Summary of Wuthering Heights and character list
Hundred Literary Definitions (below)
A Hundred Literary Definitions Extracted from
Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms
By Harry Shaw (New York: McGraw Hill, 1976, © 1972) OP
A Hundred Literary Definitions Extracted from
Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms
By Harry Shaw (New York: McGraw Hill, 1976, © 1972) OP
1. Age of Reason
Any period in history noted for its critical approach to social, religious, and philosophical concerns; an age which tends to deny beliefs or systems not based upon, or justified by, reason. It is especially a term applied to the seventeenth and eighteenth-century philosophical trend in Europe and Great Britain that emphasized the importance of scientific methods and discoveries and that tried to overthrow entrenched superstitions and tyrannies of all kinds, social, religious, and political. A French writer, Diderot, summed up the extreme aims of "enlightened" thought when he wrote, "Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest." Less radical advocates of the philosophy of the Enlightenment were Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.
2. Allegory
A method of representation in which a person, abstract idea, or event stands for itself and for something else. Allegory may be defined as extended metaphor: the term is often applied to a work of fiction in which the author intends characters and their actions to be understood in terms other than their surface appearances and meanings. These subsurface or extended meanings involve moral or spiritual concepts more significant than the actual narrative itself. The most famous and most obvious of such two-level narratives in English is Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress; in this religious allegory, Christian, Faithful, Mr. Worldly Wiseman, and Despair are real people who are also symbols of mankind, personifications of abstract ideas applicable to everyone. In Spencer’s Faerie Queene, figures are actual characters and also abstract qualities. Parts of Dante's Divine Comedy and Tennyson's Idylls of the King are allegorical in that action is revealed not so much for the story as for the purpose of presenting moral or spiritual truth.
Forms of allegory are the parable, in which a story is told primarily to express a religious truth, and the fable, in which animals by their speech and actions reveal supposed truths about mankind. Satire can be a form of allegory, as in Swift's Gulliver's Travels.
3. Alliteration
A device commonly used in poetry and occasionally in prose: the repetition of an initial sound in two or more words of a phrase, line of poetry, or sentence ("Cupid and my Campaspe played / At cards for kisses"). Alliteration is considered ornament or decoration to appeal to the ear, a device to create an effect such as onomatopoeia. Shakespeare clearly made fun of alliteration in A Midsummer Night's Dream: "Whereat, with blade, with bloody blameful blade, / He bravely broach'd his boiling bloody breast." An American poet, Vachel Lindsay, created a similar effect in "'Booth led boldly with his big bass drum," but his intent was not to mock the device. Coleridge's line "The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew" and Tennyson's "The moan of doves in immemorial elms / And murmuring of innumerable bees" illustrate the appealing effects of alliteration and closely related methods of ornamentation.
4. Anachronism
From a Greek word meaning "to be late," an anachronism is an error in chronology: placing an event, person, item, or language expression in the wrong period. For example, an absolute monarchy is an anachronism in the twentieth century. It is apparently difficult to avoid anachronisms when writing about an earlier time: Shakespeare referred to cannon in King John, a play set in time long before cannon were used in England; Shakespeare also placed a clock in Julius Caesar.
In a serious or realistic work of literature, an anachronism can destroy an effect and damage a reader's confidence in the author. Realizing this, motion picture and television producers maintain staffs to avoid such mistakes as having Cleopatra wear a wristwatch. In romantic writing, not always to be taken seriously, an anachronism may seem amusing to an alert and knowing reader. Mark Twain deliberately used a series of anachronisms to achieve his satirically humorous purposes in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
5. Angst
A feeling of anxiety, dread, or anguish. Angst is especially notable in the work of such writers as Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. See Existentialism,
6. Anthropomorphism
Ascribing human form or characteristics to animals or inanimate objects. The mythological concept that the gods have human form and attributes is a form of anthropomorphism. Most fables illustrate this belief.
7. Antagonist
One who contends with, or opposes, another in a fight, conflict, or battle of wills. In literature, such an adversary is the principal opponent, or foil, of the main character and is thus often called, sometimes loosely and incorrectly, the villain. If the dominant plot centers in the career or exploits of a hero who overcomes an opponent trying to thwart him, the latter is the antagonist, the hero a protagonist. If main interest centers upon the career of a villain whose plans are overcome by a hero, the latter is the antagonist, the former a protagonist.
In Hamlet, Laertes and the King (Claudius) are among the antagonists; Hamlet is himself the protagonist. In Melville's Billy Budd, the young British sailor is the protagonist opposed by the master-at-arms of the Indomitable, the antagonist Clagart.
8. Antihero
A character who lacks the qualities needed for heroism; an antihero does not possess nobility of life or mind and does not have an attitude marked by high purpose and lofty aim. King Claudius in Hamlet is an antihero.
9. Apollonian
An adjective referring to Apollo, the ancient Greek and Roman god of light, music, healing, prophecy, and poetry. Apollonian is used to describe writing and authors who are serene, calm, poised, disciplined, and well balanced. The cult of Apollo is often contrasted with that of Dionysus (which represented the, frenzied and undisciplined in life and literature).
10. Apostrophe
A figure of speech in which a person not present or a personified non-human object is addressed (spoken to). Characteristic instances of apostrophe in poetry are invocations to the Muses and in oratory to the shades of men such as Julius Caesar, Oliver Cromwell, and Thomas Jefferson. Wordsworth’s "London, 1802" begins "Milton Thou shouldst be living at this hour." (Milton died in 1674.) Writers of whimsy and humor occasionally employ the device: in 1942, E. B. White wrote an essay in letter form addressed to a man who had been dead for eighty years. The essay begins: "Miss Nims, take a letter to Henry David Thoreau. Dear Henry...... Inspired by Lord Byron's "Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll," W. S. Gilbert wrote To the Terrestrial Globe, beginning "Roll on, thou ball, roll on!"
11. Archetype
The primary meaning of archetype is "the original model, form, or pattern from which something is made or from which something develops." Thus, one may say that the punishment of Adam, as related in the first book of the Bible ("In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground..."), is an archetype of all mankind's struggle and sorrow. Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is based on the archetype of Adam's fall. Another example: Thomas Babington Macaulay referred to the British House of Commons as "the archetype of all the representative assemblies that now meet." A well-defined example of a particular type of person may be referred to as an archetype. In the psychology of Jung, the word is applied to inherited ideas or modes of thought derived from the experiences of a race and present in the subconscious of an individual the collective unconscious of mankind. Archetype is associated with imagery and myth and has indeed been defined as "a Symbol, usually an image, which recurs often enough in literature to be recognizable as an element of one's literary experience as a whole." Sophocles used the deep-seated concerns of blindness, patricide, incest, and fratricide as a grouping of archetypes in several of his plays; Milton and Dante have treated Man, an archetypal human being, in their greatest works; much of Hawthorne's and Melville's fiction derives from archetypes which represent primordial images of sin, retribution, and death.
