Literary Terms to Know (Worksheet):
Anaphora: emphasizing words by repeating them at the beginningsof neighboring clauses
Ex: "
We shall not flag or fail.
We shall go on to the end.
We shall fight in france..."
Antistrophe: the repetition of the same word or words at the end of successive phrases, clauses or sentences with an emphasis placed on the last word in a phrase or sentence.
Ex: "When I was
a child, I spoke as
a child, I understood as
a child, I thought as
a child."
Anadiplosis: repetition of a word or phrase from the end of one clause or phrase at the begining of the next clause or phrase
Ex: "Fear leads to
anger.
Anger leads to
hate. Hate leads to suffering."
Polysyndeton: the repetition of conjunctions in a series of coordinate words, phrases, or clauses
Ex: "I said, "Who killed him?"
and he said, "I don't know who killed him but he's dead all right,"
and it was dark
and there was water standing in the street
and no lights..."
Alliteration: the repetition of initial sounds, usually consonants
Ex: Silly Stacy sat slouched.
Assonance: use of similar vowel sounds repeated in successive or proximate words containing different consonants
Ex: " A
city that
is set on a
hill cannot be
hid."
Consonance: the repetition of consonants, especially at the ends of words
Ex: "We ought to head straight, right?"
Chiasmus: figure of speech in which two or more clauses or related to each other through a reversal of structures in order to make a larger point; the clauses display inverted parallelism. In its classical application, chiasmus would have been used for structures that
do not repeat the same words and phrases, but invert a sentence's grammatical
structure or ideas; note, when a piece of text involves grammatical structure, it is also antithesis
Ex: "He
knowingly lied and we
blindly followed."
-
Antithesis: subcategory of Chiasmus; establishing a clear, contrasting relationship b/w two ideas by joining them together or juxtaposing them, often in parallel structure
Ex: "To err is human; to forgive, divine"
Lecture Summary: Archetypal and Mythological Criticism (Packet):
- AMC defintion: how an individual text is faithful to and how it deviates from common patterns
- a myth is a complete story often believed to be true by cultural insiders but believed false by cultural outsiders
- an archetype is any element of fiction taht we see repeated over and over w/its core meaning unchanged
- archetypes are literary reflections of experiences widely shared by humanity
- James Frazer noticed that myths tend to have striking similarities from culture to culture
- Carl Jung, an early 20th Century Swiss psychiatrist, thout the reason for reoccuring patterns in myth might be an underlying structure of the human mind
- "Collective unconsiousness" with a repository of emotions, ideas, instincts, and even memories shared by all humans and that archetypes were symbolic representations of this hidden part of ourselves
- Northrop Frye was the first theorist to try to organize schemes of literature; he postulated that there is one story being told over and over; some works tell whole story, others just parts of it
*See worksheet for other lovely definitions :)
What makes it a novel? (handout):
- any extended fictional narrative almost always in prsoe
- character ocurs either in a static condition or in the process of development as the result of events or actions
- "novel" doesn't imply a certain structure; they can take other forms aside from the standard five-part plot
- novels always conntain narrative, though it may be non-traditional (ex: stream of consciousness)
- in contemporary popular usage, the nerm is generally only applied to works with enduring literary merit
- before 18th century -> ROMANCE
- after 18th century -> NOVEL
- less than 50,000 words -> NOVELLA
The Novel (A Handout):
- "little new thing"; the term novel is roman-derived from the medieval term romance
- novella: b/w 12,000 and 30,000 words
- in a novel, the fictional prose narrative is conveyed by the author through a specific point of view and connected by a serquence of events involving a group of persons in a specific setting
- the first European novel is usually considered to be Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes (1605)
- novel took to England in first half of the 18th century: Daniel Defoe (Robinson Crusoe), Samuel Richardson (Pamela) and Henry Fielding (Tom Jones)
- By the second half of the 19th century, the novel had displaced all other forms of literature because of the growing middle class (increased literacy rate and disposable income), cheaper production and distribution of materials, publication of novels in serial form, and the introduction of a system of circulating libraries
- Early 20th century novel was influenced by new social attitudes ans psych insights; authors paid close attention to character though and motivation, and this is still the dominant form of literary expression today
- the novel can cover a wide range of tastes and interests
See Worksheet for more depth, but here's the lists of some common types of novels:
Prose Romance
Novel of Incident
Novel of Character
Novel of Manners
Epistolary Novel
Picaresque Novel
Historical Novel
Regional Novel (*connection* Huck Finn!)
Bildungsroman
Roman a clef
Roman-fleuve
Sociological/Roman a these (*Connection* Children of Men)
Stream of Consciousness
Gothic
Gothic Romance (*connection* The Handmaid's Tale)
Satirical: (*connection* Twelfth night, if it were not a play, would qualify)
