Critial Vocab, English Lit a Level

Critical Vocabulary Builder A Abjure To renounce or retr be active clairvoyance form all in ally or infra oath, or solemnly. Abduration The act of renouncing. Ablation The surgical removal of an organ, structure, or commence. Ablate. Ablution The ritual washing of a priests hands. Abnegate (abnegation) To deny to angiotensin-converting enzymeself renounce privileges, pleasure, etc. Abstergent Of cleaning or scouring Abstr intake Not easy to to a lower placestand recondite esoteric. Acalculia psycol. An inability to make simple mathematical calculations. Acumen Quickness of light or discernment shrewdness shown by keen in potty.Adherents Follower, or supporter of. Adjacent Being near or closing, esp. having a common boundary. adjoining contiguous. adjuvant Aiding or assisting. Aesopian Conveying importation by hint, euphemism, innu stopo or the homogeneous. 2) Pertaining to, or characteristic of Aesop or his fables. Aesthetic Broadly peaching, something plea sing, or the study of beauty. Aesthetic outstrip degree of emotional studyment in a work of art. The most obvious compositors case of aesthetic brinytain ( in any case referred to simply as distance) occurs with paintings.Some paintings enquire us to stand back to see the design of the whole painting standing close, we see the technique of the painting, say the brush strokes, hardly non the whole. Other paintings require us to stand close to see the whole their design and e very(prenominal) variants become little clear as we move back from the painting. Similarly, fiction, drama, and poetry involve the reader emotionally to different degrees. Emotional distance, or the lack of it, foundation be seen with children watching a TV program or a depiction it becomes real for them.Writers like Faulkner, the Bronte sisters, or Faulkner pull the reader into their work the reader identifies closely with the characters and is fully involved with the go throughings. Hemingway, on th e separate hand, maintains a greater distance from the reader. Affective Fallacy The error of evaluating a verse form by its solutionsespecially its emotional effectsupon the reader. As a result the poetry itself, as an object of specifically exact judgement, tends to dis place. Alacrity Live berthss or briskness. Alalia Complete inability to speak mutism.Allegory A narrative where characters, actions and sometimes setting atomic number 18 consistently symbolic of something else ( lots philosophical or moral abstractions). Alliteration the exercising, especially in poetry, of the same sound or sounds, especially consonants, at the beginning of several speech that be close unitedly Ambiguity Ambiguity is the quality of having more than than ane meaning does Ameliorate To make or become better improve. Amelioration. unformed Lacking a definite shape formless. 2 Of no recognisable character or shape.Anachronisms Flash backs, jumps forwards. Analogy a compariso n between things which keep up similar features, often employ to help explain a principle or idea Analepis A flash-back Anathema A detested person or thing he is anathema to me 2 A formal ecclesiastical curse of excommunicating. Antonym An antonym is a term opposite in meaning to a nonher(prenominal) intelligence service but similar to it in most other respects. For example, tall and short be opposite in meaning but two are the same separate of speech (adjectives) and would take the same position in a sentence.Aporia An impassable moment or point in a narrative, a hole or opening that produces a hermeneutic analysis. Arbitrarily Founded on or subject to personal whims, prejudices, etc. capricious. 2 Having only congenator application. 3 Of a g all overnment or ruler despotic or dictatorial. Ar bottomlande Requiring individual(a) knowledge to be understood mysterious esoteric. Arrhythmic / arrhythmia Any variation from the normal rhythm of the heart beat. Arriere- pensee An unrevealed mentation or intention. Arriviste A person who is unscrupulously ambitious. Assiduous Hard-working persevering.Assignation A secret or forbidden arrangement to meet esp. between lovers. Attest To affirm the correctness or truth of. Auric Of or containing gold in the trivalent state. Autodidact One who is self-taught. Avarice The getting and tutelage of gold, possessions etc as a purpose to live for. B Ballad relatively short narrative meter, write to be sung, with a simple and dramatic action. The ballads tell of love, death, the supernatural, or a combination of these. Two characteristics of the ballad are incremental repetition and the ballad stanza.Incremental repetition repeats championness or more lines with small but signifi dirty dogt variations that advance the action. The ballad stanza is four lines commonly, the introductory and third lines contain four feet or accents, the second and ordinal lines contain three feet. Ballads often ope n abruptly, present brief descriptions, and use concise dialogue. Baroque A term use by art-historians (at first derogatorily, but now simply descriptively) to a sprint of architecture, sculpture, and painting that developed in Italy at the beginning of the s even up offteenth deoxycytidine monophosphate and then spread to Germ any and other European countries.The style employs the classical forms of the renaissance, but breaks them up and intermingles them to achieve elaborate, horribleiose, energetic, and highly dramatic effects. In Literature, it may signify magniloquent style in verse or prose. Beatitude Supreme blessedness or happiness. Bene eventor A person who supports or helps a person (Beneficiary), institution etc. , esp. by giving m angiotensin converting enzymey patron. Bilious Bad tempered. 