Alexandrine

alexandrine, a verse line of twelve syllables adopted by poets since the 16th century as the standard verse-form of French poetry, especially dramatic and narrative. It was first used in 12th-century *CHANSONS DE GESTE, and probably takes its name from its use in Lambert le Tort's Roman d'Alexandre (c.1200). The division of the line into two groups of six syllables, divided by a * CAESURA, was established in the age of Racine, but later challenged by Victor Hugo and other 19th-century poets, who preferred three groups of four. The English alexandrine is an iambic * HEXAMETER (and thus has six stresses, whereas the French line usually has four), and is found rarely except as the final line in the * SPENSERIAN STANZA, as in Keats's The Eve of St Agnes':

She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint.

Academic Drama

academic drama (also called school drama), a dramatic tradition which arose from the *RENAISSANCE, in which the works of Plautus,

Terence, and other ancient dramatists were performed in schools and colleges, at first in Latin but later also in *VERNACULAR adaptations composed by schoolmasters under the influence of * HUMANISM. This tradition produced the earliest English comedies, notably Ralph Roister Doister (c.1552) by the schoolmaster Nicholas Udall.

Wit

Wit
Definition: Wit is the ability to make brilliant, imaginative or clever connections between ideas and deftness. The original meaning of wit is knowledge, and then intellect.

Understatement

Understatement

Definition: This literary device refers to the practice of drawing attention to a fact that is already obvious and noticeable. Understating a fact is usually done by way of sarcasm, irony, wryness or any other form of dry humor. Understating something is akin to exaggerating its obviousness as a means of humor.

Example: The phrase, “Oh! I wonder if he could get any later; I am free all day long”. Said in a sarcastic tone it indicates that the speaker obviously means the opposite of the literal meaning.

Tragicomedy

Tragicomedy

Definition: A type of Elizabethan and Jacobean drama which intermingled both the standard characters and subject matter and the standard plot- forms of tragedy and comedy. Thus, the important agents in tragicomedy included both people of high degree and people of low degree, even though, according to the reigning critical theory of that time, only upper-class characters were appropriate to tragedy, while members of the middle and lower classes were the proper subject solely of comedy. Also, tragicomedy represented a serious action which threatened a tragic disaster to the protagonist, yet, by an abrupt reversal of circumstance, turned out happily. As John Fletcher wrote in his preface to The Faithful Shepherdess (c. 1610), tragicomedy "wants deaths, which is enough to make it no tragedy, yet brings some near it, which is enough to make it no comedy, which must be a representation of familiar people. ... A god is as lawful in [tragicomedy] as in a tragedy, and mean people as in a comedy.

Example: “Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice” is by these criteria a tragicomedy, because it mingles people of the aristocracy with lower-class characters (such as the Jewish merchant Shylock and the clown Launcelot Gobbo), and also because the developing threat of death to Antonio is suddenly reversed at the end by Portia's ingenious casuistry in the trial scene. Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher in Philaster, and numerous other plays on which they collaborated from about 1606 to 1613, inaugurated a mode of tragicomedy that employs a romantic and fast-moving plot of love, jealousy, treachery, intrigue, and disguises, and ends in a melodramatic reversal of fortune for the protagonists, who had hitherto seemed headed for a tragic catastrophe. Shakespeare wrote his late plays Cymbeline and The Winter's Tale, between 1609 and 1611, in this very popular mode of the tragicomic romance. The name "tragicomedy" is sometimes applied also to plays with double plots, one serious and the other comic.

Three Unities

Three Unities

Definition: In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, critics of the drama in Italy and France added to Aristotle's unity of action, which he describes in his Poetics, two other unities, to constitute one of the rules of drama known as "the three unities." On the assumption that verisimilitude the achievement of an illusion of reality in the audience of a stage play requires that the action represented by a play approximate the actual conditions of the staging of the play, they imposed the requirement of the "unity of place" (that the action represented be limited to a single location) and the requirement of the "unity of time" (that the time represented be limited to the two or three hours it takes to act the play, or at most to a single day of either twelve or twenty-four hours). In large part because of the potent example of Shakespeare, many of whose plays represent frequent changes of place and the passage of many years, the unities of place and time never dominated English neoclassicism as they did criticism in Italy and France. A final blow was the famous attack against them, and against the principle of dramatic verisimilitude on which they were based, in Samuel Johnson's "Preface to Shakespeare" (1765). Since then in England, the unities of place and time (as distinguished from the unity of action) have been regarded as entirely optional devices, available to the playwright to achieve special effects of dramatic concentration.

