Literary Terms 3 2012 2013 EXPLICATION The act

Literary Terms 3 2012 - 2013

EXPLICATION • The act of interpreting or discovering the meaning of a text, usually involves close reading and special attention to figurative language. • http: //www. engl. unt. edu/~anne/explicati on/explication. html

Fable • A very short story told in prose or poetry that teaches a practical lesson about how to succeed in life. • Please read the following fable: • http: //www. eastoftheweb. com/shortstories/UBooks/Ant. Gra. shtml

Farce • A type of comedy in which ridiculous and often stereotyped characters are involved in silly, far-fetched situations. • Please review list of farces: • http: //www. princeton. edu/~achaney/tm ve/wiki 100 k/docs/Farce. html

Figurative language • Words which are inaccurate if interpreted literally, but are used to describe. Similes and metaphors are common forms.

Flashback • A scene that interrupts the normal chronological sequence of events in a story to depict something that happened at an earlier time.

Foil • A character who acts as contrast to another character. Often a funny side kick to the dashing hero or a villain contrasting the hero. • Hamlet, Fortinbras, and Laertes

Foreshadowing • The use of hints and clues to suggest what will happen later in a plot. • Tiresias in Oedipus: foreshadows Oedipus’ downfall after Oedipus accuses Tiresias of colluding with Kreon

Free Verse • Poetry that does not conform to regular meter or rhyme scheme.

Free verse The fog comes on little cat feet. It sits looking over harbor and city on silent haunches and then moves on. Carl Sandburg

Free verse All truths wait in all things. They neither hasten their own delivery nor resist it. They do not need the obstetric forceps of the surgeon. Walt Whitman

Leaves of Grass • Please listen to the following poem: • http: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=j 1 y 24 c. Ke. Qs 0 • Take a line, several lines, or an idea from the poem. Type a one- page (minimum) reader response. Yes, you should do this assignment or one of the others that follow in the presentation.

Hyperbole • A figure of speech that uses an incredible exaggeration or overstatement for effect. • “If I told you once, I told you a thousand times…”

Hyperbole

hypotactic • An arrangement of phrases or clauses in a dependent or subordinate relationship. (Contrast with parataxis. ) Adjective: hypotactic.

hypotactic • "One December morning near the end of the year when snow was falling moist and heavy for miles all around, so that the earth and the sky were indivisible, Mrs. Bridge emerged from her home and spread her umbrella. "

hypotactic • And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. (I Corinthians 13)

Imagery • The use of language to evoke a picture or a concrete sensation of a person, a thing, a place, or an experience.

Gustatory Imagery This Is Just to Say • • I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox • • and which you were probably saving for breakfast • • Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold William Carlos Williams

“This Is Just to Say” • http: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=0 d 5 b. Lf 0 g q 2 Q

Alternative Assignment • Write a one-page letter response to the Williams’ poem. Assume a persona. Be sure to use references from the poem in your letter. Have fun!

Inversion • The reversal of the normal word order in a sentence or phrase. • Also known as anastrophe, remember? • • "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. " • (J. R. R. Tolkein, The Hobbit, 1937)

Inversion • • "Not until the seventeenth century did the fork appear in England. " • (Henry Petroski, The Evolution of Useful Things. Alfred A. Knopf, 1992)

Irony • A discrepancy between appearance and reality.

Irony • Verbal irony – occurs when someone says one thing but means another • In Act III Scene V of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, Juliet is upset at being told that her father has promised her hand in marriage to Paris rather than Romeo, whom she loves. She has fully made up her mind to be married to Romeo, so she ironically states to her mother ". . . I will not marry yet; and, when I do, I swear it shall be Romeo, whom you know I hate, rather than Paris. . . ".

Situational Irony • Takes place when there is a discrepancy between what is expected to happen, or what would be appropriate to happen, and what really does happen.

Situational irony • An example would be a man who takes a step aside in order to avoid getting sprinkled by a wet dog and falls into a swimming pool.