2. Hideously green. Blank verse Blank verse is a form based on un versed lines of iambusic pentameter.The verse parts of Shakespeares frolics are blank verse (with excepti ons, such as the witches recipe), as is Miltons Paradise Lost. The form is one that is close to normal speech (indeed, the form is one thats close to normal speech is itself an iambic pentameter) so it break ups a subtle pulse to a poesy, sort of than an obvious shaping as a limerick might. However, there is a tendency in contemporary poetry to use shorter lines, so the form can also sound stately or slow to a current ear.? Bowyer Person or makes or sells archery bows. Bumptious Offensively self-assertive or conceited.C Cadence (Poetry) A fall, in tone, in pitch etc. Catalectic (Poetry) of a line, missing one or more beats. Catechism Instruction by a series of questions and answers esp a book containing such instruction on the unearthly doctrine of the Christian church. 2 Rigorous and persistent questioning, as in a test or interview. Character Characters may be classified as round (three-dimensional, fully developed) or as flat (having only a few traits or only enough traits to fulfil their function in the work) as developing (dynamic) characters or as static characters.Caesura a strong pause at heart a line, and is often found a persistentside enjambment. If all the pauses in the moxie of the poetry were to occur at the line breaks, this could become dull moving the pauses so they occur inside the line creates a musical enliven. Chivalric squelch Developed in 12th Century France, spread and dis determined epic and heroic forms. Climax The height of tensions or suspense in a storys plot where betrothal comes to a peak. Coetaneous Of the same age or period. Coeval Of belonging to the same age or generation. 2) A contemporary.Collocate To group or place together in some system or order. Collusion Secret agreement for a fraudulent purpose connivance conspiracy. Conceit The Meta physical poets of the seventeenth century enjoyed creating especially audacious metaphors and similes to compare very unlike things, and drawing guardianship t o how skilfully they could sustain this comparison this became known as the conceit. The classic example is probably Donnes The Flea, in which a flea-bite is compared to a marriage, and like most conceits, the extended comparison is more nonable for its invention than its believability.Concomitant Existing or occurring together associative. Concord arrangement or harmony between people or nations amity. Confabulate To talk together, to communicate. Confiteor A prayer consisting of a general confession of sinfulness and an entreaty for forgiveness. hell A large destructive fire. Conflagration A large destructive fire. Conflate / Conflation To combine or blend, esp two versions of a text, so as to form a whole. Conflict The part of the plot that establishes an opposition that becomes a point of interest.Can ve an opposition between characters, between character and environment, between elements in a characters personality etc. Conglomerate A thing composed heterogeneous el ements. Conjecture The formation of conclusions from incomplete evidence a guess. Consonance Consonance is the effect of similar speech-sounds organism near each other. Some forms of consonance can be singled out, which are alliteration, where initial sounds matter sibilance, where s and z sounds are enhanced and assonance, where the vowel-sounds of words are in concert.Contiguous Touching along the side or boundary in contact. Convivial Sociable, jovial or festive. Corpulent Physically bulky fat. Coterie A small exclusive group of friends with common interests clique. Coterminous Enclosed within a common boundary. Coterminous Having a common boundary. Couplet A duad is a stanza (or even a poem) consisting of two lines. These need non poetry, nor be the same length, but can be. If there is no enjambment at the end of the second line, it can be called a closed couple (the opposite organism an open bracing), especially if this is a recurring pattern.A closed rhyming coup let in iambic pentameter, especially one which forms a unit of consciousness, is called a heroic couplet many of these can be found in Popes demonstrate on Man. It is also practicable to commence a longer poem whose lines are poetryd in pairs aabbcc etc described as being in rhyming couplets, even if the stanzas are longer than two lines. D Daltonism Colour blindness the inability to distinguish green from red. Damocles Imminent danger in thick of prosperity/ Greek who feasted with sword hung by a hair above his head. De Facto In fact. 2 Existing in fact.De haut en bas In condescending or superior manner. De I gratia By Gods grace. Deambulation Walking. Debacle Break-up of ice on a river/ confused rush or stampede/ collapse, nightfall esp of a government. Debouch (esp. of troops) To move into a more open space, as from a narrow or concealed place. Declarativist Want to show a mystery resolved transparent form has no effect over the shaping of events. Declivous Sloping down. Decrescent Waning, decreasing usually of the moon. Deference Submission to or residence with the bequeath, wishes, etc. of another. Deleterious