AP LITERATURE OVERVIEW PAGE
==LHS APE PAGE FOR LIT:
http://www.freewebs.com/lhsape/html/Thp.html
ALTERNATE APE PAGE
==@@ SUPER SITE FOR ALL POETRY EXPLICATION!!
http://www.nku.edu/~rkdrury/poetryexplication.html
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
===============================================================
THREADS FOR AS I LAY DYING: E-mail me to sign up, first come, first
served. One person in period 2; 2 on starred ones in period
3.
AS I LAY DYING THREADS FOR ORAL DISCUSSIONS—-find and
annotate passages to back up everything so you can contribute to a
stimulating discussion: (2 people may cover the ones with *s in 3rd period)
PERIOD 2 ( SKYLER & AMANDA are missing-- the laggards!)
*1. Importance of WORDS (DICTION) & REPETITION by various characters--
BRITTANY C.
*2. Evidence of INSANITY from all characters; evidence of
DARK HUMOR--JOEY W.
*3. Evidence of SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS and outside OPINIONS of Bundrens
(characters may be divided)--MARY-CATHERINE
*4. Motifs with ANIMALS –fish, horse, buzzards, cow, etc. (their human
connections)-- CAMILA
5. References to FIRE and WATER as symbols of such things as baptism,
salvation-- JASON M.
*6. Reference to ULTERIOR MOTIVES, trickery--DANA W.
*7. ALLUSIONS and ARCHETYPES, any narrative devices not found in other
categories--??????????
*8. CLAIRVOYANCE, especially Darl as narrator-- BRITT
9. SENSORY IMAGES: olfactory, kinesthetic, tactile, visual, auditory,
gustatory-- CARLEY J.
*10. DISCUSSION OF NARRATOR STYLE—Anse, Dewey Dell, Vardaman (may overlap
with #1)--MARK B.
*11. STRUCTURE OF BOOK—especially flashbacks and ADDIE’s chapter--JUSTIN
*12. REPEATED OBJECTS—things desired; also roads, bananas, money--JENNA
*14. FOCUS on Cash as a round character--GRACE
*15. RELIABILITY OF NARRATORS—who is believable?--????????????
CHARACTERS FOR ORAL READING: ( Everyone has a part to read in period 2. I
took the liberty of signing you up if you hadn't done so!)
DARL--BRITT
CASH--GRACE
JEWEL--JOEY W.
ANSE--JUSTIN
VARDAMON--MARK B.
DEWEY DELL--CARLEY J.
ADDIE--CAMILA
VERNON TULL--BRITTANY C.
CORA TULL--MARY-CATHERINE
PEABODY & WHITFIELD--JASON
OTHER RANDOM VOICES--(3 others for voices here and there)-- DANA, AMANDA,
JENNA
*EXTRA (in case of need)--SKYLER
========================================
PERIOD 3
*1. Importance of WORDS (DICTION) & REPETITION by various characters--
DANIELLE H, JOEL G (CLOSED)
*2. Evidence of INSANITY from all characters; evidence of
DARK HUMOR--CASEY H. ASHLEY H. (CLOSED)
*3. Evidence of SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS and outside OPINIONS of Bundrens
(characters may be divided)--DANI B. SARAH (CLOSED)
*4. Motifs with ANIMALS –fish, horse, buzzards, cow, etc. (their human
connections)-- VICTORIA H. ALEXA U. (CLOSED)
5. References to FIRE and WATER as symbols of such things as baptism,
salvation-- DANIEL C.
*6. Reference to ULTERIOR MOTIVES, trickery-- CRISTINA M LENA E (CLOSED)
*7. ALLUSIONS and ARCHETYPES, any narrative devices not found in other
categories--________????? _______???????
*8. CLAIRVOYANCE, especially Darl as narrator-- LOREL S., EMILY B. (CLOSED)
9. SENSORY IMAGES: olfactory, kinesthetic, tactile, visual, auditory,
gustatory-- KARLYNE R.
*10. DISCUSSION OF NARRATOR STYLE—Anse, Dewey Dell, Vardaman (may overlap
with #1)-- GRETCHEN _______??????
*11. STRUCTURE OF BOOK—especially flashbacks and ADDIE’s chapter--TAMMI-JO;
KATIE K (CLOSED)
*12. REPEATED OBJECTS—things desired; also roads, bananas, money-- HANNAH P;
MONICA S. (CLOSED)
13. BACKGROUND and time period of Faulkner as evidenced in the book
(may need some outside research)-- KEVIN G.
*14. FOCUS on Cash as a round character-- BEN V, MIRANDA
*15. RELIABILITY OF NARRATORS—who is believable?-- DEANN D, MIKE F
CHARACTERS FOR ORAL READING:
DARL--EMILY B.
CASH-- BEN V.
JEWEL--GRETCHEN
ANSE--MONICA
VARDAMON--KATIE K.
DEWEY DELL--DANIELLE H.
ADDIE--TAMMI-JO
VERNON TULL--SARAH A.
CORA TULL--DANI B.
PEABODY & WHITFIELD--ASHLEY H.
OTHER RANDOM VOICES--(3 others for voices here and there)--VICTORIA, LOREL,
and DEANN
EXTRA in case of need: KARLYNE R, LENA E.
=========================================================================
COMPARISON RESEARCH STUDY FOR THE FALL:
LITERARY CRITICISM SITE LINK
@@@@@ If you change your thesis, e-mail me so I can change it on this
page.
THESIS STATEMENTS AND COMPARISONS
--MARK B--Capitalizing on the protagonist's voice and identity in society,
Ellen Hopkin's Crank and Zora Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching
God, both written with profuse imagery and poetic prose, feature women
battling the social and psychological standards of their time.
--MIRANDA W--Sharing similar thematic and symbolic devices yet contrasting in
syntactic style and setting, female protagonists of Margaret Atwood's The
Handmaid's Tale and Kate Chopin's The Awakening struggle to live
independently under corruption and male domination.
--ALEXA U--Both allegorical narratives emphasizing flaws in synthetic utopian
societies, Lois Lowry's mystical The Giver and Aldous Huxley's futuristic
Brave New World feature protagonists who, in different ways, accentuate the
responsibilities of individuals living in dystopian cultures.
--LOREL S--Although from diverse backgrounds, Janie from Zora Neale Hurston's
Their Eyes Were Watching God and Lily from Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of
Bees both embark on personal quests-- described in poetic prose with vivid
imagery-- to explore their true identity, while encountering aspects of
feminism, racism, and spirituality before their ultimate enlightenment.
--VICTORIA H--With differing writing styles and time period, Zora Neale
Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God and Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon
each have protagonists who find their direction in life through epiphanies
involving death, African American lore, and symbols.
--CRISTINA M--Combining the powerful disillusionment of the future with
themes of individual discovery and the refusal of conformity, Ray Bradbury’s
Fahrenheit 451 and Aldus Huxley’s Brave New World impart the loss of the
underlying human essence through symbolic motifs, social criticism, and the
protagonists’ struggle for a voice in their warped societies.
--ASHLEY H--Although they differ in style, plot and time periods, both Zora
Neale Hurston's book Their Eyes Were Watching God and Audrey Niffeneggers
book The Time Travelers Wife reveal how strong independent women are
negatively affected by the men they have loved.
--CARLEY J--Though varied narration that creates realistic catharsis, both
Elie Wiesel's Night and Tim O'Brien's If I Die In A Combat Zone discuss
warfare and its horrific physical and psychological effects .
--BRITTANY C--Although exponentially different in their overall writing
styles, As I Lay Dying and We Were the Mulvaneys both tell the story of
families falling apart amid a sudden tragedy.
--CAMILA A-- Through constant shifts in voice, Jodi Picoult's My Sister's
Keeper and Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God illustrate the
turmoil of selfish choices and the unexpected outcomes they produce (CHANGED)
--EMILY B--Featuring alienated protagonists, Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork
Orange and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World reveal how mental and physical
conditioning affect both individuals and society though the use of unusual
diction and futuristic settings.
--CASEY H-- Reflecting on the turmoil and deprivation of African American
women in the early 1900's, Alice Walker's The Color Purple and Zora Neale
Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God divulge stories, with powerful
reflection and thoughtful humor, of two powerful women and their struggle to
find balance in their lives.
--JENNA C--Although featuring different time periods and dissimilar points of
view on women, Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Susanna
Kaysen’s Girl, Interrupted both question false diagnoses of insanity and the
intriguing theme of freedom versus captivity.
--JASON--Employing alienated protagonists set in dystopic futures ruled by
all-powerful states that use fear and pharmacology to control the masses,
Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange and George Orwell's 1984 both explore the
psychological effects of torture and the suppression of the individual in
totalitarian regimes.
--SARAH A-- Although diverse in genre, literary style, and plots, Arthur
Miller's play The Crucible and Nathaniel Hawthrone's novel The Scarlet Letter
share the common motifs of prolonged judgments, appalling affairs, and
stringent religious doctrines, accentuating the corruption of the two
societies.
--BEN V--Although Will Navidson in Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves and
Captain Ahab in Herman Melvill's Moby Dick have extremely different
personalities and emotional reactions to the impossible trials they endure,
they both obsessively chase and capture enigmatic, almost mythical, entities
that threaten to swallow up everything around them.
--GRETCHEN S--Contrasting extremely different societies and regions during
the 20th century, Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God and
Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha-- through imagery, diction, and pathos--
depict female protagonists searching for self-identity and love.
--BRITT G--Portrayed through their observant narrators, the Christ figures--
Randall P. McMurphy and Owen Meany-- develop motifs of invisibility in Ken
Kesey’s 1962 classic novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and armlessness in
John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany from 1989.
--BROOKE W--Although both futuristic, dystopian societies shy from
individuality, Ayn Rand's Anthem depicts a world completely devoid of
personal identity while Aldus Huxley's Brave New Word, encouraging the
collectivity described in the former work, also employs a caste system that
deliberately creates society divisions.
--DANIELLE H--Although Jodi Picoult's Plain Truth and Nathaniel Hawthorne's
The Scarlet Letter both portray female characters shamed by out-of-wedlock
pregnancies in oppressive societies, the novels contrast greatly in their
different writing styles.
--GRACE Y--Both set during the Jazz Age, Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies and F.
Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby depict, through dissimilar narration, the
contrasts and parallels between young New York City and London socialites
struggling to find their identities while enduring the transition from War-
time to consumption.
--DANIEL C-- While George Orwell's 1984 forces humanity to shed individualism
and empathy, humans in Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
find themselves going to extremes to distinguish themselves from their life-
like android companions: Orwell force-feeds an answer while Dick asks a
question, both with a variety of stylistic devices.
--MARY-CATH S--Although Nicholas Sparks in The Notebook and Jane Austen in
Persuasion address similar thematic elements--such as social class and vanity-
-the contemporary, unceremonious style of the former directly contrasts the
formalistic, traditional style of the latter.
--TAMMY-JO B.--Powerful narratives that illustrate people's fragile
relationships, Richard Wright's Native Son and Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar
demonstrate the dynamics of the mentally unstable by creating startling
imagery paired with first person perspectives.
--AMANDA N--Using visual imagery and historical allusions, Secret Life of
Bees by Sue Monk Kidd and My Sisters Keeper by Jodi Picoult illustrate the
joys and vicissitudes and of family relationships-- among parents and
children as well as among siblings.
--MIKE F--Twisting humanity's trust in government to create sinister,
futuristic worlds, George Orwell's 1984, with its direct matter-of-fact
style, and Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, with its profuse imagery and grand-
scale events, both explore warped futures in which odious regimes control
nearly every aspect of people's lives by means of forced capitulation and the
desecration of knowledge.
--JOEY W--Featuring troubled, misfit protagonists rebelling against the
social and dysfunctional environments of their time, both Joseph Heller's
Catch-22 and J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye contain unorthodox,
unique styles of diction and syntax that reinforce their spiteful, yet
humorous tones.
--JUSTIN N--Featuring alienated protagonists set in opposing time periods,
Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man both
explore, through flashbacks and numerous narrative shifts, how outcasts in
their microcosms can be brainwashed through the surrounding ideology.
--DEANN D--Both containing dehumanized characters emphasized through imagery
and irony, Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale reveals a society controlled
by constant surveillance and torture while Aldous Huxley's Brave New World
describes one manipulated by mechanized birth and pleasure.
--ANNA D--Portraying many historical and biblical figures, both William
Golding's Lord of the Flies and Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange reveal
through powerful diction and symbolism how psychological extremes develop
when all structured rule and laws are terminated, allowing primal instincts
to gain control.
--MONICA S-While differing through their narration and structure, both George
Orwell's 1984 and Ayn Rand's Anthem reveal their characters' rebellion
against the rigid control of societal expectations in microcosms through
risky attempts to discover individuality.
--HANNAH P-- Using different styles and storylines, Jodi Picoult's My
Sister's Keeper and Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter create
characters with a sense of pride and perseverance, no matter how much they
are abused and betrayed.
--KATIE K--With a unique syntax and a memoir style revealing the insanity of
the Vietnam War, the novel Going After Cacciato and collection of short
stories The Things They Carried, both written by Tim O’Brian, realistically
articulate the unimaginable horrors of war and the disturbing memories with
which the soldiers are forced to live.
--KARLYNE R--Trekking through countless hardships yet equally rewarding
discoveries, Janie from Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God and
Lena from Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun embark on tumultuous,
unexpected journeys to find their horizon—depicted through poetic prose and
vibrant imagery, symbolizing their undying inner strength and hope.
--KEVIN G--Although their plots and themes differ, Great Expectations and The
Kite Runner feature main characters whos treacherous behavior towards
another brings about a momentous event in each story. (NOT APPROVED YET)
--DANIELLE B--While Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo and John
Irving's A Widow for a Year feature radically different settings and
characters, both novels chronicle the circumstances that shape their main
characters--the choices they make and their effect on others-- and both
handle time in unique ways.
--LENA E--Related through eloquent yet unpretentious imagery, Khaled
Housseini’s The Kite Runner and Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, though
involving totally different settings, both depict archetypal journeys of men
seeking redemption from a dark past against a backdrop of poverty, violence
and social upheaval and emphasis.
--MICHAEL T--Through the lackluster venture of war, both O'Connor's Wise
Blood and Heller's Catch 22 sardonically depict the psychological decadence
and dehumanization of the soldiers with contrasting organization combined
with adriot diction.
=============================================
--SKYLER K--Both making their way through unexpected hardships, Piscine from
Yann Martel’s The Life of Pi and Charlie from Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of
Being a Wallflower embark on difficult journeys to self-discovery—illustrated
through effervescent imagery and poignant depiction of events.
