1. L i t e r a r y T e r m s

2. G e n e r a l - M i s c . T e r m s

3. ALLEGORY:
a story in verse or prose with a double meaning: a primary surface meaning and a secondary or under-the-surface meaning
A system of comparisons rather than one comparison
Differs from symbolism in that it puts less emphasis on the images for their own sake and more on their ulterior meanings and the meanings are more fixed; meanings do not ray out from allegory as they do from symbols
Example: the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is an allegory for redemption and salvation
Example: Moby-Dick is an allegory for man’s quest to understand his existence

4. ALLEGORY METAPHOR SYMBOL SYMBOL METAPHOR METAPHOR SYMBOL METAPHOR

5. Aesthetic:
the study or philosophy of beauty in art, literature, and nature

6. ALLUSION:
a reference to another work of art, a piece of literature [especially The Bible], mythology, person, or event
An appeal to the reader to share an experience with the writer
Example: In Heart of Darkness, Conrad makes an implicit reference to the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice

7. Anachronism:
Placing something in a time where it does not belong to underline a universal verisimilitude and timelessness
Example: the clock in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar

8. Analogy:
the comparison of two things alike in some respects

9. ANALYSIS:
a detailed separation and examination of a work of literature into its important parts and a discussion of their significance
A close study of the various elements and the relationship between them

10. Antihero:
a non-hero or the antithesis of a hero of the old-fashioned kind who was capable of heroic deeds, who was dashing, strong, brave, and resourceful
Example: Don Quixote-Holden Caulfield

11. Antithesis:
contrasting ideas sharpened by the use of opposite or noticeably different meanings
Example: “Crafty men contemn studies; simple men admire them; and wise men use them” Bacon

12. Aphorism: a short witty statement of dogma or truth
Example: “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” Benjamin Franklin
Example: “Man’s main task in life is to give birth to himself.” Erich Fromm

13. ARCHETYPE:
an image, story-pattern, or character type which recurs frequently and evokes strong, often unconscious, associations in the reader
Symbols existing universally and instinctively in the collective unconscious of the human race
Example: the wicked witch-light = hope-renewal-intellectual illumination vs. darkness = ignorance-unknown-despair

14. Connotation:
the suggestion or implication evoked by a word or phrase, over and above what they mean or actually denote
Example: cockroach [fear-derision and scientific meanings]

15. Diction:
the vocabulary or word choice of a writer

16. Didactic:
a teaching type of tone, usually lesson-like or boring in nature

17. Deductive:
logical reasoning from the general to the specific

18. Denotation:
the most literal and limited meaning of a word, regardless of what one may feel about it or the suggestions and ideas it connotes

19. Deus Ex Machina: literally “god in the machine”
Greek idea from when the gods would come on stage to rescue the hero
Applies to anytime the hero is saved by a miraculous event

20. Ellipsis:
the omission of one or more words with the use of the symbol [ ]

21. Epigram:
a short, witty statement in verse or prose which may be complimentary, satiric, or aphoristic
Example: “We think our fathers fools, so wise we grow,/Our wiser sons, no doubt, will think us so.” Alexander Pope

22. Epiphany:
In its simplest terms, the epiphany is a revelation of such power and insight that it alters the entire world-view of the thinker who experiences it. In this sense, it is similar to what a scientist might call a "paradigm shift."
Another definition proffered by Shelley, in his Defense of Poetry (1821), describes epiphany as the “best and happiest moments arising unforeseen and departing unbidden, visitations of the divinity” which poetry “redeems from decay.”
James Joyce brought the term to modern art and literature when he used it to designate an event in which the essential nature of somethinga person, a situation, an objectwas suddenly perceived. It is thus an intuitive grasp of reality achieved in a quick flash of recognition in which something, usually simple and commonplace, is seen in a new light, and, as Joyce says, “its soul, its whatness leaps to us from the vestment of its appearance.” This sudden insight is the epiphany.

