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Example: One of the most famous literary examples of juxtaposition is the opening passage from Charles Dickens' novel A Tale of Two Cities: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope ...
- Rhetorical Devices
Personification is common in poetry and literature, as it’s...
- Complete List of Crucible Characters
Common Discussion Topics for The Crucible Characters. Now...
- Assonance
Analyzing literature can be pretty confusing, especially if...
- Points of View
Point of View: Definition and Meaning. In literature and...
- Tone Words
Let’s take a look at two examples of tone words in classic...
- Money and Materialism
The description of Gatsby's parties at the beginning of...
- The Most Important Themes in This Play
In one of the most well-known quotes in the play, John...
- Green Light in The Great Gatsby
The Meaning and Significance of the Green Light in The Great...
- Rhetorical Devices
The term ‘English literature’ refers to the body of written works produced in the English language by inhabitants of the British Isles from the 7th century to the present, ranging from drama, poetry, and fiction to autobiography and historical writing. Landmark writers range from William Shakespeare and Arundhati Roy to Jane Austen and Kazuo Ishiguro.
Denotation is the literal meaning, or "dictionary definition," of a word. Denotation is defined in contrast to connotation, which is the array of emotions and ideas suggested by a word in addition to its dictionary... (read full denotation explanation with examples) Denotation is the literal meaning, or "dictionary definition," of a word ...
- Parable
- Paradox
- Parallelism
- Parody
- Personification
- Plot
- Point of View
- Polysyndeton
- Prologue
- Prose
A short story devised to provide a moral or spiritual lesson, often using metaphor, simile, or symbolism to make the moral more accessible to the audience. Jesus’s parable of the Good Samaritan in the Bible explores the meaning of one of the Ten Commandments, to “love thy neighbor as thyself.” In the story, a traveler is beaten, robbed, and left fo...
A provocative statement that contradicts itself yet is typically true in some sense. In George Orwell’s 1984,two of the official slogans of the Party serve as stark examples of paradox: “WAR IS PEACE” and “FREEDOM IS SLAVERY.” Although these statements appear to be patently false, they embody two of the twisted, elemental truths propagated by the P...
The repetition of similar grammatical structures within a sentence or passage, often for emphasis or to draw connections between objects. Great orators often employparallelism to make their ideas memorable. Consider the underlined phrases in this line from Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, which uses parallel structure to highlight...
In literature, an imitation of another literary work that mocks, critiques, or makes light of the original. “For Whom the Southern Belle Tolls,” by Christopher Durang, is a one-act parody of The Glass Menagerie, caricaturing the overbearing Southern mother and exaggerating the idiosyncrasies of the other three characters.
A type of metaphor in which human attributes are assigned to inanimate objects or abstract ideas. Zora Neale Hurston uses personification throughout Their Eyes Were Watching Godto powerful effect, such as here, near the end of the novel, once Janie is home again and after Pheoby has left her: “The day of the gun, and the bloody body, and the courth...
The sequence of major events of a narrative or dramatic work, usually consisting of five basic elements: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. The plotof most romantic comedies can be succinctly described as: two people meet, they fall in love, they experience some challenge and break up, they cross paths again, they re...
The perspective from which the events of a story are reported to the reader or audience. Point of view can limit or expand the reader’s access to information about the action of the story, as well as the internal lives of the characters. In novels, there are three basic types of point of view: first-person, third-person, and less commonly, second-p...
The repetition of conjunctions (and, but, for, etc.) to connect a series of words, clauses, or sentences. Polysyndeton may emphasize the relationships between the items in the series as well as add rhythm to a list when reciting. One of the most familiar examples of polysyndeton is the motto of the United States Postal Service. “Neither snow nor ra...
An introductory section of a piece of literature, especially of plays, that precedes the inciting action of the story. The prologue is often designed to explain background or reveal context to the audienceso they better understand the story that follows. In the prologue of Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie, Tom Wingfield, the protagonist, ad...
Any form of writing that does not observe the limiting features of verse, particularly line breaks. Prose is the most dominant form of both fiction (novels, short stories, plays) and nonfiction (essays, articles, speeches, emails). Keen readers of Shakespeare will notice that “low-born” characters nearly always speak in prose, while their high-born...
Oct 14, 2024 · Literature is a a body of written works. The name has traditionally been applied to those imaginative works of poetry and prose distinguished by the intentions of their authors and the perceived aesthetic excellence of their execution. It may be classified according to a variety of systems, including language and genre.
- Kenneth Rexroth
English literature is literature written in the English language from the English-speaking world. The English language has developed over more than 1,400 years. [ 1 ] The earliest forms of English, a set of Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the fifth century, are called Old English .
20 ENGLISH LITERARY PERIODS • • Literary Periods and the History of Ideas Timeline of Texts Studied in this Course Chronos and His Child (ca 1650) Giovanni Francesco Romanelli ENGLISH LITERARY PERIODS AND THE HISTORY OF IDEAS BRITISH LITERATURE: BEGINNINGS TO 1700 (ENG 2105) Ancient (pre-English roots) Literary Period 2000 BCE – 450 CE Authors Homer Aeschylus Aristophanes Virgil ...