--JOEL G--Within similarly ambiguous dystopias, both Aldous Huxley's Brave
New World and Lois Lowry's The Giver develop symbolism and create distinct
characters, who, alienated from their curious societies, deal with their
different cultures in similar ways.
--DANA W--Sharing similar topics of rebellion against totalitarianism and
oppression, along with similar writing styles, Margaret Atwood's The
Handmaid's Tale and George Orwell's 1984 present characters who struggle both
psychologically and physically in their futuristic dystopias.
=======================================================================
@@ BOOKS For the Course @@:
The first book we cover is Heart of Darkness. The next two are
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and As I Lay Dying. The ones after that
vary from year to year, but we almost always do Metamorphosis, Hamlet and
Wuthering Heights. This past year I added the play The Importance of Being
Earnest to the list, and I plan to add Othello to the main list this year.
You also need to read an optional book--a modern one of your own choice, AP
caliber, of course. (Sign ups so far are above!) Although I have offered
five main ones over the years (listed immediately below) you always can take
another one if you clear it with me. **Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison is a
great choice for an optional research novel, as it works for almost every
open-ended exam question.
This year we will do comparison research papers with the optional work and
another, possibly one already studied in pre-AP or AP Lang. For example,
you could pair up something by Margaret Atwood with Brave New World,
discussing the elements of dystopia, the narration, and anything else. You
would look for aspects that are the same as well as those that are different.
==============================================================
RESEARCH ESSAY NOVELS OR PLAYS:
The following are books I have suggested in the past. However, I have
widened the pool of contemporary books considerably. (See the massive list
below!)
THE ORIGINAL OPTIONAL WORKS FOR THE MLA COMPARISON RESEARCH ESSAY PROJECT:
All but **Things Fall Apart contain PG-13 content. If you want something
rated G, go with TFA. (Since AP is a college course, you will encounter
adult material in most of the novels and plays. Please discuss all college-
level reading selections with your parents to avoid misunderstandings.)
--Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (PG)
--A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving (PG)
--The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien (PG +)
--**Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (Sanitized G)
--Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (PG)
================================================================
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
OVERVIEW OF AP LITERATURE NOVELS AND PLAYS (created by students from past
classes):
1) Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad - This short novel uses the
envelope method with the same unnamed narrator at the beginning and the end.
The largest part is Marlowe's flashback of his symbolic voyage down the
Congo River in Africa during the era of Imperialism. After the first
chapter, watch as Marlow learns more and more about the insidious Kurtz at
the Inner Station. DEVICES to create theme are everywhere. We cover this
one inch by inch. SIGN UP FOR THE CRITICAL CATEGORIES on the download
site. Sign ups will be at the bottom of this page.
2) As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner - Written in the typical
Faulkner style, this novel focuses on a weird family making a ludicrous trek
to bury the dead mother's coffin. Many different characters, all unique in
their syntax and diction, narrate the chapters. Most of the characters have
ulterior motives for their trek. Darl is clairvoyant, so don't let that
confuse you too much. Vardaman, the child, is probably somewhat
intellectually challenged.
3) One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey - Another microcosm,
this one takes place in a mental institution. "Chief" Bromden, the Indian,
narrates through his muddled view of technology - a view shrouded
with "fogs" and "combines." The savior figure of R.P. McMurphy, a savior
figure archetype, tries to bring life to the patients and to battle the
towering presence of Big Nurse Ratched.
4) Hamlet by William Shakespeare - Look for weed, poison, rot, and
disease imagery. Notice the role of the play within a play. Realize the
difference between Hamlet's lust for revenge and the nobler motive of public
justice. The main subjects of this play are revenge and indecisiveness.
Hamlet has a cause, but he has trouble acting on it. ***This year we
probably will read Othello too. I have a class set of the plays, but
if you want to get your own for annotations, feel free.
5) Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte - The true main characters in
this Gothic novel may, in all truth, be the two houses. Wuthering Heights
represents people of storm and passion while Thrushcross Grange represents
calm and social grace. The characters, for the most part, are undeveloped
and archetypes, representing the stormy and passionate as well as the weak
and calm. Note the supernatural references to Cathy's and Heathcliff's
spiritual union. Note the importance of times and the functions of the 2
main narrators. This book has answered most of the open-ended prompts on all
the past exams!!!
6) The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde--2008-2009 was the first
time we did this play. We'll read it together aloud using a set of books in
class. ** You do not need to purchase this one. It shows the subtle humor
and satire of the British.
========================================================================
IF time, we will fit these in:
--OTHELLO by Shakespeare (I'm pretty sure we'll do this one)!!!
--Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka -- Short story that depicts an individual
shunned, an outcast from the world, whose fictitious sense of self-
importance has been shattered...this, in turn, leads to his improbable
Metamorphosis. Kafka's father treated him as Mr. Samsa treated Gregor--as
invisible vermin. As most writers, Kafka is venting his pain.
--J.B. by Archibald Macleish - Based on the book of Job in the Bible, this
modern play displays the timelessness of man's suffering. Pay close
attention to the open eyes of the Satan Mask and the closed eyes of the God
Mask...which of the two relate to man's anguish more? How does the play
compare to the original Biblical version?
--Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare - Finally, you get to study a
Shakespeare comedy! Well, a tragi-comedy. Note the two different settings,
parallel relationships between the three couples and the three "trials."
Consider how the various mythological and Biblical references reveal the
prejudices of Shakespeare's time. Can anyone feel any sympathy for Shylock?
Do you know the meaning of "usury"?
--Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett - This play presents an existential
view of life as a road to nowhere, where nothing matters. A review of
psychoanalysis may be a good idea. Look for the symbolism of concrete
objects, especially the road and the tree. Could Godot be a god figure?
--(REVIEW from AP Language) Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale
Hurston - Set in Florida, the short novel follows Janie's love
relationships. Watch for the flower and bee imagery, the indirect discourse
in the narrator point of view, and the incredible juxtapostion of various
kinds of diction.
--Review also The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald and Grapes of Wrath by
Steinbeck, probably covered in 10th or 11th grade. These two are good
choices for the AP exam.
**NOTE: We may study some extra Shakespearean plays--Macbeth and possibly
Twelfth Night. A review of 1984 and Brave New World also may be in order.
Save your books!!
************************************************************
**Do not put off reading the bold-faced ones until the last minute!
Procrastination reaps S-T-R-E-S-S.
**********************************************************
**NOTE: Purchase your own books, so you can get in the habit of
underlining and taking notes. Try searching through used bookstores and
reduced price online site before purchasing new ones. There are only
sixteen short weeks to prepare for the AP test...so have most of these
novels and plays read before class begins. There are limitless resources at
your disposal when studying these works. Look online for web sites providing
quality analysis. When conducting a thread discussion or seminar,
substantiate your analysis with quality resources - if people want to hear
what Cliff's Notes says, then they will read them themselves. To reduce
excess papers, try to copy/print handouts front and back with normal 10-wt
paper.
This course is focused entirely around reading college-level novels, short
stories, and poetry. The reading is done almost entirely outside of the
class. In class, you will write on what you have read. Structured like a
freshman English Course, we move at a fast pace, but you should not have a
problem if you work ahead of time as much as possible, avoid excessive
absences, and READ closely.
==============================================================
ANOTHER TEACHER'S OVERVIEW OF HEART OF DARKNESS
This is an interesting commentary by an AP English teacher on the
listserv. If you have read the book well and reviewed the links I have sent
out, you will get the connections.
Heart of Darkness is not a history lesson nor a geographical tracing nor a
sociological treatise, but an allegorical novel tracing an allegorical
journey upriver into the "heart of (human) darkness," beginning at
the "Outer Station," moving in to the "Central Station" and finally to
the "Inner Station" at the "heart" and back out again. It is all
interpretive, devoid of any specific, precise location (even to place it on
the Congo in Africa is an allusive inference) and populated with allegorical
characters like the two women knitting black wool, the accountant, the
manager, the White Russian, Kurtz, the Intended.
It will be a great loss to literature if teachers permit Chinua Achebe's
essay and other criticisms like that to create a dominant interpretation of
Heart of Darkness as an outdated historical text or one to be discarded as
racially destructive.
Actually it is one of the most constructive pieces of literature: its theme
is "all that holds back darkness in the world is the light of belief and
love." That darkness does not refer to the darkness of Africa, its people or
any people, but to darkness as the absence of light.
As Conrad's story begins, literal darkness is approaching on the river
Thames and the frame narrator introduces the participant-narrator Marlow
who, sitting on a ship with four listeners in the gathering twilight, tells
the story of a journey he once made somewhere else: into the "heart of
darkness," an empty, hollow place shown on maps as blank, yellow, unexplored
space. He tells first of preparing for the journey 'out there,' then of
going there to the Outer Station where the hollowness of purposeless action
prevails, then upriver to the Central Station where the manager sustains
himself in emptiness by keeping up outward appearances, and finally to the
Inner Station, presided over by a man called Kurtz who, although sending out
great quantities of ivory, has lost all belief, and who at his death looks
inside himself, into his own hollow, empty darkness, and whispers, "The
horror! The horror!"
The climactic scene, when Marlow comes out to return Kurtz's letters
to his Intended, pulls together all the dark images and all the light and
settles a meaning finally and clearly. Marlow must save that last spot of
light --- he names it the light of Belief and Love --- settled literally on
the forehead of the Intended and allegorically in the mind . . . by telling
her a lie: "His last words were . . . your name." Otherwise, he says, "It
would have been too dark, too dark altogether." Marlow saved the light of
Belief and Love. But to do it, he lied.
Heart of Darkness is an allegory: two stories are told at once, one on
the surface and 'underneath' it a hidden story: the real, important one
which carries the meaning. Using the most fundamental archetypes of
light/dark (day/night), journey, and river, Conrad creates a surface story,
certainly showing literal conditions of colonialism in Africa, to carry the
allegory. But many readers will look at the surface narrowly and miss the
allegory underneath, so if the novel is taught on the surface level, it
needs another reading for the allegory and the final irony--that only by the
darkness of a lie could Marlow save the light.
Conrad's allusive, allegorical novel is a profound answer to the
question, 'What is evil? Is it a Something, or is it a Nothing? Is it in
things that people do, or is it in the Nothing underneath?' I think
Conrad's answer is 'Nothing. Evil is a hollowness, an emptiness, an
absence, not a presence. The absence of belief and love. Believe nothing.
Love nothing. Only act. Do. That is evil. That is darkness.' Underneath
all the evil done in the world, underneath all the 'somethings' of evil,
is its source: Nothingness. Emptiness. Hollowness. No belief, no love,
nothing but action without purpose. That is the allegorical lesson in Kurtz
and the Inner Station at the heart of darkness. Poet T.S. Eliot saw its
triumph in "The Hollow Men," using for his epigraph a line from Conrad's
novel, "Mistah Kurtz, he dead."
This is the darkness which comes from the absence of light, from the
disappearance of belief, purpose, and love. I do not know another work of
literature that conveys that message or does it so memorably or so well as
does Heart of Darkness.
======================================================================
COMPARISON RESEARCH PAPER ON NOVELS OR PLAYS:
***SELECT an OPTIONAL BOOK (above or below) FOR PERSONAL IN-DEPTH FOCUS (or
select something similar--of AP caliber). I prefer something
modern, but I'll be somewhat flexible. Next, pair up with another book you
have studied in class, so your research project will be a comparison paper.
In this way, you'll review something from the past while connecting to
something contemporary--a WIN-WIN situation. For example, you might compare
Brave New World and one of Margaret Atwood's novels as examples of dystopias
or you could compare A Thousand Acres (modern) to King Lear (Shakespeare).
While the time periods differ, the plots are almost identical. You would
figure out which themes and devices are similar and which are different.
I'll eventually give you more examples of combinations that people have used
in the past, but I would like for you to come up with some of your own.
*** NOTE: Your research paper, with permission, can consist of 2 old
works or 2 new works, as long as you have enough points for comparison.
Approve everything with me first. We need to discuss everything
in detail before you start researching.
**RECENTLY WRITTEN BOOKS ALSO WORK WELL, but make certain they are complex
enough for college level. Some suggested new books might include We Were
the Mulvaneys, Water for Elephants, Kite Runner, or The Life of Pi.
READING LEVEL--Some of these have been used in the past for the
analytical paper. Even though it is a college course, AP Lit is still
offered in high school. Therefore, discuss your reading choices with your
parents before selecting a book to review. Some have **ADULT content. Your
final COMPARISON PAPER will be approximately 10-12 pages of text.
Other GREAT BOOKS for your analysis:
Alvarez, Julia In the Time of Butterflies
Anaya, Rudolpho Bless Me Ultima
Atwood, Margaret The Handmaid’s Tale,
Oryx and Crake,
Cat’s Eye
Burgess, Anthony A Clockwork Orange
Burns, Olive Ann Cold Sassy Tree
Chopin, Kate The Awakening
Chevalier, Tracy Girl with the Pearl Earring
Chbosky, Stephen Perks of Being a Wallflower
Crutcher, Chris Ironman
Diamant, Anita The Red Tent
Doctorow, E. L. Ragtime
Ellison, Ralph The Invisible Man
Enger, Leif Peace Like a River
Erdrich, Louise Love Medicine
Esquivel, Laura Like Water for Chocolate
Eugenides, Jeffrey Middlesex: A Novel
Foer, Jonathan Safron Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Frazier, Charles Cold Mountain: A Novel
Gaines, Ernest A Lesson Before Dying
A Gathering of Old Men
Golden, Arthur Memoirs of a Geisha
Guest, Judith Ordinary People
Guterson, Daniel Snow Falling on Cedars
Hegi, Ursula Stones from the River
Heller, Joseph Catch 22
Hosseini, Khaled The Kite Runner,
A Thousand Splendid Suns
Hunter, Stephen Point of Impact
Irving, John A Prayer for Owen Meany
Ciderhouse Rules
A Widow for One Year
Kidd, Sue Monk The Secret Life of Bees,
The Mermaid Chair
King, Stephen The Stand
Kingsolver, Barbara The Bean Trees
Pigs in Heaven
Animal Dreams
Poisonwood Bible
Kingston, Maxine Hong Woman Warrior
Kogawa, Joy Obasan
Lewis, Sinclair Arrowsmith
Martel, Yann The Life of Pi
Morrison, Toni Beloved
The Bluest Eye
Niffenegger, Audrey The Time Traveler's Wife
Oates, Joyce Carol We Were the Mulvaneys
O’Brien, Tim The Things They Carried,
Going After Cacciato
O’Connor, Flannery Wise Blood
Ondaatje, Michael The English Patient
Picoult, Jodi The Pact
My Sister's Keeper
Plain Truth
Plath, Sylvia The Bell Jar
Potok, Chaim The Chosen
The Promise
My Name is Asher Lev
Proloux, Annie The Shipping News
Rand, Ayn The Fountainhead
Anthem
Rushdie, Salman The Moor’s Last Sigh
Smiley Jane A Thousand Acres
Stegner, Robert Angle of Repose
Steinbeck, John East of Eden,
Absalom, Absalom!