12. Argument
In a specialized sense, the argument of a poem, play, or portion of a literary work is an abstract or summary of its content. The subject matter, central idea, or even plot of a novel or narrative poem may also be called its argument. Milton prepared an argument for each book of Paradise Lost, and Coleridge used one at the beginning of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Some critics call the argument of a poem that part of its idea or thesis that can be paraphrased.
13. Aristotelian
Based on, pertaining to, or derived from Aristotle, a Greek philosopher, pupil of Plato, and tutor of Alexander the Great. This fourth-century BCE. writer has had a profound effect upon all subsequent logic, literary theories, criticism, and poetry. Aristotelianism, placing emphasis upon deduction and upon the investigation of concrete situations and objects, has obviously influenced all contemporary science. Aristotelian criticism (as contrasted with Platonic criticism) implies a logical and objective approach that centers upon the work under consideration rather than upon its moral or social contexts. See New Criticism.
14. Arthurian
Connected with, or related to, a legendary king in ancient Britain, the reputed leader of the Knights of the Round Table. King Arthur and his knights provided subject matter for a large part of medieval romance. Scholars now believe that the legend of Arthur grew from the deeds of an actual person Arthur was probably not a king and may not have been named Arthur. The prevailing theory is that this figure was a Welsh (or possibly Roman) leader of the Celts in Wales who led his warriors against Germanic invaders in the fifth century. The popularity of Arthurian legend and tradition reached its height in Malory's Morte d'Arthur (1485). Later treatment of Arthur and his followers appears in such works as Tennyson's Idylls of the King, Edwin Arlington Robinson's Tristram, and T. H. White's trilogy The Once and Future King. Mark Twain wrote a burlesque treatment of Arthurian chivalry in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889).
15. Atmosphere
This term, borrowed from meteorology, is used to describe the overall effect of a creative work of literature or other example of art. It involves the dominant mood of a selection as created by setting, description, and dialogue. Thus, the setting of Thomas Hardy's novels (a mythical part of England—Wessex), the description in the first paragraph of Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher and in the first chapter of Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, and the dialogue at the opening of Shakespeare's Hamlet
16. Augustan
An adjective originally applying to the age of Augustus Caesar, emperor of Rome just before and after the beginning of the Christian era. His reign marked "the golden age of Latin literature." Augustan is now applied to any epoch in world history during which literary culture has been great. The Augustan age of English literary history refers to the period during which Addison, Steele, and Swift flourished—largely because those writers were fully conscious of the parallels in their work to Latin literature.
17. Baroque
From a Portuguese word meaning "rough pearl," baroque is an adjective and noun referring or applying to literature that is extravagantly ornamented, elaborately ornate, exaggerated, and high-flown. Much metaphysical poetry is baroque, as all conceits are. The early American poet Edward Taylor wrote in a baroque style, illustrated by a poem called Huswifery, in which he used the metaphor of spiritual life as a spinning wheel, God's word as man's distaff, etc.
18. Bathos
Applied to literature, bathos has two meanings: (1) sentimentalism, mawkishness, insincere pathos, and (2) anti-climax, a descent from the lofty and exalted to the commonplace. The first meaning is illustrated in attempts by insipid writers to make readers sorry for public figures who have thrown away their opportunities for continuing popularity and esteem. The second meaning, "descent from the sublime to the ridiculous," a kind of anticlimax, is illustrated in Pope's witty lines from The Rape of the Lock.--
Not louder shrieks to pitying heaven are cast,
When husbands, or when lapdogs, breathe their last.
19. Bildungsroman
A novel concerning the youthful life and development of a major character. Bildungsroman is a combination of German Bildung ("formation," "development") and French roman ("novel"). Examples of Bildungsroman are Samuel Butler's The Way of All Flesh, Dickens's David Copperfield, and Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage.
20. Catastrophe
From a Greek word meaning, "overturning," catastrophe means (1) a final event or conclusion, usually an unfortunate one; (2) a sudden and widespread calamity and disaster; (3) any misfortune, failure, or mishap. In literature, especially in drama, catastrophe refers to the point at which circumstances overcome central motives and introduce a conclusion. The resolution of a plot in which various complications are unraveled is a denouement, a term now used more often than catastrophe in dramatic and narrative works.
21. Catharsis
This term is from a Greek word, kathairein, meaning "to clean, "to purify," and was used by Aristotle (384-322 BCE) in his description of the effect of tragedy—the purgation or purification of emotions. Catharsis refers to any emotional discharge which brings about a moral or spiritual renewal or welcome relief from tension and anxiety. The primary idea is that an audience--any audience--filled with confusions and unhealthy emotions, such as pity and fear, comes to see a play developing make-believe actions that would be harmful if occurring in real life. The audience participates emotionally in the dramatic action and goes away psychologically cleansed, purged of injurious feelings and sensations. Literary critics have never agreed whether catharsis means that members of an audience thus learn to avoid the evil and destructive emotions of a tragic hero or that their inner conflicts are quieted by an opportunity to expend pity and fear upon such a protagonist.
22. Character
This term has several meanings, the most common of which is "the aggregate of traits and features that form the nature of some person or animal." Character also refers to moral qualities and ethical standards and principles. In literature, character has several other specific meanings, notably that of a person represented in a story, novel, play, etc. In seventeenth and eighteenth-century England, a character was a formal sketch or descriptive analysis of a particular virtue or vice as represented in a person, what is now more often called a character sketch.
23. Classicism
This term refers to a body of doctrine apparently derived from the qualities of early Greek and Roman cultures as reflected in art and especially in literature. Classicism stands for certain ideas and attitudes such as formal elegance, correctness, simplicity, restraint, order, dignity, and proportion. Often contrasted with realism and romanticism, classicism places emphasis upon qualities for which the early Greeks were notable: clear, direct, simple expression of ideas in balanced and well-proportioned form; restraint of emotion and passion; an ability to think and to communicate objectively rather than subjectively. No writer can be classified as a perfect example of classicism because no writer can be so dispassionate, so calm, so objective as to forsake all of his strictly human qualities and attitudes. However, certain qualities apparent in the classical works of Homer and Virgil are traceable in much of the writing of Ben Jonson, John Milton, Alexander Pope, Matthew Arnold, and T. S. Eliot.