23. Ethos:
the character, emotions, disposition, and-or attitude of the writer reflected in the speech or writing

24. Figurative language:
language that uses figures of speech [any way of saying something other than the ordinary way] [metaphor-simile-alliteration-symbol-etc.]

25. GENRE: A fancy word for literary type or class Major genres: epic
tragedy
lyric
comedy
satire
novel
short story

26. Homeric epithet:
joining of adjectives and nouns to make compound adjectives
Use by Homer in the Iliad and the Odyssey
Example: “wine-dark sea” and “rosy-fingered lawn”

27. Hyperbole-overstatement:
to overstate or exaggerate an issue for emphasis
Example: AP English is the most difficult and boring class ever

28. IMAGERY:
the use of language to represent objects, actions, feelings, thoughts, ideas, states of mind and any sensory or extra-sensory experience
Example: Robert Browning, "Meeting at Night"

29. Meeting at Night
The gray sea and the long black land;
And the yellow half-moon large and low;
And the startled little waves that leap
In fiery ringlets from their sleep,
As I gain the cove with pushing prow,
And quench its speed i’ the slushy sand.
Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;
Three fields to cross till a farm appears;
A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch
And blue spurt of a lighted match,
And a voice less loud, through its joys and fears,
Than the two hearts beating each to each!
Robert Browning

30. Inductive:
reasoning from the specific to the general

31. IRONY:
a mode of expression, through words [verbal irony] or events [irony of situation], conveying a reality different from and usually opposite to appearance or expectation
The ability to detect irony is sometimes heralded as a test of intelligence and sophistication

32. Techniques for creating irony are to:
say the opposite of what one means
create a reversal between expectation and its fulfillment
give the audience knowledge that a character lacks

33. Verbal irony:
the writer’s meaning or even his attitude may be different from what he says
Example: after Mr. Rishel gives a very hard and very unfair exam, the students proclaim as they walk out: “Have a nice weekend Mr. Rishel!”

34. Situational irony:
a situation in which there is an incongruity between actual circumstances and those that would seem appropriate or between what is anticipated and what actually comes to pass
Example: if a professional pickpocket had his own pocket picked just as he was in the act of picking someone else’s pocket

35. Dramatic irony:
where the audience has knowledge that gives additional meaning to a character’s words
Example: In Oedipus the King, King Oedipus, who has unknowingly killed his father, says that he will banish his father’s killer when he finds him

36. HAROLD BLOOM’S DEFINITIONS OF IRONY
When a writer or character says one thing and means another, often the opposite of what was explicitly stated
Juxtaposition of “antithetical ideas” or ideas that are in direct opposition to one another
Multiple, and sometimes differing, definitions of a single subject
The imaginative ideas that spark our interests and curiosities as a reader; Remember Thoreau’s “free and wild thinking”?

37. Literal:
taking the meaning of a word in its primary and nonfigurative sense
an exact rendering of something

38. Lyrical: maintaining the qualities of song or poetry
Example: “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” F. Scott Fitzgerald

39. METAPHOR:
a figure of speech in which an implicit comparison is made between two things essentially unlike
Differs from a symbol because it represents a single object or idea
Example: “Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,/That struts and frets his hour upon the stage.” Shakespeare, Macbeth
Example: Frances Cornford, "The Guitarist Tunes Up"

40. The Guitarist Tunes Up. With what attentive courtesy he bent
The Guitarist Tunes Up With what attentive courtesy he bent Over his instrument; Not as a lordly conqueror who could Command both wire and wood, But as a man with a loved woman might, Inquiring with delight What slight essential things she had to say Before they started, he and she, to play Frances Cornford

41. Mood-atmosphere:
the emotional feeling of the setting, something like tone but specifically related to the setting
Example: the use of the color yellow in the various settings of St. Petersburg to produce a feeling of despair-sorrow-decay in Crime and Punishment

42. Oxymoron: a self-contradictory combination of words
Example: jumbo shrimp
Example: In Paradise Lost, Milton describes hell as: “No light, but rather darkness visible”

