English III Literary Terms and Expectations for Formal Writing Assignments
| Poetry | Fiction | Expectations for Formal Writing |
The Basics: understand the literal level of the poem first. Read the poem carefully, sounding it out loud if you can. Taste the words. Then try to figure out the speaker, audience, occasion, situation and setting.
When writing about poetry, be sure to know the difference of the following terms:
paraphrase: restating the poem in a different language, so as to make the prose as plain as possible.
subject: what the poem is about; the topic or event the poet chooses to engage.
theme: what the poem has to say about its subject; central idea; the meaning of poem.
tone: the attitude the poet takes toward the subject and theme.
Word Choice:
denotation: the meaning of a word as defined in a dictionary.
connotation: the overtones or suggestions of additional meaning a word gains from context.
tone: gleaned from the poet's overall diction, tone becomes the attitude the poet takes toward the subject and theme.
Imagery: language of sense experience; must to be concrete, rather than abstract; the mental pictures experienced by the reader of the poem--not just visual; the sense details which are vital to evoking emotion in poems.
Allusion: a meaningful reference, either direct or indirect, to something outside the poem itself--usually something in history, myth, or previous literature; a means of reinforcing the emotion or ideas of one's own work with the emotion or ideas of another work.
Over/understatement and Paradox:
paradox: an apparent contradiction or absurdity that is somehow true. May be either situation or statement. See also oxymoron. Can indicate a contradictory emotional state: icy fire, jumbo shrimp.
Example:
" ...One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die."
John Donne
overstatement: exaggeration in the service of truth; sometimes called hyperbole.
Example:
"Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;
This bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere."
John Donne
understatement: saying less than the truth.
Examples:
After witnessing forty days and nights of rain, Noah said to his pet armadillo, 'bit of a shower we've had here these past few days, eh?'
"I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That's all that I remember."
Countee Cullen
Figurative Language:
simile: a figure of speech (trope) in which an explicit comparison is made between two things essentially unlike. The comparison is made explicit by the use of some such word or phrase--like, as, than, similar to, resembles, or seems.
metaphor: a figure of speech (trope) in which an implicit comparison is made between two things essentially unlike. Note also: implied metaphor; extended metaphor (conceit).
personification: a figure of speech (trope) in which human attributes are given to an animal, an object, or an abstraction.
symbol: a figure of speech (trope) in which something means more than itself. A symbol may be read both literally and metaphorically. The term symbol is derived from the Greek symballein which means "to throw together." This suggests the essential quality of a symbol--that is, the drawing together of two worlds. A symbol defines an area, or a range of meaning.
allegory: a narrative or description having a second meaning beneath the surface, or literal, one. This ulterior meaning is the author's major interest. Note also fable, parable.
Sound:
euphony: When the sound of words pleases the mind and ear.
cacophony: Opposite of euphony; harsh discordant sounds.
alliteration: A succession of similar sounds, usually consonants:
Note well the difference between initial and internal alliteration.
assonance: Repetition of vowel sounds:
onomatopoeia: A word that captures or approximates the sound of what it describes, such as buzz.
rhyme: Occurs when two or more words or phrases contain an identical or similar vowel-sound, usually accented, and the consonant sounds (if any) that follow the vowel-sound are identical.
- internal within the line (one or more words);
- end at the end of the line; most frequently sought and used;
- slant rime the final consonant sounds are the same but the vowels are different.
Rhythm – the patterned flow of sound in poetry and prose. Sound devices create rhythm.
Repetition - the deliberate use of any element of language more than once; repeating words or phrases for effect.
irony: a discrepancy or incongruity in meaning.
Verbal Irony: Saying the opposite of what one means.
dramatic Irony: A discrepancy between what is said by the speaker and what the poem means.
situational Irony: We don't get what we expect; a discrepancy between the actual circumstances and what we would expect would come to pass.
elegy: a formal and sustained lament in verse for the death of a particular person, usually ending in some form of consolation. Can also extend to works that deal with general mortality of human beings and the passing of things they value.
hymn: a song that celebrates God or expresses religious feeling and is primarily intended to be sung as pat of a religious service. Can also be written to be primarily read, rather than sung.
occasional poem: a poem written to celebrate or memorialize a specific occasion, such as a birthday, a marriage, a death, or military victory.
