General Terms

Authors of this page are (left to right) Inge Tamm-Daniels, Joanna Cheng, Camarie Pollock, and Ellen Mohney.

Allusion. An indirect reference to famous characters or events from history, literature, or mythology.

• "I thought as I wiped my eyes on the corner of my apron: Penelope did this
  too." --Edna St. Vincent Millay

Ambiguity. "The expression of an idea in language that gives more than one meaning and leaves uncertainty as to the intended significance of the statement." Unintentional ambiguity can lead to confusion. Writers should avoid statements like "A long time ago" or "He went to the hospital because he was hurt." However, intentional ambiguity used in many literary works enriches the writing. Ambiguity can allow the language to function on levels other than the denotative (Holman and Harmon).

• In Jarold Ramsey's "The Tally Stick," line 2 says, "I have carved our lives in secret." The word "secret" is ambiguous because it could mean that the speaker literally carved the stick alone and kept it a secret, or the speaker could be describing the secret love life he shares with his/her spouse.

 

Anachronism. "placement of an event, person, or thing, out of its proper chronological relationship, sometimes unintentional, but often deliberate as an exercise of poetic license" (Smith).

• In Julius Caesar a clock chiming would be considered an anachronism because clocks had not yet been invented.

Archetype. "The original model, form, or pattern from which something is made or from which something develops" (OED).

• The House of Commons is the archetype of all the representative assemblies which now meet (OED).

Assumption. When details are not stated but must be inferred by the reader or audience.

• In King Lear the reader makes assumptions about the way Edmond has been treated because he is a bastard son.

 

Bathos. "The effect resulting from the unsuccessful effort to achieve dignity, PATHOS, elevation, or sublimity of STYLE; an unintentional ANTICLIMAX, dropping from the sublime to the ridiculous" (Holman and Harmon). If a work "tries to make readers and spectators weep and succeeds only in making them laugh, the result is bathos" (Holman and Harmon). Encyclopedia Britannica (online) gives the following example from Wordsworth's "Simon Lee":

• Few months of life has he in store
  As he to you will tell,
  For still, the more he works, the more
  Do his weak ankles swell.

Burlesque. "A form of comedy characterized by ridiculous exaggeration" (Holman and Harmon).

• The Three Stooges
• The production of Midsummer Night's Dream by the Baylor Players in which the actions of Puck and other characters seem amazingly impossible.
  

Canon. "the name given to an accepted body of works by an author, or more generally to those works which are considered in some way superior, central, or most worthy of study in a culture" (University of Victoria Writer's Guide).

• "The canon of Shakespeare's plays include thirty-seven plays generally considered to be certainly his..."

Carpe Diem. "A Latin phrase which translated means 'Seize (Catch) the day,' meaning 'Make the most of today.' The phrase originated as the title of a poem by the Roman Horace (65 B.C.E.-8 B.C.E.) and caught on as a theme with such English poets as Robert Herrick and Andrew Marvell" (Littauer).

• Consider these lines from Herrick's "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time":

Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles today,
To-morrow will be dying.

Coincidence. The chance concurrence of two events having a peculiar correspondence between them (Perrine and Arp).

• In Shakespeare's King Lear, it is a coincidence that Gloucester and Lear take refuge in the very cave Gloucester's estranged son is hiding in.
• An example of coincidence is meeting a friend who lives in Paris when you are both in Japan.

Detail. Extra facts that help the story line but are not necessarily needed.

• The use of multiple descriptive words in Gerard Manley Hopkins's poem "Pied Beauty"
  "Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
  With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;"

Empathy. The reader understands closely what the character is feeling; "feeling into" (University of Victoria Writer's Guide).

• The children in Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird (eventually) feel empathy for Boo Radley. This causes the reader to feel empathy for Boo, also.
  

Epigraph. "A quotation on the title page of a book or a motto heading a chapter or section of work" (Holman and Harmon).

• The following is the epigraph from Beloved:
  "I will call them my people,
  which were not my people;
  and her beloved,
  which was not beloved."
  --Romans 9:25
  

Foreshadowing. "The arrangement and presentation of events and information in a FICTION or DRAMA in such a way that later events in the work are prepared for" (Holman and Harmon).