24. Cliff-hanger
A melodramatic adventure serial (in films or magazines) in which each installment ends in suspense. That is, the viewer or reader is left hanging in suspense. (Just as portrayed characters are sometimes left on the brink of a precipice) so that interest in the eventual outcome will be sustained. The term cliffhanger is applied to any event, situation, or contest in which the outcome is uncertain up to the last moment.
25. Climax
The moment in a play, novel, short story, or narrative poem at which a crisis comes to its point of greatest intensity and is in some manner resolved is called a climax. The term is an index of emotional response from reader or spectator and is also a designation of the turning point in action.
26. Cloak-and-dagger
This phrase applies to a play or novel that deals with espionage or intrigue and is highly dramatic and romantic. An allied form of drama and fiction is called cloak-and-sword, a type of writing in which characters actually wear cloaks and swords, exhibit courtly manners, and engage in duels. Dumas's The Three Musketeers is an example of cloak-and-sword (or cloak-and-dagger) romance.
27. Collective unconscious
This is a term from psychology, largely Jungian psychology, that applies to racially inherited ideas and concepts that allegedly persist in one's individual unconscious mind. Jung and his followers have held that typical characteristics of man’s mind and spirit are conditioned by race, nation, family, and the spirit of the age in which he lives. These are combined with unique personal qualities. This psychological theory contends that the personal and the collective elements of man's psyche are closely interrelated and that man is moved on the unconscious level to many attitudes and reactions over which he has no direct control.
28. Comedy
A ludicrous farcical or amusing event or series of events designed to provide enjoyment and produce smiles or laughter. More specifically, comedy (from Greek words meaning "merrymaking" and "singing") refers to any literary selection written in a light, familiar, bantering, or satirical style. Even more specifically, the term applies to a play of light and amusing character that has a happy ending.
The pattern of dramatic comedy is the reverse of tragedy. Comedy begins in difficulty (or rapidly involves its characters in amusingly difficult situations) and invariably ends happily; tragedy may, and often does, begin in happy circumstances and always ends in disaster. Not all comedies are humorous and lighthearted, although the great majority is. Occasionally, a comedy can be serious in tone and intent as, for example, Dante's Divine Comedy, but even this is a comedy of a special sort because its action begins in Hell and ends in Heaven. Comedy differs from burlesque and farce in that it has a more closely knit plot, more sensible and intelligent dialogue, and more plausible characterization. In general, a comedy secures its effects by stressing some oddity or incongruity of character, speech, or action. When these effects are crude, the comedy is termed "low "; when they are subtle and thoughtful, the comedy is called "high." Other types of comedy are numerous; three may be mentioned: (1) humors (2) manners (3) intrigue (or situation).
29. Complication
A difficult issue or situation, appearing sometimes suddenly, which changes existing plans, methods, or attitudes. In literature, a complication consists of a detail of character or situation entering into and twisting or changing the main thread of a plot. Specifically, in plays and stories it is that part of the narrative in which entanglement of affairs caused by the conflict of opposing forces is developed and explained. Complication, usually the middle part of a story or play, develops the conflict already set forth: it "ties the knot tighter" by placing further obstacles in the path of the protagonist, by mentioning further misunderstandings, by raising additional problems. The second act of a five-act tragedy is often called "the act of complication."
30. Conflict
The opposition of persons or forces upon which the action depends in drama and fiction is called conflict. Dramatic conflict is the struggle which grows out of the interplay of opposing forces (ideas, interests, wills) in a plot; conflict may be termed the material from which a plot is constructed.
One type of conflict is elemental, or physical—a struggle between man and the physical world. It represents man versus forces of nature: the difficulties and dangers, for example, faced by explorers, navigators, and astronauts. Rain, cold, heat, wild beasts in the jungle, treacherous tides—these are constant obstacles to mankind. Such elemental conflicts are frequently found in films, in melodramatic television-plays, and in pulp magazines.
Another type of conflict is social—a struggle between man and man. Much popular fiction is based on social conflict: two men trying to win the love of a girl; the competition of businessmen; a girl having difficulties with her parents over her conduct; racial and religious prejudices, etc.
A third kind of conflict is internal, or psychological, a struggle between desires within a person. External forces may be important and other characters may appear in the narrative, but the focus is upon the protagonist’s inner turmoil.
A variant form of social conflict is a protagonist's struggle against society, as in some of the novels of Dickens, George Eliot, and Theodore Dreiser. A fifth kind of conflict is man's struggle against fate and destiny as, for example, in a play by Sophocles or a novel by Thomas Hardy. But most conflicts are basically physical, social, or internal or combinations of these three. Conrad's Youth contains elements of all three kinds of conflict, but the primary one is physical; so, too, Stevenson's Treasure Island is primarily, although not wholly, a plotted narrative based on physical conflict. All of Hardy's novels contain elements of each kind of conflict, but the dominant struggle is usually social (between man and man or between man and society). The great tragedies of Macbeth and Hamlet contain elements of each kind of conflict, but the basic one in each instance is internal.
31. Convention
A literary practice which has become an established means of expression, an accepted technique. Literature makes use of scores of conventions, such as the fainting heroine of sentimental fiction, the despair of a rejected lover, a bragging coward as a stock character, the set pattern of rhyme in much poetry, love at first sight, the fading of an image on a motion-picture screen to indicate a lapse of time, etc. When a set of conventions is characteristic of a group of writers, the word tradition is used: the classical tradition, the pastoral tradition, the Puritan tradition, etc.
32. Deism
The religion of those who believe in the existence of God on the evidence of nature and reason only. Followers of deism reject the divinity of Jesus Christ, supernatural revelations, and the inspiration of the Bible. Deists believe that God created the world but has since remained indifferent to creation. Deism arose from the scientific movement, which developed after the discoveries and theories of Copernicus, Columbus, Galileo, and others.
The effects of this "natural religion," or rationalistic point of view, on literature have been great. Strong evidences of deism are apparent in Pope's An Essay on Man, in much of the poetry of Wordsworth and Shelley, in Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and in Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason. Much of the literature of the Revolutionary period in America is deistic, notably some of the writings of Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.