43. Parable:
a short, simple story related to allegory and fable, which points to a moral

44. PARADOX:
an apparently self-contradictory, even absurd, statement which, on closer inspection, is found to contain a truth reconciling conflicting opposites
Example: “I must be cruel only to be kind” Shakespeare, Hamlet

45. Parallelism:
the coordination of sentence syntax, word order, and ideas used for effect and emphasis
Example: “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.” Isaiah

46. Parody:
the imitative use of the words, style, attitude, tone and ideas of an author in such a way as to make them ridiculous

47. Personification:
the attribution of human qualities to an inanimate object
Example: In “To Autumn,” Keats describes autumn as a harvester “sitting careless on a granary floor”

48. POINT OF VIEW:
the position of the narrator in relation to his story; thus the outlook from which events are related
Four (4) variations of point of view:
Omniscient:
Third person; narrator’s knowledge is unlimited
Narrator can reveal as much or as little as they please
Most flexible and permits the widest scope

49. Limited omniscient:
Third person; viewpoint of one character
Approximates more closely than the omniscient the conditions of real life
First person:
Author disappears into one of the characters
Offers no opportunity for direct interpretation by the author
Offers excellent opportunities for dramatic irony
Must question narrator reliability
Objective:
Narrator disappears into a kind of roving sound camera the camera can go anywhere but can only record what is seen and heard
Readers are merely spectators

50. Rhetoric:
the art of persuasion and employing the devices to persuade

51. SATIRE:
a technique used to expose, censure, and ridicule the mistakes and vices of society in an attempt to help people understand civilized, moral values
Swift defined satire as “a sort of glass wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own, which is the chief reason for that kind of reception it meets in the world, and that so very few are offended with it
Example: In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain satirizes the contradictions of religion and slavery in Southern society

52. SETTING:
the combination of place, historical time, and social environment
Provides the general background for character and plot
Determines the atmosphere of the text
Can symbolize whole ways of life or value systems

53. Simile:
an explicit comparison between two objects using the words like, as, than, similar to, resembles, or seems
Example: “The great blast furnaces of Liège rose along the line like ancient castles burning in a border raid.” Graham Greene, Stamboul Train

54. Stream of consciousness:
writing that reflects a character’s flow of perceptions, thoughts, memories and feelings; exemplifies the way the modern mind attempts to make meaning in a fragmented world
Example: “I AM BELOVED and she is mine. I see her take flowers away from leaves she puts them in a round basket the leaves are not for her she fills the basket she opens the grass . . .” Toni Morrison, Beloved

55. Structure
The arrangement of ideas, images, and thoughts

56. Syllogism:
a form of deductive reasoning consisting of a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion
Example: All men are mortal. Greeks are men. Therefore, all Greeks are mortal.

57. SYMBOL:
from the Greek meaning “to throw together” and “mark-emblem-token-sign”
Something that means more than what it is; an object, animate or inanimate, which represents or “stands for” something else
Suggests a great variety of specific meanings; meanings “ray out” from a symbol
Differs from allegory in that it has a real existence, whereas an allegorical sign is arbitrary
Differs from metaphor in that it represents multiple objects and-or ideas, whereas a metaphor represents a single object and-or idea
Example: “The Road Not Taken,” Robert Frost
Example: the green light in The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

58. Syntax:
the physical arrangement of words in a sentence or a line of verse

59. THEME:
the controlling idea or its central insight; a unifying generalization about life stated or implied by the story
Readers must understand what view of life [the text] supports or what insight into life it reveals
To state the theme a reader must select the “central insight” and explain the “greatest number of elements”
“the function of interpretive writers is not to state a theme but to vivify it”

60. “We may know in our minds, for instance, that ‘War is horrible’ or that ‘Old age is often pathetic and in need of understanding,’ but these are insights that need to be periodically renewed. Emotionally we may forget them, and if we do, we are less alive and complete as human beings. Story writers perform a service for useinterpret life for uswhether they give us new insights or refresh and extend old ones.”
Readers must value and weigh all themeseven themes that appear irrelevant to us personallybecause we can benefit from other perspectives

