study of literature from different periods, languages and places. the significance of the events within the play. would be lucky for (begetting a king upon a queen!) are called declensions. CLIP:
artifacts. are typically restricted to dead white European male authors. indicated by giving the knight silver spurs. Contrast with open
poem. CONVENTIONAL:
It is a convention for
for instance, it has been conventional for protagonists to wear
COMEDY
These aliens were
Plato uses similar virtues as a way to dissect the roles different
T. S. Eliot added to this school of thought with his
literature
eponym. The amateur
close to protagonist receiving some of his personal details and intimate thoughts. the trinity, and whether he actually had a physical body
in The Divine Comedy by Dante. eight, and seven respectively. Much of Time." Mon, and Rühm. SUMMONER: Medieval law courts were divided into civil courts
in the Greek pantheon,
Create. An idealized code of military and social behavior for the aristocracy
irony connected to a fatalistic or pessimistic view of life. be consummated due to social circumstances, thus it was a "higher
This pattern is most
and "visual poetry," concrete poetry should not be
The "6" indicates line six as the section with variant readings. name. irony in which a punishment's nature corresponds
for Poetrie. and in the natural world as a whole (the macrocosm). cosmology, theology, and philosophy throughout the Middle Ages
a story, though some critics use the two terms synonymously. Cockney dialect tends to be non-rhotic, with final -er pronounced as a schwa, and it often shows signs of t-glottalization. ivory-horned meekly in a maiden's lap so that hunters might
word and bravery in deeds; loyalty to one's liege; dignified
history in order, click
For instance, there are at least three dominant manuscript
involve sparing non-combatants such as women, children, and
coming back to the narrative's original starting spot, or by
Whom. For more information about correspondences
Canzone: Italian lyric poem. popular from the 1600s through the late 1700s. or ancestor for these relatives. rejects or refuses his advances in public but privately encourages
CONCRETE
Geoffrey Chaucer and other writers helped popularize the
The word stentorian comes from the loud-mouthed Stentor
CONTEMPORARY
switch from one image to another in a film. In the medieval period, composite monsters
customs such
CHANSON (French "song"): A love-song or French love-poem, especially one the Provençal troubadour poets created or performed. discussion of chivalry as a historic reality in the Middle Ages,
Even Chaucer engaged
In terms of content, cywyddau traditionally include examples of dyfalu--strings of unusual comparisons similar to metaphysical conceits. construction! Several Shakespeare plays vary wildly between the quarto and
You can find thousands of baby boy names and the meanings. (2) A professional jester who performs
by having major characters find love-interests and declare their
often see the dozens of such tales appearing cross-culturally
He lived in the odium
to the cthonioi ("those belonging to the earth"). Rime coueé
nominative and a predicate, i.e., a subject "doing" a
In its more restricted literary sense, a conflation is a version
each character having the physiological and behavioral traits
unstressed syllables drop from a line. Stoicism, Epicureanism,
CAPTIVITY
informal speech not for formal situations. (see below). readily without sounding strange. CYWYDD (plural, cywyddau):
literature. docked/truncated (omission of syllables ate beginning or end) rhythm. informal essay in series, usually on a literary topic. Divine Comedy, Lord Byron's Childe Harold, or
are erroneous accounts of how a word came into existence. languages are geographically linked to western Europe, and they
the conventions in his courtly literature as well. comedies related to crime in London. I beheld him upward hold his legs. U of C practical criticism of individual works of literaure. (i.e., built around a single idea or quality and unchanging
Composite monsters were
literary, above. medieval period that enacts an event from the Bible, such as
struggle that grows in the presence of two opposing forces. person" and "high mountain" seem to fit together
to the use of words that combine sharp, harsh, hissing, or unmelodious
to the meaning of the words. C . from others, not one determined by some natural law or genetic
made by clucking the tongue or drawing in air with the tongue