Tan, Amy The Joy Luck Club,
The Kitchen God’s Wife
Tyler, Anne The Accidental Tourist
Breathing Lessons
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant
Vonnegut, Kurt Slaughterhouse Five,
Player Piano
Walker, Alice The Color Purple
Wallace, David Foster Infinite Jest
Warren, Robert Penn All the King's Men
Wright, Richard Native Son
==============================================================
@@ GO TO THE LITERATURE DOWNLOAD ICON TO GET MORE SAMPLES & DIRECTIONS as we
approach the beginning of this unit! @@
SEE MISCELLANEOUS ICON TO GET MORE DETAILS!!
MISCELLANEOUS ICON (the stack of books)
**NOTE: EACH TURN-IN POINT for a preliminary paper or draft is a 100-
POINT GRADE. THE FINAL PAPER IS WORTH 400 POINTS. All papers must be
typed with one-inch margins. They must be 12 font, Times New Roman, and
double-spaced. Do NOT try to create large margins, as this ploy is
obvious.
Each page must have a last name and number in the upper right-hand corner--
ie, Smith 6. You do not number the cover page. Start with page 1 on the
THESIS/OUTLINE page and end the numbering on the WORKS CITED PAGE.
**STUDY THE "THESIS WITH HOLES" HANDOUT FOR PATTERNS AS YOU CONTINUE TO
REVISE YOUR THESIS. YOU WANT TO SHOW THE DEVICES IN THE WORK THAT PROVE A
LARGE POINT--A THEME, A CHARACTER, A TONE. THE THESIS STATEMENTS MAY BE
TWEAKED FREQUENTLY UNTIL THE FIRST DRAFT IS DUE.
**TURN-IN DATES:
(HAVE A SEPARATE FOLDER TO HOLD ALL YOUR TERM PAPER MATERIALS: drafts,
copies of critical sources, information sheets, copy of materials I have
given or e-mailed as attachments, etc.)
**NOTE: You will not get full credit at turn-in points if the paper is 1)
not organized neatly in a folder; 2)does not have documentation of the
quotations from your primary source; 3)does not show evidence from the
critics, with highlighted copies of all your sources; 4)does not have a
Works Cited page that matches up to your documentation.
DUE EARLY SEPT. _____--PRELIMINARY PAPER #1: A casual TYPED (12 font, Times
New Roman, double-spaced) paper describing your thesis and how you plan to
set up your paper. If you have researched critics, either in a
library or on a web site (EDU. or ORG only), please give me an overview of
what you found. You must give credit where it is due to avoid plagiarism.
In this paper, discuss the devices that you are covering and give me some
examples. Show me several quoted passages and how you plan to embed them in
sentences to make your points. This is a trouble-shooting paper to help you
avoid making serious errors on your drafts.
DUE 2nd week in OCTOBER: --PRELIMINARY PAPER #2, in the folder--
First 3 TYPED paragraphs of your paper, the introduction, including thesis,
and 2 paragraphs that begin your support. You must show quotations from
your novel/play (PRIMARY SOURCE) and at least 1 or 2 critical commentaries,
put in your own words and DOCUMENTED. (SECONDARY SOURCE) Do not ever quote
from the critics. Only quote from your primary source. I will give you
feedback to let you know the strengths and weaknesses so far. Please include
your tentative thesis/outline page and tentative Works Cited page. Put
COPIES OF CRITICAL SOURCES in this folder with anything used highlighted
clearly. (Before this date, you will bring your portfolios to class for
several days to work during the period so I can see what you're doing)
DUE last week in OCTOBER--PRELIMINARY PAPER #3, in folder--complete
paper with thesis/outline page, embedded quotes, documentation, and Works
Cited page. This paper will be peer-evaluated in class. Number pages
correctly. The thesis/outline page is the first page, shown with your last
name and the number 1. The Works Cited page is your last paper. Put your
name and page number on EACH PAGE of the paper in the upper right-hand
corner. Make certain that you have made copies of all critical information
and highlighted it clearly.
FIRST ROUGH DRAFT--DUE in folder the 1st week in NOVEMBER. This paper
should look like the final product, complete in a folder with a cover page
(name, date, period, and title of your work). You should have all the
critical material ready and set to go, highlighted clearly. We will peer
evaluate these papers in class. I would expect that many of these drafts
will be the final product after the last fine-tuning session. After this
round, you may send parts of the paper to me online for help if you are
having trouble. Do NOT send the whole paper. I will designate areas of
concern at each turn-in point. If you have a decent thesis, however, and
have read the book well, you should not be having difficulties pulling out
quotations to support your main idea.
2nd ROUGH DRAFT-- DUE 2nd week in NOVEMBER. This will be the "final"
product if it looks set to go. If you still have problems, you may resubmit
as often as needed until the WINDOW CLOSES a few days later.
****TURN IN THE FINAL PAPER (WINDOW CLOSES)THE WEEK BEFORE THANKSGIVING in
the complete folder--with all other drafts. If you turn in a FINAL
product early in the week before Thanksgiving, I will give it "extra grade
consideration," meaning I will grade it more leniently. If you wait until
the last day, the FRIDAY before Thanksgiving (November 21), it will go on
the bottom of the pile and receive little to no extra consideration. On
that Friday the cart with any remaining papers will leave the classroom, and
the window will close, regardless of any excuses. You know the routine!!
================================================================
**You have a major list of AP LIT terms on the download page. Download,
print it out, and study. This list is a secondary partial list for
reinforcement.
SOME LITERARY TERMS TO KNOW (along with the handout on the download page--
For the full list, see
http://www.poeticbyway.com/glossary2.html
--ACCENT--
The rhythmically significant stress in the articulation of words, giving
some syllables more relative prominence than others. In words of two or more
syllables, one syllable is almost invariably stressed more strongly than the
other syllables. In words of one syllable, the degree of stress normally
depends on their grammatical function; nouns, verbs, and adjectives are
usually given more stress than articles or prepositions. The words in a line
of poetry are usually arranged so the accents occur at regular intervals,
with the meter defined by the placement of the accents within the foot.
Accent should not be construed as emphasis.
--ALLEGORY--
A figurative illustration of truths or generalizations about human conduct
or experience in a narrative or description by the use of symbolic fictional
figures and actions which the reader can interpret as a resemblance to the
subject's properties and circumstances.
Sidelight: Though similar to both a series of symbols and an extended
metaphor, the meaning of an allegory is more direct and less subject to
ambiguity than a symbol; it is distinguishable from an extended metaphor in
that the literal equivalent of an allegory's figurative comparison is not
usually expressed.
--ALLITERATION--
Also called head rhyme or initial rhyme, the repetition of the initial
sounds (usually consonants) of stressed syllables in neighboring words or at
short intervals within a line or passage, usually at word beginnings, as
in "wild and woolly," or the line from Shelley's "The Cloud": I bear light
shade for the leaves when laid
--ALLUSION--
An implied or indirect reference to something assumed to be known, such as a
historical event or personage, a well-known quotation from literature, or a
famous work of art, such as Keats' allusion to Titian's painting of Bacchus
in "Ode to a Nightingale."
Sidelight: An allusion can be used by the poet as a means of imagery,
since, like a symbol, it can suggest ideas by connotation. Like allegories
and parodies, its effectiveness depends upon the reader's acquaintance with
the reference alluded to.
--AMBIGUITY--
Applied to words and expressions, the state of being doubtful or indistinct
in meaning or capable of being understood in more than one way, in the
context in which it is used.
Sidelight: Ambiguity can result from careless or evasive choice of words
which bewilder the reader, but its deliberate use is often intended to unify
the different interpretations into an expanded enrichment of the meaning of
the original expression.
(See also Denotation, Pun)
(Compare Connotation)
--ANACHRONISM-- (uh-NAK-ruh-nizm)
The placement of an event, person, or thing out of its proper chronological
relationship, sometimes unintentional, but often deliberate as an exercise
of poetic license.
Sidelight: Anachronisms most frequently appear in imaginative portrayals
with historical settings, such as a clock in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar,
and a reference to billiards in Antony and Cleopatra.
(Compare Hysteron Proteron, In Medias Res)
ANADIPLOSIS (an-uh-duh-PLOH-sus)
Also called epanadiplosis, the repetition of a prominent (usually the final)
word of a phrase, clause, line, or stanza at the beginning of the next,
often with extended or altered meaning, as in: "his hands were folded --
folded in prayer," or Keats' repetition of the word, "forlorn," linking the
seventh and eighth stanzas of "Ode to a Nightingale."
(Compare Anaphora, Epistrophe,Repetition, Parallelism, Polysyndeton,
Refrain)
--ANALOGY--
An agreement or similarity in some particulars between things otherwise
different; sleep and death, for example, are analogous in that they both
share a lack of animation and a recumbent posture.
Sidelight: Prevalent in literature, the use of an analogy carries the
inference that if things agree in some respects, it's likely that they will
agree in others.
(Compare Simile, Symbol)
--ANAPEST, ANAPESTIC --
A metrical foot with two short or unaccented syllables followed by a long or
accented syllable, as in inter-VENE or for a WHILE. William Cowper's "Verses
Supposed to be Written by Alexander Selkirk," is a poem in which anapestic
feet are predominately used, as in the opening line:
I am MON | -arch of ALL | I sur-VEY,
Sidelight: In English poetry, with the exception of limericks, anapestic
verse is seldom used for whole poems, but can often be highly effective as a
variation.
(See also Meter, Rhythm)
--ANAPHORA-- (uh-NAF-or-uh)
The repetition of the same word or expression at the beginning of successive
phrases, clauses, sentences, or lines for rhetorical or poetic effect, as in
Lincoln's "we cannot dedicate- we cannot consecrate-we cannot hallow this
ground" or from Fitzgerald's The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám: Sans Wine, sans
Song, sans Singer, and--sans End!
(See also Epistrophe)
(Compare Anadiplosis, Repetition, Parallelism, Polysyndeton, Refrain)
--ANTHOLOGY--
A collection of selected literary, artistic, or musical works or parts of
works.
(See also Canon, Companion Poem, Cycle, Lyric Sequence, Sonnet Sequence)
--ANTICLIMAX--
The intentional use of elevated language to describe the trivial or
commonplace, or a sudden transition from a significant thought to a trivial
one in order to achieve a humorous or satiric effect, as in Pope's The Rape
of the Lock:
Here thou, great Anna! whom three realms obey,
Dost sometimes counsel take -- and sometimes tea.
An anticlimax also occurs in a series in which the ideas or events ascend
toward a climactic conclusion but terminate instead in a thought of lesser
importance. Bathos is an anticlimax which is unintentional.
(See also Purple Patch)
--ANTIMETABOLE-- (an-tye-muh-TAB-uh-lee)
See Chiasmus
--ANTITHESIS--
A figure of speech in which a thought is balanced with a contrasting thought
in parallel arrangements of words and phrases, such as, "he promised wealth
and provided poverty," or "it was the best of times, it was the worst of
times, " or from Pope's An Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot:
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,
Also, an antithesis is the second of two contrasting or opposing
constituents, following the thesis.
(Compare Oxymoron)
--ANTONYM--
One of two or more words that have opposite meanings.
(Compare Homonym, Paronym, Synonym)
--APHORISM--
A brief statement containing an important truth or fundamental principle.
(Compare Allegory, Apologue, Didactic Poetry, Epigram, Fable, Gnome,
Proverb)
--APOSTROPHE-- (uh-PAHS-truh-fee)
A figure of speech in which an address is made to an absent or deceased
person or a personified thing rhetorically, as in William Cowper's "Verses
Supposed to be Written by Alexander Selkirk":
O solitude! Where are the charms
That sages have seen in thy face?
An apostrophe is also a punctuation mark used to indicate the omission of
letter(s) in an elision.
Sidelight: When the poet addresses a muse or a god for inspiration, it is
called an invocation.
--APPROXIMATE RHYME-- (Emily Dickinson)
See Near Rhyme
--ARCADIA--
A region or scene characterized by idyllic quiet and simplicity, often
chosen as a setting for pastoral poetry, from Arcadia, a picturesque region
in ancient Greece.
(See also Bucolic, Eclogue, Idyll, Madrigal)
--ARCHAISM-- (AHR-kee-izm)
The intentional use of a word or expression no longer in general use, for
example, thou mayst is an archaism meaning you may. Archaisms can evoke the
sense of a bygone era.
Sidelight: Spenser's The Faerie Queene contains a number of archaisms.
Syntactic inversions such as the hyperbaton can also also provide an archaic
effect.
--ARGUMENT--
The subject matter or central theme of a work of literature or a summary of
the work, often used as a prologue to a drama, epic, or narrative, as in
Jonson's Volpone.
--ASSONANCE--
The relatively close juxtaposition of the same or similar vowel sounds, but
with different end consonants in a line or passage, thus a vowel rhyme, as
in the words, date and fade.
Sidelight: The effective use of internal assonantal sounds is displayed
throughout Byron's "She Walks in Beauty."
(See also Euphony, Near Rhyme, Resonance, Sound Devices)
(Compare Alliteration, Consonance, Modulation, Rhyme)
--ASYNDETON-- (uh-SIN-duh-tahn)
The omission of conjunctions that ordinarily join coordinate words and
phrases, as in "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil."
(Contrast Polysyndeton)
--AUBADE-- (OH-bahd)
A song or poem with a motif of greeting the dawn, often involving the
parting of lovers, or a call for a beloved to arise, as in
Shakespeare's "Song," from Cymbeline.
Sidelight: The dawn song is also known as an alba (Provençal), aube (Old
French), and tagalied (German).
(Compare Serenade)
--BALLAD--
A short narrative poem with stanzas of two or four lines and usually a
refrain. The story of a ballad can originate from a wide range of subject
matter but frequently deals with folk-lore or popular legends. The plot is
the dominant element, dealing with a single crucial episode, narrated
impersonally, with frequent use of repetition. They are written in straight-
forward verse, seldom with detail, but always with graphic simplicity and
force. Most ballads are suitable for singing and, while sometimes varied in
practice, are generally written in ballad meter, i.e., alternating lines of
iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter, with the last words of the second and
fourth lines rhyming, an xbyb rhyme scheme, Heroic Quatrain)
--BARD--
An ancient composer, singer or declaimer of epic verse, celebrating the
deeds of gods and heroes.