61. To determine theme focus on:
Changes in main character
Knowledge gained by main character
The nature of the central conflict and its outcome
The title
Important words

62. Important principles for theme:
Theme should be expressible in the form of a statement with subject and predicate
Theme should be stated as a generalization about life
Do not make broad generalizations (avoid terms like every, all, always, etc.)
Theme is the central and unifying concept of a story
There is not one way of stating the theme of a story
Avoid any statement that reduces the theme to some familiar saying-cliché

63. Thesis: an attitude or position taken by the speaker or writer
Example: Dostoevsky communicates that Hegel and Nietzche were not exactly correct in their philosophical stances

64. TONE-attitude:
the reflection of a writer’s attitude, manner, mood, and moral outlook in her work; even the way his personality pervades the work

65. P r o s e
T e r m s

66. Anadiplosis:
the repetition of the last word of one clause at the beginning of the following clause to gain a special effect
Example: “Labour and care are rewarded with success, success produces confidence, confidence relaxes industry, and negligence ruins the reputation which diligence had raised.” Dr. Johnson, Rambler No. 21

67. Anaphora:
a rhetorical device involving the repetition of a word or group of words in successive clauses
Example: “Said Sir Ector Sir Lancelot thou wert never matched of earthly knight’s hand; and thou wert the courteoust knight that ever bare shield; and thou wert the truest friend to thy lover that ever bestrad horse . . .” Malory, Le Morte Darthur

68. ANTAGONIST: the force acting against the protagonist
Example: In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck opposes his moralistic society

69. Asyndeton:
a rhetorical device where conjunctions, articles and even pronouns are omitted for the sake of speed and economy
Example:
The first sort by their own suggestion fell
Self-tempted, self-depraved; man falls, deceived
By other first; man therefor shall find grace
The other none . . .
Milton, Paradise Lost

70. Bildungsroman: a novel about upbringing, education, or coming-of-age
Deals with the youthful development of a hero or heroine
Describes the processes by which maturity is achieved through various ups and downs of life\
Example: Jane Austen, Emma
Example: Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

71. Chiasmus:
a reversal of grammatical structures in successive phrases or clauses
Example: “His time a moment, and a point his space.” Alexander Pope, Essay on Man [Epistle 1]

72. Confidant[e]:
a character who has little effect on the action but whose fuction is to listen to the intimate feelings and intentions of the protagonist
Confidant = male
Confidante = female
Example: Horatio in Shakespeare’s Hamlet

73. CONFLICT:
the tension in a situation between characters, or the actual opposition of characters
Conflicts can be external and internal
Example: Hamlet predicament of wishing to avenge his father and yet knowing when and how to do it

74. Epigraph: a quotation on the title page of a book
Example: from The Great Gatsby
Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her;
If you can bounce high, bounce for her too,
Till she cry “Lover, gold-hatted, high bouncing lover,
I must have you!”
Thomas Parke D’Invilliers

75. Epistrophe:
a figure of speech in which each sentence or clause ends with the same word

76. Flashback:
derives from the cinema, which is now also used to describe any scene or episode in a play, novel, story, or poem that show events that happened at an earlier time

77. FORESHADOWING:
the technique or arranging of events and information in a narrative in such a way that later events are prepared for or shadowed forth beforehand

78. Hubris:
the shortcoming or defect in a Greek tragic hero that leads him to ignore the warnings of the gods and to transgress their laws and commands

79. Litotes-understatement:
a figure of speech which contains an understatement for emphasis, and is therefore the opposite of hyperbole
Example: “not bad” usually means “good”

80. MOTIF:
one of the dominant ideas in a work of literature that recurs throughout the work; a part of the main theme
May consist of a character, a recurrent image, or a verbal pattern
Example: cars in The Great Gatsby
Example: music in Invisible Man

81. Polysyndeton: the repetition of conjuctions
Example: Hemingway is addicted to the use of the word “and” to create psuedo-biblical rhythms