Noxious physically or morally injurious. Demarcate To mark, fix, or draw the boundaries, limits etc. (Demarcation) the act of establishing limits, boundaries etc. Denouement French for untying, it is the final examination element of the conflict in a plot similar to a resolution, usually very emotional. Devilment Mischief, wild spirits Devilish or queer phenomenon. Dextrous Variant spelling of dexterous Possessing or done with dexterity. Diatribe A bitter or violent criticism or attack denunciation.Dichotomy a difference between two completely opposite ideas or things Dramatic monologue A dramatic monologue is a poem that shares many features with a speech from a play one person speaks, and in that speech there are clues to his/her character, the character of the implied person or people that s/he is speaking to , the situation in which it is spoken and the story that has led to this situation. Ian Duhigs Fundamentals, for example, gives plenty of information about the character of the hapless missionary, about the tone of the meeting, and the colonial fierceness that underpins what is on face value a message of religion.The effect is one of a small poem seeming to leave you with the experience of having seen the whole accept that was packed tightly into it. Dystaxia Lack of muscular co-ordination resulting in shaky limb movements and unsteady gait. E Eclectic Selecting or made up of what seems best of wide-ranging sources. Effervesce To give off bubbles of gas. Egalitarian of relating to, or upholding the doctrine of the equality of mankind and the desirability of political, social, and economic equality. Egregious Outstandingly bad flagrant. Egress (also called egression) the act of going or coming out emergence.Electorate The body of all qualified voters Elegy An elegy is a po em of mourning this is often the poet mourning one person, but the definition also includes Thomas Grays Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, which mourns all the occupants of that churchyard, and looks into the future to mourn the poets own death. The difference between an elegy and a eulogy is that the latter is a speech given to honour someones best qualities, often (but not necessarily) later on on their death. Endemic Present within or localised area or peculiar to persons in such an area.Enjambement Enjambment is the continuation of a sentence or clause over a line-break. If a poet entrusts all the sentences of a poem to end in the same place as firm line-breaks, a kind of deadening can happen in the ear, and in the brain too, as all the thoughts can end up being the same length. Enjambment is one way of creating audible interest others include caesurae, or having variable line-lengths. Enlightenment The name applied to an intellectual movement and cultural ambiance w hich developed in Western Europe during the seventeenth Century, reaching its height in the 18th century.The common element was a trust in homosexual reason as adequate to solve the decisive problems and to establish the essential norms in life, together with a belief that the application of reason was rapidly dissipating the darkness of superstition, prejudice, and barbarity, was freeing humanity from its earlier reliance on mere authority and unexamined tradition, and had opened the prospect of progress toward a life in this world of universal peace and happiness. See Descartes, Locke, Voltaire, Godwin, Diderot, Franklin, Jefferson.Ephemeral Lasting only for a short time transitory short-lived. Epigone An inferior follower or imitator Epigram An epigram is a short, succinct poem, often with witty (or even vicious) content. Coleridge wrote an epigram to define an epigram What is an epigram? A dwarfish whole, / Its body brevity and wit its soul. It is worth noting that this is a stricter definition than epigrams seem to afford had in classical Greece and Rome, where the form originates it is probably the eighteenth-century fondness for a smart wit and the epigrams of Martial that tightened the definition thus.The preference in contemporary poetry for exploring an issue or else than summing it up means epigrams are not as hot as they were then, but Anne Stevensons On Going Deaf, with its wit, rhyme and definite opinion, is probably the closest example within the Archive. Epigraph An epigraph is a brief bit of text, usually borrowed from another writer, found before a poem, but after the title. (You may also find one at the start of a book, before the poems, but after the title page. ) It gives a reader, or listener, something else to hold in mind as the poem is read.Neither part of the poem, nor wholly separate from it, an epigraph can be used for respective(a) purposes it can be necessary information to understand a poem, for example, or it can be s omething with which the poem disagrees. Epistemophilia The readers desire to know. Ergo Therefore hence. Esoteric Restricted to or intended for an enlightened or initiated minority, esp. because of abstruseness or obscurity an esoteric cult. 2 Difficult to understand abstruse an esoteric statement. 3 Not openly admitted private esoteric aims. Espouse To adopt or give support to.Espy To catch sight of or perceive. Eugenics The study of improving the quality of the human race esp. by selective breeding. Evanescent Passing out of sight fading forward vanishing. Evangelism The practice of sp tuition the Christian gospel. 