{"id":1151,"date":"2019-11-06T21:29:25","date_gmt":"2019-11-06T21:29:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/books-we-read\/?page_id=1151"},"modified":"2019-11-07T14:33:55","modified_gmt":"2019-11-07T14:33:55","slug":"glossary","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/books-we-read\/discussion-groups\/glossary\/","title":{"rendered":"Glossary of Literary Terms"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Below is a list of terms for discussing literary texts, with some examples.\u00a0 This is not intended to be exhaustive or authoritative, but rather a shared resource for terms that participants might or might not know.\u00a0 You can use this glossary to look up unfamiliar words, brush up on vocabulary you remember from high school, or spark ideas about what you might want to discuss in a particular story.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Note: The precise definitions of many of these terms are hotly debated among specialists!\u00a0 This glossary is intended for casual discussion, not to be cited in a scholarly paper.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>Address<\/strong>: a term for when a writer explicitly \u201cspeaks to\u201d an audience, including an imagined reader.\u00a0 Also known as <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">apostrophe<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> when the person or thing spoken to cannot respond.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>Allegory<\/strong>: a story whose elements stand for something else, offering a hidden meaning.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Examples: John Bunyan\u2019s <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Pilgrim\u2019s Progress<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> is an allegory for the process of Christian salvation, narrated as a journey from \u201cthe City of Destruction\u201d (the sinful world) to \u201cthe Celestial City\u201d (Heaven).\u00a0 George Orwell\u2019s <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Animal Farm<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> is an allegory for the Soviet Union&#8217;s abandonment of revolutionary ideals; some characters represent specific historical figures (Napoleon the pig = Joseph Stalin), and others represent more general groups or attitudes (Boxer the horse = workers betrayed by the regime).\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>Allusion<\/strong>: a reference, usually implied rather than stated, often to another literary work.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>Connotation<\/strong>: association called up by a word or phrase that go beyond its literal meaning; the subtle difference between a word and its synonyms, or a phrase and its paraphrase.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>Deus ex machina<\/strong>: a force that intervenes unexpectedly to produce some effect in the plot; Latin for \u201cGod from the machine.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>Exposition<\/strong>: the part of a story in which the setting and situation are explained.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>Fiction<\/strong>: writing that is neither literally true nor meant to deceive; in the words of literary critic Terry Eagleton, \u201ca kind of writing in which you can neither lie, tell the truth, nor make a mistake\u201d (from <em>After Theory<\/em>).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>Foreshadowing<\/strong>: a hint at what will happen later in the story.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>Frame narrative<\/strong>: the telling of a story within a story.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>Free indirect discourse<\/strong>: when the narrative point-of-view sees the world through the eyes of a character while remaining in the third person, i.e. not using pronouns like &#8220;I&#8221; or &#8220;me&#8221; (also known as free indirect style).<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Example: \u201cShe looked him up and down.\u00a0 He was annoying, to be sure, but he shouldn\u2019t be too much trouble for her to handle.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>Genre<\/strong>: a conventional group that a literary work can be classified under, like \u201cmystery,\u201d &#8220;limerick,&#8221; or \u201clove song.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>Imagery<\/strong>: the use of language to bring out a sensory response in the reader.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>Metaphor<\/strong>: identifying one thing (the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">tenor<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">) as something else (the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">vehicle<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">) in order to point out a similarity (<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">ground<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">).\u00a0 Closely related are simile, in which the tenor and vehicle are compared using \u201clike\u201d or \u201cas\u201d (e.g. \u201clife is like a box of chocolates\u201d); and metonymy, in which the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">vehicle<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> is something associated with the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">tenor<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> rather than similar to it (e.g. \u201clend me your ears\u201d for \u201cgive me your attention\u201d).<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Example: \u201cThis city (<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">tenor<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">)\u00a0 is a powderkeg (<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">vehicle<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">), ready to blow up (<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">ground<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">).\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>Narrator<\/strong>: the person supposedly \u201ctelling\u201d the story.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>Novel<\/strong>: a long work of fiction, usually too long to read in one sitting.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>Parody<\/strong>: an imitation of a literary work or genre, usually humorous; often but not always intended to mock the work or genre that it imitates.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Examples: <i>Spaceballs<\/i> <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">is a parody of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Star Wars<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> that gently mocks its source material; Weird Al Yankovic\u2019s \u201cEat It,\u201d by contrast, is a parody of Michael Jackson\u2019s \u201cBeat It\u201d that pokes fun at picky eaters and their parents rather than the original song.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>Personification<\/strong>: a device in which something that is not a person takes on the qualities of personhood, such as consciousness, human embodiment, speech, or free will.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>Point-of-view<\/strong>: the perspective through which the story is told; at the basic grammatical level, first-person (\u201cI\u201d or \u201cwe\u201d) or third-person (\u201che,\u201d \u201cshe,\u201d etc.) or rarely second-person (\u201cyou\u201d).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>Satire<\/strong>: writing that mocks and\/or criticizes people, institutions, and ideas.\u00a0 Satire and parody are related, but distinct: satires will often use parody (imitation of a work or genre) to make a point, but not all satires are parodies and not all parodies are satires.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Example: <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Daily Show<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> is a long-running satire show that mocks public figures and cultural trends, while its spinoff <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Colbert Report<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> was a parody that imitated conservative opinion shows like <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hannity<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The O\u2019Reilly Factor<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>Setting:<\/strong> the place or time in which a story occurs.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>Tone<\/strong>: the predominant feeling of a literary work.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Below is a list of terms for discussing literary texts, with some examples.\u00a0 This is not intended to be exhaustive or authoritative, but rather a shared resource for terms that &hellip; 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