| Term | Definition |
|---|
| asceticism | the practice or way of life of contemplation and rigorous self-denial for religious purposes; they believed that you could reach a higher spiritual state by self-discipline and self-denial |
| ambiguity | language that gives more than one meaning, that leaves uncertainty as to meaning, that allows alternate meanings for words, and that gives several streams of thought for the words |
| ambivalence | this is present when people have contradictory attitudes or emotions toward the same thing or person at the same time |
| anti-hero | a graceless, inept, sometimes stupid or dishonest protagonist who is opposite the traditional hero |
| antithesis | the balancing of one contrasting word, idea, clause against another for emphasis |
| Apollonian | reason, order, culture and rectitude |
| apocalyptic | concerned with predicting the ultimate destiny of the world, imminent catastrophe, and final judgment on mankind |
| archetype | an image, detail, type or plot which occurs frequently in literature, myth, religion or folklore and which evokes emotions in the reader by awakening a primordial image from the unconscious mind (Carl Jung's collective unconscious) |
| avant-garde | the new writing which shows striking innovations in style, form, and subject matter; this type of literature makes a frontal and organized attack upon established literary traditions |
| banality | demonstrates a lack of effectiveness, seems tasteless or offensive, and expresses hackneyed, stale, trite and stereotyped images |
| cynicism | found when doubt and dissatisfaction concerning the accepted standards, innate goodness of man's actions, and contemporary conditions become dominant motifs |
| denouement | the final unraveling of the plot, solution of mystery, explanation or outcome, or untying the knot of intrigue |
| deus ex machine | refers to some unexpected and improbable incident in a story, any device whereby an author solves a difficult situation by a forced invention. When an author resorts to ______ to solve a difficult literary situation, this technique is regarded as evidence of deficient skill in plot making |
| diatribe | a bitter invective, abusive argument in writing |
| diction | the choice of words in oral and written discourse. Accurate use of words in writing is good _____. The four levels are formal, informal, colloquial and slang. |
| double entendre | a deliberately ambiguous statement with one possible meaning being risque or suggestive of some impropriety. |
| empathy | the involuntary projecting of oneself into something or someone else, involuntarily identifying with something or someone, and participating in a physical or emotional response to the literary character, object, or subject. |
| existentialism | emphasizes the existence rather than essence, and reason is inadequate to explain life. (Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Sartre. Kafka, Dostoyeski, and Camus) |
| expressionism | the revolt against realism with its representational style. Its concern is to convey the impressions or moods of a character |
| genre | the distinct types or categories into which literary works are grouped according to form, technique, or subject matter |
| grotesque | the merging of the cosmic and the tragic which grows out of the modern interest in the irrational; ______ characters may be physically or spiritually deformed and do things that are clearly intended by the author to be abnormal |
| hedonism | the attitude that pleasure is the chief good of man |
| innuendo | an insinuation or indirect suggestion which is often harmful or has sinister connotations |
| leitmotif | an intentional and recurrent repetition of a word, phrase, situation, or idea which tends to unify the literary work |
| meliorism | the belief that society has an innate tendency towards improvement and that this tendency can be furthered by conscious human effort |
| melodrama | has a romantic plot that makes excessive appeal to the reader's emotions; has little regard for convincing characters or believable plot motivations; highly predictable with good guys rewarded and evil-doers punished; happy endings are the norm |
| pathetic fallacy | Ruskin coined this phrase to mean the tendency of writers of impassioned prose to credit nature with emotions of human beings |
| persona | the mask which covers the direct voice of the author; may be the narrator or may be a voice within the story which allows the author to speak in disguise |
| Platonism | the idealistic philosophical teachings of Plato an his followers; |
| protagonist | the chief character in a play or story whether his cause is noble or ignoble |
| sentimentalism | an overendulgence in emotion which is characterized by a conscious effort to induce emotion in order to analyze or enjoy it by failure to restrain emotion through the exercise of judgment, and by an optimistic overemphasis of goodness of humanity |
| stoicism | believes that whatever is experienced must be endured; feelings, whether pleasurable or painful, must be restrained |
| surrealism | emphasizes the imagination without conscious or rational control as in dreams |
| theme | the central or dominating idea in a literary work |
| epiphany | the intuitive grasp of reality achieved in a quick flash of recognition in which something is understood in a new way |
Combine with other sets
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