Literary Terms

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Literary Terms
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Epic

• Occurring over a long period of time and
  characterized by a lot of difficulties.
• It can be a poem, story, or artistic expression
  that describes heroic deeds.

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Epic Hero

• Main character of an epic poem, typically someone
  who embodies the values of his or her culture

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Epic Simile

• An extended simile elaborated in great detail.
  (Also called a Homeric Simile)
• Gives Homers narratives depth and force.
• I drove my weight on it from above and bored it
  home like a shipwreck bores his beam with a
  shipwright drill that men below

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Epithet

• An adjective or adjectival phrase used to define
  a characteristic quality or attribute of some
  person or thing.
• Ex. Hermes the way finder
• Gray-Eyed Athena

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In Medias Res

• Latin for in the middle of the action.
• Epics often begin In Medias Res.
• For Example, The Odyssey, which tells a story of
  the wanderings of the hero Odysseus, begins
  almost at the end of his wanderings just before
  his arrival home.

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Dramatic Irony

• The words and actions of the characters of a work
  of literature have a different meaning for the
  reader than they do for the characters.
• Reader has a greater knowledge than the
  characters themselves.
• Ex. Odyssesus men open the bag of winds. The
  audience knows what is in the bag but the men
  dont.

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Verbal Irony

• A person says or writes one thing and means
  another, or uses words to convey a meaning that
  is the opposite of the literal meaning.
• Ex. When the Cyclops yells that Nobody is
  hurting him.

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Symbol

• Anything that stands for something else.

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Parable

• A short story designed to illustrate or teach
  some truth, religious principle or moral lesson.

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Digression

• A passage or section that deviates from the
  central theme.
• Ex. Os dog dying when he arrives home
• Ex. Cyclops speech to his ram.

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Pathos

• Feeling of sorrow for the villian
• Ex. Feeling of sorrow for the Cyclops when he is
  talking to his ram.

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Archetype

• A typical example of a certain person or thing
• Original that has been intimidated
• Odysseus is the archetype of the epic hero.

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Chronological Order

• Ordering events as they actually occurred in time

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Heroic Couplet

• Traditional form for English poetry, typically
  used in epic and narrative poetry
• Poems constructed from a sequence of rhyming
  pairs of lines in iambic pentameter

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Iambic Pentameter

• Certain kind of line poetry
• Has to do with the number of syllables in each
  line and the emphasis put on those syllables
• 14 line poem, 10 syllables in each line

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Invocation

• The action of invoking something or someone for
  assistance or as an authority
• The summoning of a deity or the supernatural
• Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the
  story

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Narrative

• Any fiction or nonfiction report of connected
  events, presented in a sequence of written/spoken
  words

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Oral Tradition

• Cultural material and tradition passed on by
  speaking through generations
• The entire work of The Odyssey
• Odysseus telling of his adventures to the
  Phaecians