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Definition |
Example |
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zeugma |
figurative language |
A figure of speech in which one verb governs several words, or clauses, each in a different sense. |
"She looked at the object with suspicion and a magnifying glass." Charles Dickens. |
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wordplay |
literary term |
Clever or subtle repartee; verbal wit. Also, a play on words; a pun. |
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western fiction |
genre |
A adventure novel or short story set in the western United States. |
Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey |
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villanelle |
poetic term |
A type of fixed form poetry consisting of nineteen lines divided into six stanzas: five tercets and a concluding quatrain. The first and third lines of the initial tercet rhyme; these rhymes are repeated in each subsequent tercet (aba) and in the final two lines of the quatrain (abaa) |
Do Not Go Gentle Into that Good Night by Dylan Thomas |
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Victorian |
period |
The period of British literature between 1837-1901 when Victoria was the queen. The literature of the period reflected current social, economic, and intellectual problems. |
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verisimilitude |
literary term |
The quality of seeming to be true. |
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utopian fiction |
genre |
A novel that presents an ideal society where all social problems such as poverty and crime have been eliminated. |
Walden Two by B.F. Skinner |
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unreliable narrator |
literary device |
A work of fiction in which the narrator's credibility is seriously compromised due to psychological instability, a powerful bias, a lack of knowledge, or a deliberate attempt to deceive the reader. |
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James |
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trope |
figurative language |
A figure of speech in which words are not used in their literal sense but in a figurative sense. C.f. "figure of speech" |
antithesis, simile, metaphor, metonymy, onomatopoeia, personification, synecdoche, irony |
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trochee |
poetic term |
A foot of verse having two syllables, the first unstressed and the second stressed. |
"Adam / Had 'em." from Lines on the Antiquity of Microbes by Strickland Gillilan. |
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triple rhyme |
poetic term |
A type of feminine rhyme in which the three final syllables coincide. This is often used for a humorous effect. |
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trimeter |
poetic term |
A line of verse consisting of three metric feet. |
"I went| to the Gar| den of Love, / And saw| what I nev| er had seen;" from The Garden of Love by William Blake |
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tragedy |
genre |
A serious work in which events result in disastrously for the protagonist. |
Othello by Shakespeare |
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tone |
literary term |
The author's implicit attitude toward the reader or the people, places, and events in a work as revealed by the elements of the author's style. |
Carroll's Alice in Wonderland has a whimsical tone. |
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third-person narrative |
literary device |
A story told about a protagonist from another point of view. |
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theme |
literary term |
The central meaning or dominant idea in a literary work. |
The theme of Crane's The Red Badge of Courage is the horrors of war and the real meaning of courage. |
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thematic |
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Relating to works of literature in which no characters are involved except the author and his audience, as in most lyrics and essays, or to works of literature in which internal characters are subordinated to an argument maintained by the author, as in allegories and parables; opposed to fictional. |
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tetrameter |
poetic term |
A line of verse consisting of four metric feet. |
"Dreaming| still of| Minne|haha, / Of the| lovely| Laughing| Water," from Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow |
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terza rima |
poetic term |
A type of poetry consisting of 10- or 11-syllable lines arranged in three-line tercets with the rhyme scheme aba bcb cdc, etc. |
Ode to the West Wind by Percy Bysshe Shelley is written in terza rima. |
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temporary suspension of disbelief |
literary term |
The temporary acceptance as real of events or characters that would ordinarily be seen as incredible, unreal, or contrived. This suspension is what allows an audience to accept works of literature and drama that explore extraordinary ideas or supernatural characters.
This term was coined by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1817 with the publication of his Biographia Literaria or Biographical Sketches of My Literary Life and Opinions.
A temporary suspension of disbelief is essential if any reenactment of real life is to be taken seriously. It occurs when anyone experiences any movie, drama, or work of fiction. An audience may know that it is watching an actor or reading a play, but puts that perception out of its mind as it directly experiences what the artist is attempting to convey as if it were actually occuring. |
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, published in the first edition of his Lyrical Ballads in 1798. Coleridge uses narrative techniques such as personification and repetition to create either a sense of danger, of the supernatural, or of serenity, depending on the mood of each of the different parts of the poem.
Lyrical Ballads marks a signal shift to modern poetry and the beginning of British Romantic literature. |
