Kirzner Terminology Flashcards
Iambic hexameter, a common form in French poetry but relatively rare in English poetry
Alexandrine
Story with two parallel and consistent levels of meaning, one literal and one figurative, in which the figurative level offer’s a moral or political lesson; John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown”
Allegory
Has only one meaning (for instance, it may represent good or evil), as opposed to a symbol, which may suggest a complex network of meanings
Allegorical figure
The system of ideas that conveys the allegory’s message
Allegorical framework
Repetition of initial sounds in a series of words
Alliteration
Reference, often to literature, history, mythology, or the Bible, that is unacknowledged in the text but that the author expects the reader to recognize
Allusion
International device in which authors invoke a number of possible meanings of a word or grammatical structure by leaving unclear the meaning they intend .
Ambiguity
Has three syllables, two unstressed and the third stressed
Anapest
Character who is in conflict with or opposition to the protagonist; the villain . Sometimes a force or situation rather than a person .
Antagonist
Modern character who possesses the opposite attributes of a hero. Rather than being dignified and powerful, tends to be passive and ineffectual. Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman
Antihero
Figure of speech in which an absent character or personified force or object is addressed directly, as if it were present or could comprehend
Apostrophe
Image or symbol that is so common or significant to a culture that it seems to have a universal importance .
Archetype
Stage in which the actors are surrounded by the audience; also called theater in round .
Arena stage
Brief comment spoken by the actor to the audience and assumed not to be heard by other characters
Aside
Reposition of vowel sounds in a series of words: “creep three feet”
Assonance
Tone or mood of a literary work, often established by the setting and the language . The emotional aura that determines readers expectations about a work .
Atmosphere
Poem about morning usually celebrating the dawn
Aubade
Narrative poem, rooted in oral tradition, usually arranged in quatrains rhyming abcb and containing a refrain
Ballad
Alternates lines of eight and six syllables . Typically only the second and fourth lines rhyme
Ballad stanza
Short tale usually including a moral, in which animals assume human characteristics
Beast fable
Comedy that relies on the morbid and absurd . Often are so satiric that they become ironic and tragic
Black comedy
Lines of unrhymed iambic pentameter in no particular stanzaic form .
Blank verse
Decisions about how characters move and where they stand on stage in a dramatic production
Blocking
Harsh or unpleasant spoken sound created by clashing consonants
Cacophony
Strong or long pause in the middle of a poetic line created by punctuation or by the sense of the poem
Caesura
Literally, “seize the day” the philosophy that gave its name to a kind of seventeenth-century poetry arguing that one should enjoy life today before it passes one by
Carpe diem
Traditionally, the moment in a tragedy after the climax, when the rising action has ended and the falling action begun, when the protagonist begins to understand the implications of events that will lead to his or her downfall, and when such events start to occur
Catastrophe
Aristotle’s term for the emotional reaction or “purgation” that takes place in the audience watching a tragedy
Catharsis
rhyme that occurs in the first syllable or syllables of the line
Beginning rhyme
What happens in a drama
action
Fictional representation of a person, usually but not necessarily in a psychologically realistic way.
Character
Well developed, closely involved in the action and responsive to it.
Round character
static, stereotypical,
Flat Character
growing and changing in the course of action
Dynamic Character
remaining unchanged
Static Character
Way in which writers develop their characters and reveal those characters’ traits to readers
Characterization
Group of actors in classical Greek drama who comment in unison on the action and the hero; they are led by the Choragos
Chorus
Attitude toward art that values symmetry, clarity, discipline, and objectivity. Neoclassicism, such as that practiced in eighteenth-century Europe, appreciated those qualities as found in Greek and Roman art and culture; Alexander Pope’s poetry follows neoclassical principles.
Classicism
Overused phrase of expression
cliché
Point of greatest tension or importance, where the decisive action of a play or story takes place.
Climax
Type of poetic structure that has a recognizable rhyme scheme, meter, or stanzaic pattern.
Closed form
Play meant to be read instead of performed–for example, Shelly’s Prometheus Unbound
closet drama
Any literary work, but especially a play, in which events end happily, a character’s fortunes are reversed for the better, and a community is drawn more closely together, often by the marriage of one or more protagonists at the end.
