ALPHABETICAL LIST OF LITERARY TERMS
aesthetics: "Philosophical investigation into the
nature of beauty and the perception of beauty, especially in the arts; the
theory of art or artistic taste." (CB)
allegory: "A story or visual image with a second
distinct meaning partially hidden behind its literal or visible meaning. In
written narrative, allegory involves a continuous parallel between two (or
more) levels of meaning in a story, so that its persons and events correspond
to their equivalents in a system of ideas or a chain of events external to the
tale." (CB)
allusion: "An indirect or passing reference to
some event, person, place, or artistic work, the nature and relevance of which
is not explained by the writer but relies on the reader’s familiarity with what
is thus mentioned. The technique of allusion is an economical means of calling
upon the history or the literary tradition that author and reader are assumed
to share. . . ." (CB)
ambiguity: "Openness to different
interpretations: or an instance in which some use of language may be understood
in diverse ways." Defended by modern literary critics as "a source of
poetic richness rather than a fault of imprecision." (CB)
anti-hero: A central figure in a work that repels us
by his or her actions or morality, yet who is not a villain. The Anti-hero
accomplishes a useful purpose or even does heroic deeds. Max of The
Road Warrior
epitomizes the 1970-80s anti-hero.
archetype: A term from Jungian psychology that has
been applied to literature. Jung meant the symbolic figure of myth and legend,
or even a racial memory that we carry in a "collective unconscious."
Archetypes embody an entire type of character from many cultures. Thus Hercules
is an archetypal flawed hero, Odysseus or the Native-American Coyote are
archetypal trickster figures. In literature and film the term can be more
broadly applied, so we have the suffering mother of sentimental fiction, the
greedy landlord of stage and film, the doomed private writing a letter home the
night before the D-Day invasion, and the kind-hearted "tough guy" in
many works.
black comedy: a subgenre of humor that
uses cruelty or terrible situations to make the reader or viewer laugh,
sometimes uncomfortably. Some Social-Darwinist works (Frank Norris' best known
novel, McTeague) are also black comedies.
camera movement: cameras can remain
stationary and move side to side (a pan), up and down (a tilt). It can move
along on a vehicle or set of tracks straight backward or forward (a track or
tracking shot). The camera can be carried for a wobbly (but often powerful)
handheld shot.
canon: A body of works considered authentic (as in
the body of works actually written by a particular author) or considered by a
particular culture or subculture to be central to its cultural identity.
catharsis: A process in which a character heals,
though often the process is painful. It can be a process for the audience of a
work, as well.
connotation: "The emotional implications and
associations that words may carry, as distinguished from their denotative
meanings." (HH)
convention: "An established practice—whether in
technique, style, structure, or subject matter—commonly adopted in literary
works by customary and implicit agreement or precedent rather than by natural
necessity." (CB)
cyberpunk: genre of science fiction pioneered by
William Gibson and a few others in the 1980s; Gibson first coined the term
"cyberspace." In these texts and films, humans have begun to merge
with computer technology and the future is generally dark as major corporations
replace governments as oppressive power-brokers. Life is usually short and
uncertain with huge gaps between a small corporate elite and the gangs, the
poor, and the insane who make up the bulk of the population. Cyberpunk
protagonists are often cynical rebels--punks, mercenaries, hackers, spies, and
nomads--who work outside the system and the "suits" who run it.
denotation: The basic dictionary meaning of a word, as
opposed to its connotative meaning.
denouement: The "end game" of a work of
fiction. More than "how the plot comes out," the denouement (a French
term using French pronunciation) suggests the ways in which several plot
elements work out toward the end of a text or film.
determinism/deterministic: the quality of a
narrative or character that leads only to a single conclusion. We know, for
example, that certain characters are doomed to fail, whatever they do.
deus ex machina: The way of closing a
story with an off-stage character who suddenly appears to bring about the
denouement. This approach to ending a tale has its origins in ancient Greek
theater, where an actor in the role of a god might suddenly appear on stage to
help bring about the ending of the performance.
diction: Literary word choice.
didactic: A work "designed to impart
information, advice, or some doctrine of morality or philosophy." (CB)
discourse: "[A]s a free-standing noun (discourse
as such) the term denotes language in actual use within its social and
ideological contexts and in institutionalized representations of the world
called discursive practices." (CB) Literary works may contain or make use
of any number of discourses. Literary language may itself be considered a kind
of discourse.
