metonymy metonymy: “A figure of speech that substitutes the name of a related object, person, or idea for the subject at hand. Crown is often substituted for monarchy…should not be confused with synecdoche, a substitution of a part of something for the whole or the whole for a part.” – NTC’s Dictionary of Literary Terms (1991) This literary device is often used in poetry as a kind of metaphor…

moral criticism:

“A type of literary criticism that evaluates a work on the basis of the moral elements it contains and their correspondence to the accepted moral standards of the time or to those ethical principles that the critic feels should govern human life. Ideally, the moral critic, in judging a literary work, applies only those moral standards presented in the work itself or, failing…

Gothic: Originally referring to the Goths, barbarian tribes who sacked Rome in A.D. 210, the term Gothicwas mistakenly applied by eighteenth-century critics to everything medieval, including the kind of cathedral still known as Gothic–with its vaulted arches, flying buttresses, and gargoyles. Used in reference to literature…the term calls to mind gloom, grotesqueness, mystery, and decadence, the…

Allegory: “An extended metaphor in which the characters, places, and objects in a narrative carry figurative meaning. Often an allegory’s meaning is religious, moral, or historical in nature,” – Poetry Foundation

To expand on the use of allegory in literature, I want utilize the poem “Boy Breaking Glass” by Gwendolyn Brooks. The poem has been interpreted…

neoclassicism: The dominant literary movement in England during the late seventeenth century and the eighteenth century, which sought to revive the artistic ideals of classical Greece and Rome. Neoclassicism was characterized by emotional restraint, order, logic, technical precision, balance, elegance of diction, an emphasis on form over content, clarity, dignity and decorum. Its appeals were to…

rhetoric: “The art of persuasion, in speaking or writing…The rhetorical process included five stages–invention (discovering the logical, ethical, and emotional arguments), arrangement (organizing the arguments), style (choosing words and figures in which to express the arguments), memory, and delivery.”

– The NTC’s Dictionary of Literary Terms

Vulnerability makes the…

aestheticism: Reverence for beauty; for “art for art’s sake.” …Also refers to nineteenth-century movement in art and literature that held that beautiful form is more to be valued than morally instructive content, and even that morality is irrelevant to art…In part a reaction against the ugliness and mere usefulness of the products of industrialization, the movement reached its peak in the 1890s…

Freytag’s pyramid: “A diagram representing the structure of a well-made play, especially a tragedy in five acts,” – The NTC’s Dictionary of Literary Terms

My Take On Freytag’s Pyramid

Most writers know about this very famous diagram of dramatic structure.

When I look at Freytag’s Pyramid, I also think of Dan Harmon’s Story Circle, which is one of the coolest and simplest ways…

Antihero: “A central character, or protagonist, who lacks traditional heroic qualities and virtues (such as idealism, courage, and steadfastness). An antihero may be comic, antisocial, inept, or even pathetic, while retaining the sympathy of the reader. Antiheroes are typically in conflict with a world they cannot control or whose values they reject,” – The NTC’s Dictionary of Literary Terms

View On WordPress

So I ran into this post on Tumblr.

https://authentikei.tumblr.com/post/187052481201/madlori-phantomchick-onion-souls

Some flowery writing is going to scratch you where you itch and some is going to bore you to death. Either way, I don’t think any of us want to get in the habit of using flowery language to describe a simple setting, character design, scene, or anything else. That’s…

Epistolary novel: “From epistle, or “letter.” A novel written in the form of a correspondence between characters. A popular alternative to first-person fiction that rose in the 18th century, though it shares different points of view.” – The NTC’s Dictionary of Literary Terms

My Take On The Epistolary Novel and Study Recommendations

Currently, I’m halfway through Draculaby Bram Stoker.…

Foregrounding: “Calling attention to something–a word, a rhythm, a character, an idea, a viewpoint–by placing it in the foreground against a background. Taken from painting and the study of visual perspective, the term is used more broadly to mean setting anything off from its context or creating something that stands out from the ordinary…Interpreting a novel as if it were being read by a woman…

All right, so the first page [Literary Terms A-Z] is the page where you click on the letter your literary term starts with so you can find it easily. At the moment, there are only four terms, so there are very few letters. It will develop in time. It’s a shame the page is so plain at the moment, but sometimes less is more. I want it to be user friendly more than anything.

The second page [Lit…

Poetic Justice: “Rewarding the good and punishing the bad. The term was first used by Thomas Rhymer in 1678 to express the idea that in literature, if not always in life, rewards and punishments should be carefully distributed so that readers may be inspired to goodness and discouraged from evil.” – NTC’s Dictionary of Literary Terms

My View On Poetic Justice

After reading the…

explication de texte: “The detailed analysis, or “close reading,” of a passage of verse or prose… a method of teaching literature in French secondary schools. Such explication seeks to make meaning clear through a painstaking examination and explanation of style, language, relationship of part to whole, and use of symbolism.” – The NTC’s Dictionary of Literary Terms

Pastoral: “A poem having to do with shepherds and rural life; from pastor, the Latin word for shepherd…The three forms are (1) the singing match between two shepherds, sometimes called the eclogue, (2) the monologue of a single lovesick shepherd lamenting his mistress’s aloofness; and (3) the elegy, or dirge, for a dead friend,” (Morner and Rausch, 1991) – The NTC’s Dictionary of Literary Terms.

Hamartia: “The error, misstep, frailty, or flaw that causes the downfall of a tragic hero. Sometimes called the tragic flaw… bad judgment, ignorance, accident, inherited weakness, or plain bad luck…Whatever the error or defect, it results in action (or inaction) that leads to disaster. – NTC’s Dictionary of Literary Terms by Kathleen Morner and Ralph Rausch (1991).

I strongly recommend getting