Example: Whitman, "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd".
rhyme: Occurs when two or more words or phrases contain an identical or similar vowel-sound, usually accented, and the consonant sounds (if any) that follow the vowel-sound are identical.
- masculine involves one syllable.
- feminine involves two or more syllables, with stress on a syllable other than the last.
- internal within the line (one or more words).
- end at the end of the line; most frequently sought and used.
- slant rime the final consonant sounds are the same but the vowels are different.
- consonance a kind of slant rime; occurs when the rimed words or phrases have the same beginning and ending consonant sounds but a different vowel (as in chitter and chatter).
consonance: Repetition of final consonant sounds:
stanza: (Italian for "stopping-place" or "room"); a group of lines whose pattern is repeated throughout the poem.
refrain: words, phrases or lines repeated at intervals; note the difference between terminal, incremental, and internal refrain.
ballad: any narrative song; a poem which resembles one.
rhythm: the recurrence of stresses and pauses in language; the natural rise and fall of language in speech; the alternation between accented and unaccented syllables.
stress: (or accent); a greater amount of force given to one syllable in speaking than is given another.
syllable: the basic component of words: a vowel sound that may be preceded or followed by consonant sounds.
meter: metrical language, the accents are arranged at apparently equal intervals.
prose: non-metrical language.
verse: metrical language (not a synonym for poetry; not all poetry is metrical); note also free verse
Units of Meter: The way to describe the rhythm of verse
iambic a line made up primarily of iambs; unstressed/stressed syllables.
anapestic a line made up primarily of anapests; two unstressed/one stressed syllables.
trochaic a line made up of trochees; stressed/unstressed syllables.
dactylic a line made up of dactyls; one stressed/two unstressed syllables.
stanza a group of lines that exist as a single unit, usually set off from one another by space; in metrical poetry, a group of lines whose metrical pattern is repeated throughout the poem.
prosody: the study of metrical structures in poetry.
scansion: diagramming stressed/unstressed syllables in lines of verse; measuring the rhythm of metrical verse.
blank verse: ("blank" = bare of rime); unrhymed iambic pentameter (as in Shakespearean drama).
free verse: poetry with no apparent or consistent meter or formal rhythmical structure.
caesura: a pause in a line; usually (though not always) occurring at a mark of punctuation
end-stopped lines: where a line ends in a full pause, usually indicated by some mark of punctuation.
run-on lines: where the lines do not end in punctuation and are therefore read with only a slight pause; we must read on to the next line to complete the thought.
metonymy / synecdoche: a figure of speech (trope) in which some significant aspect or detail of experience is used to represent the whole experience.
synecdoche = part used for the whole.
Example:
" With what attentive courtesy he bent
Over his instrument;
Not as a lordly conquerer who could
Command both wire and wood,
But as a man with a loved woman might,
Inquiring with delight
What slight essential things she had to say
Before they started, he and she, to play. "
Frances Cornford
metonymy = the use of something closely related for the thing actually meant
Example: "The pen is mightier than the sword."
apostrophe: a figure of speech (trope) in which the poem's speaker addresses someone absent or dead or something non-human as if that person or thing were present.
Literary Terms for the Analysis of Fiction (Review from English I and II):
Protagonist
Antagonist
Setting
Atmosphere
Point of View
Third-person (Limited)
Third-person (Omniscient)
Conflict
Individual vs. Individual
Individual vs. Self
Individual vs. Institution
Individual vs. Nature
Individual vs. Fate
Characterization
Flat character
Round character
Plot
Structure
Chronological
In Medias Res
Flashback
Exposition
Rising Action
Foreshadowing
Climax
Denouement
Initial Incident
Theme
Tone
Symbol
Allegory