dystopia/utopia: A fictional world so
oppressive that it might be a nightmare for someone from our society. Examples
of dystopian fiction would be Orwell's 1984. Some post-apocalyptic
worlds (see below) are dystopias, but the usual feature of most dystopian
fiction and film is that some type of society, however awful, still exists. A
utopian world is exactly the opposite--a paradise of some sort. The eternal
bliss of the biblical Garden of Eden and the perfect technological future
predicted at the 1939 World's Fair in the film The
World of Tomorrow
are both utopian.
exegesis: the art of close reading in order to
interpret a text. We often utilize this technique for poetry, but for fiction
it works as well to tease out the effect of certain words or phrases, uses of
repetition, references to earlier events in the text, or hints about what is to
come.
fatal flaw: a character trait that leads to tragedy,
both in characters who are otherwise quite admirable and in terrible villains.
Examples include King Lear's blind trust in his daughters, Eve's desire for
knowledge, Ahab's thirst for revenge, Darth Vader's will to power, or Pandora's
curiosity.
figure of speech: "An expression that
departs from the accepted literal sense or from the normal order of words, or
in which an emphasis is produced by patterns of sound." (CB)
form: As a critical term, form "can refer to
a genre. . ., or to an established pattern of poetic devices. . ., or, more
abstractly, to the structure or unifying principle of design in a given work. .
. When speaking of a work’s formal properties, critics usually refer to its
structural design and patterning, or sometimes to its style and manner in a
wider sense as distinct from its content." (CB)
genre: "The French term for a type, species,
or class of composition. A literary genre is a recognizable and established
category of written work employing such common conventions as will prevent
readers or audiences from mistaking it [with] another kind." (CB) Genre as
a term is distinguished from mode in its greater specificity as to form and
convention.
hard-boiled: a tone of writing for fiction and film often
associated with American detective fiction by Raymond Chandler, Mickey
Spillane, and Dashiell Hammett. Often film noir (which has several specific
themes and even recurring images, such as spiral staircases) adopts a
hard-boiled tone. Hard-boiled narrators are usually male characters that could
be described as "tough guys."
homage: a French term pronounced that way, this is
"a nod of the head" in a film to a past director or actor. Directors
watch lots of good and bad films, so many engage in this practice. Directors of
mysteries or suspense films often include an homage to Alfred Hitchcock. The
opening shot of Miller's The Road Warrior resembles Benedek's The
Wild One
closely enough to qualify as an homage.
hubris: the sort of pride that is so inflated that
it binds, even destroys a character, even an entire people. Many characters in
classical literature and Shakespeare's plays are so prideful that it destroys
them; so is Satan in Milton's Paradise Lost.
ideology: A comprehensive world view pertaining to
formal and informal thought, philosophy, and cultural presuppositions usually
understood as associated with specific positions within political, social, and
economic hierarchies. Many schools of modern literary criticism contend that
the ideological context of both reader and author always affects the meanings
assigned to or encoded in the work.
irony: "A. . . perception of inconsistency,
[usually but not always humorous], in which an apparently straightforward
statement or event is undermined by its context so as to give it a very
different significance. . . [V]erbal irony. . . involves a discrepancy between
what is said and what is really meant. . . .[S]tructural irony. . . involves
the use of a naive or deluded hero or unreliable narrator whose view of the
world differs widely from the true circumstances recognized by the author and
readers. . . . [In] dramatic irony. . . the audience knows more about a
character's situation than a character does foreseeing an outcome contrary to a
character's expectations, and thus ascribing a sharply different sense to the
character's own statements". (CB)
magical realism: a type of fiction in
which the world appears just as ours in all respects but very extraordinary
things happen: a poor family finds a sick angel in the back yard and nurses him
back to health, one morning a man wakes up in his family's apartment to find
that he's become a giant bug. Gabriel Garcia Marquez and many Latin-American
writers use the technique well. Unlike science fiction, most magical realism
makes no attempt to explain such events. They simply happen, often with people
reacting as if such things are not all that unusual.
MacGuffin: Alfred Hitchcock coined this term; he meant
plot device that makes the action happen without being important in and of
itself. For instance, two strangers sitting next to each other might lead to a
murder or a love affair. The plane ride is the MacGuffin. See this page on Hitchcock film techniques for more information
matte shot: The end shot of the 1968 Planet
of the Apes
provides a perfect example. When Taylor falls to his knees in front of the
Statue of Liberty, our actors were (I'm fairly certain) facing a blank
background. A painted background was added--a matte painting--of the ruined
statue.
metaphor: A figure of speech "in which one
thing, idea, or action is referred to by a word or expression normally denoting
another thing, idea, or action, so as to suggest some common quality shared by
the two." The term, "metaphor" is often reserved for figures of
speech in which the comparison is implicit or phrased as an "imaginary
identity," but it has become more common in recent years to refer to all
figures of speech that depend upon resemblances as metaphors. You will
therefore sometimes hear similes, where the comparison is explicit and no
identity is implied, referred to as metaphorical figures. All metaphors, in any
case, are based on the implicit formula, phrased as a simile, "X is like Y."