33. Denouement
This term, derived from a French word meaning "to untie," refers to the outcome or result of any complex situation or sequence of events. More specifically, it is applied to the final outcome or unraveling of the main dramatic complications in a play, novel, or other work of literature. Denouement is an ingenious untying of the knot of an intrigue that involves some explanation of the secrets and misunderstandings connected with the plot. In drama, denouement is the term most often applied to comedies, catastrophe to tragedies.
34. Determinism
The philosophical doctrine that all facts and events mined by outside causes, that results and effects are by natural laws. Determinists believe that human decisions are regulated by external sources and that man’s will is free and therefore able to function only in the sense that it is uncompelled.
Determinism is related to naturalism in that both theories embrace the idea that what a person thinks, does and says is directed by heredity and environment over which he has little or no control.
35. Deus ex machina
A Latin phrase meaning "god from a machine." The term is a name for the literary device of resolving the arrangements of a plot by the intervention of outside or supernatural forces or by an unexpected and unprepared—for trick or coincidence. Deus ex machina is often used to refer to any artificial, forced, or improbable method used to untangle the difficulties of a play or novel. An example occurs in The Threepenny Opera, a comic work in which Mac the Knife is saved from hanging by a proclamation from Queen Victoria.
36. Dialogue
This word means "a conversation... a speaking together." Dialogue involves an exchange of opinions or ideas and is used in narrative poetry, short stories, novels, and plays to reveal characters and to advance action. Some works of literature are composed wholly of conversation: a dialogue of Plato, for example.
37. Didacticism
From a Greek word meaning "to teach," didacticism means the practice, art, or science of providing instruction. In literature, didacticism refers to the use of writing for teaching, for offering guidance in moral, religious, and ethical matters. Since all literature exists in order to communicate, the didacticism of a given selection depends upon the purpose of the author. If a writer's primary intention is to provide instruction, his work is didactic; if he is concerned more with artistic qualities and techniques than with a message, his work, no matter how instructive, is considered non-didactic. For instance, Upton Sinclair's The Jungle is a novel of didacticism because the author was intent upon pointing out the social and economic injustices then prevailing in the meatpacking industry. Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter teaches much about the universal subject of sin, but it is primarily a psychological romance notable for its narrative appeal.
38. Divine afflatus
Poetic inspiration, an elevation of mind and spirit preceding creative composition during which the poet (or other writer) is felt to be receiving aid from a divine source. Divine afflatus is now largely used in a contemptuous sense to imply that the receiver of such an alleged gift overvalues the worth of his efforts.
39. Dominant impression
The most important and influential effect upon a reader of a literary selection. The dominant impression of one reader may differ from that of another, but many readers will agree that the dominant impression received from Othello is that of the power of jealousy to destroy one's character; from Macbeth, the ruinous effects of ambition and ruthlessness; from King Lear, the destructive force of fury and the redemptive qualities of unselfishness and forgiveness.
40. Enlightenment
Another term for the Age of Reason, a philosophical movement of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries which stressed the powers of human reason and was marked by political, religious, and educational unrest.
41. Epiphany
Spelled with a capital letter, Epiphany is the name of a Christian festival, observed on January 6, commemorating the revelation of Jesus Christ to gentiles through the Wise Men (Magi). In literature, epiphany means an intuitive and sudden insight into the reality and basic meaning of an event; the term also refers to a literary work, or part of a work that symbolically presents such a moment of perception and revelation. In this latter meaning, epiphany was used by James Joyce for "a sudden spiritual manifestation," first revealed in his Stephen Hero—expanded into Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
42. Episodic
An adjective, which refers to a literary work made up of a number of thematically related but loosely, connected scenes, incidents, or stories. Tennyson's Idylls of the King is episodic in structure, and so are many double-decker novels, especially those of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
43. Existentialism
The belief that man forms his essence, his essential being, in the course and pattern of the life he elects to lead. Existentialism is a loose term with several meanings, but it is normally applied to writing that emphasizes man's responsibility for forming his own nature and that stresses the prime importance of personal decisions, personal freedom, and personal goals. The doctrine of existentialism holds that man is completely responsible for himself because he has a free will to do exactly as he pleases. If man follows social, political, or moral conventions and refuses to make his own decisions and choices, existentialists claim that he is contemptible.
Existentialism had its beginnings in the work of a Danish theologian Søren Kierkegaard, in the nineteenth century, but it owes its greatest popularity and influence to the French novelist-philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, who declared that "man is alone in a godless universe." Sartre and his post-World War II followers insist that the universe is meaningless, a concept that produces anxiety, loneliness, acute discomfort, and despair.
Sartre's existentialism, like that of Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvoir, Samuel Beckett, and Franz Kafka, among others, is largely atheistic, but a form of Christian existentialism which holds that possibilities for altering human nature and society are great has been set forth by such writers as Jacques Maritain, Paul Tillich, and Gabriel Marcel. Both groups of existentialists are (1) concerned with man's essential being and nature, (2) convinced that thought and reason are insufficient to understand and cope with the mysteries of living, (3) conscious that anguish and despair are the common lot of everyone, and (4) fixed in the belief that a sense of morality depends upon positive and active participation in life.
44. Explication
Explanation, interpretation--the act of making meaning clear and plain. Explication appears in the phrase explication de texte ("explanation of text"), an approach to literary criticism involving close and detailed study, analysis, and exposition of the text of a selection. In such explication, a critic concentrates on language, style, and the interrelations of parts to the whole so as to make plain the meaning and symbolism of the text.
45. Exposition
In writing, exposition is that form of discourse that explains, defines, and interprets. It embraces all composition, both oral and written, that does not primarily describe an object (description), tell a story (narration), or maintain a position (argumentation). Exposition is also applied to the beginning portion of a plot in which background information is set forth. For example, Shakespeare provides details about characters and situation at the beginning of each of his plays, notably Henry V, Richard III, Romeo and Juliet, and Othello.
Magazine articles, editorials, and essays usually consist almost wholly of exposition; plays, novels, short stories, and a considerable quantity of poetry contain some exposition along with other more dominant elements of discourse.
46. Expressionism
A term with several meanings variously applied to different forms of artistic work, expressionism is impossible to define exactly and succinctly. In the so-called fine arts (painting, sculpture, etc.), it involves techniques in which forms derived from nature are exaggerated or distorted and in which colors are intensified to express emotion. In drama, expressionism applies to a style of playwriting and production emphasizing emotional content, the subjective reactions of characters, and symbolic or abstract representations of reality. In novels and short stories, expressionism involves the presentation of an objective outer world through the intensified impressions and moods of characters. In poetry, the movement is evidenced by distortions of objects and by dislocations of generally accepted ideas of time and space.