Sidelight: Today the term is popularly applied to poets of significant
repute as a title of honor, with William Shakespeare being known as "The
Bard of Avon" and Robert Burns as "The Bard of Ayrshire."
(See also Metrist, Poet, Sonneteer, Versifier, Wordsmith)
(Compare Minstrel, Troubadour)
--BAROQUE-- (buh-ROHK)
An elaborate, extravagantly complex, sometimes grotesque, style of artistic
expression prevalent in the late 16th to early 18th centuries. The baroque
influence on poetry was expressed by Euphuism in England, Marinism in Italy,
and Gongorism in Spain.
--BATHOS--
An unintentional shift from the sublime to the ridiculous which can result
from the use of overly elevated language to describe trivial subject matter,
or from an exaggerated attempt at pathos which misfires to the point of
being ludicrous. Bathos can be viewed as an unintentional anticlimax.
--BLANK VERSE--
Poetry written without rhymes, but which retains a set metrical pattern,
usually iambic pentameter (five iambic feet per line) in English verse.
Since it is a very flexible form, the writer not being hampered in the
expression of thought or syntactic structure by the need to rhyme, it is
used extensively in narrative and dramatic poetry. In lyric poetry, blank
verse is adaptable to lengthy descriptive and meditative poems. An example
of blank verse is found in the well-known lines from Act 4, Scene 1 of
Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice:
The qua | lity | of mer | cy is | not strain'd,
It drop | peth as | the gen | tle rain | from heaven
Upon | the place | beneath; | it is | twice blest:
It bles | seth him | that gives | and him | that takes;
Sidelight: Blank verse and free verse are often misunderstood or confused.
A good way to remember the difference is to think of the word blank as
meaning that the ends of the lines where rhymes would normally appear
are "blank," i.e., devoid of rhyme; the free in free verse refers to the
freedom from fixed patterns of traditional versification.(See also Verse
Paragraph)
--BUCOLIC--
Derived from the Greek word for herdsman, an ancient term for a poem dealing
with a pastoral subject.
(See also Arcadia, Eclogue, Idyll, Madrigal)
--BURLESQUE--
A work which is intended to ridicule by the use of grotesque exaggeration or
by the treatment of a trifling subject with the gravity due a matter of
great importance.
--CACOPHONY-- (cack-AH-fuh-nee or cack-AW-fuh-nee)
Discordant sounds in the jarring juxtaposition of harsh letters or syllables
which are grating to the ear, usually inadvertent, but sometimes
deliberately used in poetry for effect.
Sidelight: Sound devices are important to poetry. To create sounds
appropriate to the content, the poet may sometimes prefer to achieve a
cacophonous effect instead of the more commonly sought-for euphony. The use
of words with the consonants b, k and p, to cite one example, produce
harsher sounds than the soft f and v or the liquid l, m and n.
(See also Dissonance)
(Contrast Euphony)
--CADENCE--
The progressive rhythmical pattern in lines of verse; also, the natural tone
or modulation of the voice determined by the alternation of accented or
unaccented syllables.
Sidelight: Cadence differs from meter in that it is not necessarily
regular, but rather a more flexible concept of rhythm such as is
characteristic of free verse and prose poetry.
(See also Accent, Ictus, Sprung Rhythm, Stress)
(Compare Caesura)
--CAESURA-- (siz-YUR-uh)
A rhythmic break or pause in the flow of sound which is commonly introduced
in about the middle of a line of verse, but may be varied for different
effects. Usually placed between syllables rhythmically connected in order to
aid the recital as well as to convey the meaning more clearly, it is a pause
dictated by the sense of the content or by natural speech patterns, rather
than by metrics. It may coincide with conventional punctuation marks, but
not necessarily. A caesura within a line is indicated in scansion by the
parallel symbol (||), as in the first line of Emily Dickinson's "I'm Nobody!
Who Are You?":
I'm no | body! || Who are | you?
Sidelight: As a grammatical, rhythmic, and dramatic device, as well as an
effective means of avoiding monotony, the caesura is a subtle but effective
weapon in the skilled poet's arsenal.
--CANON--
In a literary sense, the authoritative works of a particular writer; also,
an accepted list of works perceived to represent a cultural, ideological,
historical, or biblical grouping.
Sidelight: Other literary groupings or collections include sonnet
sequences,
lyric sequences, cycles, companion poems, and anthologies.
--CARPE DIEM-- (KAHR-peh DEE-em)
Latin for "seize the day," a common motif in lyric verse throughout the
history of poetry, with the emphasis on making the most of current pleasures
because life is short and time is flying, as in Robert Herrick's, "To the
Virgins" or Edward Fitzgerald's The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám.
--CHIASMUS-- (kye-AZ-mus)
An inverted parallelism; the reversal of the order of corresponding words or
phrases (with or without exact repetition) in successive clauses which are
usually parallel in syntax, as in Pope's "a fop their passion, but their
prize a sot," or Goldsmith's "to stop too fearful, and too faint to go."
Sidelight: While the term, chiasmus, is usually used in reference to syntax
and word order, it also includes the repetition in reverse of any element of
a poem, including sound patterns.
Sidelight: An antimetabole (an-tye-muh-TAB-uh-lee) is a type of chiasmus in
which the words reversed involve a repetition of the same words, as "do not
live to eat, but eat to live," or Shakespeare's "Remember March, the ides of
March remember." The distinction is not generally observed, however.
--CINQUAIN-- (sing-KANE)
A five-line stanza of syllabic verse, the successive lines containing two,
four, six, eight and two syllables. The cinquain, based on the Japanese
haiku, was an innovation of the American poet, Adelaide Crapsey.
(See also Quintet)
--CLASSICISM--
The adherence to the traditional standards that are universally valid and
enduring.
(Compare Idealism, Imagism, Impressionism, Metaphysical,
Objectivism, Realism, Romanticism, Symbolism)
--CLIMAX --
Rhetorically, a series of words, phrases, or sentences arranged in a
continuously ascending order of intensity. If the ascending order is not
maintained, an anticlimax or bathos results.
Sidelight: The term is usually applied to the point of supreme interest in
a series of thoughts or events, often the turning point of a play or
narrative.
--CLOSURE--
The effect of finality, balance, and completeness, which leaves the reader
with a sense of fulfilled expectations. Though the term is sometimes
employed to describe the effects of individual repetitive elements, such as
rhyme, metrical patterns, parallelism, refrains, and stanzas, its most
significant application is in reference to the concluding portion of the
entire poem.
--CONCEIT--
An elaborate metaphor, artificially strained or far-fetched, in which the
subject is compared with a simpler analogue usually chosen from nature or a
familiar context. Especially associated with intense emotional or spiritual
feelings, they sometimes extend through the entire length of a poem. An
example of a conceit is Sir Thomas Wyatt's "My Galley," an adaptation of
Petrarch's Sonnet 159.
--CONNOTATION--
The suggestion of a meaning by a word beyond what it explicitly denotes or
describes. The word, home, for example, means the place where one lives, but
by connotation, also suggests security, family, love and comfort.
Sidelight: Sometimes one of the connotations of a word gains enough
widespread acceptance to become a denotation.
(See also Allusion, Symbol)
--CONSONANCE--
The close repetition of the same end consonants of stressed syllables with
differing vowel sounds, such as boat and night, or the words drunk and milk
in the final line of Coleridge's "Kubla Khan."
Sidelight: Consonance most often occurs within a line. When used at line
ends in place of rhyme, as in the words, cool and soul, in the third stanza
of Emily Dickinson's "He Fumbles at your Spirit," it is sometimes referred
to as consonantal rhyme to differentiate it from perfect rhyme and other
types of near rhyme.
Sidelight: In a more general sense, consonance also refers to a pleasing
combination of sounds; sounds in agreement with tone.
(See also Euphony, Modulation, Resonance, Sound Devices)
(Compare Alliteration, Assonance, Rhyme)
--CONTENT--
The substance of a poem; the impressions, facts and ideas it contains--
the "what-is-being-said."
(Compare Diction, Form, Motif, Persona, Style, Texture, Tone)
--COUPLET--
Two successive lines of poetry, usually of equal length and rhythmic
correspondence, with end-words that rhyme. The couplet, for practical
purposes, is the shortest stanza form, but is frequently joined with other
couplets to form a poem with no stanzaic divisions, as in Robert
Browning's "My Last Duchess."
Sidelight: If the couplet is written in iambic pentameter, it is called a
heroic couplet.
(See also Closed Couplet. Open Couplet, Distich, Elegiac)
--DACTYL, DACTYLIC ---
A metrical foot of three syllables, the first of which is long or accented
and the next two short or unaccented, as in MER-rily or LOV-er boy, or from
Byron's "The Bride of Abydos":
KNOW ye the | LAND where the | CY-press and | MYR-tle
Sidelight: Except for their use in humorous light verse, dactylic lines are
now infrequent in English poetry.
(See also Double Dactyl, Meter, Rhythm)
--DENOTATION--
The literal dictionary meaning(s) of a word as distinct from an associated
idea or connotation.
Sidelight: Many words have more than one denotation, such as the multiple
meanings of fair or spring. In ordinary language, we strive for a single
precise meaning of words to avoid ambiguity, but poets often take advantage
of words with more than one meaning to suggest more than one idea with the
same word. A pun also utilizes multiple meanings as a play on words.
--DICTION--
The choice of words, phrases, sentence structures, and figurative language
in a literary work; the manner or mode of verbal expression, particularly
with regard to clarity and accuracy. The diction of a poem can range from
colloquial to formal, from literal to figurative, or from concrete or
abstract.
Sidelight: Poetic diction refers to words, phrasing, and figures not
usually used in ordinary speech and often utilizes archaisms, neologisms,
epithets, kennings, periphrases, connotations, and hyperbaton.
Sidelight: Poets often adapt diction to the form or genre of a poem, for
example, elevated for odes, or folksy for ballads.
(Compare Content, Form, Motif, Persona, Style, Texture, Tone)
--DIDACTIC POETRY--
Poetry which is clearly intended for the purpose of instruction -- to impart
theoretical, moral, or practical knowledge, or to explain the principles of
some art or science, as Virgil's Georgics, or Pope's An Essay on Criticism.
Sidelight: Didactic poetry can assume the manner and attributes of
imaginative works by incorporating the knowledge in a variety of forms, such
as dramatic poetry, satire, and parody, among others. Allegories, aphorisms,
apologues, fables, gnomes, and proverbs are so closely related to didactic
poetry that they can be considered specific types of that genre.
Sidelight: Although the instructional purpose is its primary aim, didactic
poetry often contains vivid descriptive passages, digressions, and
thoughtful reflections bearing on the subject matter.
(See also Georgic)
(Compare Catalog Verse, Epigram)
--DISSONANCE--
A mingling or union of harsh, inharmonious sounds, often deliberately used
for effect, as in the lines from Whitman's "The Dalliance of Eagles:"
The clinching interlocking claws, a living, fierce, gyrating wheel,
Four beating wings, two beaks, a swirling mass tight grappling,
In tumbling turning clustering loops, straight downward falling,
Sidelight: The term, dissonance, can also refer to any elements of a poem
which are discordant in the context of their use.
Sidelight: Although often considered synonymous with cacophony, the term
dissonance more strongly implies a deliberate choice.
(Contrast Euphony)
--DOGGEREL--
Originally applied to poetry of loose irregular measure, it now is used to
describe crudely written poetry which lacks artistry in form or meaning. It
is sometimes deliberately used, however, for comic or satirical effect.
(See Broadside Ballad)
--DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE--
A literary work which consists of a revealing one-way conversation by a
character or persona, usually directed to a second person or to an imaginary
audience. It typically involves a critical moment of a specific situation,
with the speaker's words unintentionally providing a revelation of his
character, as in Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess."
(See also Conversation Poem, Interior Monologue, Soliloquy)
(Compare Prosopopeia)
--ELEGIAC-- (el-uh-JY-uk)
In classical prosody, verses written in elegiac meter, i.e., dactylic
hexameter couplets, with the second line of each couplet having only an
unaccented syllable in the third and sixth feet; also, of or relating to the
period in which elegies written in such couplets flourished, about the 7th
century BC; also, relating to an elegy.
--ELEGY--
A poem of lament, praise, and consolation, usually formal and sustained,
over the death of a particular person; also, a meditative poem in plaintive
or sorrowful mood, such as, "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard," by
Thomas Gray.
Sidelight: The pastoral elegy became conventional in the Renaissance and
continued into the 19th century. Traditionally, pastoral elegies included an
invocation, a lament in which all nature joined, praise, sympathy, and a
closing consolation, as in John Milton's Lycidas.
(See also Dirge, Epitaph, Monody)
--ELLIPSIS-- (ih-LIP-suss), pl. ELLIPSES (ih-LIP-seez)
The omission of a word or words necessary to complete a grammatical
construction, but which is easily understood by the reader, such as "the
virtues I esteem" for "the virtues which I esteem." Also, the marks (. . .)
or (--) denoting an omission or pause.
Sidelight: Other terms involving omissions in grammatical construction
include: asyndeton, which omits conjunctions; zeugma and syllepsis, which
use one word to serve for two; and aposiopesis, which omits a word or phrase
at the end of a clause or sentence for effect.
--EMPATHY --
The feeling or capacity for awareness, understanding, and sensitivity one
experiences when hearing or reading of some event or activity of others,
thus imagining the same sensations as that of those actually experiencing
them.
--EMPHASIS --
A deliberate stress of articulation on a word or phrase so as to give an
impression of particular significance to it by the more marked
pronunciation. In writing, emphasis is indicated by the use of italics or
underlining. (Compare Accent)
(See also under Spondee)
--END RHYME--
A rhyme occurring in the terminating word or syllable of one line of poetry
with that of another line, as opposed to internal rhyme.
(See also Feminine Rhyme, Masculine Rhyme, Perfect Rhyme)
--END-STOPPED--
Denoting a line of verse in which a logical or rhetorical pause occurs at
the end of the line, usually marked with a period, comma, or semicolon.
Sidelight: While correctly used to refer to a single line, the term is most
frequently used in reference to the couplet, especially the closed or heroic
couplet.
(Contrast Enjambment, Open Couplet, Run-On Lines)
--ENJAMBMENT--
The continuation of the sense and therefore the grammatical construction
beyond the end of a line of verse or the end of a couplet.
