Literary Terms

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Literary Terms
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Setting

• The background against which a story takes place
• Geographical location
• Time (year, day, hour) or historical period
• Social environment of the characters (economic,
  religious, etc.)

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Character

• The representation of a person in a story
• usually fictional
• in some cases, may be a conscious non-human (an
  animal, an alien)
• sometimes, an inanimate object or setting is
  described as being so prominent as to function as
  a character in the story

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Story Plot

• arrangement of a series of incidents (NOT
  necessarily in chronological order)

• account of events in a time sequence
  (chronological order)

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Image

• A concrete representation of any sensory
  experience
• May be literal (He saw the massive mountain
  range ahead) or figurative, evocative (The
  mountains rose up before him, an imposing tsunami
  of rock and dirt)

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Symbol

• Something in a story which is itself, but also
  stands for (or represents) something else

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Tone Mood

• Typically, the emotion conveyed by the author
  through the text
• Examples dreary, joyous, raging, suspenseful...

• Typically, the implied attitude of the author
  toward his or her subject and audience
• Examples formal/informal, intimate, serious,
  playful, optimistic, condescending...

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Genre

• Type or category into which literary works are
  grouped.
• May be according to form (fiction, non-fiction,
  drama, novel, short story, essay, poetry,
  screenplay, etc.), style or technique (realism,
  symbolism, etc.), or subject matter (comedy,
  tragedy, horror, science fiction, etc.)

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Theme

• A central idea of a work.
• Usually an abstract concept (example justice).
• Sometimes expressed as a moral (lesson), or an
  epigram (pithy saying) or cliché (overused
  expression).

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Setting

• The background against which a story is set
• Geographical location scenery
• time or period in which the story takes
  place(time of day, year, era, season)
• Social contexts(occupation and manner of
  characters, religion, morality, mental and
  emotional conditions, etc.)

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Character

• A personfictional or historicalrepresented in a
  literary work

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Story Plot

• STORY account of events in a time sequence
  (chronological order)
• PLOT arrangement of a series of incidents (NOT
  necessarily in chronological order)

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Image

• Description which conjures any sensory experience
  in the reader's mind

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Symbol

• Something in a story which is itself, but also
  stands for (or represents) something else

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Tone/Mood

• TONE The attitude of the author toward the
  subject and toward the audience, conveyed by the
  authors style and diction (word choice)
• MOOD The effect of the writers words on the
  reader a kind of feeling evoked by the author

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Genre

• The type or category to which literary works
  belong
• Assigned according to form, technique, or subject
  matter
• The most basic genre distinction in literature
  fiction vs. non-fiction
• Examples of forms in literature novel, short
  story, poem, essay, teleplay, screenplay
• Another set of genre designations is used to
  indicate subject matter, which also can relate to
  specific forms drama (tragedy being a specific
  kind of drama), comedy (farce being a specific
  form of comedy), western, science fiction,
  fantasy, soap opera, etc.

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Theme

• A central idea of an artistic work

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Aphorism

• A concise, pointed statement of a principle or
  precept.
• Hippocrates, the Ancient Greek considered the
  father of medicine, wrote a book called
  Aphorisms. The first sentence is a good example
  Life is short, art is long, opportunity
  fleeting, experimenting dangerous, reasoning
  difficult.
• Among Socrates well-known aphorisms The
  unexamined life is not worth living.
• Another good aphorism is the saying among actors
  that Dying is easy comedy is hard.
• A synonym for aphorism would be epigram (a
  pithy saying). Particularly funny aphorisms are
  often called witticisms or bon mots (French
  for good word).

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Fable

• a short tale to teach a moral lesson, often with
  animals or inanimate objects as characters

"fable." Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1).
Random House, Inc. 13 May. 2008. ltDictionary.com
http//dictionary.reference.com/browse/fablegt.
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Allegory

• A symbolical narrative composed of characters,
  settings, and events that metaphorically
  represent other, often abstract ideas.
• In other words, A story that has deeper or more
  general meaning in addition to its surface
  meaning (allegory).
• For example, in The Pilgrim's Progress, by John
  Bunyan, a character named Christian struggles to
  escape from a bog...The story of his difficulty
  is a symbol of the difficulty of leading a good
  life in the bog of this world. The bog is a
  metaphor or symbol of life's hardships and
  distractions. Similarly, when Christian loses a
  heavy pack that he has been carrying on his back,
  this symbolizes his freedom from the weight of
  sin that he has been carrying (allegory).

"allegory." The American Heritage New Dictionary
of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. Houghton
Mifflin Company, 2005. 08 Mar. 2007.
ltDictionary.com http//dictionary.reference.com/br
owse/allegorygt.
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Motif

• In literature, art, or music, a recurring set of
  words, shapes, colors, or notes.
• The first four notes of Beethovens Fifth
  Symphony are developed and reshaped throughout
  the work, making the notes, collectively, a
  motif
• In his poem The Raven, Edgar Allan Poe, repeats
  the word nevermore at the end of each stanza.
  The idea is a motif emphasizing both obsession
  and the permanence of mortal loss.
• In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare uses the idea of
  light representing beautyintertwined with the
  idea that stars represent fateas a motif. The
  ideas may also intersect as a view of Gods
  influence on humanity.

motif." The American Heritage New Dictionary of
Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. Houghton
Mifflin Company, 2005. 16 Apr. 2007.
ltDictionary.com http//dictionary.reference.com/br
owse/motifgt.
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Bildungsroman

