Important terms in Literature

1.  Comedy:-is a play written to entertain its audience, ends happily.

2.  Classical:-means any writing that conforms to the rules and modes of old Greek and Latin writings.

3. Antithesis: -is contrast or polarity in meaning.

4. Allusion: -is a reference to an idea, place, person or text existing outside the literary work.

5. Allegory: - is a literary work that has an implied meaning.

6. Alliteration:-the repetition of a consonant in two or more words.

7. Ballad: -is a song which tells a story.

8. Biography: -is the history of a person’s life by one else.

9. Blank Verse: -Verses written in iambic pentameter without any rhyme pattern are called blank verse.

10.Auto-Biography: -is the history of one’s life written by one self.

11.Act: - is the major division of a drama.

12. Canto:-is a sub-division of an epic or a narrative poem comparable to a chapter in a novel.

13. Chorus:-is a group of singers who stand alongside the stage in a drama.

14. Catharsis:-is emotional release of pity and fear that the tragic incidences in a tragedy arouse to an audience.

15. Comic relief:-a humorous scene in a tragedy to eliminate the tragic effect from audience.

16. Couplet:-To lines of the same material length usually found in Shakespearean sonnets.

17. Catastrophe:-Catastrophe is the downfall of the protagonist in a tragedy.

18. Didactic:-is a literary work which aims at teaching and instructing its readers.

19. Dirge:-is a short functional term.

20. Diction:-is the selection of words in literary work.

21. Dialect:-is the language of particular district; class or a group of people.

22. Drammatical Monologue:-In a poem when a single person speaks along with or without an audience is called drammatical monologue. Example “My last Duchess”-----Br

owning.

23. Difference between drama and novel:-A drama is meant to be performed whereas a novel is meant to be read.

24. Difference between stanza and paragraph:-A stanza contains verses whereas a paragraph contains prosaic lines.

25. Epic:-is a long narrative poem composed on a grand scale and is exalted style. Example “Paradise Lost”-------Milton.

26. Epilogue:-is the concluding part of a longer poem or a novel or a drama.

27. Fable:-is a brief story illustrating a moral.

28. Farce:-A form of low comedy designed to provoke laughter.

29. Foot:-A basic unit of meter.

30. Fiction:-A fiction is an imaginative narrative in prose e.g. Lord of the fly—by Golding.

31. Elegy:- is a poem mourning to the death of an individual or a lament for a tragic event.

32. Genre:-means category or types of literature-epic, ode, ballad etc.

33. Hyperbole:-An overstatement or exaggeration.

34. Image:-is the mental picture connected with metaphor, smile and symbol.

35. Limerick:-is a short poem of a five-line stanza rhyming aaba.

36. Lyric:-A lyric is a short poem expressing a simple mood. It is usually personal and musical e.g. Keats’s odes.

37. Linguistic:-is the scientific and systematic study of language.

38. Melodrama:-A highly sensational drama with happy ending.

Example ‘The Spanish Tragedy’ –Kyd.

39. Metaphysical Poetry:-Meta means beyond and physical is related to body . . . . . .

40. Mock-epic:-It is a long satirical poem dealing with a trivial theme. Example: “The rape of the lock”-Alexander Pope.

41. Metaphor:-A metaphor is an implicit comparison between two different things.

42. Metre:-The recurrence of similar stress pattern in some lines of a poem.

43. Novel:-is a long prose narrative fiction with plot, characters, etc.

44. Novelette:-is longer than a short story and shorter than a novel.

45. Ode:-is a long narrative poem of varying, line length dealing with serious subject matter.

46. Objectivity:-We have objectivity in a literary piece when the author focuses on an object from broadened point of view.

47. Octave:-is the firs part of Italian sonnet.

48. Oxymoron:-is apparently a physical contrast which oddly makes sense on a deeper level.

49. Prologue:-is the beginning part of a novel or a play or a novel.

50. Prose:-Any material that is not written in a regular meter like a poetry.

51. Prosody:-Prosody is the mechanics or grammar of verse.

52. Protagonist:-Protagonist is the main character in a literary work

53. Plot:-The arrangement of incidents is called plot.

54. Pun:-A pun is playing with words.

55. Periods of English literature:-The Anglo-Saxon, Middle English Renaissance, Restoration, Neoclassical Romantic,

Victorian, Modern, Post-Modern.

56. Romanticism:-was a literary movement. It stands Opposite to reason and focuses on emotion.

57. Rhetoric:-Rhetoric is the art of persuasive argument through writing.

58. Symbol:-A symbol is anything that stands for something else.

59. Sonnet:-is a lyric poem consisting of fourteen rhymed lines dealing with a lofty theme.

60. Satire:-is ridiculing the vices and follies of an individual or a society with a corrective design. E.g. “The rape of the lock”---Pope.

Different Types of Poems

📌1. Sonnet

Sonnets are practically synonymous with Shakespeare, but there are actually two different kinds of this famous poetic form. Having originated in 13th century Italy, the sonnet usually deals with love and has two common forms: the Petrarchan (named for its famous practitioner, the poet Petrarch) and the Shakespearean (also known as the English sonnet). Each type contains 14 lines but comes with its own set of rules.