Sidelight: This run-on device, contrasted with end-stopped, can be very
effective in creating a sense of forward motion, fine-tuning the rhythm, and
reinforcing the mood, as well as a variation to avoid monotony, but should
not be used as a mere mannerism.
(See also Open Couplet)
--EPIC--
An extended narrative poem, usually simple in construction, but grand in
scope, exalted in style, and heroic in theme, often giving expression to the
ideals of a nation or race.
Sidelight: Homer, the author of The Iliad and The Odyssey, is sometimes
referred to as the "Father of Epic Poetry." Based on the conventions he
established, classical epics began with an argument and an invocation to a
guiding spirit, then started the narrative in medias res. In modern use, the
term, "epic," is generally applied to all lengthy works on matters of great
importance.
--EPIGRAM--
A pithy, sometimes satiric, couplet or quatrain which was popular in classic
Latin literature and in European and English literature of the Renaissance
and the neo-Classical era. Epigrams comprise a single thought or event and
are often aphoristic with a witty or humorous turn of thought. Coleridge
wrote the following definition:
What is an epigram? A dwarfish whole,
Its body brevity, and wit its soul.
(See also Monostich, Heroic Couplet)
(Compare Allegory, Apologue, Didactic Poetry, Fable, Gnome, Proverb)
--EPIGRAPH--
A quotation, or a sentence composed for the purpose, placed at the beginning
of a literary work or one of its separate divisions, usually suggestive of
the theme.
--EPISTROPHE--(ehp-ISS-truh-fee)
Also called epiphora, the repetition of a word or expression at the end of
successive phrases or verses, as in Lincoln's "of the people, by the people,
for the people."
(See also Anaphora, Symploce)
(Compare Anadiplosis, Echo , Epizeuxis, Incremental Repetition,
Parallelism, Polysyndeton, Refrain, Stornello Verses)
--EPITAPH--
A brief poem or statement in memory of someone who is deceased, used as, or
suitable for, a tombstone inscription; a commemorative lamentation.
(See also Dirge, Elegy, Monody)
--EPITHET--
An adjective or adjectival phrase, usually attached to the name of a person
or thing, such as "Richard the Lion-Hearted," Milton's "ivy-crowned Bacchus"
in "L'Allegro," or Homer's "rosy-fingered dawn."
Sidelight: With epithets, poets can compress the imaginative power of many
words into a single compound phrase.
Sidelight: An epithet may be either positive or negative in connotation or
allusion and sometimes may be freshly coined, like a nonce word, for a
particular circumstance or occasion.
(Compare Antonomasia, Kenning, Periphrasis)
--EULOGY-- (YOO-luh-jee)
A speech or writing in praise of the character or accomplishments of a
person.
(See also Encomium)
--EUPHEMISM-- (YOO-fuh-mizm)
The substitution of an agreeable or inoffensive expression to replace one
that might offend or suggest something unpleasant, for example, "he is at
rest" is a euphemism for "he is dead."
(Contrast Dysphemism)
--EUPHONY-- (YOO-fuh-nee)
Harmony or beauty of sound which provides a pleasing effect to the ear,
usually sought-for in poetry for effect. It is achieved not only by the
selection of individual word-sounds, but also by their arrangement in the
repetition, proximity, and flow of sound patterns.
Sidelight: The consonants considered most pleasing in sound are l, m, n, r,
v, and w. The harsher consonants in euphonious texts become less jarring
when in the proximity of softer sounds. Vowel sounds are generally more
euphonious than the consonants, so a line with a higher ratio of vowel
sounds will produce a more agreeable effect; also, the long vowels in words
like moon and fate are more melodious than the short vowels in cat and bed.
But the most important measure of euphonic strategies is their
appropriateness to the subject.
(See also Alliteration, Assonance, Consonance, Modulation, Sound Devices)
(Compare Resonance)
(Contrast Cacophony, Dissonance)
--EXTENDED METAPHOR--
A metaphor which is drawn-out beyond the usual word or phrase to extend
throughout a stanza or an entire poem, usually by using multiple comparisons
between the unlike objects or ideas.
Sidelight: Tennyson's "Crossing the Bar," demonstrates the effectiveness of
this device: metaphorically, he compares a sandbar in the Thames River over
which ships cannot pass until high tide, with the natural time for
completion of his own life's journey from birth to death.
(See also Conceit)
--FABLE--
A brief narrative in prose or verse that illustrates a moral or teaches a
lesson, usually in which animals or inanimate objects are personified with
human feelings and motivations.
Sidelight: Fables in which animals speak and act as humans are sometimes
called beast fables. Beast Epics are longer narratives, often satirical,
written in mock-epic form.
(Compare Allegory, Aphorism, Apologue, Didactic Poetry, Epigram, Gnome,
Proverb)
--FEMININE ENDING--
An extra unaccented syllable at the end of an iambic or anapestic line of
poetry, often used in blank verse, for example:
To be | or not | to be, | that is | the ques | tion
(Compare Anacrusis)
FEMININE RHYME
A rhyme occurring on an unaccented final syllable, as in dining and shining
or motion and ocean. Feminine rhymes are double or disyllabic rhymes and are
common in the heroic couplet, as in the opening lines of
Goldsmith's "Retaliation: A Poem":
Of old, when Scarron his companions invited
Each guest brought his dish, and the feast was united,
(Contrast Masculine Rhyme)
--FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE --
The use of words, phrases, symbols, and ideas in such as way as to evoke
mental images and sense impressions. Figurative language is often
characterized by the use of figures of speech, elaborate expressions, sound
devices, and syntactic departures from the usual order of literal language.
--FIGURE OF SOUND--
See Alliteration, Assonance, Consonance, Euphony, Resonance, Sound Devices
--FIGURE OF SPEECH--
A mode of expression in which words are used out of their literal meaning or
out of their ordinary use in order to add beauty or emotional intensity or
to transfer the poet's sense impressions by comparing or identifying one
thing with another that has a meaning familiar to the reader. Some important
figures of speech are: simile, metaphor, personification, hyperbole, and
symbol.
Sidelight: Some rhetoricians have classified over 200 separate figures of
speech, but many are so similar that differences of interpretation often
make their classification an arbitrary judgment. How they are classified,
or "labeled," however, is secondary to the importance of construing their
effect correctly.
Sidelight: Figures of speech are also a means of concentration; they enable
the poet to convey an image with the connotative power of a few words, where
a great many would otherwise be required.
(See also Trope)
--FOOT--
A unit of rhythm or meter; the division in verse of a group of syllables,
one of which is long or accented. For example, the line, "The boy | stood on
| the burn | ing deck," has four iambic metrical feet. The fundamental
components of the foot are the arsis and the thesis. The most common poetic
feet used in English verse are the iamb, anapest, trochee, dactyl, and
spondee, while in classical verse there are twenty-eight different feet.
Sidelight: A line of verse may or may not be written in identical feet;
variations within a line are common. Consequently, the classification of
verse as iambic, anapestic, trochaic, etc., is determined by the foot which
is dominant in the line.
Sidelight: To help his young son remember them, Coleridge wrote the
poem, "Metrical Feet."
(See Dipody)
(See also Scan, Scansion)
--FORM --
The arrangement or method used to convey the content, such as free verse,
ballad, haiku, etc. In other words, the "way-it-is-said." A variably
interpreted term, however, it sometimes applies to details within the
composition of a text, but is probably used most often in reference to the
structural characteristics of a work as it compares to (or differs from)
established modes of conventionalized arrangements.
Sidelight: The form of a poem which follows a set pattern of rhyme scheme,
stanza form, and refrain (if there is one), is called a fixed form, examples
of which include: ballade, limerick, pantoum, rondeau, sestina, sonnet,
triolet, and villanelle. Used in this sense, form is closely related to
genre.
--FREE VERSE--
A fluid form which conforms to no set rules of traditional versification.
The free in free verse refers to the freedom from fixed patterns of meter
and rhyme, but writers of free verse employ familiar poetic devices such as
assonance, alliteration, imagery, caesura, figures of speech etc., and their
rhythmic effects are dependent on the syllabic cadences emerging from the
context. The term is often used in its French language form, vers libre.
Walt Whitman's "By the Bivouac's Fitful Flame," is an example of a poem
written in free verse.
Sidelight: Although as ancient as Anglo-Saxon verse, free verse was first
employed "officially" by French poets of the Symbolist movement and became
the prevailing poetic form at the climax of Romanticism. In the 20th century
it was the chosen medium of the Imagists and was widely adopted by American
and English poets.
Sidelight: One of the characteristics that distinguish free verse from
rhythmical prose is that free verse has line breaks which divide the content
into uneven rhythmical units. The liberation from metrical regularity allows
the poet to select line breaks appropriate to the intended sense of the
text, as well as to shape the white space on the page for visual effect.
Sidelight: Free verse enjoys a greater potential for visual arrangement
than is possible in metrical verse. Free verse poets can structure the
relationships between white space and textual elements to indicate pause,
distance, silence, emotion, and other effects.
Sidelight: Poorly written free verse can be viewed simply as prose with
arbitrary line breaks. Well-written free verse can approach a proximity to
the representation of living experience.
--GENRE --(ZHAHN-ruh)
A category of artistic, musical or literary composition characterized by a
particular form, style or content. Poetry, for example, is a literary genre
and lyric verse is a poetic genre.
Sidelight: The term, genre, is frequently used interchangeably with "type"
and "kind."
HAMARTIA (hah-mahr-TEE-uh)
In literature, the tragic hero's error of judgment or inherent defect of
character, usually less literally translated as a "fatal flaw." This,
combined with essential elements of chance and other external forces, brings
about a catastrophe. Often the error or flaw results from nothing more than
personal traits like probity, pride, and overconfidence, but can arise from
any failure of the protagonist's action or knowledge ranging from a simple
unwitting act to a moral deficiency.
Sidelight: The tragic hero is usually of high estate and neither entirely
virtuous nor bad. Hamartia, rather than villainy, is the significant factor
leading to his suffering. He evokes our pity because, not being an evil
person, his misfortune is a greater tragedy than he deserves and is
disproportionate to the "flaw." We are also moved to fear, as we recognize
the possibilities of similar errors or defects in ourselves.
--HEROIC COUPLET--
Two successive lines of rhymed poetry in iambic pentameter, so called for
its use in the composition of epic poetry in the 17th and 18th centuries. In
neo-classical usage the two lines were required to express a complete
thought, thus a closed couplet, with a subordinate pause at the end of the
first line. Heroic couplets, which are well-suited to antithesis and
parallelism, are also often used for epigrams, such as Pope's:
You beat your pate, and fancy wit will come.
Knock as you please--there's nobody at home.
Sidelight: Poems written in heroic couplets, such as Pope's The Rape of the
Lock, are especially subject to the danger of metrical monotony, which poets
avoid by variations in their placement of caesuras.
(See also Couplet, Distich, Open Couplet)
--HEXAMETER-- (hex-AM-uh-tur)
A line of verse consisting of six metrical feet; the term, however, is
usually used for dactylic hexameter, consisting of dactyls and spondees, the
meter in which the Greek and Latin epics were written.
Sidelight: A hexameter is called an Alexandrine when it is iambic or
trochaic in its English version.
--HOMONYM--
One of two or more words which are identical in pronunciation and spelling,
but different in meaning, as the noun bear and the verb bear.
Sidelight: Although often called homonyms in popular usage (indeed, in some
dictionaries as well), homophones are words which are identical in
pronunciation but different in meaning or derivation or spelling, as rite,
write, right, and wright, or rain and reign. Heteronyms are words which are
identical in spelling but different in meaning and pronunciation, as sow, to
scatter seed, and sow, a female hog. Homographs are words which are
identical in spelling but different in meaning and derivation or
pronunciation, as pine, to yearn for, and pine, a tree, or the bow of a ship
and a bow and arrow.
(Compare Antonym, Paronym, Synonym)
(Contrast Sight Rhyme)
--HORATIAN ODE--
An ode relating to or resembling the works or style of the Roman poet,
Horace, consisting of a series of uniform stanzas, complex in their metrical
system and rhyme scheme. The Greek form is called an Aeolic ode. Horatian
odes are characteristically less elaborate and more contemplative than
Pindaric odes.
Sidelight: John Keats' "Ode to a Nightingale" is an example of a Horatian
ode.(See also Sapphic Verse)
--HYMN--
A song or ode of praise, usually addressed to gods, but sometimes to heroes
or to abstractions such as Truth, Justice, or Fortune.
(See also Paean, Encomium)
--HYPERBOLE-- (hi-PER-buh-lee)
A bold, deliberate overstatement, e.g., "I'd give my right arm for a piece
of pizza." Not intended to be taken literally, it is used as a means of
emphasizing the truth of a statement.
Sidelight: A type of hyperbole in which the exaggeration magnified so
greatly that it refers to an impossibility is called an adynaton.
(Contrast Litotes, Meiosis)
--IAMB-- (EYE-am) or IAMBUS, IAMBIC
The most common metrical foot in English, German, and Russian verse, and
many other languages as well; it consists of two syllables, a short or
unaccented syllable followed by a long or accented syllable, as in a-VOID or
the RUSH, or from the opening line of John Keats' "Ode to a Nightingale":
a DROW | -sy NUMB | -ness PAINS
Sidelight: The name of the iambic foot derives from the Greek iambos, a
genre of invective poetry (now termed lampoon) with which it was originally
associated.
(See also Meter, Rhythm)
--IDEALISM--
The artistic theory or practice that affirms the preeminent values of ideas
and imagination, as compared with the faithful portrayal of nature in
realism.
(Compare Classicism, Imagism, Impressionism, Metaphysical,
Objectivism, Romanticism, Symbolism)
--IDYLL or IDYL --
A pastoral poem, usually brief, stressing the picturesque aspects of country
life, or a longer narrative poem generally descriptive of pastoral scenes
and written in a highly finished style, such as Milton's "L'Allegro."
Sidelight: Idyll is the anglicized version of the Greek Eidillion.
Probably because the adjectival form of the word "idyll," idyllic, is
commonly used in a sense of tranquility, charm, innocence, and ideal
virtues, the term is applied to poetry with wide latitude, as in Tennyson's
Idylls of the King.
(See also Arcadia, Bucolic, Eclogue, Madrigal)
--IMAGERY, IMAGE --
The elements in a literary work used to evoke mental images, not only of the
visual sense, but of sensation and emotion as well. While most commonly used
in reference to figurative language, imagery is a variable term which can
apply to any and all components of a poem that evoke sensory experience and
emotional response, whether figurative or literal, and also applies to the
concrete things so imaged.
