Literature 1

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Genre
A type or category of works sharing particular formal or textual features and conventions; especially used to refer to the largest categories for classifying literature – fiction, poetry, drama and nonfiction.
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Subgenre
. A smaller division within a genre is usually known as a subgenre, such as gothic fiction or epic poetry.
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What's the difference between prose & poetry?
Prose is the regular form of spoken and written language, measured in sentences rather than lines, as in poetry.
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Poems
Is one of the three major genres of imaginative literature, and is characterized by controlled patterns of rhythm and syntax. Poetry generally has a patterned arrangement of language, generates rhythm, express and evokes specific emotions & feelings
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Plays
Drama is written primarily to be performed by actors, on a stage and for an audience. Although the script of a play may be the most essential piece in the puzzle that makes up the final work of art, the play text is not the final, complete work.
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Reading drama
drama rarely has a narrator to tell us what is happening or to shape our responses. Play texts instead rely on stage directions (the italicized descriptions of the set, characters and actions)
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Fictional stories
any narrative, especially in prose, about invented or imagined characters and action. Fiction is generally divided into three major subgenres based on length; short story, novella and novel. Detective and science fiction are sub genres in novels/llas
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Novel
a long work of fiction typically published as a stand-alone book. Most novels are written in prose but those written as poetry are called verse novels. A novel conventionally has a complex plot and often at least one subplot & many characters
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Short story
a relatively short work of prose fiction that can be read in a single sitting of two hours or less and works to create a single effect. Two types of short stories are the initiation story and the short short story/micro fiction.
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Plot & its five parts
The arrangement of the action. Exposition, rising action, climax/turning point, falling action, conclusion/resolution
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Exposition
sets the scene, introduces and identifies characters, and establishes the situation at the beginning of a story or a play. Additional exposition is usually scattered throughout the work
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Rising action
in this, events complicate the situation that existed at the beginning of a work, intensifying the initial conflict or introducing a new one
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climax/turning point
this is the point where the action stops rising and begins to fall or reverse
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falling action
this is the point where the conflict/-s move towards resolution
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conclusion/resolution
The point where the situation that was destabilized at the beginning becomes stable again and the conflict is resolved
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Narration
The act of telling a story or recounting a narrative. A narrator or narration is internal when the narrator is a character in the work & external when the narrator is not a character.
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Character
An imaginary personage who acts, appears or is referred to in a literary work
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Major/main characters vs. minor characters
. Major or main characters are those that receive most attention and minor characters least.
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Flat characters
are relatively simple, have a few dominant traits and tend to be predictable
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Round characters
Round characters are complex and multifaceted and act in a way that readers might not expect but accept as possible.
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Static characters vs. dynamic characters
Static characters do not change, but dynamic characters do.
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Stock characters
Stock characters represent familiar types that recur frequently in literary works, for example “mad scientists”.
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Setting
The time and place of the action in a work of fiction, poetry or drama.
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Spatial setting
The spatial setting is the place or places in which action unfolds,
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Temporal setting
the temporal setting is the time in which action unfolds,
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General setting
General setting is the general time and place in which all the action unfolds
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Particular setting
particular setting are the times and places in which individual episodes or scenes take place.
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Symbol
: A symbol is a person, place, thing or event that figuratively represents or stands for something else. Often the thing or idea represented is more abstract and general and the symbol is more concrete and particular.
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Traditional symbol
A traditional symbol is one that recurs frequently in (and beyond) literature and is thus immediately recognizable to those who belong to a given culture. A rose and a snake, for example, typically symbolize love and evil.
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Invented symbol
invented symbol is one which only occurs within a particular literary work.
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Figurative language
a language that uses figures of speech. This is any word or phrase that creates a “figure” in the mind of the reader by effecting an obvious change in the usual meaning or order of words, by comparing or identifying one thing with another.
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Theme
Broadly and commonly a topic explored in a literary work. More properly the insight about a topic communicated in a work . Most literary works have multiple themes. a theme is implicitly communicated by the work as a whole and not explicitly stated
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Subplot
A secondary plot in a work of fiction or drama. There are overplots, which resembles the main plot but stresses the political implications of the depicted action and situation. Underplots are subplots which are parodic or romantic versions of the plo
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Complication (plot)
In plot, an action or event that introduces new conflict or intensifies the existing one, especially during the rising action phase of the plot.
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Epiphany
A sudden revelation of truth, often inspired by a seemingly simple or commonplace event.
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Crisis
the moment when the conflict comes to a head, often requiring the character to make a decision; sometimes the crisis is equated with the climax or turning point and sometimes it is treated as a distinct moment that precedes and prepares for the clima
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Epilogue
Fiction: a short section/chapter that comes after the conclusion, tying up loose ends & often describing what happens to the characters after the resolution of the conflict. Drama: it’s a short speech often told directly to the audience, by a charact
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Third person narrators & central conciousness
use third-person pronouns & are almost always external narrators. They are omniscient (all-knowing) when they describe the inner thoughts and feelings of multiple characters & limited when they relate the thoughts, feelings and perceptions of only 1
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First person narrators
This is an internal narrator who consistently refers to him/herself using the first-person pronouns I or we.
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Second person narrators
This narrator consistently uses the second-person pronoun you. This is a very uncommon technique.
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Style
A distinctive manner of expression; each author’s style is expressed through his or her diction, rhythm, imagery and so on.
