1. Important Literary Terms
Resource Person: Tahir (M.Phil English)
Department of English language and literature
Informatics Group of Colleges (Arifwala Campus)
2. Literary terms
Ironyis a figure of speech in which words are used in such a way that their intended meaning is different
from the actual meaning of the words. It may also be a situation that ends up in quite a different way than
what is generally anticipated. In simple words, it is a difference between appearance and reality.
Satireis a technique employed by writers to expose and criticize foolishness and corruption of an
individual or a society, by using humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule. It intends to improve humanity by
criticizing its follies and foibles. A writer in a satire uses fictional characters, which stand for real people, to
expose and condemn their corruption.
Humoris a literary tool that makes audiences laugh, or that intends to induce amusement or laughter. Its
purpose is to break the monotony, boredom, and tedium, and make the audience’s nerves relax. The writer
uses different techniques, tools, words, and even full sentences in order to bring to light new and funny sides
of life. Humor is often found in literature, theater, movies, and advertising, where the major purpose is to
make the audience happy. Humor is a word for the quality of being funny — or for appreciating comedy, as in
"sense of humor.“
3. Alliteration: the repetition at close intervals of consonant sounds for a
purpose. For example: wailing in the winter wind.
Fable: a brief tale told to illustrate a moral.
Apologue, another word for a *FABLE, usually a *BEAST fable.
Figurative Language: language employing figures of speech; language that
cannot be taken literally or only literally.
Flashback: a scene, or an incident that happened before the beginning of a
story, or at an earlier point in the narrative.
Hyperbole: an exaggeration for emphasis or humorous effect.
Imagery: words and phrases that create vivid experiences or a picture for
the reader.
Catharsis, the effect of ‘purgation' or 'purification' achieved by tragic
drama, according to Aristotle's argument in his Poetics (4th century BCE).
Aristotle wrote that a *TRAGEDY should succeed 'in arousing pity and fear
in such a way as to accomplish a catharsis of such emotions'. There has
been much dispute about his meaning, but Aristotle seems to be rejecting
Plato's hostile view of poetry as an unhealthy emotional stimulant
4. Coinage, a newly invented word or expression. See also
neologism, nonce word
Literal: A word for word interpretation for what is written
or said.
Metaphor: a figure of speech in which a comparison or
analogy is made between two seemingly unlike things, as
in the phrase “evening of life.”
Onomatopoeia. The formation or use of words. Such as:
buzz, or cuckoo, whose meaning is suggested by the
sound of the word itself. (boom, click, plop)
Simile: a figure of speech in which two seemingly unlike
things are compared. The comparison is made explicit by
the use of a word or phrase such as: like, as, than, similar
to, resembles, or seems— as in: He was strong as a bull.
5. Aesthetics (US esthetics), philosophical
investigation into the nature of beauty and the
perception of beauty, especially in the arts; the
theory of art or of artistic taste. Adjective:
aesthetic or esthetic.
Antagonist, the most prominent of the characters
who oppose the * PROTAGONIST or hero(ine) in a
dramatic or narrative work. The antagonist is
often a villain seeking to frustrate a heroine or
hero; but in those works in which the protagonist
is represented as evil, the antagonist will often be
a virtuous or sympathetic character, as Macduff is
in Macbeth
6. Bibliography, the description of books: (i) a systematic list of
writings by a given author or on a given subject; (ii) the study of
books as material objects, involving technical analysis of paper,
printing methods, bindings, page-numbering, and publishing
history. A compiler of bibliographies or a student of bibliography
is a bibliographer.
Black Comedy, a kind of drama (or, by extension, a non-dramatic
work) in which disturbing or sinister subjects like death, disease,
or warfare, are treated with bitter amusement, usually in a
manner calculated to blank verse 28 offend and shock.
Prominent in the theatre of the *ABSURD, black comedy is also a
feature of Joe Orton's Loot (1965). A similar black humour is
strongly evident in modern American fiction from Nathanael
West's A Cool Million (1934) to Joseph Heller's Catch-22 (1961)
and Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five (1969).
7. Blank Verse, unrhymed lines of iambic *PENTAMETER,
as in these final lines of Tennyson's 'Ulysses' (1842):
One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by
time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to
find, and not to yield. Blank verse is a very flexible
English verse form which can attain rhetorical
grandeur while echoing the natural rhythms of speech
and allowing smooth *ENJAMBMENT.
Catastrophe, the final resolution or *DENOUEMENT of
the plot in a *TRAGEDY, usually involving the death of
the *PROTAGONIST.
8. Characterization, the representation of persons in *NARRATIVE and
dramatic works. This may include direct methods like the attribution
of qualities in description or commentary, and indirect (or 'dramatic')
methods inviting readers to infer qualities from characters' actions,
speech, or appearance.
Chorus, a group of singers distinct from the principal performers in a
dramatic or musical performance; also the song or * REFRAIN that
they sing. In classical Greek *TRAGEDY a chorus of twelve or fifteen
masked performers would sing, with dancing movements, a
commentary on the action of the play, interpreting its events from the
standpoint of traditional wisdom
Comedy, a play (or other literary composition) written chiefly to
amuse its audience by appealing to a sense of superiority over the
characters depicted. A comedy will normally be closer to the
representation of everyday life than a *TRAGEDY, and will explore
common human failings rather than tragedy's disastrous crimes.