Comedy
Comedy that focuses on characters whose behavior is controlled by a characteristic trait, or humor, such as Volpone (1606) by Ben Johnson, who popularized the form.
Comedy of humors
Satiric comedy that developed during the sixteenth-century and achieved great popularity in the nineteenth century. This form focuses on the manners and customs of society and directs its satire against the characters who violate its social conventions and norms. The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde .
Comedy of manners
Extended or complicated metaphor, common I the Renaissance, that is impressive largely because it shows an author’s power to manipulate and sustain a striking comparison between two dissimilar items; John Donne’s use of the compass metaphor in “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” is an example.
Conceit
Poem whose typographical appearance on the page reinforces its theme, as with George Herbert’s “Easter Wings.”
Concrete poem
Struggle between opposing forces (protagonist and antagonist) in a work of literature
Conflict
Meaning that a word suggests beyond its literal, explicit meaning, carrying emotional associations, judgments, or opinions. Can be positive, neutral, or negative.
Connotation
Peak or moment of tension in the action of a story; the point of greatest tension is the climax
Crisis
Dictionary meaning of a word; its explicit, literal meaning
Denotation
Literary, “the god out of the machine”: any improbable resolution of plot involving the intervention of some force or agent hitherto extraneous to the story.
Dues ex machina
Particular regional variety of language, which may differ from the more widely used standard or written language in its pronunciation, grammar, or vocabulary. Eliza Doolittle’s cockney dialect in the George Bernard Shaw play Pygmalion is an example
dialect
Conversation between two or more characters
dialogue
Word choice of an author, which determines the level of language used in a piece of literature
diction
lofty and elaborate diction (typical of Shakespearean nobility)
Formal diction
diction that is idiomatic and relaxed (like dialogue in John Updike’s “A&P”)
informal diction
the specialized diction of a professional or occupational group (such as computer hackers.)
Jargon
The colloquial expressions, including slag, of a particular group or society
Idiom
Poetry whose purpose is to make a point or teach a lesson, particularly, common in the eighteenth century
didactic poetry
phrase or word with a deliberate double meaning, one of which is sexual
double entendre
literature written to be performed
drama
Type of poem perfected by Robert Browning that consists of a single speaker talking to no one or more unseen listeners and often revealing much more about the speaker than he or she seems to intend; Browning’s “My Last Duchess” is the best known example for this form
Dramatic monologue
Characters in a play
Dramatis personae
Poem commemorating someone’s death, usually in a reflective or mournful tone, such as A. E. Housman;s “To an Athlete Dying Young.”
Elegy
Leaving out an unstressed syllable or vowel, usually in order to keep a regular meter in a line of poetry (“o’ver” instead of “over,” for example).
Elision
Line of poetry that has a full pause at the end, typically indicated by a period or semicolon
End-stopped-line
a four-line stanzaic pattern closely related to the ballad stanza. It differs that its rhyme scheme is abab rather than abcb
common measure
something whose meaning is so widely understood within a society that authors can expect their audiences to accept and comprehend it unquestioningly–for example, the division of plays into acts with intermissions, or the fact that stepmothers in fairytales are likely to be wicked
Literary convention
evoke a general and agreed upon response from most people
conventional symbol
exists when fate frustrates any effort a character might make to control or reverse his or her destiny
cosmic Irony
stanzaic form of two lines
couplet
A type of meter which is composed of three syllables, the first stressed and the subsequent ones unstressed
Dactyl
Final stage in the plot of a drama or fiction. Here the action comes to an end and remaining loose ends are tied up.
Denouement
when there is more than one story but one string of events is clearly the most significant, the other stories are called subplots.
Double plot
Oedipus the King, depends on the audience’s knowing something the protagonist has not yet realized (and thus experiencing simultaneously its own interpretation of the events and that of the protagonist).
Dramatic Irony
Where rhyming syllables are put at the end of a rhyme
End rhyme
Line of poetry that ends with no punctuation or natural pause and consequently runs over into the next line
enjambment
Three-line conclusion to a sestina that includes all six of the poem’s key words, three placed at the ends of lines and three within the lines
Envoi
Long narrative poem recounting the adventures of heroes on whose actions depend the fate of a nation or race. Frequently the gods or other supernatural beings take active interest in the events presented .
Epic
