*Literary Terms*

[Asalbanoo]

Conflict/Plot is the struggle found in fiction. Conflict/Plot may be internal or external and is best seen in (1) Man in conflict with another Man: (2) Man in conflict in Nature; (3) Man in conflict with self.

Consonance is the repetition of consonant sounds, but not vowels, as in assonance.
Example:
lady lounges lazily , dark deep dread crept in

[Asalbanoo]

Connotation is an implied meaning of a word. Opposite of denotation.
Example:
Good noght, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest (burial)

Denotation is the literal meaning of a word, the dictionary meaning. Opposite or connotation

[Asalbanoo]

Poetry is a bringing together of many things: feelings, forms, phrases, figures of speech. It begins with -an emotion an emotion which, as Robert Frost said, develops into a thought, and the thought finds expression in words. "The poet's mind," wrote T. S. Eliot, is "a receptacle for seizing and storing up numberless feelings, phrases, images, which remain there until all the particles which can unite to form a new compound are present together." In the act of creation "In all the "articles " - emotion, memory associations, a sense of rhythm - are fused, and the result is a new thing, a blending of all the parts, a union of the conscious and the unconscions: a poem. Words are the material with which the poet must frame his thoughts, and the greater the poet the more striking is his power of choosing and shaping words. Poetry is essentially a combination of the familiar and the surprising, and the most successful surprises are achieved by the use of carefully descriptive words or epithets.
An epithet is a word which makes the reader see the object described in a clearer or sharper light. It is both exact and imaginative. Distinctive epithets are found in the ancient Greek classic, The Odyssey: wine-dark sea...... wave-girdled island," blindfolding night." Our national flag is a star- spangled banner." In "Thanatopsis" Bryant (more poems) speaks of the ocean's "gray and melancholy waste." In " Home Thoughts from Abroad" Browning describes the "gaudy" melon flower and the "wise" thrush. Michael Lewis tells of an oncoming storm with its "frantic" wind, "whipped" clouds, and "panicky" trees. In A. E. Housman's poem, "Bredon Hill", there is a much-quoted verse which runs:
Here of a Sunday morning
My love and I would lie,
And see the colored counties,
And hear the larks so high
About us in the sky.
A. E. Housman's brother, Laurence, has revealed how his famous brother found the exact and suggestive epithet "colored" to describe the scene. When he wrote the poem, A. E. Housman put down an ordinary adjective which did not satisfy him. Then, with the poem in his head, he went to bed and dreamed; in his dream he bit on the word "painted." This was better. But when lie awoke he was still not satisfied. He thought of using "sunny," "pleasant," "checkered," "crowded," and "patterned." Finally, he came back to "painted" which suddenly prompted "colored." This was not only exact and imaginative, but the consonant "c" in "colored" gave a musically repeated sound (alliteration) when joined to "counties," and thus made the line more memorable.
Turn now to a much-discussed modern poem, Amy Lowell's " Meeting-House Hill." You will notice several things about it that make it different from many other poems you know. For one thing, it is in "free verse" that is, it has a free, or irregular, rhythm. For another thing, it has no rhymes. But its outstanding feature is its daring use of words. Observe the way sight and sound are combined, so that "the curve of a blue bay" is "shrill and sweet" - and, to accentuate the shrill sweetness, it is like "the sudden springing of a tune." Everything is intensified. An ordinary white church in a city square seems as beautiful as the Parthenon, loveliest of Greek temples. The poet is so thrilled by the scene that the unmoving structure is given motion. The spire "sweeps" the sky - and the movement is intensified by the comparison of the spire with a mast in motion, a mast of a ship in full sail straining before a stiff wind. The comparison carries the poem abroad. The bay beyond the railroad track turns into a harbor with an old-fashioned clipper-ship returning from China - and the past is united with the present. All of this is accomplished by the skillful selection and unusual arrangement of words.
Rupert Brooke is another modern poet who used words with charm yet with great precision. His "The Great Lover" is an excellent example of the definition of poetry as "the best words in the best order"; it is full of epithets which are surprising but logical, exact and yet imaginative. Rupert Brooke delights the reader with such phrases as "unthinking silence," "drowsy Death," "we have beaconed the world's night," "crying flames," "feathery dust," "friendly bread," "the blue bitter smoke of wood," "many-tasting food," "the cool kindliness of sheets," "the keen unpassioned beauty of a great machine," "the benison [blessing] of hot water," "sweet water's dinzpling laugh," "the deep-panting train," "the cold graveness of iron," "turn with traitor breath."
Robert Frost admits that poetry is impossible to define, but he adds: " If I were forced to attempt to define it, I would say that poetry is words which have become deeds." This active power of words was emphasized by Emily Dickinson in one of the briefest of her poems:
A word is dead when said,
Some say.
I say it just begins to live
That day.
Poetry is a bringing together of many things: feelings, forms, phrases, figures of speech. It begins with -an emotion an emotion which, as Robert Frost said, develops into a thought, and the thought finds expression in words. "The poet's mind," wrote T. S. Eliot, is "a receptacle for seizing and storing up numberless feelings, phrases, images, which remain there until all the particles which can unite to form a new compound are present together." In the act of creation "In all the "articles " - emotion, memory associations, a sense of rhythm - are fused, and the result is a new thing, a blending of all the parts, a union of the conscious and the unconscions: a poem. Words are the material with which the poet must frame his thoughts, and the greater the poet the more striking is his power of choosing and shaping words. Poetry is essentially a combination of the familiar and the surprising, and the most successful surprises are achieved by the use of carefully descriptive words or epithets.
An epithet is a word which makes the reader see the object described in a clearer or sharper light. It is both exact and imaginative. Distinctive epithets are found in the ancient Greek classic, The Odyssey: wine-dark sea...... wave-girdled island," blindfolding night." Our national flag is a star- spangled banner." In "Thanatopsis" Bryant (more poems) speaks of the ocean's "gray and melancholy waste." In " Home Thoughts from Abroad" Browning describes the "gaudy" melon flower and the "wise" thrush. Michael Lewis tells of an oncoming storm with its "frantic" wind, "whipped" clouds, and "panicky" trees. In A. E. Housman's poem, "Bredon Hill", there is a much-quoted verse which runs:
Here of a Sunday morning
My love and I would lie,
And see the colored counties,
And hear the larks so high
About us in the sky.
A. E. Housman's brother, Laurence, has revealed how his famous brother found the exact and suggestive epithet "colored" to describe the scene. When he wrote the poem, A. E. Housman put down an ordinary adjective which did not satisfy him. Then, with the poem in his head, he went to bed and dreamed; in his dream he bit on the word "painted." This was better. But when lie awoke he was still not satisfied. He thought of using "sunny," "pleasant," "checkered," "crowded," and "patterned." Finally, he came back to "painted" which suddenly prompted "colored." This was not only exact and imaginative, but the consonant "c" in "colored" gave a musically repeated sound (alliteration) when joined to "counties," and thus made the line more memorable.
Turn now to a much-discussed modern poem, Amy Lowell's " Meeting-House Hill." You will notice several things about it that make it different from many other poems you know. For one thing, it is in "free verse" that is, it has a free, or irregular, rhythm. For another thing, it has no rhymes. But its outstanding feature is its daring use of words. Observe the way sight and sound are combined, so that "the curve of a blue bay" is "shrill and sweet" - and, to accentuate the shrill sweetness, it is like "the sudden springing of a tune." Everything is intensified. An ordinary white church in a city square seems as beautiful as the Parthenon, loveliest of Greek temples. The poet is so thrilled by the scene that the unmoving structure is given motion. The spire "sweeps" the sky - and the movement is intensified by the comparison of the spire with a mast in motion, a mast of a ship in full sail straining before a stiff wind. The comparison carries the poem abroad. The bay beyond the railroad track turns into a harbor with an old-fashioned clipper-ship returning from China - and the past is united with the present. All of this is accomplished by the skillful selection and unusual arrangement of words.
Rupert Brooke is another modern poet who used words with charm yet with great precision. His "The Great Lover" is an excellent example of the definition of poetry as "the best words in the best order"; it is full of epithets which are surprising but logical, exact and yet imaginative. Rupert Brooke delights the reader with such phrases as "unthinking silence," "drowsy Death," "we have beaconed the world's night," "crying flames," "feathery dust," "friendly bread," "the blue bitter smoke of wood," "many-tasting food," "the cool kindliness of sheets," "the keen unpassioned beauty of a great machine," "the benison [blessing] of hot water," "sweet water's dinzpling laugh," "the deep-panting train," "the cold graveness of iron," "turn with traitor breath."
Robert Frost admits that poetry is impossible to define, but he adds: " If I were forced to attempt to define it, I would say that poetry is words which have become deeds." This active power of words was emphasized by Emily Dickinson in one of the briefest of her poems:
A word is dead when said,
Some say.
I say it just begins to live
That day.

[Asalbanoo]

EUPHONY

Euphony is soothing pleasant sounds. Opposite of cacophony.
Example:
O star (the fairest one in sight)

FLASHBACK
Flashback is action that interrupts to show an event that happened at an earlier time which is necessary to better understanding.

[Asalbanoo]

FORESHADOWING

Foreshadowing is the use of hints or clues to suggest what will happen later in literature.


