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ENGLISH LITERATURE

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LITERARY TERMS

CHRONOLOGY

1. Absurd, Theatre Of The

2. Action

3. Aesthetic Criticism

4. Aestheticism

5. Age of Johnson in English Literature

6. Age of Reason

7. Age of the Romantic Movement In England

8. Age of Sensibility

9. Anagorisis

10. Anticlimax

11. Agnosticism

12. Alexandrine

13. Allegory

14. Anagram

15. Antagonist

16. Antithesis

17. Aphorism

18. Archetype

19. Architectonic

20. Aside

21. Association

22. Attic Style

23. Avant - grade

24. Ballad

25. Bathos

26. Baroque

27. Belles - letters

28. Black Death

29. Blank Verse

30. Bombastic

31. Bourgeois Drama

32. Bucolic

33. Burlesque

34. Byronic Hero

35. Cadence

36. Caesura

37. Canto

38. Caricature

39. Carol

40. Catharsis

41. Catastrophe

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42. Campus Novel

43. Caroline period, The

44. Cavalier Poets

45. Cavalier Drama

46. Chorus

47. Chronicle

48. Chronicle Play

49. Cliché

50. Climax

51. Closet Drama

52. Cockney School of Poetry

53. Comedy of Intrigue

54. Conceit

55. Decadents

56. Decorum

57. Deus ex Machina

58. Denonument

59. Didactic

60. Didacticism

61. Diaries

62. Dirge

63. Dissociation Of Sensibility

64. Dithrayamb

65. Doggerel

66. Dramatic Monologue

67. Dramatic Irony

68. Dramatic Personae

69. Early Tudor Age

70. Eclogue

71. Edwardian

72. Elegy

73. Elizabethan Age

74. Empathy

75. English Literature – Period

76. Epic

77. Epic, Mock or Mock Epic

78. Epic Simile

79. Epicedium

80. Epistle

81. Epistolary Novel

82. Eulogy

83. Epithalamion

84. Fable

85. Fabliau

86. Farce

87. Fancy

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88. Fire of London, The Great

89. Flat and Round Character

90. Georgian Age In English Literature

91. Georgian Poets

92. Globe Theatre

93. Genre

94. Gothic

95. Gothic Novels

96. Graveyard School

97. Grand Style

98. Hamartia

99. Heroic Couplet

100. Heroic Line

101. Heroic poetry

102. Humanism

103. Homily

104. Hymn

105. Idyll

106. Imagery

107. Imagism

108. Irony

109. Ivory Tower

110. Jargon

111. Jacobean Age

112. Kit – Cat Club

113. Lake Poets

114. Lampoon

115. Late Victorian Age

116. Literary Club, The (also Doctor Johnson's circle)

117. Lollards

118. Malapropism

119. Manners, Comedy of

120. Masque

121. Masculine Rhyme

122. Metaphysical Poets

123. Middle English Period

124. Mime

125. Miracle Play

126. Modernist Period in English Literature

127. Monody

128. Monograph

129. Morality Plays

130. Mystery Plays

131. Mysticism

132. Myth

133. Neo classicism

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134. Neologism

135. Negativity Capability

136. New Aristotelian School

137. New Criticism

138. New Platonism

139. Novella

140. Objective Corelative

141. Oedipus Complex

142. Oxford Movement

143. Pamphlet

144. Panegyric

145. Pantheism

146. Parody

147. Pantomime

148. Parable

149. Paston Letters

150. Pathetic Fallacy

151. Picaresque Novel

152. Philistines

153. Plagiarism

154. Poetic Diction

155. Poetic License

156. Pre – Raphaelite Brotherhood

157. Problem Plays (Of Shakespeare)

158. Protagonist

159. Prothalamion

160. Pseudo

161. Psychological Novel

162. Purple Patch

163. Reconciliation Plays of Shakespeare

164. Red Cross Knight, The

165. Renaissance

166. Renaissance of Wonder

167. Reformation

168. Regionalism

169. Romanticism

170. Romantic Revival

171. Saga

172. Satire

173. Scribblers Club

174. Senecan Tragedy

175. Senecan Tradition

176. Sensibility

177. Serenade

178. Sentimentality

179. Seventeenth (17th

) Century Literature

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180. Soliloquy

181. Spasmodics

182. Spenserian Stanza

183. Spoonerism

184. Sprung Rhythm

185. Structuralism

186. Stream of Consciousness Novel

187. Sublime

188. Symbolism

189. Theater Of Cruelty

190. Threnody

191. Three Unities

192. Tract

193. Tragi- Comedy

194. Treatise

195. Transcendentalism

196. Twentieth Century Literature

197. Utopia

198. University Wits

199. Verisimilitude

200. Victorian Compromise

201. Vorticism

202. Willing Suspension of Disbelief

203. Wit

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LITERARY TERMS

ABSURD, THEATRE OF THE A term invented by Martin Esslin who wrote The Theatre of the Absurd [1961].