In brief (but not with total accuracy), expressionism in modern literature can be referred to as any deliberate distortion of reality. The following selections are notable for expressionistic tendencies and techniques: Strindberg's Dream Play; Eugene O'Neill's The Emperor Jones; Tennessee Williams's The Class Menagerie; James Joyce’s Ulysses and Finnegan’s Wake; T. S. Eliot's The Wasteland. See Angst, Realism.
47. Falling action
The part of a play that follows the climax (the moment of highest and most intense interest). Falling action is equivalent to the resolution or denouement of a drama, which leads to the catastrophe.
48. Fantasy
Extravagant and unrestrained imagination; the forming of weird or grotesque mental images. Fantasy is applied to a literary work the action of which occurs in a nonexistent and unreal world (such as fairyland) and to a selection that involves incredible characters (as Maeterlinck's The Blue Bird does). Science fiction and utopian stories are forms of fantasy.
49. Figures of speech
Expressive uses of language in which words are used in other than their literal senses so as to suggest and produce pictures or images in a reader's (hearer's) mind. Figures of speech may be divided into three classes: (1) imagined similarities, such as those in an allegory, allusion, conceit, simile; (2) suggestive associations in which one word is linked with another as, for example, golden with youth, happiness, and wealth: hypallage, hyperbole, metonymy, and synecdoche; (3) appeals to the ear and eye, as in alliteration, anacoluthon, and onomatopoeia.
Figures of speech may also be grouped into (1) "figures of thought" in which words retain their meanings but not their rhetorical patterns, as in an apostrophe, and (2) tropes, in which words undergo a definite change in meaning, as in a metaphor.
Another useful classification of figures of speech is (1) those that actually involve a comparison (analogy, personification, trope) and (2) those that do not normally compare anything (hyperbole, litotes, irony).
50. Fin de siècle
A French expression meaning "end of the century." The term is generally used to mean a period free from social and political conventions and traditions, a meaning derived from the transitional era of the 1890s, when writers were trying to escape the "bonds" of Victorianism. Because the artistic temper of this period was confused, fin de siècle now has such opposed meanings as "decadent" and "up-to-date."
51. Flat character
A term coined by E. M. Forster (in Aspects of the Novel, 1927) to designate a person who appears in a literary work as little more than a name or as someone who is presented with a single trait. A flat character is not fully developed, lacks complexity, never surprises the reader by what he does or says, and may be referred to as a type or caricature. Conversely, a round character has depth, complexity, full development, and is capable of convincingly surprising the reader time and again. All great works of literature that present characters at all contain both flared round characters, just as life itself does. Macbeth is a round character; King Duncan is a flat character. See Foil.
52. Foil
A person or thing that, by contrast, makes another seem better or more prominent. Using one character as a foil to another brings out the qualities of both. For example, the Fool is a foil in King Lear; Hotspur and even Falstaff are foils to Prince Hal in Henry IV. Several dozen princes, princesses, and counts are foils in Tolstoy's War and Peace. See Flat Character.
53. Foreshadowing
Showing, indicating, or suggesting beforehand. In a literary work, foreshadowing provides a hint of what is to occur later. For instance, the early appearance, conversation, and actions of the three witches in Macbeth foreshadow the atmosphere of danger and gloom running through the play.
54. Formula
In literature, formula means a fixed and conventional method of developing a plot. A stereotyped plot pattern appears in many motion pictures, television plays, Western stories and slick magazines. Well-known formulas include the redemption theme (a dissolute or wayward person recovers his manhood); the Cinderella story (a poor, virtuous girl wins her man from a rich, predatory rival); the "country bumpkin" plot (an unsophisticated person defeats a "city slicker" rival), etc. In a sense, all literary selections follow a formula of some sort, but genuine literature does not do so slavishly and always exhibits qualities and ingredients that transcend hackneyed situations and stereotyped action and characterization.
55. Frame story
A story within a narrative setting, or frame. The convention of using a framework for separate narratives has been employed for many centuries. Certain stories in The Thousand and One Nights interrupt other stories being related. Boccaccio's The Decameron is a collection of 100 tales developed on a central framework. The setting of Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales is a frame.
56. Freudianism
The doctrines and psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), an Austrian physician (neurologist), with regard to the diagnosis and treatment of neurotic and psychopathic states, the interpretation of dreams, etc. The influences upon literature of Freud's exploration of the subconscious and his emphasis on the sex drive of human beings have been profound and long lasting. A Freudian writer searches for symbols in his characters' dreams, speech, and actions. Such a follower of Freudianism is concerned with developing the libido, repressed anxieties, and inmost thoughts of characters. Strong elements of Freudianism appear in James Joyce's Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake, in several of the plays of Eugene O'Neill, Tennessee Williams, and Edward Albee, and in much of the work of William Faulkner.
57. Genre
A category or class of artistic endeavor having a particular form, technique, or content. Genre, a word from French, is a synonym for type and kind. Among genres in literature are included the novel, the short story, the essay, the epic, etc. The term genre is somewhat loose and general; for instance, poetry suggests a genre, but so do lyric, pastoral, ode, elegy, and sonnet.
58. Hubris
Arrogance, excessive self-pride and self-confidence. Hubris, a Greek term for "insolence," referred to the emotions in Greek tragic heroes that led them to ignore warnings from the gods and thus invite catastrophe. Hubris is that form of hamartia or tragic flaw that stems from overbearing pride and self-assumed superiority. In Sophocles's Antigone, Creon rejects warnings from the blind prophet Tiresias, and consequently suffers the death of Antigone and the self-destruction of his wife and son. The play ends with these words about hubris from the leader of the chorus:
Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness; and reverence toward the gods must be inviolate. Great words of prideful men are ever punished with great blows and, in old age, teach the chastened to be wise.
59. Humors
In ancient and medieval physiology, four liquids of the body—blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile—were called humors. These liquids were allied with four elements: the blood, like air, was warm and moist; phlegm, like water, was cold and moist; yellow bile, like fire, was hot and dry; black bile, like earth, was cold and dry. In these ancient beliefs, one's emotional and physical condition was affected by the condition of one's humors. Good health and a perfect temperament resulted when no one humor was dominant. This conception of humors in Elizabethan times came to mean "mood," "disposition," or "peculiarity" and is helpful in understanding such characters as, for example, Hamlet, King Lear, Lady Macbeth, Jaques, and scores of other Shakespearean personages. In Every Man Out of his Humor, a satirical comedy (1599) by Ben Jonson, appear these lines:
The choler, melancholy, phlegm and blood...