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Tone
The attitude a literary work takes toward its subject, especially the way this attitude is revealed through diction.
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Villain
A character who not only opposes to the hero/heroine (and thus is an antagonist) but also is characterized as an especially evil person or “bad guy”.
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Hero/heroine
A character in a literary work, especially the leading male/female character who is especially virtuous, usually larger than life, sometimes almost godlike.
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Protagonist
The most neutral and broadly applicable term for the main character in a work, whether male or female, heroic or not.
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Antagonist
A character or a nonhuman force that opposes or is in conflict with the protagonist.
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Archetype
A character, symbol, ritual or plot pattern that recurs in the myth and literature of many cultures; examples include the scapegoat or trickster (character), the rite of passage (ritual), and the quest or descent into the underworld (plot pattern).
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Characterization
The presentation of a fictional personage.
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Direct Characterization
occurs when a narrator explicitly tells us what a character is like.
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Indirect Characterization
occurs when a character’s traits are revealed implicitly, through his/her speech, behaviour, thoughts, appearance and so on.
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Dialogue
Usually words spoken by characters in a literary work, especially as opposed to words that come straight from the narrator in a work of fiction. More rarely, a literary work that consists mainly or entirely of the speech of two or more characters.
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Actions
Any event or series of events depicted in a literary work; an event may be verbal as well as physical, so that saying something or telling a story within the story may be an event.
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Expectations of time and place
Expectation is a set up for something believed to occur later on in a work of literature.
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Metaphor
A figure of speech that describes something in a way that is not literally true for symbolic effect. Two unlike things are compared implicitly – that is, without the use of a signal such as the word like or as – as in “Love is a battlefield"
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Extended metaphor
An extended metaphor is a detailed and complex metaphor that stretches across a long section of a work.
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Mixed metaphor
occurs when two or more usually incompatible metaphors are entangled together so as to become unclear and often unintentionally humorous, as in “Her blazing words dripped all over him.”.
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Personification
A figure of speech that involves treating something nonhuman, such as an abstraction, as if it were a person by endowing it with humanlike qualities, as in “Death entered the room.”.
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Simile
A figure of speech involving a direct, explicit comparison of one thing to another, usually using the words like or as to draw the connection, as in “My love is like a red, red rose.” Or “Life is like a box of chocolates.”
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Analogy
An analogy is an extended simile.
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Imagery
Broadly defined, any sensory detail or evocation in a work. More narrowly, the use of figurative language to evoke a feeling, to call to mind an idea, or to describe an object. Imagery can be auditory, tactile, visual or olfactory.
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Allegory
A literary work in which characters, actions and even settings have two connected levels of meaning. Elements of the literal level signify (or serve as symbols for) a figurative level that often imparts a lesson or moral to the reader.
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Allusion
A brief, often implicit and indirect reference within a literary text to something outside the text, whether another text (the Bible, a myth, another literary work, a painting or a piece of music) or any imaginary or historical person, place or thing
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Myth
a narrative explaining how the world and humanity developed into their present form and, unlike a folktale, generally considered to be true by the people who develop it. Many myths feature supernatural beings and have a religious significance
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Creation myth
explains how the world, human beings, gods or good and evil came to be (e.g. the myth of Adam and Eve)
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Explanatory myth
which explains features of the natural landscape or natural processes or events (e.g. how the leopard got his spots).
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Stage instructions
The words in the printed text of a play that inform the director, crew, actors and readers how to stage, perform or imagine the play. Stage directions are not spoken aloud & often written in italics.
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Scene
A section or subdivision of a play or narrative that presents continuous action in one specific setting. Often an act is broken up into scenes – like a chapter and sub-chapters.
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Soliloquy
An (inner) monologue in which the character in a play is alone on stage and thinking out loud, as in the famous Hamlet speech “To be or not to be”.
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Rhyme
Repetition or correspondence of the terminal sounds of words (How, now, cow). The most common type, end rhyme, occurs when the last words in two or more lines of a poem rhyme with each other.
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Rhythm
The modulation of weak and strong (or stressed and unstressed) elements in the flow of speech. in prose and in free verse, rhythm is present but in a much less predictable and regular manner.
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Meter
The more or less regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry. This is determined by the kind of foot and by the number of feet per line (e.g. five feet= pentameter, six feet=hexameter).
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Foot
The basic unit of poetic meter, consisting of any of various fixed patterns of one to three stressed and unstressed syllables. A foot may contain more than one word or just one syllable of a multisyllabic word.
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Stanza
A section of a poem, marked by extra line spacing before and after, that often has a single pattern of meter and/or rhyme. Conventional stanza forms include ballad stanza, Spenserian stanza, ottava rima and terza rima.
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Verse
Verse paragraph is sometimes used as a synonym for stanza, but it also technically designates passages of verse, often beginning with an intended line, that are unified by topic rather than by rhyme or meter.
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Enjambment
In poetry, the technique of running over from one line to the next without stop. (My heart leaps up when I behold / A rainbow in the sky.)
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End-stopped
A line of verse that contains or concludes a complete clause and usually ends with a punctuation mark.
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Other cards in this set

Card 2

Front

. A smaller division within a genre is usually known as a subgenre, such as gothic fiction or epic poetry.

Back

Subgenre

Card 3

Front

Prose is the regular form of spoken and written language, measured in sentences rather than lines, as in poetry.

Back

Preview of the back of card 3

Card 4

Front

Is one of the three major genres of imaginative literature, and is characterized by controlled patterns of rhythm and syntax. Poetry generally has a patterned arrangement of language, generates rhythm, express and evokes specific emotions & feelings

Back

Preview of the back of card 4

Card 5

Front

Drama is written primarily to be performed by actors, on a stage and for an audience. Although the script of a play may be the most essential piece in the puzzle that makes up the final work of art, the play text is not the final, complete work.

Back

Preview of the back of card 5
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