Literary+Concepts+and+Terms

WHAT IS STYLE?** Style is the combination of literary techniques a writer uses to communicate his or her substance. **

(shift): DIDLS
*Remember to look for the change in tone. Always mention the tone shift when discussing poetry or prose. Recognize irony! DIDLS ** Some Very Basic Options For Describing Tone ** :
 * Authoritative: bossy (but don't criticize the author)
 * Emotive: very emotional
 * Pathos: envokes sadness or pity
 * Didactic: instructive, preachy
 * Objective: impartial, unbias
 * Ornate: complicated, intricate, involved
 * Scholarly: complicated, sophisticated, academic
 * Plain: easy, ordinary, clean, simple
 * Scientific: factual, academic

**Diction**:

 * archaic language: old language
 * formal language: elaborate
 * colloquial language: informality, conversational, casual, common, slang
 * ambiguous language: broad, confusing, not clear, vague (make sure the author intended ambiguity and not that you just don't get it)
 * inflated language: apply to a character, not an author (inflicts judgment)
 * satirical language: ironic tone, sarcastic, poking fun with the hope that change follows
 * effusive language: excited, "clouds opening"

**Selection of Detail**

 * verisimilitude:

**Imagery**

 * (also called "selection of detail")**
 * auditory: scholary way to talk about what you hear
 * visual: what you see (but too broad)
 * gustatory: what you taste
 * tactile: what you touch or feel (physically - rough, smooth, etc.)
 * olfactory: what you smell
 * kinetic: imagery that lives in the verbs; imagery of action (striving for freedom, striving to escape, etc.)
 * organic: imagery of growth, outdoors, nature (natural behaviors, garden imagery as Eden [innocence and knowledge])
 * dark and light: good and evil, moral struggle, awareness or lackthereof
 * juxtaposed: 2 contrasting imageries


 * Figurative Language ** **:**
 * metaphor: comparing unlike objects to get a a similar understanding
 * simile: a metaphor with like or as
 * hyperbole: exaggeration
 * understatement: litotes
 * personification: giving an inanimate object human characteristics
 * synecdoche: "I will take her hand in marriage" a part for the whole
 * metonymy: use an associated object to represent the implied referent object "The White House spoke today"
 * paradox (oxymoron): bright smoke, serpent heart, conflicting terms that don't make logical sense but do make emotional or intuitive sense
 * apostrophe: speaking to a dead person or an object or something absent

**Point of View**:
=== **Organization** (including use of time): ===
 * First Person: I am cool.
 * Second Person (Beginning of ATKM): You are almost as cool as me.
 * Third Person: The people revolted against Spencer for being too cool.
 * Omniscient: No one was actually cool.
 * Stream of Consciousness: all sensual perceptions and all intellectual conceptions simultaneously
 * Alternating:
 * Narrator Reliability: the validity of a narrator
 * narrative structure: how the story is told
 * flashback: more like flashBLAST TO THE PAST
 * framed story: Titanic, Saving Private Ryan > extended flashback, Poisonwood Bible
 * formal: proper. believable. succinct
 * informal: freaking I don't even know what's goin on ova heya
 * sonnet form__s__: 14 line poem
 * villanelle: One Art, series of three line stanzas, last line of the stanza is repeating, last stanza has four lines to pull together

**Literary Terms Analyzing Contrast**

 * Verbal Irony: says the opposite of what they mean "Nice work!" when you drop something...deliberate from the person
 * Situational Irony: the opposite of what you expect to have happened happens (when the girl gets killed by an ambulance)
 * Dramatic Irony: we know that Juliet is not dead but Romeo thinks she's dead
 * Oxymoron: words that appear impossible
 * Paradox: describes a situation that seems impossible
 * Juxtaposition: contrasting two opposite things

**Sound** (or musicality descriptors):
(Try not say “flowing.”)
 * euphony: ssssss, shhhhh, pressing of lips or tongue on teeth
 * cacophony: same consonant sound (murder)
 * smooth diction: pacifying
 * harsh diction: recriminatory

**Sound Devices**:

 * alliteration: "From forth the fatal loins of these two foes"
 * consonance: consonant that is recurring that is not in the beginning of the word; bigger tint than alliteration
 * assonance: recurring vowel sound
 * onomatopoeia: zip

**Rhyme: correspondence of sound between words**
**Is it free verse? Lines that are un-rhymed and un-rhythmed**
 * formal: very structured
 * informal: some structure
 * traditional: formal
 * unconventional: informal
 * absence of: lack of rhyme

**Meter: basic rhythmic structure**
**Is it free verse?**
 * formal: repetitive structure; __predictable__
 * informal: no real structure
 * traditional: what is typical of a time period (iambic pentameter)
 * unconventional: something that strays from the traditional structure
 * absence of: no rhyme

**Allusion:**
** Also, within the Greek tragic tradition be aware of ideas such as: **
 * historical: like Hitler, Crusades, Renaissance, Civil War, anything significant
 * literary: like To Kill a Mockingbird, Hamlet, a ton of Shakespeare
 * Biblical: Eden, Cain and Abel, the flood, the redemption of Christ, Daniel in the lions den
 * mythological: Norse, Egyptian, Greek and Roman flow into these
 * Classical: Greek or Roman
 * ** dramatic unity: the Greek idea that all the action of a play should take place in one revolution of the sun **
 * ** hubris: Pride (Achilles) **
 * ** catharsis: the outpouring of emotions - art for emotional release **
 * Shakespearean: shakespeare stuff!
 * pop: I'm assuming "pop culture" - this obsession with trends, what is popular, no matter how artful it is