9. Comic Relief, the interruption of a serious work, especially a *TRAGEDY, by a
short humorous episode. The inclusion of such comic scenes, characters, or
speeches can have various and complex effects, ranging from relaxation after
moments of high tension to sinister ironic brooding.
Couplet [kup-lit], a pair of rhyming verse lines, usually of the same length;
one of the most widely used verse-forms in European poetry. Chaucer
established the use of couplets in English, notably in the Canterbury Tales,
using rhymed iambic * PENTAMETERS later known as 53 courtly love *
HEROIC COUPLETS: a form revived in the 17th century by Ben Jonson,
Epic, a long *NARRATIVE poem celebrating the great deeds of one or more
legendary heroes, in a grand ceremonious style. The hero, usually protected
by or even descended from gods, performs superhuman exploits in battle or
in marvellous voyages, often saving or founding a epic simile 82 nation—as in
Virgil's Aeneid (30-20 BCE)—or the human race itself, in Milton's Paradise
Lost (1667)
10. Genre [zhahn r], the French term for a type, species, or class of 105
ghazal composition. A literary genre is a recognizable and established
category of written work employing such common * CONVENTIONS as
will prevent readers or audiences from mistaking it for another kind.
Much of the confusion surrounding the term arises from the fact that it
is used simultaneously for the most basic modes of literary art (* LYRIC,
* NARRATIVE, dramatic); for the broadest categories of composition
(poetry, prose fiction), and for more specialized sub-categories, which
are defined according to several different criteria including formal
structure (*SONNET, *PICARESQUE NOVEL), length (*NOVELLA,
*EPIGRAM), intention (*SATIRE), effect (*COMEDY), origin (*FOLKTALE),
and subject-matter (*PASTORAL, *SCIENCE FICTION). While some
genres, such as the pastoral * ELEGY or the * MELODRAMA, have
numerous conventions governing subject, style, and form, others—like
the *NOVEL—have no agreed rules, although they may include several
more limited *SUBGENRES. Adjective: generic. See also decorum, form,
mode, type.
11. Hamartia, the Greek word for error or failure, used by Aristotle in his
Poetics (4th century BCE) to designate the false step that leads the *
PROTAGONIST in a *TRAGEDY to his or her downfall. The term has
often Harlem Renaissance 110 been translated as 'tragic flaw', but this
misleadingly confines the cause of the reversal of fortunes to some
personal defect of character, whereas Aristotle's emphasis was rather
upon the protagonist's action, which could be brought about by
misjudgement, ignorance, or some other cause. See also hubris,
peripeteia.
Iamb [I-am or I-amb] (also called iambus), a metrical unit (*FOOT) of
verse, having one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed
syllable, as in the word 'beyond' (or, in Greek and Latin *
QUANTITATIVE VERSE, one short syllable followed by one long
syllable). Lines of poetry made up predominantly of iambs are referred
to as iambics or as iambic verse, which is by far the most common
kind of metrical verse in English
12. Metaphysical poets, the name given to a diverse group of
17thcentury English poets whose work is notable for its ingenious
use of intellectual and theological concepts in surprising
*CONCEITS, strange *PARADOXES, and far-fetched *IMAGERY. The
leading metaphysical poet was John Donne, whose colloquial,
argumentative abruptness of rhythm and tone distinguishes his
style from the * CONVENTIONS of Elizabethan love-lyrics.
Monologue, an extended speech uttered by one speaker, either to
others or as if alone. Significant varieties include the *DRAMATIC
MONOLOGUE (a kind of poem in which the speaker is imagined to
be 161 mosaic rhyme addressing a silent audience), and the
*SOLILOQUY (in which the speaker is supposed to be 'overheard'
while alone). Some modern plays in which only one character
speaks, like Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape (1958), are known either as
*MONODRAMAS or as monologues
13. Narration, the process of relating a sequence of events; or another term
for a * NARRATIVE. In the first sense, narration is often distinguished from
other kinds of writing (* DIALOGUE, description, commentary) which may
be included in a narrative; it is also distinguished from the events
recounted, i.e. from the * STORY, and from the narrative itself. Verb:
narrate
Narrative [na-ra-tiv], a telling of some true or fictitious event or connected
sequence of events, recounted by a *NARRATOR to a * NARRATEE
(although there maybe more than one of each). Narratives are to be
distinguished from descriptions of qualities, states, or situations, and also
from dramatic enactments of events (although a dramatic work may also
include narrative speeches).
Paradox, a statement or expression so surprisingly self-contradictory as to
provoke us into seeking another sense or context in which it would be true
(although some paradoxes cannot be resolved into truths, remaining flatly
self-contradictory, e.g. Everything I say is a lie). Wordsworth's line The
Child is father of the Man' and Shakespeare's 'the truest poetry is the most
feigning' are notable literary examples.
14. Protagonist [proh-tag-on-ist], the chief character in a play or
story, who may also be opposed by an *ANTAGONIST. Originally,
in ancient Greek theatre, the protagonist was the principal actor
in a drama.
Realism, a mode of writing that gives the impression of
recording or 'reflecting' faithfully an actual way of life.
Rhyme, the identity of sound between syllables or paired groups
of syllables, usually at the ends of verse lines; also a poem
employing this device.
Sonnet, a *LYRIC poem comprising 14 rhyming lines of equal
length:
15. Utopia, an imagined form of ideal or
superior (thus usually communist) human
society; or a written work of *FICTION or
philosophical speculation describing such a
society.