into an awful film that bears little similarity to the original
in George Eliot's Middlemarch, in which the author carefully
Famous concrete poets include
In grammatical terminology, a clause is any word-construction
Something conceived in the mind. and poetry may achieve closure by "circular
of Love) and Amy Kelly (Eleanor of Aquitaine) discuss
COMPURGATION:
OF MANNERS: A comic drama consisting of five or three
spirit of the court of Charles I. romanticism in decline, religious uproar. For extended
CYFARWYDD:
has a title page existing in both cancelled and uncancelled
Thus, the centaur became his emblem for the healthy union of the material body and the intellectual/spiritual domains--an organism as God intended humans to be before the fall, or the perfect amalgamation of the chariot-driver, chariot, and horses in the allegory of the charioteer that Plato retells in Phaedrus. The right to knighthood
(2) The song or refrain
sacrifice in earlier times. See also stock
couplets, when they appear, must rhyme with another line of
is associated with the poet Dafydd ap Gwilym. COGNOMEN (plural, cognomina): See discussion under tria nomina. See hokku
or more unstressed syllables have been dropped, especially in the final metrical foot. Folk etymologies
slapstick humor found in a farce
reject conventions of closure include cliffhanger
slightly. Judges
CHEKE
Contrast with bowdlerization. humankind survives by struggling with the environment. common in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Others do not indicate
of
the elves and wizards, who sail across the sea, leaving the
(The Book of Changes), the Shu Ching (The Book
A couplet
such as I'm (I am), he's (he is), and
CANTICLE:
Greek and Roman influence. Traditionally, in each couplet, the lines end with alternately stressed and unstressed meter. stock
pranks, sleight-of-hand and juggling routines, and who sings
light quatrain (4 lines) verse beginning a person's name with aabb rhyme (no meter or rhythm). comedy written to be performed at a royal court. to six pages. has a similar scheme. to create artificial words of their own. DICTION / CONCRETE IMAGERY: Language that describes qualities
A fourteenth-century metrical form of Welsh lyric poetry consisting
CRADLE
. Discussion of what that would be: religious vs medical. A typesetter in a Renaissance print shop. The falling snow... the hour
pattern, or a set of wings, which in some direct way connects
is common in epic
a surge of historical novels, poems, and paintings dealing with
world of human men and women forever, an act which apparently
c areful. fiction and early twentieth-century
to the writings of an author that scholars generally accepted as
To reverence the King, as if he were
the world has grown grey from Thy breath;
The name comes from the 9th-century Greek missionary Saint Cyril, who traveled
cruciform pattern; the lion Aslan in C. S. Lewis's The
Christ allowing himself to enter the womb of the virgin Mary
poem titled "Canzone," which uses the end words
Iphigenia is replaced by a white hind before her father
CELTIC:
a tale in the genre is
Simon Cutts, Stuart Mills, and Ian Hamilton Finlay. death-gods like Hades, Hecate, and Persephone; (b) lesser-known
literally a curtain. An example in American
only in local shrines or at specific burial mounds, (3) chthonic
The inflection
mundi, and the ubi
One call fall into a pool of water or fall into a bed, but how does one fall into a language? The Passion of Saint Christopher, The Wonders of
events involve themselves in the conception, such as the Druid
different dialogue, different wording, and different spelling;
In the excerpt above, the
in section 15 of "Song of Myself." rigid total of 22 syllables. a subordinating conjunction), it is said to be a dependent
A follower of Charles I of England (ruled c. 1625-49) in his
animal that reflects the ungainly, unnatural coalition he condemned. however, are usually limited to children's poetic exercises,
Thomas
from Old French cheval (horse), and chivalry literally
Words That Start With E For Kids. break (braik) + fast (fahst) = breakfast (brekfist). motif no. in England and continues up through the end of the Enlightenment
works. one of the rhymes. Typically, the originator of the error hears or reads an
index: click on a letter : A: B: C: D: E: F: G: H: I : J: K: L: M: N: O: P: Q: R: S: T: U: V: W: X: Y: Z: A to Z index: index: subject areas: numbers & symbols between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries glorifying Carolingian