82. PROTAGONIST:
the principal character in a work of literature and equivalent to the hero

83. Zeugma:
a figure of speech in which a verb or an adjective is applied to two nouns, though appropriate only to one of them
Example: “Kills the poys and the luggage.” Shakespeare, Henry V

84. Rhetorical Approaches:
Logos
Pathos
Inductive
Deductive
Conversational
Formal
Instructive
Chronological
Anachronistic
Comparative
Persuasive
Frame story
Cause and effect
Propaganda technique
Ethos

85. Prose Style Analysis: diction point of view tone organization
Idiom: a form of expression, construction or phrase peculiar to a writer
Major elements of style analysis:
diction
point of view
tone
organization
narrative pace
imagery
shape of sentences
shape of paragraphs

86. Vocabulary: FORM REFLECTS CONTENT tone point of view attitude
diction
language
figurative lang.
detail
imagery
point of view
organization
structure
irony
sentence structure
syntax
phrasing
FORM REFLECTS CONTENT

87. P o e t r y T e r m s

88. Accent-stress: a syllable given more prominence in pronunciation
Example: re-hearse

89. APOSTROPHE:
a figure of speech in which a thing, a place, an abstract quality, an idea, a dead or absent person, is addressed as if present and capable of understanding
Example: “Milton! Thou should’st be living at this hour . . .”

90. Ballad:
a fairly short narrative poem written in a songlike stanza form
Example: John Keats, “La Belle Dame sans Merci”

91. Caesura:
a break or pause in a line of poetry, dictated, usually, by the natural rhythm of the language
Example:
With hinm ther was his sone,  a yong Squier
A lovyere  and a lusty bacheler,
With lokkes crulle  as they were leyd in presse.
Chaucer, Prologue to The Canterbury Tales

92. Conceit:
a fairly elaborate figurative device of a fanciful kind which often incorporates metaphor, simile, hyperbole, or oxymoron

93. COUPLETS:
two successive lines, usually in the same meter, linked by rime
Example:
Whilom ther was dwellynge in Lumbardye
A worthy knyght, that born was of Pavye,
In which he lyved in greet prosperitee;
And sixty yeer a wyflees man was hee,
And folwed ay his bodily delyt
On wommen, there as was his appetyt
Chaucer, The Merchant’s Tale

94. Dramatic monologue:
a poem in which there is one imaginary speaker addressing an imaginary audience
Example: Robert Browning, “My Last Duchess”

95. Elegy:
a poem of mourning for an individual or a lament for some tragic event

96. Enjambment:
running on of the sense beyond the second line of one couplet into the first line of the next
Example:
Who, of men, can tell
That flowers would bloom, or that green fruit would swell
To melting pulp, that fish would have bright mail,
The earth its dower or river, wood, and vale,
The meadows runnels, runnels pebble-stones,
The seed its harvest, or the lute its tones,
Tones ravishment, or ravishment its sweet
If human souls did never kiss and greet?
John Keats, Endymion

97. EPIC:
a long narrative poem, on a grand scale, about the deeds of warriors and heroes
A polygonal, ‘heroic’ story incorporating myth, legend, folk tale, and history
Often of national significance in the sense that they embody the history and aspirations of a nation in a lofty or grandiose manner
Example: Anonymous, Beowulf
Example: Homer, Odyssey

98. Heroic couplets:
comprises rimed decasyllables, nearly always in iambic pentameters rimed in pairs
Example: “All humane things are subject to decay,/And, when Fate summons, Monarchs must obey:” Dryden, Mac Flecknoe

99. Metonymy:
a figure of speech in which some significant aspect or detail of an experience is used to represent the whole experience
Example: we refer to the leadership of our nation as “The White House
Example: Robert Frost in his poem “Out, Out ” describes an injured boy holding up his cut hand “as if to keep/The life from spilling,” which literally means keep the blood from spilling.