Conceived in perplexity and spiritual anguish, the theater of the absurd portrays not a series

of connected incidents telling a story but a pattern of images presenting people as be-

wildered creatures in an incomprehensible universe.

The dramatists associated with the theatre of the absurd are- Arthur Adamov, Edward

Albee, Samuel Beckett, Camus, Jean Genet, Ionesco, Alfred Jarry, Harold Pinter and

Boris Vian. The works of The Theater of Absurd give ample expressions often leading the

observer (audience) baffled with meaningless and repetitious dialogues and incomprehensible

behavior.

The first true example of the theatre of the absurd was Eugene Ionesco‘s The Bald Soprano

[1950], but the most acclaimed play is Samuel Beckett‘s Waiting for Godot [1953]. Another

name of ‘Waiting for Godot’ is A Tragic Comedy in Two Acts. Albert Camus‘ The Myth of Sisyphus is one central expression of this philosophy.

ACTION According to Aristotle, is basic in drama. Broadly action relates to story and plot. It is

conceived as a unified course of event having a beginning, middle and an end. The emphasis

on action is a characteristic of the Classical school. The opposite view (predominant in the

Romantics) is to emphasize character and diction.

AESTHETIC CRITICISM It treats literature as an art. It probes the nature of the literary art as such and

formulates its theories accordingly. Traces of it are found in Sidney, Dryden, Addison

Coleridge; I. A. Richards dealt with it elaborately.

AESTHETICISM A term loosely applied to an English literary movement of the second half of the

nineteenth century. Oscar Wilde was the leader of Aestheticism. The aesthetes believed in

―art for art‘s sake‖.

It is a movement of late 19th

Century. As a movement, it was not well defined; it was one of

the reactions against the materialism and commercialism of the Victorian industrial era.

Previously, Arnold had attacked Victorian cultural narrowness. Carlyle had attacked

Victorian spiritual mediocrity; Ruskin had tried to educate Victorians in the moral inspiration

of beauty. There had also been two well defined movements. The Oxford Movement and the

artistic Pre-Raphaelite movement preaching the virtues of medieval culture. All these made

up the background to aestheticism, but its inspiration was Walter Pater and his two most

influential books are Studies in the history of the Renaissance (1873) and Marius the

Epicurean (1885). The outstanding aesthete was Oscar Wilde (1856 – 1900) and the product

was his novel, The Picture of Dorian Grey (1891).

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AGE OF JOHNSON IN ENGLISH LITERATURE The interval between 1750 and 1798 was a markedly transitional age in English

Literature. The Neo- Classicism that dominated the first half of the century was yielding in

many ways to the impulse towards Romanticism, although the period was still predominantly

neo classical.

Little was accomplished in drama, except for the comedy by Sheridan and

Goldsmith. The chief poets were Burns, Gray, Cowper, Johnson and Crabbe a list that

indicates how thoroughly the pendulum was swinging away from Pope and Dryden. Yet it

was Samuel Johnson- poet, lexicographer, essayist, novelist, journalist, and neo- classical

critic who was the major literary figure and his friend Boswell‘s biography of him [1791]

was life of Samuel Jonshon the greatest works of the age, challenged for such honor only by

Gibbon‘s monumental history, The Decline and fall of Roman Empire [1776].

An interest in the past [particularly the middle ages], in the primitive, and in the

literature of the folk was developing and was contributing with increasing strength to the

growing tide of Romanticism.

It is sometimes called the Age of Sensibility, emphasizing the emergence of new attitudes

and the development of sensibility as a major literary expression.

AGE OF REASON A term often applied to the Neo- classical period in English Literature and

sometimes to the Revolutionary and Early National Period In American Literature, because

these periods emphasized self- knowledge, self control, discipline and the rule of law, order

and decorum in public and private life and art.

AGE OF THE ROMANTIC MOVEMENT IN ENGLAND, 1798-1832 Although a major romantic poet, Robert Burns, had died in 1796, William Blake‘s

Song of Innocence had appeared in 1789, and the publication of Lyrical Ballads by

Wordsworth and Coleridge in 1798 is often regarded as the beginning of a period of more

than three decades in which romanticism triumphed, a period that is often said to have ended

in 1832, with the death of Scott. During these thirty- four years, the careers of Wordsworth,

Coleridge, Byron, Mary and P. B. Shelley, and Keats flowered; Scott created the Historical

Novel and made it a force in international literature. Jane Austen wrote her Novel of

Manners; Mary Shelley her Gothic Novel and Science fiction; and Lamb, De Quincy and

Hazlitt raised the personal essay to a high level of accomplishment.