In drama, a method used to build suspense by providing hints of what is to come.

• In Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Romeo's expression of fear in Act 1, scene 4 foreshadows the catastrophe to come:

I fear too early; for my mind misgives
Some consequence yet hanging in the stars
Shall bitterly begin his fearful date
With this night's revels and expire the term
Of a despised life closed in my breast
By some vile forfeit of untimely death.
But He that hath the steerage of my course,
Direct my sail! On, lusty gentlemen.

(Littauer)

Form. In contrast with structure (a term often confused with form), form is the external shape or pattern of a poem. Some examples of form include continuous form, fixed form, and stanzaic form (Perrine and Arp).

• Example of stanzaic form: "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night" by Dylan Thomas
• Example of continuous form: "The Jungle Husband" by Stevie Smith or "Ozymandias" by Percy Bysshe Shelley or any kind of unbroken sonnet or other poem.

Grotesque. Grotesque is applied to anything having the qualities of grotesque art: bizarre, incongruous, ugly, unnatural, fantastic, abnormal (Holman and Harmon).

• Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury
• Frank Norris' McTeague
• Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio

Irony.

Situational Irony. The discrepancy between what is expected and what actually happens.

• The daughter Lear disowns is the one who loves him the most.

Verbal Irony. A character says the opposite of what he or she means.

• After a long night with dorm problems, Mr. Stover's comment of life in the dorm being easy is considered an example of verbal irony.

Dramatic Irony. The reader or audience understands more about the events of a story than the character in the story.

• Readers or viewers of Shakespeare's King Lear know that Edmond is the villain before
  the other characters know.

Mood. The atmosphere or feeling created by a literary work, partly by a description of the objects or by the style of the descriptions. A work may contain a mood of horror, mystery, holiness, or childlike simplicity, to name a few, depending on the author's treatment of the work (Littauer). Some people consider mood to be synonymous with tone; others argue that mood reveals the author's attitude towards the subject and tone the author's attitude toward the audience (Holman and Harmon).

• The mood in the poem "We Real Cool" is mocking. The poet believes people who think they are so cool will waste their lives away because they have a false image of what being cool really is.

Motif. A concept or story element that recurs in literature. Concepts may include:

• a type of situation or incident
• character types
• plot devices such as the letter "A" that Hester must wear in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter

In a narrower sense, motif can be used to describe recurring elements within works, such as phrases, description, etc.

Parody. A comic imitation of another work, often used to ridicule the other work.

• The movie Young Frankenstein

Pathos. The quality in art and literature that stimulates pity, tenderness, or sorrow (Smith).

• "The Glass" by Sharon Olds
• Night by Eli Wiesel

Pathetic Fallacy. The ascription of human traits or feeling to inanimate nature (OED).

• Cruel sea (OED)
• Pitiless storm (OED)
• Devouring flame (OED)

Realism. In fiction, realism is a faithful representation of actuality. The author strives to make his or her imaginative story or novel seem as though it could really happen by using realistic characters, dialogue, settings and plot (Smith).

• Tom Sawyer and other works by Mark Twain
• The works of Charles Dickens.

Romanticism. "A MOVEMENT of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that marked the reaction in literature, philosophy, art, religion, and politics from the NEOCLASSICISM and formal orthodoxy of the preceding period" (Holman and Harmon). "Among the aspects of the romantic movement in England may be listed: SENSIBILITY; PRIMITIVISM; love of NATURE; sympathetic interest in the past, especially the medieval; MYSTICISM; individualism; ROMANTIC CRITICISM; and a reaction against whatever characterized NEOCLASSICISM" (Holman and Harmon).

• Some Romantic poets are Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and William Wordsworth.
• Romantic writers include Jane Austen and Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Sarcasm. "A form of verbal irony in which, under guise of praise, a caustic and bitter expression of strong and personal disapproval is given" (Holman and Harmon).

• Coach, I am so looking forward to running ten miles in practice today.
• Mr. Stover knows that all of his students are delighted about writing a fifteen-hundred-word poetry explication.