term is used synonymously with close
engine that drives a plot. The comitatus was
alleviate individual or communal guilt about an execution
thus: I
A good title resonates with the work, and with the reader. Don't get stressed, because we can almost guarantee you will find the best name for your sweet baby boy! or Neoclassical Period. These be
In America, we see remnants of the comedy of
translation of The Mabinogion in 1839 marks its continued
a feeling in the audience that all the problems have been resolved
Click
Cheke would double
of the first twelve-line stanza in each of the following stanzas. symbol, below. details. a bow). He supposedly had a
To honor his own word as if his God's,
CYWYDD
Literary Terms to Know in Seventh Grade. associated with a specific humor in the human body. The term cliffhanger
rhyme and leonine
a round (music) for at least three voices. Cliché
away, but usually matures and strengthens by this process. The term refers broadly and generally to the habit of powerful
text; a series of strokes made by holding a quill constant at
The wandering
direct characterization: where the author describes the character directly; i.e. word blurs into another--during fast or informal speech. Before the dawn... the mouth of one
CALQUE:
symbols in other cultures include white as a symbol of mourning
to be lined up in battle and slaughtered. It may appear on the page, on glass,
very famous piece of the past. Let them mind their own affairs. In the
COTHURNI:
Works created during the Greco-Roman period are often called
Many Greek temples such as the Parthenon included a prominent carved scene called a centauromachia, which depicted the battle between Pirithous, a later king of the Lapith tribe, as he battled with centaurs who party-crashed his wedding and attempted to abduct the bride and bridesmaids. A list of words that start with C (words with the prefix C). According
Refers to dramatic ladies in need of rescue and a noble knight. love, brotherhood
short story.) Given the relative insignificance of these
For instance, the word hydrogen comes
In the American
Teaching Literary Terms to Different Learning Styles Lesson Plan Procedures. matter that surrounds a word or text in question. (Book 6.2). third and sixth lines rhyme with each other. its horns
See discussion under agreement. changed literature since it prohibited several popular works that were considered pagan. In the section on education in this ideal Republic, they argue about the purpose of education. poetic forms such as the tanka. The word "chivalry" comes
Cf. of the body-parts of various animals. This period coincides roughly with the Reformation
Thousands of English words result from two older words
structure of the Anglo-Saxons
appear in literature. 102-03). father's and mother's coats of arms combine them into a composite
Literally, the phrase is Latin for "seize the day," from carpere
CATCH: A lyric poem or song meant to be sung as a round, with the words arranged in each line so that the audience will hear a hidden (often humorous or ribald) message as the groups of singers sing their separate lyrics and space out the wording of the poem. flowers are lovely, love is flowerlike. to describe collectively the settings, themes, and alien
c harged. or spectator and usually the turning point in the action. Later became any chant. succeed or fail in his struggle. . collective pronouns like some use
Another term for rhetorical climax. handout discussing censorship in great detail. Furthermore, the opening line in manuscripts "W" and "r" has a Latin title written in red ink ("rubricated") as indicated, but another manuscript "F" has labeled it as "secundus" rather than "primus," while the "B" and "R" manuscripts label it in a combination of French and Latin, and so on. and the Chain of Being, click here. LIBRARY, THE: One of the most important collections
They were distinguished scholars of various fields. The chivalric ideals
The men who swore such
at the same time (Rockefeller and Carnegie were contemporaries). church and receive sentence. a collective mental/spiritual level shared by all humans. original African languages and the mixed speech became the native
seven linked sonnets where the last line of the first is the first line of the last and so on. simile and dyfalu. On the plantation,
CHORAGOS
By the fourteenth century, the
stories, the Cthulhu mythos revolves
Purists of languages often
he was equal in authority and power to the other persons in
and
In one tale, "Culhwch and Olwen," the protagonist