2 Ardent or missionary zeal for a cause Exegesis Explanation or critical interpretation of a text, esp. of the Bible Exhaustivistic A book must be complete to be reliable is to be complete because lifelike refreshfuls have more item and description per square inch than any other literary form.Expectorant Promoting the secretion, liquefaction, or expu lsion of sputum from the respiratory passing plays. Expediency Appropriateness suitability. 2) The use or inclination towards methods that are advantageous rather than fair. Exposition Provides background on characters, setting, plot. Extant Still existing not yet destroyed, lost or extinct. F Fabula Order of events recounted by the narrative, the real order of the chronological events. Facetious joking or jesting often inappropriately / meant to be humorous or funny not serious.Falsetto A form of vocal production used by male singers to extend their range upwards beyond its natural scope by limiting the vibration of the vocal cords. Fatuous Complacently or inanely foolish. Feminine of an ending (poetry) of one or more un stress beats. excitement Great intensity of feeling or belief. metaphoric Language Language used in a way to achieve some effect beyond literal meaning. See hyperbole, metaphor, personification, simile and synecdoche. Flambeau A burning torch, as use d in night processions.Foil A foil is a secondary character who contrasts with a major character in Hamlet, Laertes and Fortinbras, whose fathers have been killed, are foils for Hamlet. Foot A foot is a unit of metre, consisting of a combination of stressed and unstressed syllables. If stressed syllables are marked / and unstressed u, the main types can be shown thus? Iamb u / , such as delight. (The adjective is iambic. ) Trochee / u , such as badger (Trochaic)? Anapest, or anapaest u u / , such as unaware (Anapestic / anapaestic)?Dactyl / u u , such as multiple (Dactylic) and, more anciently Spondee / / , such as tooth-ache? Pyrrhic u u , such as such as was until it was put in quotation marks. It is important to remember that feet and words need not coincide. The feet in magic trick Heath-Stubbs line, A qat among those mulberry leaves, from The Mulberry Tree appear thus a CAT er PILL ar a MONG those MUL berry LEAVES ? u / u / u u / u / u / That one word cater pillar is scattered across three feet in this five-foot line the first two are iambs, then after a single anapaest there are two further iambs (or one iamb and one more anapaest, depending on whether you say mul-ber-ry or mul-bree). Also note that, although there is an anapaest in the concentre of this line, this is still a predominantly iambic line (especially as it is within a predominantly iambic poem) varying the feet like this can keep a line from getting metrically dull. The process of working out where the stresses fall is called scanning, or scansion.Its easiest to do it on poems where the rhythms are pronounced on the other hand, it can be near-impossible, or simply unhelpful, to scan free verse. The poems suggested below have strongly accented feet, and the links to metre and form go into more detail on how poets use feet. Foregrounding Giving peculiar providence to one element or property of a text, relative to other less discernible tones. Form Form, in poetry, can be understood as the physical structure of the poem the length of the lines, their rhythms, their system of rhymes and repetition.In this sense, it is normally reserved for the type of poem where these features have been shaped into a pattern, especially a familiar pattern. Another sense of form is to refer to these familiar patterns these can be simple and unrestricted forms, such as blank verse, or can be a complex system of rhymes, rhythms and repeated lines within a fixed number of lines, as a sonnet or villanelle is. (This is similar to the word shape asked to think about a shape, you would expect a triangle or a circle, but Alaska too has a shape. ) The difference s visible in Sebastian Barkers poem Holy The Heart On Which We Hang Our Hope the form of this poem shares aspects with another form, the villanelle, but also differs from it in interesting ways, just as its content shares in some aspects of organised faith but not in others. acrostic ? An acrostic poem is one that uses the first letters of each line to spell out a word or phrase. More uncommonly, you can find a word or phrase through the centre of a poem (when it is called a mesostich) or at the end of the lines (which makes it a telestich).If the poem is written so that the first letters and last letters both write out a message, it is known as a double acrostic. CENTO? A poem consisting only of lines from other poems. This, from the Italian word for patchwork, is almost a technique rather than a form, especially as it can be of any length, and any metre, and need not rhyme however, as the finished poem is referred to as a cento, just as a sonnet is called a sonnet, it is a form. CLERIHEW?Named after its inventor, this is a four-line poem rhymed aabb its first line is the name of the subject of the poem, it often breaks into two sentences at the end of the second line, and the rhythm tends to be entertainingly irregular. DOUBLE-DACTYL? This one is normally reserved for nonsense verse. 