**Repetition - THIS COUNTS YALL**

 * words: stuff and letters
 * images - recurrent pictures
 * structural - if it is formed the same way again and again
 * grammatical - if you continue to make the same grammar mistakes again and again, Ms. Lakly will repeatedly beat you over the head with a bat (or really, Ms Carman will)
 * rhetorical (i.e. anaphora, etc.) - They can be used in essays. They can be used on Facebook posts. They will be used until the end of time, until the very pages they dance across crinkle like rice paper.

**Sentence Types**

 * loose: The main point comes early in the sentence
 * Richard the Rat ate, though the rate at which he ate was sluggish


 * periodic: main clause is withheld until the end
 * Though the rate at which he ate was sluggish, Richard the Rat did indeed consume my mother's personal belongings.


 * parallel: includes words or phrases that are similar
 * Spencer and his mother were well-matched in political opinions and well-versed in argumentative style.

=**WHAT IS SUBSTANCE?**=
 * Substance is the meaning or theme of a work. Substance is the "significance" that you are //"So Whatting."// Substance is made more powerful by connecting to the universal or archetypal. **

**Theme vs. Motif: Motif is the category name, the forest idea. Theme is the statement of the author's opinion (author's idea about a motif).**
===**Allegory/Parable: Allegory: Animal Farm; a story where every character, event, or story stands for another character, event, or story. Parable: story teaching (Jesus)**===

**Universal/Archetypal Characters:**

 * Epic Hero: really cool, succeeds and does stuff
 * Tragic Hero: like epic but tragic hero dies (brought down through tragic flaw - Achilles)
 * Byronic Hero: dark, mysterious, proud, Rochester
 * AntiHero: is not morally good, but author manipulates so that they seem good (Heisenburg [Walter White], Gru)
 * Outcast: person who doesn't fit it
 * Scapegoat: person who takes the blame but really doesn't deserve it
 * Stranger in the Village: outcast theme, person who doesn't fit it, coming in from outside

**Universal/Archetypal Women:**

 * earth mother: one with the earth, growing
 * temptress: the woman who wants you to sleep with her
 * soul-mate: female ride along
 * platonic ideal: idealized form of love that does not involve physicality; beyond physicality
 * maiden: virgin
 * mother: momma
 * crone: old lady, wise

**Universal/Archetypal Images:**

 * Colors: The Great Gatsby (wooh); white is innocence, red is passion or anger, green is envy or the natural, black is evil, etc.
 * Numbers: 3 (religious associations), 12 (unity, perfection, religious), 42, 40 days and nights
 * Water: purity, baptism
 * Yin and Yang (Juxtaposition): Light and Dark, Knowledge and Ignorance
 * Nature and Garden: biblical, Edenic, tree of knowledge
 * Tree: tree of knowledge

**Universal/Archetypal Plots:**

 * Coming-of-Age (//Bildungsroman//): coming to grips with mortality, God, sex
 * Mistaken Identity/Farce: classic comedic trick, dress up to be somebody else - dramatic irony
 * Renewal of Life: water symbolism, gain new perspective, move on from setback
 * Quest/Journey: archetypal journey, facing and overcoming obstacles, getting "boon (the thing you need [Star Wars Force])"
 * Spiritual epiphany: realization

**Novel types:**

 * Bildungsroman: coming of age novel
 * Dystopian: imperfect world
 * Utopian: not very common, perfect world, Brave New World Revisited
 * Epistolary: novel told in letters, Frankenstein
 * Gothic: moral and physical corruption
 * Historical: revisiting any era in the past
 * Novella: short novel
 * Novel of manners: Jane Austen, novels about society's rules
 * Social novel: same as Novel of Manners

**GENDER, RACE, AND CLASS AS CONTEMPORARY "OUTCAST" THEMES**

 * Issues of Gender: boy girl
 * Issues of Race: black white
 * Issues of Class: plebian patrician
 * Other Important Themes:**
 * ===Love:===
 * ===Religion:===
 * ===Mortality:===
 * ===Reality:===
 * ===Sanity:===
 * ===//Carpe Diem//: Seize the Day - Let's have sex===
 * ===Pastoral: sheep and fields, idealism of outdoor life===

**Exploring Literary "Substance" Through Philosophical Thought**

 * Romanticism (vs. Classicism vs. Realism): Classical - Roman or Greek derivation
 * Realism: class issues, lower class being marginalized
 * Modern Realism:
 * Magical Realism: Spanish speaking cultures in which events occur that are outside the laws of nature or science but accepted as reality (are they fantasy? are they science fiction?) - Gabriel Garcia Marquez: A Thousand Years of Solitude
 * Gothicism:
 * Modernism:
 * Postmodernism:
 * Existentialism:
 * Absurdism:
 * Feminism:

**Literary Theories Of Which College Board Readers Are Aware**

 * Feminist:
 * Psychoanalytic:
 * Marxist:
 * New Historicism:
 * Formalism:
 * Reader-Response: