of syllables. frequency: the aspect of time analysis that relates to the frequency of references which are made at discourse level to any given event on the story level. Freytag’s Pyramid: the model to describe the overall structure of plays developed by Gustav Freytag. full rhyme: a type of rhyme where the sound of the rhyme words is identical from the last stressed syllable onwards. geminatio / epizeuxis: the repetition of the same words immediately next to each other. gender studies: an approach in literary analysis which scrutinises gender roles and gendered perspectives in literary texts. Basics of English Studies, Version 03/04, Glossary 6 genre: types or classes of literature, its members share many resemblances in form, types of characters, theme, structure, etc.. gnomic present: a present tense used for generic statements that claim general validity. gothic novel: sub-genre of the novel which flourished in the late 18th and during the 19th century, usually set in the medieval period, the plots in gothic novels develop an atmosphere of gloom or even terror, they make liberal use of mystery, desolate castles with secret passages, sensational or supernatural occurrences. Haiku: a form of syllabic verse originating in Japan. The traditional Haiku has three lines, the first line has five, the second has seven and the third has five syllables. half-rhyme / pararhyme: a rhyme where only the consonants (consonance) or the vowels (assonance) or the spelling (eye-rhyme) is identical. hamartia: tragic flaw of a character which causes the downfall of this character. heterodiegetic narration: a narration which is told by a narrator who is not a character in the story, terminology introduced by the critic Gérard Genette. high comedy: a type of comedy that appeals to the audience’s intellect and has a serious purpose. historical novel: a sub-genre of the novel which takes its setting and some of the (main) characters and events from history. homodiegetic narration: a narration which is told by a narrator who is also a character in the story, terminology introduced by the critic Gérard Genette. homonym: words with the same pronunciation and / or spelling but with different meanings. hyperbaton (see also inversion) (Greek for ”stepping over”): a figure of syntactic dislocation where phrase or words that belong together are separated. hyperbole: obvious exaggeration for emphasis or for rhetorical effect. hypotaxis: clauses and sentences are arranged with subordination, usually longer sentence constructions (opposite of parataxis). iamb: see metre. I-as-witness: a homodiegetic narrator who witnesses and reports the events that are narrated but who is not the protagonist. identical rhyme: a rhyme which repeats the same words. implicit characterisation: a characterisation which is made indirectly through description of action or appearance of a character or other characters’ attitudes to this character. Basics of English Studies, Version 03/04, Glossary 7 in medias res beginning: the narrative or play begins in the middle of the story, when developments might already be under way without a preceding introduction or exposition to characters and situation. in ultimas res beginning: the discourse of the narrative or play begins at the actual outcome or ending of the story and then proceeds to relate preceding events in non-chronological order. indirect speech: a narrative mode in which direct speech is reported rather than reproduced by another character or the narrator. interior monologue: the character’s consciousness is recreated apparently without any interfering agency (i.e. narrator) who tries to put it into well- turned English. The character’s thoughts are presented directly, imitating as much as possible the character’s mind style. internal focaliser: see focalisation. internal rhyme: words within a line rhyme with each other or with the end of the line. See also leonine rhyme. interplay: the tension between the abstract metrical grid and the actual linguistic and metrical realisation of verse, the term was introduced by the critics W.K. Wimsatt and M.C. Beardsley. inversion: the usual word order is rearranged, often for the effect of emphasis or to maintain the meter (a type of hyperbaton). irony: a discrepancy between the expression of something and the intended meaning; the words say one thing but mean another. isotopy: a concept introduced by the critic A.J. Greimas to denote a sequence of expressions or forms joined by a common ‘semantic denominator’. iterative reference: an aspect of frequency in time analysis: an event takes place several times and is referred to only once. leonine rhyme: an internal rhyme where the middle of the line rhymes with the end of the line. limerick: a stanza form used mainly for nonsense verse, commonly rhyming aabba. literary canon: a set of ‘important’ or ‘major’ literary works agreed by convention to be of a higher quality than other texts. literary competence: the ability to produce and understand literary texts. litotes: see meiosis. loose plot / episodic plot: a plot where there is little emphasis on the causal connections between events in the narrative, episodes might be linked by a common character or a common theme, also called episodic plot (opposite: tight plot). low comedy: emphasis is placed on situation comedy, slapstick and farce. lyric poetry: comparatively short, non-narrative poetry in which a single