*Literary Terms*

[Asalbanoo]

The term has several possible meanings: (1) the principle of retributive justice (sometimes referred to as "poetic justice") by which good characters are rewarded and bad characters are appropriately punished; (2) the agent or deliverer of such justice, who exacts vengeance and meets out rewards, as, for example the Duke in Shakespeare's *Measure for Measure*. In classical mythology, Nemesis was the patron goddess of vengeance; the expression often denotes a character in a drama who brings about another's downfall, so that Hamlet may be said to be Claudius's nemesis in Shakespeare's tragedy

[Asalbanoo]

Onomatopoeia is a word that imitates the sound it represents.
also imitative harmony
Example:
splash, wow, gush, kerplunk
Such devices bring out the full flavor of words. Comparison and association are sometimes strengthened by syllables which imitate or reproduce the sounds they describe. When this occurs, it is called onomatopoeia (a Greek word meaning name-making "), for the sounds literally make the meaning in such words as "buzz," "crash," "whirr," "clang" "hiss," "purr," "squeak," "mumble," "hush," "boom." Poe lets us hear the different kinds of sounds made by different types of bells in his famous poem "The Bells." His choice of the right word gives us the right sound when he speaks of "tinkling" sleigh bells; "clanging" fire bells; mellow "chiming" wedding bells; "tolling," "moaning," and "groaning" funeral bells.
Tennyson makes us feel the heaviness of a drowsy summer day by using a series of "in" sounds in the wonderfully weighted lines:
The moan of doves in immemorial elms,
And murmuring of innumerable bees.
Countless examples of association of ideas and imitation of sounds may be found in this volume. Two of the most striking and dramatic are Vachel Lindsay's "The Congo" and G. K. Chesterton's "Lepanto". No poems written in our time are richer in vivid colors, galloping rhythms, and constantly varying sound effects

[Asalbanoo]

Paradox reveals a kind of truth which at first seems contradictory.
Example:
Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage
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PUNS
the usually humorous use of a word in such a way as to suggest two or more of its meanings or the meaning of another word similar in sound.
A pun is a figure of speech which consists of a deliberate confusion of similar words or phrases for rhetorical effect, whether humorous or serious. A pun can rely on the assumed equivalency of multiple similar words (homonymy), of different shades of meaning of one word (polysemy), or of a literal meaning with a metaphor. Bad puns are often considered to be cheesy.
Walter Redfern (in Puns, Blackwell, London, 1984) succinctly said: "To pun is to treat homonyms as synonyms".

[Asalbanoo]

An Oxymoron is a combination of contradictory or incongruous words, such as 'Cruel Kindness' or 'Jumbo Shrimp' (Jumbo means 'large' while Shrimp means 'small').
It is a literary figure of speech in which opposite or contradictory words, terms, phrases or ideas are combined to create a rhetorical effect by paradoxical means.
The word 'Oxymoron' is originally derived from the Greek elements: oxy = sharp and moros (moron) = dull (foolish). 'Oxymoron' is the singular form, and 'Oxymora' (or 'Oxymorons') is the plural form.
Some Oxymorons are not obvious, some may require an understanding of verbal or regional interpretations, and some may even indicate certain prejudices.
Oxymorons are not necessarily mistakes or errors. They make effective titles and appealing phrases, and some are meant to be humorous.

[Asalbanoo]

Pathetic fallacy (puh-THET-ik FAL-uh-see) noun
The attribution of human traits to nature or inanimate objects.
[Coined by John Ruskin in 1856.]
"A good metaphor should never be missed, and Hardie, a poet before she was a novelist, is alert, in a labored sort of way, to the possibilities of some fine pathetic fallacy. One passage, after a pointless bout of cruelty by Hannie, describes her black mood: `She felt rudderless and directionless, like the dead sheep the November rains had carried down the river. Day after day it had drifted up and down, up and down, moving swiftly away with the pull of the sea's ebbing tide, pushing back again as it rose. Bloated, a perch for the gulls. Until it snagged on some drowned tree and left off its journeying.'" Catherine Lockerbie, Green Unpleasant Land, New York Times Book Review, Dec 22, 2002.
"Sefan Ruzowitzky generates terror and suspense effectively with an eccentric cast, film and lighting techniques. Flickering fluorescent lights and other eerie phenomena function effectively as pathetic fallacy."
`Anatomie': A Good Film to Dissect, The Korea Times (Seoul), Jun 20, 2001.