Tragic hero

Tragic hero

Definition: Tragic hero is the main character of tragedy. According to Aristotle, a tragic hero must have two main qualities: First, he must be noble, human qualities, above the norm in intelligence, bravery, charisma, or success; secondly, however, he must also possess a tragic flaw (such as hubris) which causes his ultimate downfall.

Tragedy

Tragedy

Definition: In literature, the concept of tragedy refer to a series of unfortunate events by which one or more of the literary characters in the story undergo several misfortunes, which finally culminate into a disaster of ‘epic proportions’. Tragedy is generally built up in 5 stages:

a) happy times
b) the introduction of a problem
c) the problem worsens to a crisis/ dilemma
d) the characters are unable to prevent the problem from taking over
e) the problem results in some catastrophic, grave ending, which is the tragedy culminated.

Example: In the play Julius Caesar, the lead character is an ambitious, fearless and power hungry king who ignores all the signs and does not heed the advice of the well meaning: finally being stabbed to death by his own best friend and advisor Brutus. This moment has been immortalized by the phrase “Eu tu Brutus?”, wherein Caesar realizes that he has finally been defeated, and that too through betrayal.

Tone

Tone

Definition: The tone of a literary work is the perspective or attitude that the author adopts with regards to a specific character, place or development. Tone can portray a variety of emotions ranging from solemn, grave, and critical to witty, wry and humorous. Tone helps the reader ascertain the writer’s feelings towards a particular topic and this in turn influences the reader’s understanding of the story.

Example: In her Harry Potter series, author J.K. Rowling has taken an extremely positive, inspiring and uplifting tone towards the idea of love and devotion.

Theme

Theme

Definition: The theme of any literary work is the base topic or focus that acts as a foundation for the entire literary piece. The theme links all aspects of the literary work with one another and is basically the main subject. The theme can be an enduring pattern or motif throughout the literary work, occurring in a complex, long winding manner or it can be short and succinct and provide a certain insight into the story.

Example: The main theme in the play Romeo and Juliet was love with smaller themes of sacrifice, tragedy, struggle, hardship, devotion and so on.

Soliloquy

Soliloquy

Definition: A curious but charming dramatic convention in a play, alone on the stage speaks his or her thoughts aloud as if he is thinking about motives, feelings and decisions. In Othello, Iago has soliloquized his motives and so has Smirnov in the Bear.

Syntax

Syntax

Definition: Syntax in literature refers to the actual way in which words and sentences are placed together in the writing. Usually in the English language the syntax should follow a pattern of subject-verb-object agreement but sometimes authors play around with this to achieve a lyrical, rhythmic, rhetoric or questioning effect. It is not related to the act of choosing specific words or even the meaning of each word or the overall meanings conveyed by the sentences.

Example: The sentence "The man drives the car" would follow normal syntax in the English language. By changing the syntax to "The car drives the man", the sentence becomes awkward.

Synecdoche

Synecdoche

Definition: A synecdoche is a literary devices that uses a part of something to refer to the whole. It is somewhat rhetorical in nature, where the entire object is represented by way of a faction of it or a faction of the object is symbolized by the full.

Example: “Weary feet in the walk of life”, does not refer to the feet actually being tired or painful; it is symbolic of a long, hard struggle through the journey of life and feeling low, tired, unoptimistic and ‘the walk of life’ does not represent an actual path or distance covered, instead refers to the entire sequence of life events that has made the person tired.

Symbol

Symbol

Definition: A symbol is literary device that contains several layers of meaning, often concealed at first sight, and is representative of several other aspects/ concepts/ traits than those that are visible in the literal translation alone. Symbol is using an object or action that means something more than its literal meaning.

Example: The phrase “a new dawn” does not talk only about the actual beginning of a new day but also signifies a new start, a fresh chance to begin and the end of a previous tiring time.

Syllepsis

Syllepsis
Definition: The device syllepsis comes into play when a single word that influences or regulates two or more than two other words needs to be comprehended individually and in light of every particular ensuing word. Syllepsis is often used for a comical, wry and witty effect.

Example: a) Jack lost his car keys and his cool. b) Mary was unable to keep a check on her children or her temper.

Suspense

Suspense
Definition: Suspense is the intense feeling that an audience goes through while waiting for the outcome of certain events. It basically leaves the reader holding their breath and wanting more information. The amount of intensity in a suspenseful moment is why it is hard to put a book down. Without suspense, a reader would lose interest quickly in any story because there is nothing that is making the reader ask, “What’s going to happen next?” In writing, there has to be a series of events that leads to a climax that captivates the audience and makes them tense and anxious to know what is going to happen.