Sidelight: Imaginative diction transfers the poet's impressions of sight,
sound, smell, taste and touch to the careful reader, as in "The Chambered
Nautilus," by Oliver Wendell Holmes, or "The Cloud," by Percy Bysshe Shelley.
Sidelight: In addition to its more tangible initial impact, effective
imagery has the potential to tap the inner wisdom of the reader to arouse
meditative and inspirational responses.
Sidelight: Related images are often clustered or scattered throughout a
work, thus serving to create a particular tone. Images of disease,
corruption, and death, for example, are recurrent patterns shaping the
tonality of Shakespeare's Hamlet. Imagery can also emphasize a theme, as do
the suggestions of dissolution, depression, and mortality in John
Keats' "Ode to a Nightingale."
(See also Ekphrasis, Figure of Speech, Trope)
--IN MEDIAS RES-- (in MEE-dee-uhs RAYZ)
The literary device of beginning a narrative, such as an epic poem, at a
crucial point in the middle of a series of events. The intent is to create
an immediate interest from which the author can then move backward in time
to narrate the story.
Sidelight: In contrast, ab ovo (from the egg) refers to starting at the
chronological beginning of a narrative.
(Compare Anachronism, Hysteron Proteron)
--INTERIOR MONOLOGUE--
A narrative technique in which action and external events are conveyed
indirectly through a fictional character's extended mental soliloquy of
thoughts and feelings.
Sidelight: Interior monologue and "stream of consciousness" are often used
interchangeably, but interior monologue may be limited to an ordered
presentation of rational thoughts, while stream of consciousness typically
includes sensory, associative, and subliminal impressions intermixed with
rational thought.
(See also Dramatic Monologue)
(Compare Prosopopeia)
--INTERNAL RHYME--
Also called middle rhyme, a rhyme occurring within the line. The rhyme may
be with words within the line but not at the line end, or with a word within
the line and a word at the end of the line, as in Shelley's "The Cloud":
I bring fresh showers, for the thirsting flowers
(See also Leonine Verse)
--INVECTIVE--
See Lampoon
--INVERSION-- -- grammatical reversal (verb before noun; direct object
before
verb)
--IRONY--
Verbal irony is a figure of speech in the form of an expression in which the
use of words is the opposite of the thought in the speaker's mind, thus
conveying a meaning that contradicts the literal definition, as when a
doctor might say to his patient, " the bad news is that the operation was
successful." Dramatic or situational irony is a literary or theatrical
device of having a character utter words which the reader or audience
understands to have a different meaning, but of which the character himself
is unaware.
Irony of fate is when a situation occurs which is quite the reverse of what
one might have expected, as in Shelley's "Ozymandias."
Sidelight: The use of irony can be very effective, providing it is
reasonably obvious and not likely to be taken so literally that the reader
is left with the opposite of what was meant to convey. It should also be
noted that irony, of itself, is not bitter or cruel, but may become so when
used as a vehicle for satire or sarcasm.
(See also Antiphrasis)
(Compare Burlesque, Hudibrastic Verse, Litotes, Meiosis, Parody)
--LAMPOON-- or invective
A bitter, abusive satire in prose or verse attacking an individual.
Motivated by malice, it is intended solely to reproach and distress.
Sidelight: Before the term lampoon was coined, it was called invective and
dates back as far as the origin of poetry itself. It now appears primarily
in prose, however, except for its occasional use in epigrams.
(See also Burlesque, Parody, Pasquinade)
--LIMERICK--
A light or humorous verse form of five chiefly anapestic verses of which
lines one, two and five are of three feet and lines three and four are of
two feet, with a rhyme scheme of aabba. The limerick, named for a town in
Ireland of that name, was popularized by Edward Lear in his Book of Nonsense
published in 1846.
--LITOTES-- (LIH-tuh-teez, pl. LIH-toh-teez)
A type of meiosis (understatement) in which an affirmative is expressed by
the negative of the contrary, as in "not unhappy" or "a poet of no small
stature."
(Compare Irony)
(Contrast Hyperbole)
--LYRIC VERSE--
One of the three main groups of poetry, the others being narrative and
dramatic. By far the most frequently used form in modern poetic literature,
the term lyric includes all poems in which the speaker's ardent expression
of a (usually single) emotional element predominates. Ranging from complex
thoughts to the simplicity of playful wit, the power and personality of
lyric verse is of far greater importance than the subject treated. Often
brief, but sometimes extended in a long elegy or a meditative ode, the
melodic imagery of skillfully written lyric poetry evokes in the reader's
mind the recall of similar emotional experiences.
--MALAPROPISM-- (MAL-a-prop-izm)
A type of solecism, the mistaken substitution of one word for another that
sounds similar, generally with humorous effect, as in "arduous romance"
for "ardent romance." The term is named for the character, Mrs. Malaprop, in
Richard Sheridan's play, The Rivals, who made frequent misapplications of
words, for example: as headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile.
Sidelight: The name of Sheridan's character, Mrs. Malaprop, was taken from
the French expression for "inappropriate" or "out of place," mal à propos.
--MASCULINE RHYME--
A rhyme occurring in words of one syllable or in an accented final syllable,
such as light and sight or arise and surprise.
(Contrast Feminine Rhyme)
--MEASURE--
Poetic rhythm or cadence as determined by the syllables in a line of poetry
with respect to quantity and accent; also, meter; also, a metrical foot.
--METAPHOR--
A figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one object
or idea is applied to another, thereby suggesting a likeness or analogy
between them, as:
The Leaves of Life keep falling one by one.
--- Edward Fitzgerald, The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
--- Percy Bysshe Shelley, "Ode to the West Wind"
. . . The cherished fields
Put on their winter robe of purest white.
--- James Thomson, The Seasons
Sidelight: While most metaphors are nouns, verbs can be used as well:
Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,
Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,
Are each paved with the moon and these.
--- Percy Bysshe Shelley, "The Cloud"
Sidelight: The poetic metaphor can be thought of as having two basic
components: (1) what is meant, and (2) what is said. The thing meant is
called the tenor, while the thing said, which embodies the analogy brought
to the subject, is called the vehicle.
Sidelight: Both metaphors and similes are comparisons between things which
are unlike, but a simile expresses the comparison directly, while a metaphor
is an implied comparison that gains emphatic force by its connotative value.
Sidelight: A word or expression like "the leg of the table," which
originally was a metaphor but which has now been assimilated into common
usage, has lost its figurative value; thus, it is called a dead metaphor.
Sidelight: Frequently, the term metaphor, as opposed to a metaphor, is used
to include all figures of speech, so the expression, "metaphorically
speaking," refers to speaking figuratively rather than literally.
(See also Allegory, Conceit, Extended Metaphor, Mixed Metaphor,
Kenning, Personification, Synesthetic Metaphor)
(Compare Analogy, Metonymy, Symbol, Synecdoche)
--METAPHYSICAL--
Of or relating to a group of 17th century poets whose verse was
distinguished by an intellectual and philosophical style, with extended
metaphors or conceits comparing very dissimilar things.
(Compare Classicism, Idealism, Imagism, Impressionism,
Objectivism, Realism, Romanticism, Symbolism)
--METER or METRE--
A measure of rhythmic quantity; the organized succession of groups of
syllables at basically regular intervals in a line of poetry, according to
definite metrical patterns. In classic Greek and Latin versification, meter
depended on the way long and short syllables were arranged to succeed one
another, but in English the distinction is between accented and unaccented
syllables. The unit of measure is the foot. Metrical lines are named for the
type of constituent foot and for the number of feet in the line: monometer
(1), dimeter (2), trimeter (3), tetrameter (4), pentameter (5), hexameter
(6), heptameter (7), and octameter (8); thus, a line containing five iambic
feet, for example, would be called iambic pentameter. Rarely does a metrical
line exceed six feet.
The metrical element of sound makes a valuable contribution to the mood and
total effect of a poem.
Sidelight: In the composition of verse, poets sometimes make deviations
from the systematic metrical patterns. This is often desirable because (1)
variations will avoid the mechanical "te-dum, te-dum" monotony of a too-
regular rhythm and (2) changes in the metrical pattern are an effective way
to emphasize or reinforce meaning in the content. These variations are
introduced by substituting different feet at places within a line. (Poets
can also employ a caesura, use run-on lines and vary the degrees of accent
by skillful word selection to modify the rhythmic pattern, a process called
modulation. Accents heightened by semantic emphasis also provide diversity.)
A proficient writer of poetry, therefore, is not a slave to the dictates of
metrics, but neither should the poet stray so far from the meter as to lose
the musical value or emotional potential of rhythmical repetition. Of
course, in modern free verse, meter has become either irregular or non-
existent.
Sidelight: Generally speaking, it is advisable for poets to delay the
introduction of metrical variations until the ear of the reader has had time
to become accustomed to the basic rhythmic pattern.
Sidelight: In music, the term, rubato, refers to rhythmic variations from
the written score applied in the performance.
(See Common Measure, Scan, Scansion)
(See also Accentual Verse, Quantitive Verse, Syllabic Verse)
--METONYMY-- (meh-TAHN-ih-mee)
A figure of speech involving the substitution of one noun for another of
which it is an attribute or which is closely associated with it, e.g., "the
kettle boils" or "he drank the cup." Metonymy is very similar to synecdoche.
Sidelight: Some metonymic expressions, like paleface for white man or salt
for sailor, have become so much a part of everyday language that they can no
longer be considered as figurative in a poetic sense.
--MINSTREL--
In the Middle Ages, the general term for a performer who subsisted by
reciting verse and singing, usually accompanied by a harp. Some minstrels
were traveling entertainers; others were permanently employed by nobles.
(See also Gleeman, Improvisatore, Jongleur, Meistersingers, Minnesingers,
Troubadour, Trouvere)
(Compare Bard, Metrist, Sonneteer, Wordsmith)
--MIXED METAPHOR--
A metaphor whose elements are either incongruent or contradictory by the use
of incompatible identifications, such as "the dog pulled in its horns"
or "to take arms against a sea of troubles."
Sidelight: The effect of a mixed metaphor can be absurd as well as sublime.
(See also Catachresis, Enallage, Malapropism, Oxymoron, Paradox,
Synesthesia)
--MOCK-EPIC or MOCK-HEROIC--
A satiric literary form that treats a trivial or commonplace subject with
the elevated language and heroic style of the classical epic.
Sidelight: An outstanding example in English verse is Pope's The Rape of
the Lock, which he wrote to expose the absurdity of a threatened feud
between two families over an incident in which a young baron cut a curl from
the head of a society belle.
(See also Hudibrastic Verse)
(Compare Parody)
--MODULATION--
In poetry, the harmonious use of language relative to the variations of
stress and pitch.
Sidelight: Modulation is a process by which the stress values of accents
can be increased or decreased within a fixed metrical pattern.
(See also Alliteration, Assonance, Consonance, Euphony)
(Compare Cadence, Ictus, Rhythm, Sprung Rhythm)
--MOOD--
See Tone
--MOTIF-- (moh-TEEF)
A thematic element recurring frequently in literature, such as the dawn song
of an aubade or the carpe diem motif.
(See also Burden, Theme)
(Compare Content, Diction, Form, Persona, Style, Texture, Tone)
--MUSE--
A source of inspiration, a guiding genius.
Sidelight: In Greek mythology, the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne
were called the Muses, each of whom was identified with an individual art or
science. While there are historic inconsistencies in the records that have
been handed down, a common listing is as follows:
Calliope (kuh-LY-uh-pee): Muse of epic poetry
Clio (KLY-oh or KLEE-oh): Muse of history
Erato (EHR-uh-toh): Muse of lyric and love poetry
Euterpe (yoo-TUR-pee): Muse of music, especially wind instruments
Melpomene (mel-PAH-muh-nee): Muse of tragedy
Polymnia (pah-LIM-nee-uh): Muse of sacred poetry
Terpsichore (turp-SIK-uh-ree): Muse of dance and choral song
Thalia (thuh-LY-uh): Muse of comedy
Urania (yooh-RAY-nee-uh): Muse of astronomy
(See also Afflatus, Helicon, Numen, Parnassian, Pierian)
--NARRATIVE --
The narration of an event or story, stressing details of plot, incident, and
action. Along with dramatic and lyric, it is one of the three main groups of
poetry.
Sidelight: A narrative poem contains more detail than a ballad and is not
intended to be sung.
(See also Epyllion, Fable, Fabliau, Lay, Tragedy)
(Compare Chanson de Geste, Epic, Epopee, Epos, Heroic Quatrain)
--NEAR RHYME--
Also called approximate rhyme, slant rhyme, off rhyme, imperfect rhyme, or
half rhyme, a rhyme in which the sounds are similar, but not exact, as in
home and come or close and lose. Most near rhymes are types of consonance.
Sidelight: Due to changes in pronunciation, some near rhymes in modern
English were perfect rhymes when they were originally written in Old English.
(See also Assonance)
--OCTAVE or octet--
A stanza of eight lines, especially the first eight lines of an Italian or
Petrarchan sonnet.
(See also Ballade, Ottava Rima, Sonnet)
--ODE--
A type of lyric or melic verse, usually irregular rather than uniform,
generally of considerable length and sometimes continuous, sometimes divided
in accordance with transitions of thought and mood in a complexity of
stanzaic forms; it often has varying iambic line lengths with no fixed
system of rhyme schemes and is always marked by the rich, intense expression
of an elevated thought, often addressed to a praised person or object.
Sidelight: Two other important forms of the ode arose from classical
poetry;
(1) the Dorian or choric ode designed for singing, after which Pindaric
verse was patterned, and (2) the Aeolic or Horatian Ode, of which "Ode to a
Nightingale," considered to be one of John Keats' finest works, is an
example. More commonly used in English poetry, however, is the irregular
form exemplified by Wordsworth's "Ode. Intimations of Immortality from
Recollections of Early Childhood."
Sidelight: The irregular ode retains the lofty Pindaric style, but allows
each stanza to establish its own pattern, rather than follow a regular
strophic structure.
--ONOMATOPOEIA-- (ahn-uh-mah-tuh-PEE-uh)
Strictly speaking, the formation or use of words which imitate sounds, like
whispering, clang, and sizzle, but the term is generally expanded to refer
to any word whose sound is suggestive of its meaning, whether by imitation
or through cultural inference.
Sidelight: The use of onomatopoeia is common to all types of linguistic
expression, but because sound plays such an important role in poetry, it
provides another subtle weapon in the poetic arsenal for the transfer of
sense impressions through imagery, such as Keats' "the murmurous haunt of
flies on summer eves," in "Ode to a Nightingale."
