The Guide to Literary Terms (MAXNotes Literature Guides)

SECTION ONE

Introduction

How to Use This Book

This book is intended to help you absorb the essential terms and devices used by writers and poets in their works. By understanding these literary terms, you will gain a more thorough understanding of the work you are reading.

This book has been designed to guide you to the terms you are looking for quickly and effectively. The use of this study guide will save you hours of preparation time that would ordinarily be required to arrive at a complete grasp of a work of literature.

For best results, this book should be used as a companion when studying a work of literature. By identifying and understanding the literary devices used by authors, your performance on exams, homework, and in classroom discussions will improve greatly.

About This Book

The entries are presented in alphabetical order. Each entry includes a definition; a history of the term’s usage and its origin; an example of the term’s use (if applicable); and specific references to texts in which the term has been used (if applicable).

Illustrations have been included to enhance your enjoyment while studying.

A special section on Shakespearean language has been included to introduce readers to the often-confusing terminology and sentence structure found in his works. Topics covered include the life and work of William Shakespeare, his use of sentences, words, wordplay, and dramatic verse.

Finally, a bibliography can be found at the end of the book to point you in the right direction for any further study you may need.

The MAXNotes Guide to Literary Terms provides insightful explanations, examples, and references to any literary term you may encounter. Using this book will dramatically raise your classroom and reading performance!

Example of an Entry

Oxymoron - a figure of speech in which two contradictory words or phrases are combined to produce a rhetorical effect by means of a concise paradox.

The term comes from the Greek oxumoros, meaning pointedly foolish, which was formed by combining oxus, meaning sharp, and moros, meaning foolish.

An example is the word sophomore, which is a combination of two Greek words: sophos, which means wise, and moros, which means foolish.

The use of oxymoron is a common poetic device. In Shakespeare’s Sonnet 142, the speaker declares:

Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate.

Line 1

see: antithesis, paradox

SECTION TWO

Dictionary of Literary Terms

(the) Absurd - an avant-garde style in which structure, plot, and characterization are disregarded or garbled in order to stress the lack of logic in nature and man’s isolation in a universe which has no meaning or value.

The term is derived from the Latin absurdus, formed from ab and surdus, meaning deaf and stupid. Albert Camus used the word in discussing his concept of existentialism, the philosophy that the individual is responsible for whatever decisions (s)he makes according to the doctrine of free will, but that (s)he makes those decisions without knowing what is right or wrong, as demonstrated in his novel, The Stranger. In this novel, the protagonist, Meursault, commits a murder without seeming to realize either the seriousness or the consequences of such an act; there was neither an evaluation of the act before it was committed nor remorse for having done wrong after the fact. Living this way was considered absurd or senseless, illogical, and contrary to common sense.

Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis is an example of an absurdist short story, in which a man wakes one day having been mysteriously transformed into an insect. The term is usually used to indicate the Theater of the Absurd, a phrase invented by Martin Esslin in 1961 to refer to the plays of such 1950s dramatists as Eugéne Ionesco, Edward Albee, Jean Genet, Harold Pinter, and Samuel Beckett.

From Camus’s The Stranger

Aesthetics (also spelled esthetics) - means the study of the emotions and the mind in relation to their sense of beauty in literature and other fine arts, but separately from moral, social, political, practical, or economic considerations. This area of study is concerned with the appreciation and criticism of what is considered beautiful or ugly. It is sometimes referred to as art for art’s sake.

The word comes from the Greek aisthetikos, meaning perceptive, and was derived from aisthanesthai, which means to feel or to perceive.

The term was introduced in 1753 by the German philosopher Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarent, but the study of the nature of beauty had been pursued for centuries, certainly since the time of Plato. The later Nineteenth Century saw the blossoming of the aesthetic movement in England. In the conclusion to The Renaissance (1873), a seminal work in the articulation of aesthetic theory, Walter Pater writes, For art comes to you proposing frankly to give nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they pass, and simply for those moments’ sake. Other major proponents of the aesthetic included John Ruskin and Oscar Wilde.

Affective fallacy - the error of judging a literary work by its emotional effect upon readers or a confusion between the work itself and its results.

The term comes from combining two words: affective, which means pertaining to emotional effects or natures, and fallacy, which means false or mistaken idea.

Affect was a Middle English word taken from the Middle French affaire, meaning to influence; affaire was derived from the Latin afficere, which was formed by joining ab and facere, meaning to do. Fallacy is from the Latin fallacia, which was derived from fallac- or fallax, meaning deceitful. These terms were originally from fallere, meaning to deceive.

In essence, avoidance of the affective fallacy demonstrates an attempt to create objective literary criticism, in which the critic is concerned with describing the rhetorical composition of a work—how it functions—rather than with describing the impact of a work —what it does—on the reader.

see: catharsis

Allegory - an extended metaphor in which a person, abstract idea, or event stands for itself and for something else. It usually involves moral or spiritual concepts which are more significant than the actual narrative.

The term is from the Greek allegoria, a joining of two other Greek words: allos, meaning other, and agoreuein, meaning to speak.

The most famous allegory in English is Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678) which describes the adventures of the human soul as if it were on a journey. Parts of Dante’s Divine Comedy (1310 – 1314) are also allegorical. George Orwell’s Animal Farm (1946) is a political allegory in which the story of the revolution of the animals on an English farm stands as a critique of both the capitalist democracies of the west and the totalitarian regime that had grown out of the communist revolution in Russia.

see: fable, morality play, myth, parable, satire

Alliteration (sometimes called initial rhyme) - common in poetry and occasionally in prose, this is the repetition of an initial sound in two or more words of a phrase, line, or sentence. It is usually a consonant and marks the stressed syllables in a line of poetry or prose. Alliteration may be considered ornamental or as a decoration which appeals to the sense of hearing.

The word comes from the Latin ad literam, which means according to the letter.

This device was consistently used in Old English poetry, but fell out of favor in the Middle Ages. Now it is used to emphasize meaning and is especially effective in oratory. It is characteristic of Anglo-Saxon poetry, as in Beowulf, and is still used by modern poets in nonsense verse, tongue twisters, and jingles.

In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare makes satirical use of alliteration in order to demonstrate the artisan-acting troupe’s lack of poetic skill. In the play within the play, Pyramus and Thisbe, Quince says as prologue:

Whereat, with blade, with bloody blameful blade,

He bravely broached his boiling bloody breast.

Act V, scene i: lines 155 – 156

Allusion - a reference, usually brief, often casual, occasionally indirect, to a person, event, or condition thought to be familiar (but sometimes actually obscure or unknown) to the reader. This holds true especially for the characters and events of mythology, legends, and history. Association is an essential part of allusion. The purpose of allusion is to bring a world of experience