8 lines, all consisting of two dactyls (hence the name). Line 1 is a nonsense word (such as higgledy-piggledy), line 2 is someones name, line 6 is a single six-syllable word, and lines 4 and 8 rhyme. OTTAVA RIMA?A stanza form often used for longer poems, most famously in Byrons Don Juan, consisting of eight lines, usually in iambic pentameter, rhymed abababcc. PANTOUM? This can be of any length it is a poem of four-line stanzas, in which the second and quartern lines of one stanza become the first and third of the next. The last stanzas second and fourth lines can be the first and third of the first stanza, either reversed or not, which locks the poem into a circle of repetitions or, as the poet Marilyn Hacker says, until it ends up with its tail in its mouth. ? SPENSERIAN STANZA? 8 lines of iambic pentameter, followed by 1 iambic hexameter (or alexandrine) rhyme scheme ababbcbccc. This is the stanza invented by Spenser in The Faerie Queene. TERZA RIMA? A poem in which each stanza is rhymed aba, with the inner rhyme from one stanza providing the outer rhymes for either the former or subsequent stanza aba bcb cdc or aba cac dcd. The form can end in a single-line stanza, a couplet, or by referring back to the as-yet-unused rhyme from the first stanza.Free compose What free verse claims to be free from is the constraints of regular metre and fixed forms. This makes the poem free to find its own shape according to what the poet or the poem wants to say, but still allows him or her to use rhyme, alliteration, rhythms or cadences (etc) to achieve the effects that s/he feels are appropriate. There is an implicit constraint, however, to resist a regular metre in free verse a run of a regular metre will stand out awkwardly in an other free poem.Sometimes known as vers libre, free verse has a long pedigree and is very common in contemporary poetry. Yet there are still voices that claim poetry is only poetry when it is formal verse, and would agree with Robert F rost who, when asked about free verse, verbalise Id just as soon play tennis with the net down. Fans of free verse can counter with T S Eliots insisting that no vers is libre for the man who wants to do a uncorrupted job the net may be down, but this allows a poet (of either gender) to play to different rules.Simon Armitages Youre Beautiful, for example, creates for himself a set of rules that includes repeated words at the starts of phrases, rather than a structure of repeated sounds at the end of lines. G Garish Gay or colourful in a crude or usual manner. Garner To gather or store in or as if in a granary Gendarme A member of the police force of France or in countries formerly influenced or controlled by France. Germane describes ideas or information connected with and important to a particular subject or situation e. her remarks could not have been more germane to the discussion. Ghazal Mimi Khalvati, whose poem Ghazal is the only poem so far to use a ghazal form in th e Archive, defines it at the start of her reading of it Ghazals are an old Persian form, and theyre written in self-contained couplets with a monorhyme, sometimes one- (or two- or three-) word repeated phrase, like a refrain, and the last couplet is a signature couplet, in which the writer has to refer to themselves by name, or pseudonym, or by using some kind of wordplay on their name. In her ghazal, the repeated word is me, the rhyme is on through, woo, cue, tattoo and so on, and the signature is in the reference to being twice the me, or Mimi. ? standardized the haiku, the age of the form the ghazal can be traced back through a millennium and its translation into the side of meat dustup mean that the rules have had significant variations over time. You may find some definitions insist that the subject of a ghazal should be love, and others that let the rhyme move to be earlier in the line than Khalvatis positioning of it conterminously before the refrain.Some insist that ea ch couplet should be complete in itself, meaning that each stanza ends on a full stop, and can therefore have only a thematic connection to those either side. There are even some that do without the refrain, but these appear rare. The closed couplets, however, appear to be a necessity to the form. Gimcrack Cheap shoddy. Grandiloquent Inflated, pompous or bombastic in style or expression. Grandiose Pretentiously grand or stately. Imposing in conception or execution. H Haiku A haiku is a brief Japanese form that has been adapted into English in dissimilar ways.Its usual definition is that it is a three-line poem, consisting of seventeen syllables split 5 7 5. Other criteria (such as a zen mood, a reference to a season, or the poem being divided by a word that implies some form of cutting) may be demanded, and may even replace the strict syllable count. John Stallworthy considers Ezra Pounds In a Station of the Metro a haiku, as, although it has only two lines and considerably m ore than 17 syllables, it has the brief and direct presentation of an image that many haiku have.Hermeneutics The possible action of interpretation, concerned with general problems of understanding the meaning of the texts. Heterogeneous Comprised of unrelated or differing parts or elements. Heteroglossia To describe the variety of voices and row found within a novel, and multiple references found in a single voice. Hoary Having grey or white hair. 2 White or whitish in colour. fashion model A miniature man midget. 