General Terms for Literature Flashcards
(32 cards)
What is meant by the term ‘Allegory’?
A rhetorical device that creates a close, one-to-one comparison
What is burlesque?
Satire that uses caricature
What is meant by colloquial?
Colloquial language is informal language that is often used in conversation, and can vary based on geographical location
What is a denouement?
The culmination or result of an action, plan or plot
What is a diatribe?
An impassioned rant or angry speech of denunciation
What is the philosophy of empiricism?
It means basing knowledge on direct, sensory perceptions of the world. Empirical means seeking out facts established by experience not theory
What do we mean if something is in, or brought to, the foreground?
To emphasise or make prominent
What is form in literature?
The type of literary expression chosen by an author
What is genre in literature?
There are general categories like drama, poetry to prose. There are also specific categories within larger divisions, for example, a sonnet is a specific genre within the larger genre of poetry
What is the effect of hyperbole?
Exaggeration of the point being made
Give an example of hyperbole.
‘The most daring, prodigious, death-defying feat attempted by man or woman in all of human history.’
What is meant by intertextuality?
Described how texts can be interrelated, ranging from direct quotations, to echoing, to parody
What is meant if something is “meta”?
Often used to compound words, eg. metatext, metatheatre, used to describe when a text goes beyond its own fictionality to makes readers/audience aware of the conventions of the fiction
What is a metaphor?
A comparison that creates a direct correspondence ‘society is a hive’
What is meant by modernism?
The name is given to experiments carried out in poetry, prose and art from 1920 to 1939
What is a narrator or a narrative voice?
It is the voice with which a writer conveys a story. It can be classified as a first, second or third person narrator, as well as being unreliable or omniscient
What is meant by the word ‘oxymoron’
A contradictory sentence or phrase
What is meant by the word ‘parody’?
The reducing of another text to ridicule by hostile imitation
What is pathetic fallacy?
The use of setting, scenery or weather to mirror the mood of a human activity
Give an example of pathetic fallacy.
Two people having an argument whist a storm breaks out
What is meant by the phrase “poetic justice”?
When a trapper is caught by their own trap in an example of ironic but appropriate justice. Although described as poetic, it often occurs in narrative texts in general
What is postmodernism?
Postmodern texts are often aware of their own artifice, are filled with intertextual allusions and can be ironic instead of sincere
What is meant by satire?
A destructive reduction of an idea, image, concept or texts. It can employ exaggeration, mimicry, irony or tone
What is semantics?
The study of how words create meaning