Sidelight: Though impossible to prove, some philologists (linguistic
scientists) believe that all language originated through the onomatopoeic
formation of words.
(See also Mimesis, Phonetic Symbolism)
--OXYMORON-- (ahk-see-MOR-ahn)
The conjunction of words which, at first view, seem to be contradictory or
incongruous, but whose surprising juxtaposition expresses a truth or
dramatic effect, such as, cool fire, deafening silence, wise folly, etc.
Sidelight: An oxymoron is similar to a paradox, but more compact, usually
consisting of just two successive words.
(See also Catachresis, Enallage, Malapropism, Mixed Metaphor, Synesthesia)
(Compare Antiphrasis, Antithesis)
--PAEAN-- (PEE-un)
In modern usage, a hymn of praise, joy, or triumph.
(See also Panegyric)
--PALINDROME--
A word, verse, or sentence in which the sequence of letters is the same
forward and backward, as the word, madam, or the sentence, "A man, a plan, a
canal: Panama." A variation in which the sequence of words is the same
forward and backward is called a word-order palindrome.
Sidelight: The invention of the palindrome has been attributed to Sotades,
a 3rd century Greek writer of lascivious verse, thus the term sotadic is
used in reference to palindromes and/or poetry of a scurrilous nature.
PALINODE (PAL-uh-node) or PALINODY (PAL-uh-no-dee)
A poem in which the poet contradicts or retracts something written in an
earlier poem.
--PANEGYRIC-- (pan-uh-JEER-ik)
A speech or poem of elaborate praise for some distinguished person, object,
or event -- similar to, but more formal than an encomium.
(Compare Epinicion, Eulogy)
(See also Hymn, Paean)
--PARADOX--
A statement which contains seemingly contradictory elements or appears
contrary to common sense, yet can be seen as perhaps, or indeed, true when
viewed from another angle, such as Alexander Pope's statement, in An Epistle
to Dr. Arbuthnot, that a literary critic could "damn with faint praise."
Sidelight: A paradox can be in a situation as well as a statement. The
effectiveness of a paradox lies in the startling impact of apparent
absurdity on the reader, which serves to highlight the truth of the
statement. An oxymoron is similar to a paradox, but more compact.
Sidelight: Sometimes an entire poem centers on a paradoxical situation or
statement, as in Richard Lovelace's "To Lucasta, Going to the Wars."
(See also Catachresis, Enallage, Malapropism, Mixed Metaphor, Synesthesia)
(Compare Hudibrastic Verse, Satire)
--PARALLELISM--
The repetition of syntactical similarities in passages closely connected for
rhetorical effect, as in Pope's An Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot:
Happy my studies, when by these approved!
Happier their author, when by these beloved!
The repetitive structure, which is commonly used in elevated prose as well
as poetry, lends wit or emphasis to the meanings of the separate clauses,
thus being particularly effective in antithesis.
Sidelight: Sometimes the use of parallel structures is extended throughout
an entire poem.
(Compare Anadiplosis, Anaphora, Echo, Epistrophe, Epizeuxis,
Incremental Repetition, Polysyndeton, Refrain, Stornello
Verses)
--PARNASSIAN--
Of or related to poetry, after Parnassus, a mountain in Greece with two
summits; one summit was consecrated to Bacchus, the other to Apollo and the
Muses, thus Parnassus was regarded as the seat of poetry and music.
(See also Afflatus, Helicon, Numen, Pierian)
--PARODY--
A ludicrous imitation, usually intended for comic effect but often for
ridicule, of both the style and content of another work. The humor depends
upon the reader's familiarity with the original.
Sidelight: Sir John Suckling's poem, "A Ballad upon a Wedding," is a parody
of an epithalamium.
(See also Allusion, Antiphrasis, Burlesque, Hudibrastic Verse,
Irony, Lampoon, Mock-Epic, Pasquinade, Satire )
(Compare Cento, Pastiche)
--PASTORAL POETRY --
Poetry idealizing the lives of shepherds and country folk, although the term
is often used loosely to include any poem featuring a rural aspect.
Sidelight: "Pastor" is the Latin word for shepherd. In classical poetry,
the pastoral conventions featured a shepherd's meditations on themes such as
nature or romance. From another recurrent theme, the expression of grief
over the death of a fellow shepherd, emerged the long-enduring conventions
of the pastoral elegy.
(See also Arcadia, Bucolic, Eclogue, Georgic, Idyll, Madrigal)
--PATHETIC FALLACY --
The ascribing of human traits or feelings to inanimate nature for eloquent
effect, especially feelings in sympathy with those expressed or experienced
by the writer, as a "cruel wind," a "pitiless storm," or the lines from
Shelley's Adonais:
Pale Ocean in unquiet slumber lay,
And the Wild Winds flew round, sobbing in their dismay.
Sidelight: The term was coined in 1856 by John Ruskin, an English painter,
art critic and essayist. While his intent was derogatory, the term is now
applied in a neutral sense as a less formal type of personification
--PATHOS--
A scene or passage in a work evoking pity, sorrow, or compassion in the
audience or reader, such as the poignant summation of the old man's grief in
Wordsworth's Michael:
Many and many a day he thither went,
And never lifted up a single stone.
Sidelight: The use of understatement (meiosis) is often an effective way of
achieving pathos.
(Compare Bathos)
--PENTAMETER-- (pen-TAM-uh-tur)
A line of verse consisting of five metrical feet.
(See Meter)
--PERFECT RHYME--
Also called true rhyme or exact rhyme, a rhyme which meets the following
requirements: (1) an exact correspondence in the vowel sound and, in words
ending in consonants, the sound of the final consonant, (2) a difference in
the consonant sounds preceding the vowel, and (3) a similarity of accent on
the rhyming syllable(s).
--PERSONA-- (pur-SOH-nuh)
The speaker or voice of a literary work, i.e., who is doing the talking.
Thus persona is the "I" of a narrative or the implied speaker of a lyric
poem.
Sidelight: Sometimes the author of a poem identifies a created character as
the speaker-- but in the absence of a specific attribution the term persona
is applied in a neutral sense, since it should not be automatically assumed
that a creative work directly reflects the personal experiences or views of
the poet. The use of an identified persona precludes a potential ambiguity
and enables poets to give expression to things they would prefer not to have
attributed to their own person.
Sidelight: In Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess," the persona is the Duke
of Ferrara. In John Keats' "Ode to a Nightingale," the persona is not
identified, so it is up to the reader to infer whether it is the author
himself or a speaker conceived by the poet for a particular effect.
Sidelight: The term, voice, while often used synonymously with speaker or
persona, can also refer to a pervasive presence behind the fictitious voices
that speak in a work, or to Aristotle's "ethos," the element in a work that
creates a perception by the audience or reader of the moral qualities of the
speaker or a character.
(Compare Content, Diction, Form, Motif, Style, Texture, Tone)
---PERSONIFICATION--
A type of metaphor in which distinctive human characteristics, e.g.,
honesty, emotion, volition, etc., are attributed to an animal, object, or
idea, as "the haughty lion surveyed his realm" or "my car was happy to be
washed" or "'Fate frowned on his endeavors." Personification is commonly
used in allegory.
Sidelight: "The Cloud" is personified in Shelley's magnificent poem.
(Compare Apostrophe, Pathetic Fallacy, Prosopopeia)
--PETRARCHAN SONNET-- (pih-TRAR-kun)
An Italian sonnet form perfected by Petrarch (1304-1374), characterized by
an octave with a rhyme scheme of abbaabba and a sestet rhyming variously,
but usually cdecde or cdccdc. The octave typically introduces the theme or
problem, with the sestet providing the resolution.
Sidelight: Longfellow's "Divina Commedia" and Wyatt's "My Galley" are
examples of Petrarchan sonnets.
(See Volta)
--POETIC LICENSE --
While most often used to describe the poet's liberty to depart from prosaic
diction and standard syntactical structures to achieve a desired effect,
poetic license also includes the freedom for creative deviations from
historical fact in the subject matter, such as the use of anachronisms.
Sidelight: The ultimate measure of poetic license is determined by its
effectiveness.
--POET LAUREATE --
A poet honored for his artistic achievement or selected as most
representative of his country or area; in England, a court official
appointed by the sovereign, whose original duties included the composition
of odes in honor of the sovereign's birthday and in celebration of State
occasions of importance.
Sidelight: The term comes from an old custom of presenting laurel wreaths
to university graduates in rhetoric and poetry. In France, distinguished
writers are crowned with a wreath when honored by election to the Académie
française.
(See Occasional Poem)
--POETRY --
A heightened literary expression cast in lines, rather than sentences, in
which language is used in a concentrated blend of sound, meaning, and
imagery to create an emotional response; essentially rhythmic, it is usually
metrical and frequently structured in stanzas.
Sidelight: Since concepts of the nature of poetry differ widely, no
definition can adequately distinguish between what is poetry and what is not.
Sidelight: Although the potential readership for poetry has always been
limited, the composition of poetry is recognized as a difficult achievement
and eminent poets are universally esteemed.
POETS' CORNER
A portion of the South Transept of Westminster Abbey which contains the
remains of many famous literary figures, including Chaucer and Spenser, and
also displays memorials to others who are buried elsewhere.
Sidelight: In 1400, Geoffrey Chaucer was the first to be buried there. At
that time it was not designated for literary figures and Chaucer was so
honored because he had been Clerk of Works to the palace of Westminster.
Sidelight: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was the first American poet to have a
memorial bust placed in the Poets' Corner.
--POLYSYLLABLE --
A word consisting of several syllables. It is most often applied to words of
more than three syllables.
(See also Disyllable, Monosyllable, Trisyllable)
--POLYSYNDETON-- (pah-lee-SIN-duh-tahn)
The repetition of a number of conjunctions in close succession, as in, "we
have men and arms and planes and tanks."
(Compare Anadiplosis, Anaphora, Echo, Epistrophe, Epizeuxis,Incremental
Repetition, Parallelism, Refrain, Stornello Verses)(Contrast Asyndeton)
--PROSE --
Ordinary language people use in speaking or writing, as distinguished from
the heightened language of poetry. In prose, the line is not treated as a
formal unit, nor does it employ the repetitive patterns of rhythm or meter
associated with many forms of poetic expression.
Sidelight: The cadence of artistic or rhythmical prose is not pre-
established, but emerges from the rhythm of thought.
--PROSODY-- (PRAH-suh-dee)
The systematic study of versification -- of the art through which ordinary
language is modified, extended, concentrated, and intensified into the
heightened literary expression of poetry. Syntax, forms, meters, rhyme,
rhythms, sound devices, figures of speech, repetitive devices, and all other
artistic materials available to the poet fall within the scope of the
prosodic domain.
(See also Encomium, Fescennine Verses)
--PROVERB--
A brief, pithy, popular saying or epigram embodying some familiar truth,
practical interpretation of experience, or useful thought.
(Compare Allegory, Aphorism, Apologue, Didactic Poetry, Fable, Gnome)
--PUN--
A word play suggesting, with humorous intent, the different meanings of one
word or the use of two or more words similar in sound but different in
meaning, as in Mark A. Neville's:
Eve was nigh Adam
Adam was naive.
Sidelight: Clench is an obsolete word for pun. John Dryden (1631-1700),
in "An Essay on Dramatic Poesy," wrote (referring to Shakespeare): "He is
many times flat, insipid; his comic wit degenerating into clenches, his
serious swelling into bombast."
(See also Ambiguity, Denotation, Equivoke, Paronomasia)
(Compare Antanaclasis, Syllepsis)
--QUATRAIN--
A poem, unit, or stanza of four lines of verse, usually with a rhyme scheme
of abab or its variant, xbyb. It is the most common stanzaic form.
Sidelight: The popular quatrain abab rhyme scheme, as in Wordsworth's "She
Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways," is sometimes referred to as alternate rhyme
or cross rhyme. Its variant, xbyb, is found in folk ballads. For In
Memoriam, Tennyson used an abba scheme, often called envelope rhyme. Two
other rhyming possibilities are aabb, which can produce an antithetical
effect, and monorhymed or near-monorhymed quatrains, of which the aaxa of
Fitzgerald's The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, is an example. Sometimes two or
more quatrains are interlocked by a chain rhyme, as in the aaba, bbcb, ccdc,
dddd of Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening."
Sidelight: A curtal quatrain is a quatrain in which the fourth line is
shortened.
(See also Heroic Quatrain)
--REALISM --
The endeavor to portray an accurate portrayal of nature and real life
without the imaginative representation of idealization.
(Compare Classicism, Imagism, Impressionism, Metaphysical,
Objectivism, Romanticism, Symbolism)
--REFRAIN--
A stanza, line, part of a line, or phrase, generally pertinent to the
central topic, which is repeated verbatim, usually at regular intervals
throughout a poem, most often at the end of a stanza, as in Spenser's
Prothalamion, or Villon's "Des Dames du Temps Jadis." Occasionally a single
word is used as a refrain, as nevermore in Poe's "The Raven." Sometimes a
refrain is written with progressive variations, in which case it may be
termed incremental repetition.
(See also Burden, Repetend)
(Compare Anadiplosis, Anaphora, Echo, Epistrophe,
--REPETITION--
A basic artistic device, fundamental to any conception of poetry. It is a
highly effective unifying force; the repetition of sound, syllables, words,
syntactic elements, lines, stanzaic forms, and metrical patterns establishes
cycles of expectation which are reinforced with each successive fulfillment.
Sidelight: Repetition is so important to poetry that a large number of
poetic devices are based on its different applications. Sometimes variations
from the expected repetitions can also achieve a significant effect.
--RHETORIC --
The art of speaking or writing effectively; skill in the eloquent use of
language.
Sidelight: Rhetoric and poetry are inseparable companions
==RHETORICAL QUESTION ==
A question solely for effect, with no answer expected. By the implication
that the answer is obvious, it is a means of achieving an emphasis stronger
than a direct statement, as in Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind:
" O, Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
RHYME
In the specific sense, a type of echoing which utilizes a correspondence of
sound in the final accented vowels and all that follows of two or more
words, but the preceding consonant sounds must differ, as in the words, bear
and care. In a broader poetic sense, however, rhyme refers to a close
similarity of sound as well as an exact correspondence; it includes the
agreement of vowel sounds in assonance and the repetition of consonant
sounds in consonance and alliteration. Usually, but not always, rhymes occur
at the ends of lines.
RHYME ROYAL A stanza of seven lines of heroic or five-foot iambic verse,
rhyming ababbcc. It probably received its name from its use by King James I
of Scotland, who was also a poet. It was previously known as Troilus verse
because Chaucer used it in Troilus and Criseyde.