The primary literal term of the metaphor is called the "tenor" and
the secondary figurative term is the "vehicle." "[I]n the
metaphor "the road of life", the tenor is "life" and the
vehicle is "the road" (CB).
metonymy: "A figure of speech that replaces the
name of one thing with the name of something else closely associated with
it" (CB). The figure is based upon logical connections other than
resemblance. For example, you might use "sail" to refer to
"ship," as in "I saw a sail on the horizon." This metonymy
replaces the name of the whole thing with the name of one of its constituent
parts. This kind of metonymy is called synecdoche. Also very common is
replacing the name of a thing with its location, e.g. replacing
"President" with "White House," or replacing
"Congress" with "Capitol Hill."
mimesis: "The Greek word for imitation. . . . A
literary work that is understood to be reproducing an external reality or any
aspect of it is described as mimetic." (CB)
mise-en-scene: unlike montage,
mise-en-scene is physically what is in a shot or scene and does not involve
editing. It can involve camera movement and focus, placement of people or
objects, and other elements a director can make happen on the set rather than
later on in the editing process.
mode: "An unspecific critical term usually
identifying a broad but identifiable literary method, mood, or manner that is
not tied exclusively to a particular form or genre. [Some] examples are the
satiric mode, the ironic, the comic, the pastoral, and the didactic." (CB)
modernism: a design feature of architecture that
strips ornament from structures in favor of clean, geometric design, expanses
of glass, and exposed building elements. Modernist buildings do not try to look
like older forms. Literary modernism is another matter, but in literature,
Modernist works are also realistic (no pretense at being an older form) and can
be spare (think of Hemingway's fiction).
montage: how directors connect ideas in a film. The
shots are put together deliberately with transitions and by theme so that
"elements should follow a particular system, and these juxtapositions
should play a key role in how the work establishes its meaning, and its
emotional and aesthetic effects" (Manovich 158).
motif: A recurrent image, word, phrase, represented
object or action that tends to unify the literary work or that may be
elaborated into a more general theme. Also, a situation, incident, idea, image,
or character type that is found in many different literary works, folktales, or
myths. (CB& HH, adapted)
naturalism & Social-Darwinism: simple difference here;
naturalistic works depict life as it is, "warts and all," without
romanticizing. It can depict rich and poor, healthy and ill, young and old
without the sentimental treatment one might get, say, in Uncle
Tom's Cabin.
Social-Darwinist work tends to feature humans under the influence of outside or
internal forces that reduce them to the level of animals, prey to their
instincts. Consider these lines from Norris' McTeague: "McTeague's mind was
as his body, heavy, slow to act, sluggish. Yet there was nothing vicious about
the man. Altogether he suggested the draught horse, immensely strong, stupid,
docile, obedient." Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath contains both elements;
Goldings' Lord of the Flies provides an archetypal
example of Social-Darwinism.
novel: Usually an extended realistic fictional
prose narrative most often describing "a recognizable secular social world
often in a skeptical and prosaic manner. . . ." (CB)
paradox: "A statement or expression so
surprisingly self-contradictory as to provoke us into seeking another sense or
context in which it would be true. . . "Paradoxical language is valued in
literature as expressing "a mode of understanding [that] . . . challenges
our habits of thought." (CB)
point of view: "The position or
vantage point from which the events of a story seem to be observed and
presented to us." (CB)
polemic: a work that intends to stir up controversy.
A polemical work can be didactic and/or entertaining.