[Asalbanoo]

Rhyme is a pattern of words that contain similar sounds.
Example:
go/show/glow/know/though
Rhythm: The dictionary tells us it is "a movement with uniform recurrence of a beat or accent." In its crudest form rhythm has a beat with little or no meaning. Savages repeat strongly marked syllables to evoke a charm or magic- spell; children use them in games and counting-out rhymes. In poetry, rhythm, broadly speaking, is a recognizable pulse, or "recurrence," which gives a distinct beat to a line and also gives it a shape.
Rhyme is not only a recurrence but a matching of sounds. The pleasure of pairing words to make a kind of musical echo is as old as mankind. The child of this generation may be millions of years away from prehistoric man, but the lullabies and dancing games of today are not much different from those of the cave-dweller. As in the old days, there is a real connection between poetry and magic, between poetry and memory. Children begin with rhyme and rhythm; even before they can talk, boys and girls echo nursery rhymes and the jingles of Mother Goose. They learn their numbers painlessly by repeating such rhymes as:
One, two,
Buckle my shoe.
Three, four,
Shut the door.
They know the days of the month by memorizing:
Thirty days hath September,
April, June, and November....
They even pick up bits of history by remembering such simple rhymes as:
Columbus sailed the ocean blue
In fourteen-hundred-ninety-two
But it is not only children who find things easier when they are said in rhyme and rhythm. Farmers and housewives prefer verse to prose for their wise sayings; the music of a rhyme helps them to remember. It points up their proverbs and gives a quick turn to the meaning:
A sunshiny shower
Won't last an hour.
Rain before seven;
Clear by eleven.
March winds and April showers
Bring forth May flowers.
Wishes
Won't wash dishes.
Early to bed and early to rise
Makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.
The devices of poetry are always being used - and abused in daily life. Not only children and farmers but businessmen understand the value of verse and "apt alliteration's artful aid." Roadside signs, cards in buses, advertisements in newspapers, commercials on radio and television, prove that an idea fastens itself quickly in the mind when it is rhymed. Christmas cards, birthday wishes, condolences, and greetings are most effective when they are in verse. The fourteenth of February brings out the poet in everyone.
Even on the lowest plane, poetry is rarely "rhyme without reason." It sharpens the wit's cleverness and heightens the lover's dearest sentiments. Poetry ranges all the way from the childish " Roses are red, violets are blue" to Robert Burns's immortal song "My love is like a red, red rose." When we are deeply aroused, we express ourselves in some sort of poetry; our emotions spill over into a football cheer, a ballad, or a love lyric. A poem expresses our inner excitement, eases our pain, and glorifies our joy. Because of its strongly accented beat ana its ability to convey intense feeling, poetry is the most powerful form of speech.
Rhyme has been called a kind of musical punctuation. It is not only an aid to memory, as we have discovered in proverbs and nursery rhymes, but it is also a pleasure to the ear. Poetry should not only be read, it should be read aloud. To see it on the printed page is not enough; poetry should be heard as well as seen. "The Ballad of Father Gilligan" by William Butler Yeats and "Gunga Din" by Rudyard Kipling are both narrative. Totally different in theme, they have one thing in common: a simple but superb use of rhyme. The strong accent of the rhyming captivates the reader and lifts the story above its prose statement into poetry.
Rhyme is the matching of vowels and the coupling of vowel sounds. Like rhythm, it is a kind of recurrence - but rhyme has a recurrence of sound as well as beat. The following jingle has rhythm:
One, two,
Buckle my belt;
Three, four,
Snap the lock.
The rhythm of these lines becomes more musical - and much easier to remember -when rhyme is added. We then get the recurring vowel sound of:
One, two,
Buckle my shoe;
Three, four,
Shut the door.

[Asalbanoo]

Simile is the comparison of two unlike things using like or as. Related to metaphor
Example:
He eats like a pig. Vines like golden prisons.
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.

[Asalbanoo]

. A manner of writing that mixes a critical attitude with wit and humor in an effort to improve mankind and human institutions. Ridicule, irony, exaggeration, and several other techniques are almost always present. The satirist may insert serious statements of value or desired behavior, but most often he relies on an implicit moral code, understood by his audience and paid lip service by them. The satirist's goal is to point out the hypocrisy of his target in the hope that either the target or the audience will return to a real following of the code. Thus, satire is inescapably moral even when no explicit values are promoted in the work, for the satirist works within the framework of a widely spread value system. Many of the techniques of satire are devices of comparison, to show the similarity or contrast between two things. A list of incongruous items, an oxymoron, metaphors, and so forth are examples..

[Asalbanoo]

Stream of consciousness:

* phrase used by William James in 1890 to describe the unbroken flow of thought and awareness of the waking mind

* a special mode of narration that undertakes to capture the full spectrum and the continuous flow of a character's mental process

* sense perceptions mingle with conscious and half-conscious thoughts and memories, experiences, feelings and random associations

* in a literary context used to describe the narrative method where novelists describe the unspoken thoughts and feelings of their characters without resorting to objective description or conventional dialogue

* Eduard Dujardin's Les lauriers sont coupés credited by Joyce as the first example of this technique

* 'interior monologue' an alternate term

[Asalbanoo]

SymbolSymbol is using an object or action that means something more than its literal meaning.
*The practice of representing things by means of symbols or of attributing symbolic meanings or significance to objects, events, or relationships.
*A system of symbols or representations.
*A symbolic meaning or representation.
Example:
the bird of night (owl is a symbol of death)



Synecdoche

Synecdoche is when one uses a part to represent the whole.
Example:
lend me your ears (give me your attention).