Receive the name of humours.
60. Hyperbole
Obvious and deliberate exaggeration; an extravagant statement. Hyperbole is a figure of speech not intended to be taken literally. Exaggeration for the sake of emphasis is a common poetic and dramatic device: in Hamlet, Shakespeare wrote, If thou prate of mountains let them throw millions of acres on us... " and in Macbeth:
No; this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red.
61. In medias res
A Latin phrase meaning "in the middle of things." The term applies to the literary device of beginning a narrative well along in the sequence of events. The device, a convention in epic poetry and often used in novels, short stories, drama, and narrative poetry, is designed to attract immediate attention and secure prompt interest. For example, Homer's Iliad begins in the final year of the Trojan War, the beginning of which is recounted later in the epic. When a story is begun at some point other than its chronological opening, a flashback (or series of flashbacks) is also employed.
62. Irony
A figure of speech in which the literal (denotative) meaning of a word or statement is the opposite of that intended. In literature, irony is a technique of indicating an intention or attitude opposed to what is actually stated. Aristotle defined irony as "a dissembling toward the inner core of truth"; Cicero supplied a simpler and more helpful explanation: "Irony is the saying of one thing and meaning another." Sometimes called the most ironic writing in all literature is Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal, in which the author "recommends" that the Irish sell their babies to English landlords for food. Among devices by which irony is achieved are hyperbole, litotes, sarcasm, satire. Another form of irony with a special meaning is dramatic irony.
63. Jungian
A term referring to Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961), a Swiss psychiatrist. Though Jung supported many of the ideas, theories, and methods of Freud, he differed from his mentor in many important ways. Jungian psychology largely rejects the ideas of infantile sexuality and wish fulfillment that are a part of Freudianism and holds that Freud's psychoanalytic principles were overly concrete and one-sided. Jung introduced the concept of the collective unconscious and was largely responsible for a theory of human types divided into introverted and extroverted kinds of behavior. Jungian psychology has been influential in the lives and works of many twentieth-century authors because it tries to explain irrational forces of the present day and to throw light on the primeval and often impersonal terrors that confront mankind.
64. Künstlerroman
From German Kunstler ("artist") and French roman ("novel"), Kunstlerroman refers to a narrative, which traces the development of the author (or that of an imagined character like the author) from childhood to maturity. (See Bildungsroman, a synonym for this term.) Most such novels depict the struggles of a sensitive, artistic child to escape from the misunderstandings and bourgeois attitudes of his family and youthful acquaintances.
65. Malapropism
The act or habit of using words ridiculously. A malapropism results from ignorance or from confusion of words similar in sound. Mrs. Malaprop, a character in Richard B. Sheridan's play The Rivals, made such remarks as "I would have her instructed in geometry that she might know something of the contagious countries" and "If I reprehend anything in this world, it is the use of my oracular tongue."
66. Marginalia
Notes and comments written on the border (margin) of a page by the author or by an editor or reader.
67. Marxist
A follower of, and believer in, the theories of Karl Marx (1818-1883), a German philosopher, economist, and socialist. A Marxist subscribes to Marxism, a system of thought which expounds the doctrine that throughout history the state has exploited the masses, that class struggle has always been the principal means for effecting historical changes, that the capitalist system contains the seeds of its own decay, and that, after a period of dictatorship by the proletariat, a socialist order and classless society will emerge. Marxists and Marxism have played important roles in world literature since the Russian Revolution of 1917.
68. Melodrama
A form of play that intensifies sentiment, exaggerates emotion, and relates sensational and thrilling action. Melodramas, from Greek words for song and drama, were originally romantic plays with music, singing, and dancing, but they evolved in the eighteenth century into productions with elaborate but over-simplified and coincidental Plots, touches of bathos, and happy endings. Until recent years, touring companies of actors presented melodramas all over the United States--plays such as Ten Nights in a Barroom. The sensational elements of melodrama are present in Gothic novels and in current films, Western stories, and television crime plays.
69. Metaphor
A figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to a person, idea, or object to which it is not literally applicable. A metaphor is an implied analogy which imaginatively identifies one thing with another. A metaphor is one of the tropes, a device by which an author turns, or twists, the meaning of a word. For example, Martin Luther wrote "A mighty fortress is our God, / A bulwark never failing"; mighty fortress and bulwark are metaphors. Wordsworth wrote metaphorically when he said of England "she is a fen of stagnant waters." In Song of Myself, Walt Whitman wrote that grass seemed to be "the beautiful uncut hair of graves.
70. Mimesis
A Greek word for "imitation." In the Poetics, Aristotle first stated the principles of mimesis by commenting that tragedy is an imitation of action, not mere mimicry but the selection, arrangement, and presentation of actions that reveal the relation of art and life. Hamlet's speech to the players (Hamlet, act 3, scene 2) reveals the principles of mimesis... the purpose of playing, whose end, both of the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.
71. Mock-heroic
Mock heroic refers to the style of a kind of satire that treats "ordinary" characters and events in the ceremonious manner and lofty language usually reserved for major happenings and elevated personages. Mock heroic refers more to style than to form
. 72. Motivation
Reasons and explanations for action through the presentation of convincing and impelling causes for that action. Motivation consists of the psychological impulses and drives which impel a character in literature to act as he does. When suitable motivation of characters is supplied by the imaginative ability and understanding of an author, a reader knows and fully accepts the emotional and circumstantial forces that made their deeds inevitable. Readers can accept the fact that Othello smothers Desdemona when he thinks her unfaithful; motivation for this act has been supplied by revealing the intensity of his pride and jealousy.
73. Naturalism
In literature, an attempt to achieve fidelity to nature by rejecting idealized portrayals of life. Naturalism may be further defined as a technique or manner of presenting an objective view of man with complete accuracy and frankness. Naturalistic writers hold that man's existence is shaped by heredity and environment, over which he has no control and about which he can exercise little if any choice. Novels and plays in this movement, emphasizing the animal nature of man, portray characters engrossed in a brutal struggle for survival. Emile Zola, founder of the French school of naturalism, held that a novelist should dissect and analyze his subjects with dispassionate, scientific accuracy and minuteness.
Among adherents of naturalism in American literature, in at least some of their works, were Dreiser, Hemingway, O'Neill, and Faulkner.