Dramatic Irony • Often used on the stage. • A character in the play or story thinks one thing is true, but the audience or reader knows better.

Dramatic Irony When Oedipus attempts to find out the cause of the plague in Thebes, the audience knows that he is the cause.

Juxtaposition • Poetic or rhetorical device I which normally unassociated ideas, words, or phrases are placed next to one another, creating an effect of surprise and wit.

Juxtaposition • “The apparition of these faces in the crowd; / Petals on a wet, black bough. ”

Juxtaposition • A form of contrast by which writers call attention to dissimilar ideas or images or metaphors. • Martin Luther King: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. ”

Juxtaposition

Litotes • A form of understatement in which the positive form is emphasized through the negation of a negative form.

Litotes • • • They aren't the happiest couple around. • He's not the ugliest fellow around! • She's not the brightest girl in the class. • The food is not bad. • It is no ordinary city.

Litotes

litotes

Local Color • A term applied to fiction or poetry which tends to place special emphasis on a particular setting , including its customs, clothing, dialect, and landscape.

Local color • For example, “We use a gas stove anymore” means “We use a gas stove nowadays. ”

Loose Sentence • One in which the main clause comes first, followed by further dependent grammatical units.

LOOSE SENTENCE • Bells rang, filling the air with their clangor, startling pigeons into flight from every belfry, bringing people into the streets to hear the news.

LOOSE SENTENCE • I am willing to pay slightly higher taxes for the privilege of living in Canada, considering the free health care, the cheap tuition fees, the low crime rate, the comprehensive social programs, and the wonderful winters.

Lyric Poem • A poem that does not tell a story but expresses the personal feelings or thoughts of the speaker. • A ballad tells a story.

LYRIC POEM OH, Danny Boy, Oh, Danny Boy, When all the bugles sound from far away, Will you incline thy ear to hear me sing? Oh, Danny Boy, Oh, Danny Boy The tulips bloom, by far and o’er here? Will you incline thy heart and hear me sing? Oh, Danny Boy, Oh, Danny Boy

Lyric Poem – Poe To Helen • • • Helen, thy beauty is to me Like those Nicéan barks of yore, That gently, o'er a perfumed sea, The weary, way-worn wanderer bore To his own native shore. • • • On desperate seas long wont to roam, Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, Thy Naiad airs have brought me home To the glory that was Greece And the grandeur that was Rome. • • • Lo! In yon brilliant window-niche How statue-like I see thee stand, The agate lamp within thy hand! Ah, Psyche, from the regions which Are Holy-Land! Edgar Allan Poe

“To Helen” • http: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=AFqce. Nl 4 XNc

Metaphor • A figure of speech that makes a comparison between two unlike things without the use of like, as, than, or resembles.

Implied Metaphor • Does not state explicitly the two terms of the comparison. • “I like to see it lap the miles” is an implied metaphor in which the verb lap implies a comparison between it and an animal that laps up water.

IMPLIED METAPHOR • John swelled and ruffled his plumage. (versus John was a peacock)

IMPLIED METAPHOR • The sunset turned leafy gold and red (instead of saying the sunset was fall foliage. ).

Extended Metaphor • Metaphor that is extended or developed as far as the writer wants to take it (conceit, if developed elaborately). • See John Donne’s “A Valediction Forbidding Mourning. ” • http: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=i. Ew. A n. O 1 rh. K 0

EXTENDED METAPHOR

Dead Metaphor • One that has been used so often that the comparison is no longer vivid.

DEAD METAPHOR • • the arm of the chair, the legs of the table, the foot of the bed, the hands of the clock, the neck of the river, the eye of the needle, the shoulder of the road

Mixed Metaphor • A metaphor that has gotten out of control and mixes its terms so that they are visually or imaginatively incompatible.

Mixed Metaphor • A car comes up behind you, flashing his horn. • biting the hand that rocks the cradle

Mixed Metaphor • Button your seat belts. Rush Limbaugh • Don't eat with your mouth full. • http: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=8 v. Vu Vn 1 Yb 8 A