2 Early biological theory that a miniature man existed in fully-formed in the spermatozoon or egg.Hyperbole Figurative language that uses exaggeration for emphasis, like Im starving when you havent eaten in four hours, or Ive been waiting forever when thats impossible because you probably were born at some point, and forever was happening a long time before you were born. I Impeccant Not go against free from sin. Iambic pentameter Iambic pentameter is the nam e given to a line of verse that consists of five iambs (an iamb being one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed, such as before).It has been a fundamental building block of poetry in English, used in many poems by many poets from the English Renaissance to the present day. ?As with any metre, it is not necessary that every line should be entirely slavish in following the rhythm in fact, being so could make the poem sound dull. Swapping, dropping or adding stressed and unstressed syllables will lend variety to a line without changing the underlying rhythm. Poems in iambic pentameter may or may not rhyme.Those that are written in continuous lines of unrhymed iambic pentameter are verbalise to be in blank verse, while rhyming couplets in iambic pentameter may be called heroic couplets, particularly when each couplet closes a thought or sentence on its second line. Iconoclast Someone who attacks established or traditional concepts, principles, laws etc. 2 Destroyer of religiou s images or set apart images. Ides (in the Roman calendar) the 15th day in March, May, July, and October and the 13th day of each other month.Idiolect The variety or form or form of a language used by an individual. Idiopathy Any disease of unknown cause. Illusionist Everything we need to make things happen, and that cause events are all present in the novel all the causes and events can be traced. Imagery Imagery is the name given to the elements in a poem that spark off the senses. Despite image being a synonym for picture, images need not be only visual any of the five senses (sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell) can respond to what a poet writes.Examples of non-visual imagery can be found in Ken Smiths In Praise of Vodka, where he describes the drink as having the taste of air, of wind on fields, / the wind through the long wet forest, and James Berrys Seashell, which puts the ocean sighs right in a listeners ear. A poet could simply state, say, I see a tree, but it is pos sible to conjure up much more specific images using techniques such as simile (a tree like a spiky missile), metaphor (a green cloud riding a pole) or synechdoche (bare, black branches) each of these suggests a different kind of tree.Techniques, such as these, that can be used to create hefty images are called figurative language, and can also include onomatopoeia, metonymy and personification. One of the great pleasures of poetry is discovering a particularly super male monarchful image the Imagists of the early 20th century felt it was the most important aspect, so were devoted to finding strong images and presenting them in the clearest language possible. Of course, not every poem is an Imagist poe Immitigable Unable to be mitigated relentless unappeasable.Impasse A situation in which progress is blocked an insurmountable difficulty. Impasto Paint applied thickly, so that brush and palette knife marks are evident. The technique of applying paint in this way. Impecunious W ithout money, penniless. Impediments A hindrance or obstruction. Imprecate To swear and curse, to blaspheme. In the Middle Ages one hour was equal to 480 ounces of sand, or 22,560 atoms. Inchoate Just beginning incipient. 2 Undeveloped immature rudimentary.Incommode To bother, disturb, or inconvenience. Incommunicado Deprived of communication with other people, as while in solitary confinement. Incontrovertible Incapable of being contradicted or disputed undeniable. Indeterminacy The unknowable, undecidable, uncertain, or ambiguous in a text. Indeterminacy is related to gaps in a text, but are less obviously identifiable and are a quality of a reading or interpretation, not just the text. Indign Undeserving, unworthy.Innocuous Having little or no adverse or harmful effect harmless. Innominate Having no name nameless. Irony At its most basic, a difference or gap between the presentation/representation of something and its reality. In other words, when what something appear s to be and what it is are not the same. Irony can be pursue or detached Engaged irony uses the gaps between reality and representation to make a point or expose something detached irony exploits gaps for immediate effect, like humor, satire or surface criticism.Irony can also occur at different levels of a text for instance, verbal irony would occur at the level of the word or sentence, where double meanings come into play dramatic irony would occur at the level of the plot, where events and action are constructed in a way to take the reader in one direction while the reality is something else (a technique often found with 1st person unreliable narrators and tertiary person privileged narrators). Insuperable Incapable of being overcome. Interlocutor A person who takes part in a conversation. Internecine Mutually destructive or ruinous maiming both or all sides internecine war.Interpolate To insert or introduce (a comment, passage, etc) into (a conversation, text, etc). 