• A novel whose principal subject is the moral,
  psychological, and intellectual development of a
  usually youthful main character.
• May fit the monomyth of Joseph Campbell
• (The Heros Journey)
• Examples include To Kill a Mockingbird, Lord of
  the Flies, Enders Game, Great Expectations,
  Jane Eyre, and (though in an ironic way)The
  Catcher in the Rye

bildungsroman." The American Heritage
Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth
Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. 18 Apr.
2007. ltDictionary.com http//dictionary.reference.
com/browse/bildungsromangt.
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Rite of Passage

• A ritual or ceremony signifying an event in a
  person's life indicative of a transition from one
  stage to another, as from adolescence to
  adulthood.
• The term was coined by German ethnographer Arnold
  van Gennep, in his French-published book Les
  rites de passage (1909). Van Genneps work proved
  influential on Joseph Campbell.
• A rite of passage has three stages, according to
  van Gennep préliminaire, liminaire,
  postliminaire (or separation, transition, and
  incorporation)

• Some common American rites of passage are...
  Birth, First day of school, First kiss, Getting
  driver's license, First job, Hazing, Graduations,
  Losing virginity, Leaving home, Marriage,
  Retirement, Death
• Traditional rites might include First hunt,
  Quinceañera, Bar/bat mitzvah, Catholic sacraments

rite of passage." The American Heritage
Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth
Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. 18 Apr.
2007. ltDictionary.com http//dictionary.reference.
com/browse/rite of passagegt.
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Point of view

• The vantage point from which an author tells a
  story.
• Some stories are told from the P.O.V. of an
  omniscient narrator, as in The Odyssey (The
  narrator knows all, sees all.)
• A variation on the omniscient narrator finds the
  author writing in the third person, but focusing
  on the viewpoint of a particular character, as in
  The Alchemist or Fahrenheit 451.
• Other stories have a first-person point of view,
  like The Catcher in the Rye. This style may also
  be described as interior monologue. A
  first-person narrator may be a naive narrator
  (doesnt understand the implications of all of
  what he or she describes) or an unreliable
  narrator, who may not be trusted always to speak
  honestly or objectively.

point of view." A Handbook to Literature, Sixth
Edition. Ed. C. Hugh Holman and William Harmon.
MacMillan New York, 1992.
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Archetype

• image, plot pattern or character type that occurs
  frequently in literature primordial image
• Comes from psychology, and C.G. Jungs idea of
  the collective unconscious
• Examples include
• lightgood, darknessevil
• the monomyth and its character types (like the
  old mentor), often expressed in a bildungsroman
• Nerds, jocks, stoners, cheerleaders, emo kids
  (high school archetypes) ?

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Denotation vs. Connotation

• Denotation refers to the literal meaning of a
  word or phrase
• Connotation refers to the implied, or suggested,
  meaning of a word or phrase
• Example
• With a symbol, an author denotes an object, but
  it connotes a broader concept. For example, J.D.
  Salinger describes Holdens red hunting cap,
  which is what it is. But theres also a
  connotation to the image, suggesting it
  symbolizes Holdens unique individuality.
• The denotation of a figure of speech usually
  doesnt make sense (I feel it in my bones) but
  such phrases connote something else (Im certain
  despite not having proof).

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Myth

• story that presents supernatural episodes as a
  means of interpreting natural events
• usually told as if it is history, though it is
  mostly or entirely fictional (A long time ago,
  in a galaxy far, far away) ?
• often anonymous
• depict heroic role models, cultural values,
  and/or religious beliefs of a given society

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Legend

• A narrative or tradition handed down from the
  past, with a basis in historical truth
• As part of the lore of a people, a legend may
  have a tone of nationalist or ethnic pride(The
  Legend of Gregorio Cortez)
• Or not ?

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Epigraph

• A quotation at the beginning of a book, chapter,
  essay, etc. (or an inscription on a grave or
  elsewhere...)
• The purpose of an epigraph is to generate
  thought, reflect a theme, or set a tone.
• Example Fahrenheit 451 begins with the epigraph
  When they give you ruled paper, write the other
  way.

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In medias res

• Latin for in the middle of things.
• A way to begin a plot, without conventional
  exposition, but in the middle of the action,
  leaving the reader or viewer to catch up.
• Examples The Odyssey begins in medias res and
  employs flashbacks to fill in the background
  action. James Bond movies always open in medias
  res, usually with Bond in the middle of a
  mission. Later, the dominant plot of the film is
  established with conventional, expositional
  briefings with M.

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Deus Ex Machina

• Latin by way of Greek, meaning God in the
  machine.
• In ancient Greek and Roman theatre, an actor
  portraying a god would often be lowered by a
  winch to resolve the action of a play with a
  message from on high.
• Now the term has come to refer to any plot
  contrivance used at the end of a work hastily to
  resolve plot complications.

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Postmodernism

• Any of a number of trends or movements in the
  arts and literature developing in the 1970s in
  reaction to or rejection of the dogma,
  principles, or practices of established
  modernism (which is generally dated to the
  earlier part of the 20th century)"postmodernism."
  Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House,
  Inc. 12 May. 2008. ltDictionary.com
  http//dictionary.reference.com/browse/postmoderni
  smgt.
• A tendency toward parody or not taking the story
  too seriously-more absurdity, less conviction
  self-referential plays with form overall,
  perhaps postmodernism reveals creative
  exhaustion/desperation after centuries of
  storytelling

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Protagonist Antagonist

• Protagonist the primary, principal character in
  a work
• Antagonist the second-most-important character,
  in opposition to the main character (creating
  conflict)

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Parody

• A composition imitating another, usually serious,
  piece. Designed to ridicule a work or its style
  or author.

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Satire

• a work of art in which human folly and vice are
  held up to scorn, derision, or ridicule, usually
  with an intent to instruct people in improving
  behavior.