Satire. A method to arouse laughter at targets such as individuals, types of people, groups, or human nature. Often satire is used to correct human faults.

• A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift

Sentimentality. "Unmerited or contrived tender feeling; that quality in a story that elicits or seeks to elicit tears through an oversimplification or falsification in reality" (Perrine and Arp 763).

• Little Boy Blue

The little toy dog is covered with dust,
But sturdy and staunch he stands;
And the little toy soldier is red with rust,
And his musket moulds in his hands.
Time was when the little dog was new,
And the soldier was passing fair;
And that was the time when our Little Boy Blue
Kissed them and put them there.

"Now, don't you go till I come," he said,
"And don't you make any noise!"
So, toddling off to his trundle-bed,
He dreamt of the pretty toys;
And as he was dreaming, an angel song
Awakened our Little Boy Blue--
Oh! the years are many, the years are long,
But the little toy friends are True!

Ay, faithful to Little Boy Blue they stand
Each in the same old place--
Awaiting the touch of a little hand,
The smile of a little face;
And they wonder, as waiting the long years through
In the dust of that little chair,
What has become of our Little Boy Blue,
Since he kissed them and put them there.

--Eugene Field

Structure. "The organization or arrangement of the various elements in a work" (J. Paul Hunter A54). A poem's structure can depend on subject matter, the effect intended, or other considerations.

Narrative structure. Used when there's a story to be told (it's usually in chronological order).

• "Mr. Flood's Party" by Erwin Arlington Robinson

Dramatic structure. Sometimes poems borrow the structures of plays: "it consists of a series of scenes, each of which each of which is presented vividly and in detail" (J. Paul Hunter 228).

• "The Goose Fish" by Howard Nemerov

Discursive structure. Organized like an argument or essay ("First .... second .... third") (J. Paul Hunter; Perrine and Arp).

• "Arrangements with Earth for Three Dead Friends" by James Wright

Style. "The arrangement of words in a manner best expressing the individuality of the author and the idea and intent in the author's mind" (Holman and Harmon).

• "Many things enter into the style of a work: the author's use of figurative language, diction, sound effects and other literary devices. Ernest Hemingway's style derives, in part, from his short, powerful sentences. The style of the Declaration of Independence can be described as elegant" (Littauer).

Sympathy. Sharing the feelings of the characters; "feeling with" (The University of Victoria Writer's Guide).

• Shakespeare forces the reader to feel sympathy for Hamlet.

Theme. The main idea(s) the author expresses in a literary work. (Not to be confused with motif.) Themes may be explicitly stated or implied.

• Milton explicitly states that the theme of Paradise Lost is to "assert Eternal Providence/ And justify the ways of God to men." However, there are other themes throughout Paradise Lost such as pride and fall and the limited nature of human freedom (University of Victoria Writer's Guide).

Tone. The attitude the speaker of a work of literature expresses through language to the reader. Tone can express the full spectrum of human feelings, from formal to light-hearted, witty or ironic, passionate or sorrowful (University of Victoria Writer's Guide). Some people consider mood to be synonymous with tone; others argue that mood reveals the author's attitude towards the subject and tone the author's attitude toward the audience (Holman and Harmon).

• The tone in "The Itsy-Bitsy Spider" is lighthearted, whereas the tone in Marge Piercy's "Barbie Dolls" is one of sadness.
  

Topic. "A subject under discussion or consideration" (OED).

• The topic of Shakespeare's poem "How Do I Love Thee?" is love.
• The topic of an essay might be eyes. (Make sure not to confuse topic with theme: a topic is a subject, and the theme is what a writer says about that particular topic.)

Voice. "Controlling presence of 'authorial voice' behind the characters, narrators, and personae of literature. In plainer words, 'Who's doing the talking'" (University of Victoria Writer's Guide).

• In Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess," the persona is the Duke of Ferrara.
• In John Keats' "Ode to a Nightingale," the persona is ambiguous, so it is up to the reader to infer whether the poet creates a speaker for a particular effect or the poet speaks himself.

Exercise

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