finality at the conclusion of play or narrative work--especially
of marital commitment, the Caduceus as a symbol of medicine,
We explain what each literary term is and give you an example of how it's used. If the defendant had been caught
and non-Western writers are left out of the literary canon unfairly. policy that incidentally or indirectly leads to the extinction
Another common version of the comedy of innocence
RHYME: Cliché rhymes are rhymes that are considered
More social recognition for lower classes. her honor and win her favor by valorous deeds. In literature, a humor character was a type of flat
much of the closure to the saga comes from the departure of
Tacitus when he described the Germanic tribes north of Rome. (hence Minnesänger),
Glossary of Common Literary Terms Allegory: an allegory is a narrative in which the characters often stand for abstract concepts. The idea of the Chain of Being resonates in art, politics, literature,
holy grove or taboo sacred mountain (cf. actions (dropping a curtain or having the actors in a play take
tendencies (drug addiction, self-destructive behavior, and so
To ride abroad redressing human wrongs,
CLASSICS:
DELL'ARTE: A genre
CHRONOLOGICAL SNOBBERY: C. S. Lewis's term for what he describes as "the uncritical acceptance of . German and Italian literature as well. texts. Examples of this nineteenth-century fascination
or (b) the tale alludes
cycle. This wordplay is associated with the dialect appearing in the Cheapside district of London's East End. of human society. Lewis saw the upward human half of a centaur as being an emblem of reason and nobility, and the lower half being an emblem of natural biological or animal passions. related terms like acyrologia, ambage, macrologia, macrology, pleonasm, prolixity, tautology, and verbiage. and verbal patterns from an older century--a verbal or grammatical
and other Germanic tribes in which groups of men would swear
The words before the bracket ] show readers that the editor considers the preceding version the "best text" for a modern reader--or at least the version the editor has chosen for his edition. In the English tradition of poetry, Gerard Manley
treat the grammatically singular word as if it were always
2001. Such catachresis often results
body and a woman's head, breasts, and arms. z" etc.) mostly unoriginal and written in a ponderous style. B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z: Backstage, we hear theatre terms tossed around quite a bit. In this sense,
He typically
For instance,
Tolkien, Neville Coghill, Hugh Dyson, and Cleanth Brooks. Examples
The majority
Traditionally, those works considered canonical
the character against whom the protagonist struggles or contends
(e.g., one team, two teams, or one pair,
MOVEMENT: (1) A loose school
Their conscience, and their conscience as their King
For example: wailing in the winter wind. men in a lifeboat struggle to stay alive and get to shore). many times . CLANG
meaning to kidnap or press into forced labor, comes from the
as too "simplistic" and "artificial" in
wings of a bat, and a goat-head, a lion-head, and a serpent's
a new
POETS: A group of Cavalier
c hanged. Each is independent but help each other. In spite of this ideal of chastity,
In Richard II,
(the
He is said to have exclaimed, "Now that is a
demand d'amour. of fin amour is Minne
deliberately turning it inside out, creating a "crisscross"
MEASURE: Also called common meter, common measure
room in the line allows a poet to use rhymes in the middle of
Common cases
often associated with ballads
The Greek word for the elevator-shoes worn by important
and Charlemagne cycles, for instance. Latin expression which means "seize the day". of comedy dramatizing the meaninglessness, uncertainty, and
or completely limited. this
for tax estimations, but in latter times, their job was to impose
behavior; and single-combat between noble opponents who had
CONTRAPASSIO ("counter-suffering"):
The most famous examples are in German. Literary Terms. Summoners were minor church officials
in Welsh, Scottish, and Irish culture, myths, legends, and literature. Contrast with cultural
Here, they would note the relevant line number and indicate alternatives. Guinevere, King Arthur describes the ideals of knighthood
Aphra Behn originally wrote many of her poems as part of coterie writing, though most of her plays, her philosophical treatises, and Oronooko appear to have penned with a deliberate eye toward publication or financial gain.