AGE OF SENSIBILITY A name applied by literary historian, such as Harold Bloom, Northrop Frye, to the

last half of the 18th

Century in England, the time earlier called the Age of Johnson. The term

Age of Sensibility results from seeing the interval between 1750 and 1798.

AGNOSTICISM The term was invented by the biologist Thomas Huxley in 1869 to express towards

religious faith the attitude which is neither of belief nor of disbelief (atheism). In his own

words, ‗I neither affirm nor deny the immorality of man. I see no reason for believing it, but

on the other hand I have no means of disproving it.‘ Agnosticism was widespread among

writers between 1850 and 1914; it arose from the scientific thought of the time, especially

that of Huxley himself and that of another biologist Charles Darwin.

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ALEXANDRINE A twelve-syllable line of verse possibly owing its name to French medieval poem

about Alexander the Great. It is common in French poetry but unusual in English, where the

commonest line length is often syllables. Michael Drayton used it in his long poem

Polyolbion (1613-22), but it's most famous use is in the last line of the Spenserian stanza,

invented by Edmund Spenser for his Faerie Queen.

ALLEGORY From Greek Speaking in other terms‘. A way of representing thought and experience

through images, by means of which (1) complex ideas may be simplified, or (2) abstract,

spiritual, or mysterious ideas and experience may be made immediate (but not necessary

simpler) by dramatization in fiction.

ANAGRAM Word or words formed by the rearrangement of the letters of another word and often

in comment upon it, e.g., ‗Wait – a wit‘. Another example is the transformation of Florence

nightingale into ―Flit on cheering angel!‖.

ANTAGONIST The major character in opposition to the hero or protagonist of a narrative or drama.

ANTITHESIS A contrast in which sharply opposing ideas are expressed within a balanced

grammatical structure.

ANTICLIMAX Sinking, often deliberate, from the sublime to the ridiculous.

ANAGNORISIS In drama, the discovery or recognition that leads to the Peripetia or Reversal. The

reversal depends on Recognition of something of great importance by the protagonist was

unknown to him which is known as Discovery in Aristotle's term Anagnorisis.

ARCHITECTONIC

The principle of good design; the process of so ordering the elements of a work of art

as to make them significant only in relation to, and in their exact position, in the completed

whole.

APHORISM A terse sentence, weighted with sense; with more weight of wisdom. ‘Crafty men

condemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them…‘ (Francis Bacon:

Of Studies, 1625)

ARCHETYPE This term is used since 1930s. C.G. Jung describe archetypes as ―primordial images

formed by repeated experiences in the lives of our ancestors, inherited in the ‗collective

unconscious‘ of the human race, and often expressed in myths, religion, dreams, and

fantasies, as well as in literature. In literary criticism ‗archetype‘ is applied to a character type

or plot pattern or description which recurs frequently in literature and is thought to evoke

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profound emotional responses in the reader because it resonates with an image already

existing in his unconscious mind. Orestes Oedipus, Hamlet, Faust and Don Juan have the

power to stir generation after generation because they are archetypal figures‖.

ASIDE Theatrical device whereby the audience is directly addressed in words the other are

Not supposed to hear.

ASSOCIATIONISM Is the theory that the contents of consciousness group themselves by process of

association, so that one element easily and spontaneously recall others which are rapidly

experienced in conjunction. The theory of Association was formulated by Hartley in the 18th

century, and influence Wordsworth; and Coleridge before he came under the influence of

German philosophers. Adherents to this theory try to explain why certain objects appear as

beautiful and others do not by asserting that beauty is a subjective experience arouses by

association of the qualities of the object with the qualities that satisfy desires or interests. The

fact of the associative processes of thought has been utilized by the ‗stream of consciousness‘

school of novelist.

ATTIC STYLE ‘Attic’ refers to an ancient Greek dialect spoken in Athens; hence applied to a ‗pure,

simple polished style‘s such as we find in the best Greek writers.

AVANT - GARDE In literature, a term designating new writing that contains innovations in form or

technique. ‘The men of 1914’, as Wyndham Lewis called them, were still an avante –

garde.

BALLAD A traditional song in which some popular stories are narrated in short stanzas,

commonly in quatrains of alternate four. The word derives from Old French, ballad--to

dance; compare modern English, ball -a dance to which guests are invited. Features of the

balled in its traditional form are: the matter is often a highly dramatic narrative; the stories are

often version of themes used in ballads throughout Europe.