74. New Criticism
A form of criticism (evaluation) that relies on close and detailed analysis of the language, imagery, and emotional or intellectual meanings of a literary work. New Criticism emphasizes concentrated study and subsequent interpretation of a selection as a selection rather than as a biographical or historical study or as a statement of philosophy, ethics, or sociology. In New Criticism, analysis of the text itself results in reputed discovery of layers of meaning. This approach, first developed at Vanderbilt University, has among its followers such American authors as Allen Tate, Robert Penn Warren, Yvor Winters, and Kenneth Burke.
75. Objective correlative
A chain of events, or a situation, which makes objective a particular (subjective) emotion. Objective correlative, a term first used by T. S. Eliot in a critical study of Hamlet, implies an impersonal means of communicating feeling. Eliot wrote, "When the external facts, which must terminate in sensory experience, are given, the emotion is immediately evoked." Eliot held that the emotions which dominated Hamlet are not justified by the facts in the play. The term objective correlative is widely and somewhat vaguely used by adherents of the New Criticism.
76. Pathetic fallacy
Crediting inanimate objects with the emotions and traits of human beings. The phrase was coined by John Ruskin (1819-1900), an English author, who quoted the following lines from a nineteenth-century English poem and then wrote: They rowed her in across the rolling foam—The cruel, crawling foam.
However, the foam is not cruel, neither does it crawl. The state of mind which attributes to it these characters of a living creature is one in which the reason is unhinged by grief. All violent feelings have the same effect. They produce in us falseness in all our impressions of external things, which I would generally characterize as the "Pathetic fallacy."
Poetry and prose are filled with examples of what may be called false emotionalism and impassioned metaphors: cruel sea, smiling skies, laughing waters, etc. Sense-making or not, the pathetic fallacy can produce beautiful effects.
77. Pathos
From a Greek word meaning "suffering," pathos refers to that ability or power in literature (and other arts) to call forth feelings of pity, compassion, and sadness. In King Lear, Cordelia's plight involves pathos, and she is therefore a pathetic figure, as Ophelia in Hamlet and Little Nell in Dickens's The Old Curiosity Shop are. See Pathetic Fallacy.
78. Peripety
A sudden turn of events. Peripety, also spelled peripeteia, as in the original Greek, is a reversal of fortune for the protagonist in drama or fiction. Aristotle gives as an example of peripety the scene in Sophocles's Oedipus Rex in which the First Messenger, believing he will free Oedipus from fear, does the exact opposite: the parents who have died, the messenger reports, were really Oedipus's foster parents.
79. Plot
A plan or scheme to accomplish a purpose. In literature, plot refers to the arrangement of events to achieve an intended effect. A plot is a series of carefully devised and interrelated actions that progresses through a struggle of opposing forces (conflict) to a climax and a denouement. A plot is different from a story or story line (the order of events as they occur). This distinction has been made clear by E. M. Forster, the English novelist: We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis failing on causality. "The king died and then the queen died" is a story. "The king died, and then the queen died of grief" is a plot.
80. Point of view
In personal point of view, several arrangements are possible. If a writer assumes the point of view of a character, he becomes an "author participant" and usually writes in the first person. This is the point of view of Defoe's Robinson Crusoe who, as author, relates what happened to him and reveals his own feelings in his own words. If the writer adopts the point of view of a minor character, he becomes an "author observant" who sits on the sidelines and reports the story. In several of Conrad's stories (for example, Heart of Darkness), the narrator observes more than he participates. When an author selects an impersonal point of view and detaches himself completely, he becomes Godlike, an "author omniscient." He sees all, hears all, and knows all: his all-seeing eye can focus wherever he pleases; he can see into the minds of characters, and even report everyone’s innermost thoughts. Thackeray's Vanity Fair is written from an omniscient point of view.
In lengthy works of fiction, writers sometimes employ combinations of points of view.
81. Pre-Raphaelites
Young English writers and artists who, about 1850, united to resist conventions in literature and art and revive the style and spirit of Italian artists before the time of Raphael (1483-1520). Pre-Raphaelite poetry, such as that of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Morris, exhibits sensuousness, archaic diction, symbolism, and elaborate attention to the physical details of nature.
82. Protagonist
The leading character of a drama, novel, or other literary work. Protagonist in Greek meant "first combatant"; such a person is not always the hero of a work, but he is always the principal and central character. The rival of a protagonist is an antagonist. In Maugham's Of Human Bondage, Philip Carey, the clubfooted orphan, is the protagonist; in Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, Santiago, an old Cuban fisherman, is the protagonist.
83. Psychological novel
A narrative that focuses on the emotional lives of its characters and explores their varied levels of mental activity. A psychological novel concentrates less on what happens than on the why and wherefore of action. Such a narrative emphasizes "interior" characterization and the motives that result in "external" action. In a sense, a psychological novel is an interpretation of "inner" or "invisible" lives. Thackeray, Henry James, Hardy, and Conrad wrote psychological novels as well, but the term is more often applied to twentieth-century works using interior monologue and stream of consciousness.
84. Rationalism
Acceptance of reason (intellect) as the supreme authority in matters of belief, conduct, and opinion. Rationalism is a doctrine in philosophy which holds that reason alone is a source of knowledge, entirely independent of experience. It is also a theological doctrine that the human mind, unaided by divine revelations, is an adequate or sole guide to religious truths. This concept of the supremacy of the intellect made rationalism an ally of neoclassicism.
85. Realism
(1) A theory of writing in which the familiar, ordinary aspects of life are depicted in a matter-of-fact, straightforward manner designed to reflect life as it actually is; (2) treatment of subject matter in a way that presents careful descriptions of everyday life, often the lives of so-called middle or lower classes.
Realism, which refers to both the content and technique of literary creation, has been evident in literature from its very beginnings. For example, the English novelist and essayist C. S. Lewis has referred to... the dragon "sniffing along the stone" in Beowulf;
Although realism has always suggested accuracy of speech and detail, thorough background information, and a concern for verisimilitude, the term took an added meaning during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries on the Continent and in England and the United States: emphasis on photographic details, probing analysis of "things as they really are," the frustrations of characters in atmospheres of depravity, decay, or sordidness. Realism has been, and remains, a somewhat elusive, vague term, but it is fair to say that varied aspects of "realistic" subject matter and treatment have appeared in numerous plays, poems, and short stories of modern times and in novels.
