IMPORTANT ENGLISH LITERARY TERMS

IMPORTANT ENGLISH LITERARY TERMS

⏩Melodrama:-A highly sensational drama with happy ending. Example ‘The Spanish Tragedy’ –Kyd.

⏩Metaphysical Poetry:-Meta means beyond and physical is related to body .

⏩Mock-epic:-It is a long satirical poem dealing with a trivial theme. Example: “The rape of the lock”-Alexander Pope.

⏩Metaphor:-A metaphor is an implicit comparison between two different things.

⏩Metre:-The recurrence of similar stress pattern in some lines of a poem.

⏩Novel:-is a long prose narrative fiction with plot characters etc.

⏩Novelette:-is longer than a short story and shorter than a novel.

⏩Ode:-is a long narrative poem of varying, line length dealing with serious subject matter.

⏩Objectivity:-We have objectivity in a literary piece when the author focuses on an object from broadened point of view.

⏩Octave:-is the firs part of Italian sonnet.

⏩Oxymoron:-is apparently a physical contrast which oddly makes sense on a deeper level.

⏩Prologue:-is the beginning part of a novel or a play or a novel.

⏩Prose:-Any material that is not written in a regular meter like a poetry.

⏩Prosody:-Prosody is the mechanics or grammar of verse.

⏩Protagonist:-Protagonist is the main character in a literary work

⏩Plot:-The arrangement of incidents is called plot.

⏩Pun:-A pun is playing with words.

⏩Periods of English literature:-The Anglo-Saxon, Middle English Renaissance, Restoration, Neoclassical Romantic, Victorian, Modern, Post-Modern.

⏩Romanticism:-was a literary movement. It stands Opposite to reason and focuses on emotion.

⏩Rhetoric:-Rhetoric is the art of persuasive argument through writing.

⏩Symbol:-A symbol is anything that stands for something else.

⏩Sonnet:-is a lyric poem consisting of fourteen rhymed lines dealing with a lofty theme.

⏩Satire:-is ridiculing the vices and follies of an individual or a society with a corrective design. E.g. “The rape of the lock”---Pope.

⏩Short-story:-A short story is a prose narrative considerable length. It is shorter than a novel.

⏩Stanza:-is a group of verses having a rhyme scheme pattern.

⏩Subjectivity:-We find subjectivity in a literary work in which the writer’s personal intrusion takes place.

⏩Soliloquy:-It means speaking alone when in a play a character is found speaking alone on the stage it is called soliloquy.

⏩Ballad= a kind of short narrative poem.

⏩Blank verse= Having no rhyming end.

⏩Blue print= final documents having received finished touches.

⏩Canto= A subdivision of an epic or narrative poem.

⏩Elegy= Song of lamentation.

⏩Epic= A long poem

⏩Epilogue= A poem or speech at the end of play.

⏩Epitaph= words that are said about dead person.

⏩Eulogy= Speech or writing i praise of a person.

⏩Fairy talk= folk literature.

⏩Fantasy = an imaginary story.

⏩Hymn=song praise of god.

⏩Jargon= A mixture of two or more language .

⏩Lyric= A poem that could be sung.

⏩Opera= A musical drama.

⏩Parody= Imitation of a poem or writings.

⏩Sonnet= A poem of fourteen lines.