Technically, it does not have to be a "rant." Still, in popular usage
a polemic has come to mean a pointed and heated film or piece of writing
intended to stir up its audience.
post-apocalyptic: fictional worlds
depicting life after a global disaster such as a nuclear holocaust, alien
invasion, or ecological collapse. The tone is usually grim, so The
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a comic piece of science fiction occurring
after the earth is destroyed, would not be post-apocalyptic. Planet
of the Apes,
in its original 1968 movie form, is both dystopian and post-apocalyptic
(evolved apes running a society with human slaves thousands of years after a
nuclear war).
prose: "In its broadest sense the term is
applied to all forms of written or spoken expression not having a regular
rhythmic pattern." (HH) "[A]lthough it will have some form of rhythm
and some devices of repetition and balance, these are not governed by a
regularly sustained formal arrangement, the significant unit being the sentence
rather than the line." (CB)
protagonist: Central figure(s) in a text or film.
scene: a series of connected shots that establish
location and continuity. The scene ends by cutting (often using a visible
transition) to another location, time, or person. A "car-chase scene"
is a rather common example where several cameras follow the action from
different perspectives and are edited to make one long scene.
shot: part of a film presented without any editing,
as seen from a single camera's perspective. A shot can include close-ups,
panoramic shots, camera movement, and other techniques.
sign: "A basic element of communication,
either linguistic. . . . or non-linguistic . . . .; or anything that can be construed
as having a meaning. . . . [E]very sign has two inseparable aspects, the
signifier, which is the materially perceptible component such as a sound or
written mark, and the signified, which is the conceptual meaning." (CB)
The "signified" is the abstract and conceptual content of the sign
and can be carried from context to context (e.g., the idea of
"chair"). "Referent" is the term used to describe the
specific object to which a sign refers in a given context (e.g. "the chair
in my office").
story arc: the manner in which films and fiction
proceed. These works may have a "turning point" or several of them, a
climax, and then an "end game" or denouement.
subjectivity: "The quality
originating and existing in the mind of a perceiving subject and not necessarily
corresponding to any object outside that mind." (HH) In literary critical
usage, texts which explore the nature of such a perceiving subject are said to
be interested in subjectivity.
subtext: While not explicitly part of the plot, this
novel deals heavily with religious ideas and themes from both Christianity and
Buddhism. They are a subtext that runs beneath the plot and influences it.
surrealism: associated with painting and film more than
with writing, but the term has grown with use. Surrealist work tends to delve
into the nonsensical, or the wildest sides of psychological and physical
experiences. Some horror movies become surreal (a man's severed hand begins to
stalk him) and even in realistic work, surreal scenes can occur. For example,
Wyatt's and Billy's acid-trip in New Orleans toward the end of Easy
Rider is
filmed from their LSD-soaked points of view, so for the viewer this sequence of
scenes is surrealistic. Surrealist work can be absurd, but a film such as the
comedy Office Space would more accurately be
called black comedy.
symbol: "[S]omething that is itself and also
stands for something else. . . . In a literary sense, a symbol combines a
literal and sensuous quality with an abstract or suggestive aspect." (HH)
syntax: "The way in which words and clauses
are ordered and connected so as to form sentences; or the set of grammatical
rules governing such word order." (CB)
technological sublime: British Romantics and
American Transcendentalists felt a power beyond themselves, often a healing and
teaching power, in nature. This feeling came to be know as the Sublime.
Futurists like Marinetti and the businessmen, planners, and engineers depicted
in the film The World of Tomorrow found solace and a power
greater than themselves in technology, architecture, and industry. This feeling
is a very 20th-century phenomenon; today most of the technologies we use are
smaller and ubiquitous.
telling detail: language or a visual
element, sometimes seemingly minor, that shows a great deal about a character,
setting, or an event. When Ahab tosses his pipe into the sea in Moby
Dick,
it signals his mania to chase the white whale, even if it means surrendering
the domestic comforts of his prior life. Some instances of foreshadowing
provide telling details to readers or viewers.
tension: in most texts and films we study, several
tensions may exist. These are dramatic or even melodramatic elements of plot,
setting, or character that serve to "move things along" well. Unlike
a MacGuffin, however, the tension is
significant. A love triangle might not be the subject of a film, for instance,
but it would certainly be one of the tensions.
theme: "A salient abstract idea that emerges
from a literary work’s treatment of its subject-matter; or a topic occurring in
a number of literary works." (CB)
topos (plural, topoi): A term for a type of
convention specific to a given genre. Derived from the Greek term for
"place," the term usually refers to a convention, motif, trope, or
figure of speech that regularly appears at a particular point in the formal
structure of works in a given genre, the absence or unconventional treatment or
placement of which will always have profound significance for an interpretation
of the work. For example, an epic without an invocation.
transition: the type of editing technique used to
connect shots. Sometimes there is no transition, and others can be quite
complicated. Fading to black is a popular transition, as are wipes and
dissolves.
trope: A term often used to denote figures of
speech in which words are used in a sense different from their literal meaning.
Distinguished from figures of speech based upon word order or sound pattern.
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