🍀Petrarchan Sonnet

Characteristics and Rules:

• 2 stanzas

• Presents an argument, observation, or question in the first 8 lines

• Turn (or “volta”) between 8th and 9thlines

• Second stanza answers the question or issue posed in the first

• Rhyme Scheme: ABBA, ABBA, CDECDE

🍀Shakespearean Sonnet

• 3 quatrains (4 lines each) and a couplet (2 lines)

• Couplet usually forms a conclusion

• Rhyme scheme: ABAB, CDCD, EFEF, GG

📌2. Villanelle

Villanelles have even more specific rules than sonnets. Luckily, many of the lines are repetitions, but this means you’ll have to take care to make those lines meaningful.

🍀Villanelle Characteristics and Rules

• 19 lines

• 5 stanzas of 3 lines each

• 1 closing stanza of 4 lines

• Rhyme scheme: ABA, ABA, ABA, ABA, ABA, ABAA

• Line 1 repeats in lines 6, 12, and 18

• Line 3 repeats in lines 9, 15, and 19

🍀Examples of Villanelles

“The Waking” by Theodore Roethke

“Do not go gentle into that good night” by Dylan Thomas

📌3. Haiku

The haiku originated in 17th century Japan. Although they usually refer to nature, the only real rule applies to the number of syllables in each line, so you can let your imagination run wild with this one.

🍀Haiku Characteristics and Rules

• 3 lines

• Line 1 contains 5 syllables

• Line 2 contains 7 syllables

• Line 3 contains 5 syllables

🍀Example of Haiku

Matsuo Bashō, “By the Old Temple”:

By the old temple,

peach blossoms;

a man treading rice.

📌4. Ekphrastic Poems

Ekphrastic poems don’t really have specific rules, but they do speak of another work of art.

Ekphrasis comes from the Greek word for “description,” and that’s exactly what this poem should do: vividly describe a painting, statue, photograph, or story. One famous example is found in the Iliad, where Homer refers to Achilles’ shield.

🍀Examples of Ekphrastic Poetry

Tyehimba Jess, “Hagar in the Wilderness”

Rebecca Wolff, “Ekphrastic”

📌5. Concrete Poems

Concrete poetry is designed to take a particular shape or form on the page. Poets can manipulate spacing or layout to emphasize a theme or important element in the text, or sometimes they can take the literal shape of their subjects.

🍀Example of Concrete Poetry

“The Altar” by George Herbert was intended to resemble a church altar.

📌6. Elegy

The elegy is another type of poem that lacks particular rules, but it usually is written in mourning following a death. They can be written for a particular person, or treat the subject of loss more generally.

🍀Example of an Elegy

Walt Whitman’s “O Captain, My Captain,” which Whitman wrote following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln

📌7. Epigram

Epigrams are short, witty, and often satirical poems that usually take the form of a couplet or quatrain (2-4 lines in length).

🍀Example of an Epigram

An example of this wit is provided by Samuel Taylor Coleridge:

Sir, I admit your general rule,

That every poet is a fool,

But you yourself may serve to show it,

That every fool is not a poet.

Epigrams are not exclusive to poetry. They are also commonly used as literary devices and in speeches. John F. Kennedy’s famous quote, “Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind” is one such example.

📌8. Limerick

Limericks are humorous poems that have a more distinct rhythm. Their subject matter is sometimes crude, but always designed to offer laughs.

🍀Limerick Characteristics and Rules

• 5 lines

• 2 longer lines (usually 7-10 syllables)

• 2 shorter lines (usually 5-7 syllables)

• 1 closing line to bring the joke home (7-10 syllables)

• Rhyme scheme: AABBA

🍀Example of Limerick

A wonderful bird is the pelican,

His bill can hold more than his beli-can.

He can take in his beak

Food enough for a week

But I’m damned if I see how the heli-can.

—Dixon Lanier Merritt

📌9. Ballad

Ballads usually take a narrative form to tell us stories. They are often arranged in quatrains, but the form is loose enough that writers can easily modify it.

🍀Ballad Characteristics and Rules

• Typically arranged in groups of 4 lines

• Rhyme scheme: ABAB or ABCB

🍀Example of Ballad

“Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allan Poe (first two stanzas)

📌10. Epitaph

An epitaph is much like an elegy, only shorter. Epitaphs commonly appear on gravestones, but they can also be humorous. There are no specific rules for epitaphs or their rhyme schemes.

🍀Examples of Epitaphs

From William Shakespeare’s gravestone:

Good friend for Jesus sake forbeare,

To dig the dust enclosed here.

Blessed be the man that spares these stones,

And cursed be he that moves by bones.

“Epitaph” by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Heap not on this mound

Roses that she loved so well:

Why bewilder her with roses,

That she cannot see or smell?

She is happy where she lies

With the dust upon her eyes.

📌11. Ode

Odes address a specific person, thing, or event. The ode is believed to have been invented by the ancient Greeks, who would sing their odes. Modern odes follow an irregular pattern and are not required to rhyme.

🍀Example of an Ode

“Ode to the West Wind” by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Scatter, as from an unextinguish’d hearth

Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!

Be through my lips to unawaken’d earth

The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

📌12. Free Verse

Free verse is exactly what its  name implies. There are no rules, and writers can do whatever they choose: to rhyme or not, to establish any rhythm. Free verse is often used in contemporary poetry.