BATHOS Sudden, unintentional decent from the exalted to the ridiculous. Usually caused by the

writer trying to be lofty like anti-climax.

BAROQUE It is a term applied to fantastic over – decoration in art the result of excessive attention

to technical perfection in a particular form within a limited scope. In practice it led to the

development of Euphuism. It has been extended to include literary works that re – create in

one culture a form or activity created in another culture distant in time or space.

BELLES – LETTERS Unfashioned terms chiefly applied to lighter writings and essays.

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BILDUNGSROMAN A novel that deals with the development of a young person, usually from adolescence

to maturity; it is frequently autobiographical. Dickens's Great Expectations and Samuel

Butler‘s The Way of All Flesh are standard examples. Doris Lessing‘s five- volume Children

of Violence ranks among the most ambitions and impressive example.

BLACK DEATH An epidemic which struck England in 1348-49 and reduced the population by

between one-third and one-half. The economic consequences were far reaching especially the

shortage of labor. Landowners tended to change from arable to sheep farming, which

required less labor; peasants had better bargaining power and were in a position to commute;

a fierce class struggle resulted from attempts by the landed classes to keep down wages,

culminating in the Peasant’s Revolt of 1381.

BLANK VERSE Verse which is unrhymed, and composed of lines which normally, contain 10

syllables and have the stress on every second syllables as in the classical iambic pentameter.

The first user of the iambic pentameter in English was Chaucer who used it in rhyming

couplets, e.g. The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales.

The first user of blank verse was Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517- 47), who

adopted it for a translation of the second and third books of Virgil’s Aeneid. It is also used

by Sackville and Norton in their tragedy Gorboduc. The dramatist Christopher Marlowe

(1564-93) first gave blank verse its great distinction. Blank verse as used by Marlowe was

carried on by Shakespeare, who employed it with steadily increasing flexibility and power.

BOMBAST Language inflated with high sounding, meaningless words.

BOURGEOIS DRAMA A term widely used to describe the modern realistic drama dealing with the problems

of the middle class characters.

BUCOLIC A term is used for pastoral writing that deals with rural life like Shelley‘s Adonais.

BURLESQUE Derived from the Italian burla meaning ridicule or mockery. In its wider sense it is

used for any literary composition or dramatic representation which aims at producing

laughter by the comic treatment of a serious subject or the ridiculous imitation of a serious

work. The notable example of burlesque are Chaucer's Sir Topas, Fielding's Tom Thumb the

Great, George Viller's The Rehearsal and Butler's Hudibras. BURLESQUE

BYRONIC HERO He is a vain, disappointed, melancholy cynical man, who finds no good in life or love

or anything.

CADENCE General modulation of the voice in reading.

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CAESURA A pause in a line of verse dictated not by matrices but by the natural rhythm of the

language.

CANTO Major division of a long poem.

CARICATURE A representation of characters whose prominent features are so exaggerated or

distorted as to render it ridiculous.

CAROL Song of praise of joy, especially a Christmas hymn.

CAROLINE AGE The Age of Charles I (1625 - 49). Caroline is taken from Carolus and in Latin it

means Charles.

CATHARSIS It is a term applied by Aristotle to the purgative of the emotions (pity and terror)

through artistic expression, e.g. in tragedy through pity and terror. The concept has been

variously interpreted. How can ‗pity and terror‘ affect purgation of the emotions? (1) by

familiarizing the mind with scenes of misery and violence and thus making one impervious to

pity and terror. (2) Pity leads the spectator to fear for his own well – being and his

determination to control his passions lead him to purge himself. (3) The homeopathic

conception was enunciated by Milton and suggests that like emotions drive out like. (4)

Tragedy purifies the spectator by bringing out his natural goodness through pity and fear for

the victims of tragedy. (5) The dialectical opposition between pity and terror leads to a tense

condition of emotional equilibrium free from all storm and stress.

CATASROPHE The tragic conclusion of a play or narrative.

CAMPUS NOVEL A novel which has a university campus as its setting. The majority has been written

by those who were or are academicians. Lucky Jim (1954) by Kingsley Amis; Giles Goat-

boy (1966) by John Barth; Changing Places (1975) by David lodge are all novels written

with its setting in a university.

CAROLINE PERIOD, THE From Carolus (Lat)—Charles; applied to the reign of Charles I especially to denote

the literature of the reign. Caroline poets include so – called ‘Caroline Poets’ such as

Carew, Lovelace and Suckling; Caroline dramatists were the last to write in the Elizabeth

tradition e.g. John Ford and James Shirley. The Caroline writers exhibited the graceful

qualities associated with Charles I‘s court; they had more refinement and elegance than the

poets and dramatists of the previous (Jacobean) reign of James I, such as Donne and Webster.