86. Reformation
The act of amending or improving what is unsatisfactory, wrong, or corrupt. Spelled with an uppercase letter, Reformation applies to the sixteenth-century religious movement that had for its object reform within the Roman Catholic Church and led to the establishment of Protestant churches. The Reformation was a dual movement: it was a Protestant revolution and also a reformation within the Catholic Church which led to the reduction of abuses, establishment of schools, and firmer discipline for the clergy. In The Magic Mountain Thomas Mann wrote, "The invention of printing and the Reformation are and remain the two outstanding services of central Europe to the cause of humanity." In his first inaugural address, Thomas Jefferson listed the principles that had guided the steps of the newly created United States "through an age of revolution and reformation."
87. Renaissance
The activity, spirit, and time of the revival of art, learning, and literature in Europe extending over a period of 300 years (about 1350 to 1650). Renaissance, also spelled Renascence, means "rebirth," but the Renaissance was less a rebirth than an epoch that marked a transition from the medieval to the modern world. In literature, the period was notable for a revival of interest in the humanities and a rediscovery of classic works of Greek and Roman origin. The Renaissance encouraged vigorous new trends in art, science, religion, and politics and ushered in the growth of cities and commerce and increased travel throughout Europe and resolute and determined colonization of the New World. Intellectually and socially, the period witnessed increased emphasis on the importance of human lives as contrasted with the subordination of individuals during feudal times.
88. Sentimentalism
Excessive indulgence in sentiment or emotionalism; predominance of feeling over reason and intellect. Sentimentalism in literature is "emotion run wild," with emphasis on feeling rather than on events and circumstances which produced the feeling. Sentimentalism produces a reaction of sentimentality: a quick, too-ready reaction to emotion. Dickens carefully aroused in readers sensations of pity in The Old Curiosity Shop, but as Little Nell uncomplainingly fades away into death, sentimentality takes over rather than a more sensible reaction toward the forces that have undermined the orphan's chances for happiness.
89. Setting
The environment or surroundings of anything. The term is usually applied in literature to the locale or period in which the action of a play, novel, motion picture, etc., takes place. In theatrical jargon, setting may also refer to scenery or properties. The setting of Macbeth is Scotland in the eleventh century; more specifically, the incidents in the play occur in seven different settings--Forres, Inverness, Dunsinane, the forests (witches' scenes), Duncan's camp, Fife, and England.
90. Static character
A figure (character) in a novel, play, or short story who changes little, or not at all, during the progress of action.
91. Stream of consciousness
A manner of writing in which a character's perceptions and thoughts are presented as occurring in random form. In this technique, ideas and sensations are revealed without regard for logical sequences, distinctions between various levels of reality (sleep, waking, etc.), or syntax. Stream of consciousness, a phrase coined by William James in his Principles of Psychology (1890), attempts to set forth the inner thoughts of a character in the seemingly haphazard fashion of everyday thinking. Many authors, among them James Joyce, Virginia Wolf, Dorothy Richardson, and William Faulkner have used this method of writing.
92. Subplot
A secondary, or minor, plot in a play or other literary work which may contrast with the principal plot, highlight it, or be unrelated.
93. Surrealism
A style in literature and painting that stresses the subconscious or the non-rational aspects of man's existence. Surrealism, which means "above, beneath, or beyond reality," was first applied to a movement which sprang up in France at the end of World War 1. Influenced by Freudianism and horrified by the brutality of war, some painters and writers presented imagery by stressing chance effects in disorderly array, much like the random sequence of events or recollections experienced in dreams. Surrealism, which has been largely confined to French writers and artists, was a development from Dadaism.
94. Suspension of disbelief
Denial of doubt; withholding questions about truth and actuality. Coleridge in Biographia Literaria first used the phrase: "that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith." Earlier, Ben Jonson had written, "To many things a man should owe but a temporary belief, and suspension of his own judgment." The willingness of readers to suspend doubt about the real truth or verisimilitude of a character or happening in literature makes possible the acceptance of imaginative creations in prose and verse.
95. Theme
(1) The central and dominating idea in a literary work; (2) a short essay, such as a school or college composition; (3) the message or moral implicit in any work of art. Thus, the theme (central idea) of Keats's Ode on a Grecian Urn is the permanence of art and the shortness of human life; the theme of Euripides's The Trojan Women is anguish over the seeming necessity for war.
96. Tone
(1) An author's attitude or point of view toward his subject; in this sense, the tone of Flaubert's Madame Bovary is realistic, somber, and depressing; the tone of The Swiss Family Robinson is romantic and adventurous. (2) The devices used to create the mood and atmosphere of a literary work; in this sense, the tone of a poem consists of its alliteration, assonance, consonance, diction, imagery, meter, rhyme, symbolism, etc. (3) The musical quality in language. The coordination of a series of sounds (rhyme to rhyme, vowel to vowel, etc.) he called tone color.
97. Tour de force
A French phrase meaning "feat of strength or skill." The phrase applies to an exceptional achievement by an author, a stroke of genius unlikely to be equaled. The phrase also refers to an adroit maneuver or skillful technique in handling a difficult situation. The technique by which the meter mirrors and echoes the pounding of hoofbeats in Browning's How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix is a tour de force.
98. Tragedy
A calamity, disaster, or fatal event. In literature, tragedy refers to any composition with a somber theme carried to a disastrous conclusion. From a Greek term meaning "goat song," tragedy involves death just as the sacrifice of goats, totems of primitive peoples, did in ancient rituals.
Specifically, tragedy, is applied to a dramatic work, in prose or verse, that traces the career of a noble person whose character is flawed by some defect Jealousy, excessive ambition, pride, etc.) and whose actions cause him to break some moral precept or divine law, with ensuing downfall and destruction.
In the eighteenth century, writers of tragedy began to consider men and women of the middle classes as protagonists. In today's theater, tragedy is often concerned with proletarian themes; in such plays, the cause of downfall is the evils of society rather than flaws in character or the intervention of fate. See Catharsis, Hamartia, and Hubris.
99. Universality
The comprehensiveness of the universe; existence everywhere. Universality is a quality in literature that gives it a significance and appeal not limited to place or time. When writing presents emotions and actions common to all people of all civilizations in ways that remain meaningful for ever, that writing possesses universality. Longinus, a Greek philosopher of the third century, wrote "We may regard those words as truly noble and sublime which please all and please always."
100. Zeitgeist
A phrase from German meaning "the spirit of the time." It refers to the general trend of thought or feeling characteristic of a particular period of time. For example, during the era immediately following World War I, many writers felt that, as a result of social upheaval, the world was in a Zeitgeist of cultural, political, and emotional instability.
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