2 To f alsify or alter (a text, manuscript etc) by the later addition of spurious or worthless passages. Interpolation The act of interpolating. Intertextuality In a text, implied references to orimplied influences from another text. This concept allows a reader to make links between genres, and to see how themes, plot, etc. may develop or change in relation or in light of that other text. Intractable / intractableness Difficult to influence or direct difficult to solve (of problem).Intransigent Not willing to compromise obstinate obstinately maintaining an attitude. Irascible Prone to anger considerably provoked to anger hot-tempered. Invidious Incurring or tending to arouse resentment, unpopularity etc. 2) unfair or offensively discriminating. Inviolable That must not or cannot be transgressed, dishonoured, or broken to be kept sacred. Irony the discrepancy between what is give tongue to and what is meant, what is said and what is done, what is expected or intended and what happe ns, what is meant or said and what others understand.Sometimes irony is classified into types in situational irony, expectations aroused by a situation are reversed in cosmic irony or the irony of fate, bad luck is the result of fate, chance, or God in dramatic irony. the listening knows more than the characters in the play, so that words and action have additional meaning for the listening Socratic irony is named after Socrates teaching method, whereby he assumes ignorance and openness to opposing points of view which bend out to be (he shows them to be) foolish. J Joskin Country bumpkin.Juxtaposition an act or instance of placing close together or side by side, esp. for comparison or contrast. 2) the state of being close together or side by side Juxtaposition when two contrasting ideas, images, phrases, descriptions are placed close together to emphasise their differences. K Kenning A kenning is a much-compressed form of metaphor, originally used in Anglo-Saxon and Norse p oetry. In a kenning, an object is described in a two-word phrase, such as whale-road for sea. Some kennings can be more obscure than others, and then grow close to being a riddle.Judith Nicholls Bluebottle uses kennings as part of a larger poem, that is itself a riddle Andrew Fusek barbs and Polly Peters go further, building a pair of poems both consisting entirely of kennings. Kunstlerroman Development of the artist through a novel similar in some respects to the Bildungsroman. L Lacustrine Of, evolution in or dwelling in lakes. Lagan Goods or wreckage on the seabed. Langrage Shot used to damage rigging. Laniferous Wool bearing. Larceny A technical word for theft (Larcenous). Larrikin Rowdy street hooligan.Lepidopterist A person who collects or studies moths and butterflies. Lugubrious Excessively mournful doleful. Lyric Poetrya short poem with one speaker (not necessarily the poet) who expresses thought and feeling. Though it is sometimes used only for a brief poem abou t feeling (like the sonnet). it is more often applied to a poem expressing the complex evolution of thoughts and feeling, such as the elegy, the dramatic monologue, and the ode. The emotion is or seems personal In classical Greece, the lyric was a poem written to be sung, accompanied by a lyre. MMaculation A pattern of spots as on certain plants and animals. Maelstrom A large powerful whirlpool 2) Any turbulent confusion. Magniloquent (of speech) Lofty in style. Malaise A feeling of unease, mild sickness, or depression. Manumit To free from slavery, servitude, etc. emancipation. Manumission. Manumitter. soupy Foolishly tearful or sentimental, as when drunk. Maunder To move, talk, or walk aimlessly or idly. Maundy The ceremony of washing the feet of the poor. (Christianity). Mawkish Falsely sentimental, esp. in a weak or maudlin way. Melliferous Forming or producing honey.Meretricious Superficially or garishly attractive. 2 Insincere meretricious praise. Metafictional Fiction about fiction or more esp a kind of fiction that openly comments on its own fictional status. Metaphor An expression which describes a person or object in a literary way by referring to something that is considered to have similar characteristics to the person or object you are trying to describe. (Noun) Metre Metre is from the Greek word for measuring at its most basic, metre is a system of describing what we can meter about the audible features of a poem.The systems that have been used in write up to structure metres are the number of syllables (syllabic) the duration of syllables ( duodecimal) the number of stressed syllables, or accents (accentual) and combinations of the above. English is not a language that works easily in quantitative metre (although this has not stopped people trying), and it has developed an accentual-syllabic metre for its formal verse. This means that, in a formal poem, the poet will be counting the syllables, the stresses, and keeping them to a pattern.To describe the pattern, the stressed and unstressed syllables are gathered into groups known as feet, and the number of feet to a line gives a name thus 1 foot monometer? 2 feet dimeter? 3 feet t jibeter? 4 feet tetrameter? 5 feet pentameter? 6 feet hexameter? 7 feet heptameter? 