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College Bound English:. Literary Terms and Devices Selected from A Handbook to Literature, 8 th Edition by William Harmon and C. Hugh Holman. 1. acronym.
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College Bound English: Literary Terms and Devices Selected from A Handbook to Literature, 8th Edition by William Harmon and C. Hugh Holman
1. acronym • A word formed by combining the initial letters or syllables of a series of words to for a name, as “radar,” from “radio detecting and ranging.”
2. act (as in drama) • A major division of DRAMA. In varying degrees the fine-act structure corresponded to the fine main divisions of dramatic action: EXPOSITION, COMPLICATION, CLIMAX, FALLING ACTION, and CATASTROPHE.
2. act (as in drama) Mel Gibson as Hamlet Kenneth Branagh Derek Jacobi
3. adaptation • The rewriting of a work from its original form to fit it for another medium; also the new form of such a rewritten work.
4. aesthetics • The study or philosophy of the beautiful in nature, art and literature. It has both a philosophical dimension—What is art? What is beauty? What is the relationship of the beautiful to other values?
4. aesthetics(this is a painting by Chuck Close, entitled “Self-Portrait”)
4. aesthetics Picasso’s“House-garden”
5. agrarian • Literary people living in an agricultural society, or espousing the merits of such a society, as the Physiocrats did. In literary history and criticism, however, the term is usually applied to a group of Southern…
5. agrarian …American writers who published in Nashville, Tennessee, between 1922 and 1925 The Fugitive, a LITTLE MAGAZINE of poetry and some criticism championing agrarian REGIONALISM but attacking “the old high-castle Brahmins of the Old South.”
5. agrarian HamlinGarland
“Literature in its most comprehensive sense is the autobiography of humanity.” -Bernard Berenson
6. allegory • A form of extended METAPHOR in which objects, persons, and actions in a narrative are equated with meanings that lie outside the narrative itself. Thus, an allegory is a story in which everything is a symbol. RPM—rebellion, open thinking, manliness; Nurse—hate, control, judgment, conformity
6. allegory (cont.) • Samuel Coleridge: the traditional distinction between a “symbol” and allegory is that “an allegory is but a translation of abstract notions into picture-language,” whereas “a Symbol always partakes of the Reality which it makes intelligible.”
Wizard of Oz 6. allegory Lord of the Flies George Orwell1984Animal Farm William GoldingLord of the Flies
7. alliteration • The repetition of initial identical consonant sounds or any vowel sounds in successive or closely associated syllables, especially stressed syllables.
8. allusion • A figure of speech that makes brief reference to a historical or literary figure, event, or object. The effectiveness of allusion depends on a body of knowledge shared by writer and reader. A good example is T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land and the author’s notes to that poem.
8. allusion • RPM’s shorts refer to Moby Dick, classic book by Melville (90). • Also, to the Bible and Pontius Pilate—a patient says, “I wash my hands of the whole deal” (232). • Harding makes reference to the Lone Ranger, Batman, or Zorro—saying RPM is a “masked man” superhero (258).
8. allusion Babe the Blue Ox
9. anachronism • Assignment of something to a time when it was not in existence.
9. anachronism Back to the Future
10. analogy • A comparison of two things, alike in certain aspects; particularly a method used in EXPOSITION an DESCRIPTION by which something unfamiliar is explained or described by comparing it to some thing more familiar. Will Castle— Eliza : Dorothy :: Higgins : Wizard
10. analogy • find is to lose as construct is to:build demolish misplace materials2. find is to locate as feign is to:pane pretend line mean
10. analogy 3. find is to kind as feign is to:pane pretend line mean 4. pane is to pain as weigh is to: scale pounds weight way 5. bring is to brought as sing is to: sang melody song record
10. analogy 6. dime is to tenth as quarter is to:twenty-five fourth home coin7. plates is to dishes as arms is to:Legs hands farms weapons rhlschool.com
“Contemporary literature. Easier to shock than to convince.” -Albert Camus
11. anapest • A metrical FOOT consisting of three syllables, with two unaccented syllables followed by an accented one.
11. anapest William Wordsworth
12. anecdote • A short NARRATIVE detailing particulars of an interesting EPISODE or event. The term most frequently refers to an incident in the life of an important person and should lay claim to an element of truth.
12. anecdote • Though anecdotes are often used as the basis for short stories, an anecdote lacks complicated PLOT and relates a single EPISODE.
12. anecdote John Falstaff
13. annotation • The addition of explanatory notes to a text by the author or an editor to explain, translate, cite sources, give bibliographical data, comment, GLOSS, or PARAPHRASE.
13. annotation • A VARIOUM EDITION represents the ultimate in annotation. An annotated BIBLIOGRAPHY, in addition to the standard bibliographical data includes comments on the works listed.
13. annotation Northrop Frye
14. antagonist • The character directly opposed to the PROTAGONIST. A rival, opponent, or enemy of the PROTAGONIST. • non-character entities can be antagonistic (settings or events)
14. antagonist Nurse Ratched
15. anthology • Literally “a gathering of flowers,” the term designates a collection of writing, either prose or poetry, usually by various authors.
“Literature is the art of writing something that will be read twice; journalism, what will be grasped at once.” -Cyril Connolly
16. aside (as in drama) • A dramatic convention by which an actor directly addresses the audience but is not supposed to be heard by the other actors on the stage.
16. aside (as in drama) Roderigo and Iago
17. assonance (as in poetry) • Same or similar vowel sounds in stressed syllables that end with different consonant sounds. Assonance differs from RHYME in that RHYME is a similarity of vowel and consonant. “Lake” and “fake” demonstrate RHYME; “lake” and “fate” assonance.
17. assonance (as in poetry) John Donne
18. autobiography • The story of a person’s life as written by that person.
18. autobiography Maya Angelou
Charles Bukowski 18. autobiography
19. avant-garde • Applied to new writing that shows striking (and usually self-conscious) innovations in style, form, and subject matter.