HYPERBOLE
Hyperbole is exaggeration or overstatement.
Example:
I'm so hungry I could eat a horse.
He's as big as a house

[Asalbanoo]

IMAGE
Image is language that evokes one or all of the five senses: seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, touching.

INTERNAL RHYME
Internal Rhyme is rhyming within a line.
Example:
I awoke to black flak.

[Asalbanoo]

WORDS OUT OF ORDER: INVERSION Another device of poetry is the changing of the usual order of words. This is called inversion, and is found mostly in the work of older classical poets. But it is sometimes used by modern writers for the sake of emphasis. Emily Dickinson was fond of arranging words outside of their familiar order. For example in "Chartless" she writes "Yet know I how the heather looks" and "Yet certain am I of the spot." Instead of saying "Yet I know" and "Yet I am certain" she reverses the usual order and shifts the emphasis to the more important words. In these lines she calls attention to the swiftness of her knowledge and the power of her certainty. Similarly in "Love in Jeopardy" there is a peculiar but logical inversion. Humbert Wolfe wrote:
Here by the rose-tree
they planted once
of Love in Jeopardy
an Italian bronze.
Wolfe was describing an old statue and he wanted to suggest an old-fashioned effect. He got his "antique" effect partly by using queer rhymes like "once-bronze," and "zither-together," partly by twisting the ordinary manner of speaking. Had he written "Once upon a time they erected (or planted) a bronze figure named 'Love in Jeopardy' (or Danger) next to a rose-tree" it would have seemed commonplace, and the poet would have lost the quaintness of the picture as well as the arresting oddity of phrasing.
This is one reason why a writer chooses poetry rather than prose. By a trick of a word or the turn of a phrase, he arrests the attention of the reader, and makes him see old things in a new light. Even the very shape of a poem says " Stop! Look! and Listen!"

[Asalbanoo]

Irony is an implied discrepancy between what is said and what is meant.
Three kinds of irony:
1. verbal irony is when an author says one thing and means something else.
2. dramatic irony is when an audience perceives something that a character in the literature does not know.
3. irony of situation is a discrepency between the expected result and actual results.
Example:
"A fine thing indeed!" he muttered to himself.

[Asalbanoo]

Metaphor comparison of two unlike things using the verb "to be" and not using like or as as in a simile.
Example:
He is a pig. Thou art sunshine.
Poetry is, first of all, a communication - a thought or message conveyed by the writer to the reader. It is not only an act of creation, but an act of sharing. It is therefore important to the reader that he understands how the poet uses words, how he puts fresh vigor and new meaning into words. The reader's understanding is immeasurably increased if he is familiar with the many techniques or devices of poetry. Some of these are extremely simple; a few are rather elaborate.
The simplest and also the most effective poetic device is the use of comparison. It might almost be said that poetry is founded on two main means of comparing things: simile and metaphor. We heighten our ordinary speech by the continual use of such comparisons as "fresh as a daisy," "tough as leather," "comfortable as an old shoe," "it fits like the Paper on the wall," "gay as a lark," "happy as the day is long, pretty as a picture." These are all recognizable similes; they use the words "as" or "like."
A metaphor is another kind of comparison. It is actually a condensed simile, for it omits "as" or "like." A metaphor establishes a relationship at once; it leaves more to the imagination. It is a shortcut to the meaning; it sets two unlike things side by side and makes us see the likeness between them. When Robert Burns wrote "My love is like a red, red rose" he used a simile. When Robert Herrick wrote "You are a tulip" he used a metaphor. Emily Dickinson used comparison with great originality. She mixed similes and metaphors superbly in such poems as "A Book," "Indian Summer," and "A Cemetery." One of the Poems in her group ("A Book") illustrates another device -Of poetry: association - a connection of ideas. The first two lines of "A Book" compare poetry to a ship; the next two to a horse. But Emily Dickinson thought that the words "ship" and "horse" were too commonplace. The ship became a "frigate," a beautiful full-sailed vessel of romance; and the everyday "horse," the plodding beast of the field and puller of wagons, became instead a "courser," a swift and spirited steed, an adventurous creature whose hoofs beat out a brisk rhythm, "prancing" - like a page of inspired poetry.
Thus, because of comparison and association, familiar objects become strange and glamorous. It might be said that a Poet is a man who sees resemblances in all things.
Metaphors: Ideas That Tickle Your Mind

[Asalbanoo]

Metonymy
Metonymy is substituting a word for another word closely associated with it.
Example:
bowing to the sceptered isle. (Great Britain)




Motif
*A recurrent thematic element in an artistic or literary work.
*A dominant theme or central idea.