100. Ode:
a lyric poem with an elaborate stanza-structure, a marked formality and stateliness in tone and style, and lofty sentiments and thoughts
Example: John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn”

101. SONNET:
a fixed form of fourteen lines, normally iambic pentameter, with a rime scheme conforming to or approximating on of two main types:

102. ENGLISH-SHAKESPEAREAN SONNET:
a sonnet riming ababcdcdefefgg
The content or structure usually parallels the rime scheme, falling into three quatrains [a four-line stanza] and a concluding couplet [two successive lines, usually in the same meter, linked by rime]
The units marked off by the rimes correspond to the development of thought
Three quatrains present three examples or metaphorical statements of an idea and the couplet a conclusion or application
The principal break in thought usually comes at the end of the eighth line
Example: William Shakespeare, “That Time of year”

103. ITALIAN-PETRARCHAN SONNET:
a sonnet consisting of an octave [an eight-line stanza] riming abbaabba and of a sestet [a six-line stanza] using any arrangement of two or three additional rimes, such as cdcdcd or cdecde
The division in rime scheme corresponds to a division of thought; the octave presents a situation and the sestet a comment, or the octave an idea and the sestet an example
Example: John Keats, “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer”

104. STANZA:
a group of lines whose metrical pattern [and usually its rime scheme] is repeated throughout the poem

105. Synecdoche: a figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole
Example: “Give us this day, our daily bread” where bread = daily meals
Example: In “Terence, this is stupid stuff,” A. E. Housman’s narrator explains: “malt does more than Milton can/To justify God’s ways to man,” where malt = beer

106. Villanelle:
a poem consisting of five three-lined stanzas or tercets and a final quatrain
Example: Dylan Thomas, “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night”

107. P o e t r y T e r m s -
M e t r i c a l T e r m s

108. ALLITERATION:
the repetition at close intervals of the initial consonant sounds of accented syllables or important words
Example: map-moon, kill-code, preach-approve

109. ASSONANCE:
the repetition at close intervals of the vowel sounds of accented syllables or important words
Example: hat-ran-amber-vein-made

110. BLANK VERSE: unrimed iambic pentameter
Example: Shakespearean tragedies

111. CONSONANCE:
the repetition at close intervals of the final consonant sounds of accented syllables or important words
Example: book-plaque-thicker

112. Continuous form: The element of design is slight
Lines follow each other without formal grouping
There are different degrees of pattern

113. End-stopped line:
a line that ends with a natural speech pause, usually marked by punctuation

114. Feminine rime:
a rime in which the repeated accented vowel is in either the second or third last syllable of the words involved
Example: ceiling-appealing, hurrying-scurrying

115. Fixed form: A traditional pattern that applies to a whole poem
Example: limerick, sonnet, haiku, lyric, terza rima

116. FOOT: the basic unit used in the scansion or measurement of verse
Usually contains one accented syllable and one or two unaccented syllables
Example: The dewshall weepthey fallto night

117. Names of feet-meter: Iamb [iambic] in - ter'
Trochee [trochaic] en' - ter
Anapest [anapestic] in - ter - vene'
Dactyl [dactylic] en' - ter - prise
Spondee [spondaic] true' - blue'

118. Free verse:
nonmetrical verse; contains no fixed metrical pattern

119. IAMB:
a metrical foot consisting of one unaccented syllable followed by one accented syllable
Example: re-hearse

120. Internal rime:
a rime in which one or both of the rime-words occur within the line
Example: “ ‘Surely,’ said I, ‘surely that is something at my window lattice; / Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore” Edgar Allan Poe, “The Raven”

121. Masculine rime:
a rime in which the repeated accented vowel sound is in the final syllable of the words involved
Example: dance-pants, scald-recalled

122. Meter:
regularized rhythm; an arrangement of language in which the accents occur at apparently equal intervals in time

123. Onomatopoeia:
the use of words that supposedly mimic their meaning in their sound
Example: boom-click-plop

124. Rhythm:
any wavelike recurrence of motion or sound

125. Stanzaic form
A series of stanzas; repeated units having the same number of lines, usually the same metrical pattern, and often an identical rime scheme