Example: A cliffhanger is a great way to create suspense. You remember when you were a kid and very excited to watch those Saturday morning shows. You can probably recall the feeling you had at the pit of your stomach when, after about 25 minutes and lots of commercials, you were hoping to find out what happened to your favorite character. However, you didn’t get to find out. Instead they would make the “Tune In Next Week” announcement and you already knew that you would be there. Same time, same place. Suspense is a powerful literary tool because, if done correctly, you know your audience will be back for more and more.

Stream of consciousness

Stream of consciousness

Definition: The phrase ‘stream of consciousness’ refers to an uninterrupted and unhindered collection and occurrence of thoughts and ideas in the conscious mind. In literature, the phrase refers to the flow of these thoughts, with reference to a particular character’s thinking process. This literary device is usually used in order to provide a narrative in the form of the character’s thoughts instead of using dialogue or description.

Example: All writings by Virginia Woolff are a good example of literary stream of consciousness. "Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; life is a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end." The Common Reader (1925)

Stanza

Stanza
Definition: The term stanza refers to a single, related chunk of lines in poetry. It basically refers to one unit or group of lines, which forms one particular faction in poetry. The most basic kind of stanza is usually 4 lines per group, with the simplest rhyme scheme “a-b-a-b” being followed.

Example: “The greedy paddy cat, Chased after the mice; She got so round and fat, But it tasted so nice”

Spoonerism

Spoonerism

Definition: Spoonerism refers to the practice of interchanging the first letters of some words in order to create new words or even to create nonsensical words in order to create a humorous setting. While they are often unintentional and known as a “slip of the tongue”, in literature they are welcomed as witty word-play.

Example: The phrase “flesh and blood” being spoken as a character as “blesh and flood” in urgency and heightened emotion.

Sonnet

Sonnet
Definition: A lyric poem consisting of a single stanza of fourteen iambic pentameter lines linked by an intricate rhyme scheme. There are two major patterns of rhyme in sonnets written in the English language:

(1) The Italian or Petrarchan sonnet (named after the fourteenth- century Italian poet Petrarch) falls into two main parts: an octave (eight lines) rhyming abbaabba followed by a sestet (six lines) rhyming cdecde or some variant, such as cdccdc. Petrarch's sonnets were first imitated in England, both in their stanza form and their subject—the hopes and pains of an adoring male lover—by Sir Thomas Wyatt in the early sixteenth century. The Petrarchan form was later used, and for a variety of subjects, by Milton, Wordsworth, Christina Rossetti, D. G. Rossetti, and other sonneteers, who sometimes made it technically easier in English (which does not have as many rhyming possibilities as Italian) by in troducing a new pair of rhymes in the second four lines of the octave.

(2) The Earl of Surrey and other English experimenters in the sixteenth century also developed a stanza form called the English sonnet, or else the Shakespearean sonnet, after its greatest practitioner. This sonnet falls into three quatrains and a concluding couplet: abab cdcd efef gg. There was one notable variant, the Spenserian sonnet, in which Spenser linked each quatrain to the next by a continuing rhyme: abab bebe cdcd ee. John Donne shifted from the hitherto standard subject, sexual love, to a variety of religious themes in his Holy Sonnets, written early in the seventeenth century; and Milton, in the latter part of that century, expanded the range of the sonnet to other matters of seri- ous concern. Except for a lapse in the English Neoclassic Period, the sonnet has remained a popular form to the present day and includes among its distinguished practitioners, in the nineteenth century, Wordsworth, Keats, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Christina Rossetti, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and more recently Edwin Arlington Robinson, Edna St. Vincent Millay, W. B. Yeats, Robert Frost, W. H. Auden, and Dylan Thomas. The stanza is just long enough to permit a fairly complex lyric development, yet so short and so exigent in its rhymes as to pose a standing challenge to the artistry of the poet. The rhyme pattern of the Petrarchan sonnet has on the whole fa- vored a statement of problem, situation, or incident in the octave, with a resolution in the sestet. The English form sometimes uses a similar division of material, but often presents a repetition-with- variation of a statement in each of the three quatrains; in either case, the final couplet in the English sonnet usually imposes an epigram- matic turn at the end. In Drayton's fine Elizabethan sonnet in the English form "Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part," the lover brusquely declares in the first quatrain, then reiterates in the second, that he is glad that the affair is cleanly ended, but in the concluding couplet suddenly drops his swagger to make one last plea. Here are the last quatrain and couplet: Now at the last gasp of love's latest breath, When, his pulse failing, passion speechless lies, When faith is kneeling by his bed of death, And innocence is closing up his eyes; Now if thou wouldst, when all have given him over. From death to life thou mights him yet recover.