(See also Doggerel, Poetaster, Poeticule, Versifier)
--RHYTHM--
An essential of all poetry, the regular or progressive pattern of recurrent
accents in the flow of a poem as determined by the arses and theses of the
metrical feet, i.e., the rise and fall of stress. The measure of rhythmic
quantity is the meter.
--ROMANTICISM--
An 18th century movement revolting against the conventional strictness of
neo-classicism and placing artistic emphasis on imagination and the
emotions.
(Compare Classicism, Idealism, Imagism, Impressionism, Metaphysical,
Objectivism, Realism, Symbolism)
--SATIRE --
A literary work which exposes and ridicules human vices or folly.
Historically perceived as tending toward didacticism, it is usually intended
as a moral criticism directed against the injustice or social wrongs. It may
be written with witty jocularity or with anger and bitterness.
Sidelight: Satiric poets often utilize irony, hyperbole, understatement,
and paradox, as in Pope's An Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot .
Sidelight: Satire is direct when the author is clearly expressing his own
opinion, as in Pope's example above, and indirect when embodied in a
hypocritical character such as the Pardoner in Chaucer's The Canterbury
Tales.
(See also Burlesque, Goliardic Poetry, Hudibrastic Verse, Lampoon, Mock-
Epic, Parody, Pasquinade)(Compare Antiphrasis)
--SCAN--
To mark off lines of poetry into rhythmic units, or feet, to provide a
visual representation of their metrical structure, as illustrated with the
following lines from "Verses Supposed to be Written by Alexander Selkirk,"
by William Cowper (written in anapestic trimeter):
I am mon | arch of all | I survey,
My right | there is none | to dispute;
From the cen | ter all round | to the sea
I am lord | of the fowl | and the brute.
(See also Dipodic Verse, Meter, Rhythm)
--SCANSION--
The analysis and graphic display of a line's rhythm performed by scanning
the line to determine its metrical categorization, e.g., iambic trimeter,
trochaic octameter, etc., as a way of describing the rhythmical pattern of a
poem. Scansion will also show the variations in the meter and the deviations
from it, if there are any.
Sidelight: Scansion accounts for syllabic accents and slacks, but does not
always differentiate between the relative "weights" of stress, one of the
means by which a skillful poet modulates the rhythm for effect.
Sidelight: The scanning process employs symbols on and above the lines to
identify the foot divisions, their arsis and thesis, and any internal
caesuras the line may contain. Unfortunately, the symbols for the arsis and
thesis cannot be shown in this example:
One shade / the more, || one ray / the less,
Had half / impair'd / the name / less grace
Sidelight: By definition, scansion entails the scanning of one line at a
time. Roving over, a term suggested for the scanning of Hopkins' sprung
rhythm, is a process in which scansion is continued from one line to the
next without interruption.
Sidelight: Individual judgments often play a part in the scansion process,
since the divisions between feet may be subject to differences of
interpretation.
--SEPTET --
A stanza of seven lines.
(See also Rhyme Royal)
--SERENADE--
A lover's song or poem of the evening.
(Compare Aubade)
--SESTET--
A term used for the last six lines of an Italian or Petrarchan sonnet to
distinguish them from the preceding octave, or any six-line group that has
reason to be similarly distinguished from its setting.
(Compare Sexain)
--SESTINA--
A fixed form consisting of six 6-line (usually unrhymed) stanzas in which
the
end words of the first stanza recur as end words of the following five
stanzas in a successively rotating order and as the middle and end words of
each of the lines of a concluding envoi in the form of a tercet. The usual
ending word order for a sestina is as follows:
First stanza, 1- 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6
Second stanza, 6 - 1 - 5 - 2 - 4 - 3
Third stanza, 3 - 6 - 4 - 1 - 2 - 5
Fourth stanza, 5 - 3 - 2 - 6 - 1 - 4
Fifth stanza, 4 - 5 - 1 - 3 - 6 - 2
Sixth stanza, 2 - 4 - 6 - 5 - 3 - 1
Concluding tercet:
middle of first line - 2, end of first line - 5
middle of second line - 4, end of second line - 3
middle if third line - 6, end of third line - 1
The poem, "Will's Place," is an example of a sestina.
--SIMILE--
A figure of speech in which an explicit comparison is made between two
essentially unlike things, usually using like, as or than, as in Burns' "O,
my luve's like A Red, Red Rose," or Shelley's "as still as a brooding dove,"
in "The Cloud."
Sidelight: Similes in which the parallel is developed and extended beyond
the initial comparison, often being sustained through several lines, are
called epic or Homeric similes, since they occur frequently in epic poetry,
both for ornamentation and to heighten the heroic aspect.
(Compare Analogy, Metaphor, Symbol, Synecdoche)
--SOLECISM-- (SAH-luh-sizm)
An impropriety of speech or a violation of the established rules of syntax.
(Compare Catachresis, Enallage, Malapropism)
(Contrast King's English)
--SOLILOQUY--
A talking to oneself; the discourse of a person speaking to himself, whether
alone or in the presence of others. It gives the illusion of being unspoken
reflections.
(See also Dramatic Monologue, Interior Monologue)
--SONNET--
A fixed form consisting of fourteen lines of 5-foot iambic verse. In the
English or Shakespearean sonnet, the lines are grouped in three quatrains
(with six alternating rhymes) followed by a detached rhymed couplet which is
usually epigrammatic. In the original Italian form, such as
Longfellow's "Divina Commedia," the fourteen lines are divided into an
octave of two rhyme-sounds arranged abba abba and a sestet of two additional
rhyme sounds which may be variously arranged. This latter form tends to
divide the thought into two opposing or complementary phases of the same
idea.
Sidelight: A variant of the Shakespearean form is the Spenserian sonnet
which links the quatrains with a chain or interlocked rhyme scheme,
abab
bcbc
cdcd
ee.
Sidelight: The English language contains fewer rhyming possibilities than
Italian, so the Shakespearean adaptation relieved English poets from the
greater difficulty of rhyming in the Italian sonnet format.
Sidelight: A sonnet sequence is a series of sonnets in which there is a
discernable unifying theme, while each one retains its own structural
independence. All of Shakespeare's sonnets, for example, were part of a
sequence,
(See Quatorzain, Volta)
(See also Anthology, Canon, Companion Poem, Cycle, Lyric Sequence)
--SOUND DEVICES--
Resources used by writers of verse to convey and reinforce the meaning or
experience of poetry through the skillful use of sound.
Sidelight: Sound devices are often combined, as in Coleridge's effective
use of alliteration, assonance, and consonance in the opening line of "Kubla
Khan." Other devices that contribute to the sound are rhyme, onomatopoeia,
cacophony, caesura, phonetic symbolism, rhythm, and meter.
--SPEAKER--
See Persona
--SPONDEE-- (SPAHN-dee), SPONDAIC (spahn-DAY-ick)
A metrical foot with two long or equally accented syllables together, as in
BREAD BOX or SHOE-SHINE.
Two unaccented syllables (a pyrrhic foot) often precede or follow a spondee.
Sidelight: Verses entirely composed of spondees are rare; their principal
use is as variations in iambic lines in which the successive accented
syllables of a spondee are effective for the suggestion of gravity or
emphasis, as in Christina Georgina Rossetti's "Song:"
Be the | GREEN GRASS | a-BOVE | me
STANZA, STANZAIC
A division of a poem made by arranging the lines into units separated by a
space, usually of a corresponding number of lines and a recurrent pattern of
meter and rhyme. A poem with such divisions is described as having a
stanzaic form, but not all verse is divided in stanzas.
Sidelight: A stanza having lines of the same length and meter, as is the
case in most stanzaic poems, is said to be isometric. The exceptions, such
as the stanzas in tail rhyme and Sapphic verse, in which the lines are not
all of the same length and meter, are said to be anisometric or heterometric.
Sidelight: The regularity of stanza patterns conveys an impression of order
and the expectation of closure.
Sidelight: A poem in which the lines follow each other without a formal
pattern of stanzaic units is described as having a continuous form, in which
there may be no line groupings at all or only irregular line groupings,
dictated by meaning, as in paragraphs of prose.
(See also Fit, Stave, Strophe)
(Compare Canto, Couplet, Envoi)
STANZA FORMS
The names given to describe the number of lines in a stanzaic unit, such as:
couplet (2), tercet (3), quatrain (4), quintet (5), sestet (6), septet (7),
and octave (8). Some stanzas follow a set rhyme scheme and meter in addition
to the number of lines and are given specific names to describe them, such
as, ballad meter, ottava rima, rhyme royal, terza rima, and Spenserian
stanza.
Sidelight: Stanza forms are also a factor in the categorization of whole
poems described as following a fixed form.
STAVE
A verse, stanza, or a metrical portion of a poem.
--STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS--
See Interior Monologue
--STYLE --
The poet's individual creative process, as determined by choices involving
diction, figurative language, rhetorical devices, sounds, and rhythmic
patterns.
(Compare Content, Form, Motif, Persona, Texture, Tone)
--SYMBOL--
An image transferred by something that stands for or represents something
else, like flag for country, or autumn for maturity. Symbols can transfer
the ideas embodied in the image without stating them, as in Robert
Frost's "Acquainted With the Night," in which night is symbolic of death or
depression, or Sara Teasdale's "The Long Hill," in which the climb up the
hill symbolizes life and the brambles are symbolic of life's adversities.
Sidelight: Symbols can be subject to a diversity of connotations, so both
the poet and the reader must exercise sensible discretion to avoid
misinterpretation.
(See also Allusion, Analogy)
(Compare Allegory, Metaphor, Simile, Synecdoche)
--SYMBOLISM--
A late 19th century movement reacting against realism. Influenced by the
connections between music and poetry, it sought to achieve the effects of
images and metaphors to symbolize the basic idea or emotion of each poem.
(Compare Classicism, Idealism, Imagism, Impressionism,
Metaphysical, Objectivism, Romanticism)
--SYNECDOCHE-- (suh-NEK-duh-kee)
A figure of speech in which a part of something stands for the whole or the
whole for a part, as wheels for automobile or society for high society.
Sidelight: Synecdoche is so similar in meaning to metonymy that the latter
term is often used for both.
(Compare Metaphor, Simile, Symbol)
--SYNESTHESIA or SYNAESTHESIA-- (sin-uss-THEE-zhee-uh)
The perception or description of one kind of sense impression in words
normally used to describe a different sense, like a "loud aroma" or
a "velvety smile." It can be very effective for creating vivid imagery.
(See also Catachresis, Enallage, Malapropism, Mixed Metaphor, Oxymoron,
Paradox)
--SYNONYM--
One of two or more words that have the same or nearly identical meanings.
(Compare Antonym, Homonym, Paronym)
--SYNTAX --
The way in which linguistic elements (words and phrases) are arranged to
form grammatical structure.
Sidelight: Poetic syntax often departs from conventional use, employing
devices such as hyperbatons and ploces, among others.
--TERCET--
A unit or group of three lines of verse which are rhymed together or have a
rhyme scheme that interlaces with an adjoining tercet.
Sidelight: The sestet, or second part of a Petrarchan sonnet, often consists
of two tercets.
Sidelight: A tercet is used as an envoi in a sestina.
(See also Terza Rima)
--TERZA RIMA-- (tert-suh REE-muh)
A verse form consisting of tercets, usually in iambic pentameter in English
poetry, with a chain or interlocking rhyme scheme, as: aba, bcb, cdc, etc.
The pattern concludes with a separate line added at the end of the poem (or
each part) rhyming with the second line of the preceding tercet or with a
rhyming couplet, as in Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind."
Sidelight: The rhyme sound which carries from the middle line of each tercet
to the opening line of the next tercet provides a strong sense of forward
movement to the terza rima.
--TETRAMETER-- (teh-TRAM-uh-tur)
A line of verse consisting of four metrical feet, as in William
Blake's "Tyger! Tyger!," or Byron's "The Bride of Abydos."
(See Meter)
--TEXTURE--
The "feel" of a poem that comes from the interweaving of technical elements,
diction, tone, syntax, patterns of sound and meaning, i.e., all elements
apart and independent of its structure. In other words, that which would
remain if it were to be rendered in prose.
(Compare Content, Diction, Form, Motif, Persona, Style, Tone)
--THEME--
The central idea, topic, or didactic quality of a work.
Sidelight: Although theme is often used interchangeably with motif, it is
preferable to recognize the difference between the two terms.
(See also Burden)
(Compare Content, Diction, Form, Persona, Style, Texture, Tone)
--THESIS--
The unaccented part of a poetic foot; also, the first part of an
antithetical
figure of speech.
--TONE
The poet's or persona's attitude in style or expression toward the subject,
e.g., loving, ironic, bitter, pitying, fanciful, solemn, etc. Tone can also
refer to the overall mood of the poem itself, in the sense of a pervading
atmosphere intended to influence the readers' emotional response and foster
expectations of the conclusion.
Sidelight: Another use of tone is in reference to pitch or to the demeanor
of a speaker as interpreted through inflections of the voice; in poetry,
this is conveyed through the use of connotation, diction, figures of speech,
rhythm and other elements of poetic construction.
(Compare Content, Form, Motif, Style, Texture)
--TRAGEDY--
A medieval narrative poem or tale typically describing the downfall of a
great person; a drama, usually in verse, portraying a conflict between a
strong-willed protagonist and a superior force such as destiny, culminating
in death or disaster. (See also Lay, Ballad)
(Compare Chanson de Geste, Epic, Epopee, Epos, Hamartia, Heroic Quatrain)
--TRAGIC HERO--
See under Hamartia
--TRIMETER-- (TRY-muh-tur)
A line of verse consisting of three metrical feet or three dipodies.
Sidelight: Many poems are written entirely in trimeter, as William
Cowper's "Verses Supposed to be Written by Alexander Selkirk," but
frequently poems of longer line patterns are varied by the interposition of
occasional trimeter lines, such as John Keats' "Ode to a Nightingale."
(See Meter)
--TROCHEE (TROH-kee), TROCHAIC (troh-KAY-ick)--
A metrical foot with a long or accented syllable followed by a short or
unaccented syllable, as in ON-ly or TO-tal, or the opening line of
Poe's "The Raven:"
ONCE up- | ON a | MID-night | DREAR-y, | WHILE I | PON-dered, | WEAK and |
WEAR-y,
Sidelight: In English poetry, trochaic verse in long poems is infrequent
since it can produce a monotonous effect, but this problem is avoided in
short poems such as William Blake's "The Lamb," and "Tyger! Tyger!"
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