126. Terza rima:
an interlocking rime scheme with the pattern aba bcb cdc, etc.

127. D r a m a
T e r m s

128. FREYTAG’S PYRAMID:
the structure of most five-act plays follows this pattern:

129. CATHARSIS:
Aristotle in Poetics explains that “Tragedy through pity and fear effects a purgation of such emotions

130. HAMARTIA:
an error of judgement which may arise from ignorance or some moral shortcoming
Aristotle explains that a tragic hero comes to misfortune through no vice or depravity, but some error usually in judgement

131. TRAGEDY: In his Poetics, Aristotle defined tragedy as:
The imitation of an action that is serious and also, as having magnitude, complete in itself; in language with pleasurable accessories, each kind brought in separately in the parts of the work; in a dramatic, not in a narrative form; with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of such emotions.

132. SOLILOQUY:
a speech in which a character alone on the stage expresses his thoughts and feelings

133. ASIDE:
a few words or a short passage spoken in an undertone or to the audience

134. Schools of Literary Criticism

135. Basic perspectives:
Textual
Social
Cultural
Topical

136. Textual perspective: New Critical Approach
Focus on literary form; text only
Focus strictly on what the text is
Question the formarrangement, purpose, voice, syntax, tone and audience
Compare to other texts of similar genre
Build an understanding of a genre, which helps to develop a set of expectations and also informed interpretations

137. Textual perspective:
Focus on how separate parts relate to the overall form (analysis)
Involves a careful examination of literary elements and devices
Excludes factors outside of the text (i.e. author’s background/reader response)
Intentional fallacy: it is impossible/irrelevant to determine an author’s intention
Affective fallacy: readers’ feelings are irrelevant to the meaning
Important to place your reading of a particular text within a network of previous reading; readers can accomplish this by examining the following elements:
Roles: prototypical figures (i.e. “western cowboy)
Settings: social or cultural world
Problems: typical conflicts characters deal with
Storyline: manner in which the problem is solved

138. Social perspective: a.k.a. Reader response criticism
Focus on what we experience
Our own personal experience of the subject being addressed
Readers test an artist’s ideas against personal experience and review the validity of the argument-theme
Encourages personal connections with text
Important to seek to expand social attitudes
Important to imagine an “implied audience” (e.g. Huck Finn)

139. Social perspective:
Methods of formulating an informed social response:
Map relationships to characters-“implied audience”
Examine character dialogue; use the following questions:
Is the dialogue relevant to the topic of conversation?
Does the character provide enough information?
If not, then what are the consequences?

140. Cultural perspective:
Marxist-socialist: examine social-economic hierarchies in a text
Feminist: explore gender roles in a text
Psychoanalytic: text as record of author psychology
Pop culture: influence of popular culture on texts
Multicultural: examine perspective of marginalized cultural groups
Postcolonial: literature of formerly colonized peoples; locate texts in a global sense

141. Cultural perspective:
Focus on who we are as a culture and how we came to be
Readers explore the affects of a text’s cultural environment
Focus on the influence of peer groups, mass media, family, school, religion, historical period, and religious/social/political group
Examine the affects of cultural institutions on the world the author creates

142. Topical perspective: Historical: text as historical document
Biographical: emphasis on author background
Literary tradition: texts as representative of ideological movements

143. Topical perspective: Focus on what we know
Individual readers contribute personal perspectives/knowledges in order to create larger, composite meanings
Responses differ because of interest and background knowledge of readers
Readers can carry away part of what the text means
Apply background knowledge of different academic fieldsmath, science, etc.
Important to identify areas of expertise and contribute to an open discourse
Most important areashistory, art, music and science

144. WORKS CITED Perrine, Laurence and Thomas A. Arp. Sound and Sense.
Cuddon, J.A. Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory, 3rd ed.
Potter, Nancy. "Bellevue High School Advanced Placement Institute."