8 feet octameter Lines of less than 3 or more than 6 feet are rare in formal poems. The pattern of the syllables within a foot is also noted. A foot that is one unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one, for example, is an iamb three of these in a row would be an iambic trimeter, while five make the famous iambic pentameter.All the common feet are outlined under Foot in the glossary. Like the rhythm in a piece of music, the metre is an underlying structure. Poets often slip in extra feet, or remove them, or change stress patterns around to prevent monotony, like playing rubato. (Sometimes a poem seems to be exploring how far a line can be pushed without losing all connection with the underly ing metre. ) This means that the discovery of a foot other than an iamb in the middle of what is otherwise iambic, say, does not stop the poem from being ambic rather the attention ends up lingering at that point, so the word on the different foot ends up more powerful as it has the attention longer. An example of this can be found in Peter Dales Half-Light he writes Im trying not to give another glance. / Lit window thirty old age back up that path. The first line is a perfectly regular iambic pentameter, but the second introduces an extra stress on Lit, so that what the speakers trying not to be drawn to seems more powerful, perhaps helping us empathise with him when he does look back and catch her eye an rank.Metonymy where one term is used in place of something else that it is related to or often associated with like saying the White House for the president, or Hollywood for the American film industry. Mimetic Mimics the real world the text behaves formally in a way to repo rt the world outside. You look at objects and describe how the physical senses receive them. Mithridate A substance believed to be an antidote to every poison and a cure for every disease. Mitigated To make or become less severe or harsh.Mobius Strip A one sided continuous surface, made by twisting a long narrow rectangular strip of stuff through 180 and joining the ends. Mobocracy Rule or domination by a mob. Modernism Loosely, a term referring to observational and avant- garde trends in literature and other arts in the early 20th century, which resulted from conscious rejections of traditional 19th century artistic conventions like realism and traditional verse forms. Some of the experimental forms include symbolism, expressionism, and surrealism, and some narrative innovations include stream-of-consciousness and multiple points of view.A problematic term, since we are always already in the modern moment. Morass Swamp something that entangles, impedes or confuses. undynam ic Near-death, stagnant, without force or vitality. Moribundity, moribundly. Munificent Very liberal in giving or bestowing very generous lavish. Myopia / Myopic Inability to see nonadjacent objects clearly because images are focused in front of the retina. N Nacreous Relating to or consisting of mother-of-pearl. 2) Having the lustre of mother-of-pearl. Naturalism Is sometimes claimed to give a more faultless depiction of life than realism.It is a mode of fiction that was developed by a school of writers in accordance with a particular philosophical thesis. The thesis, a product of post-Darwinian biology in the nineteenth century, held that human beings exist entirely in the order of nature and does not have a soul nor any mode of participating in a religious or spiritual world beyond the natural world and therefore, that such a being is merely a higher-order animal whose character and behaviour are entirely determined by two kinds of forces, heredity and environment.A person inherits compulsive instincts especially hunger, and the drive to pull in possessions, and sexuality and is then subject to the social and economic forces in the family, the class, and the milieu into which that person is born. The novel is organized in a mode of a scientific experiment on the behaviour of the characters it depicts. Naturalist writers try to present their subjects with scientific objectivity and with elaborate documentation, sometimes including an almost medical frankness about activities and corporeal functions usually unmentioned in earlier literature.They tend to choose characters that exhibit a strong animalistic drive towards greed and sexual desire and who are befuddled victims both of glandular excretions and of sociological pressures without. The end is usually tragic, not in the Elizabethan sense, but of a losing struggle of the individual mind and will against gods, enemies, and circumstances. kind of the help is a pawn to multiple compulsions, and usually disintegrates or is wiped out. OObdurately/ Obdurate Not easily moved by feelings or supplication hard-hearted, impervious to persuasion, esp moral persuasion. Objectivist Humans are treated as objects subjects should be treated as objects. Occlude To block up or stop up (a passage or opening). Ode An ode is a lyric poem, usually addressing a particular person or thing. It originated in Ancient Greece, and the Pindaric ode (so-called because it was written by the Theban poet Pindar, 518 ? 442 BC) was based on a pattern of three stanzas called the strophe, antistrophe and epode.It was performed by a chorus, which walked along one side of the orchestra chanting the strophe and down the other side chanting the antistrophe, then came to a standstill before the audience and chanted the epode. This performance was repeated with each set of three stanzas. The Horatian ode (invented by the Latin poet Horace in about 65 BC) was pick out in the early 19th century by John Keats f or one of his most famous poems, Ode to a Nightingale. Many modern odes, however, are irregular in form, such as Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood by William Wordsworth.While the ode does not necessarily have a regular metre or fixed rhyme scheme, Kit Wrights banteringly Ode to Didcot Power Station uses both as well as a repertoire of old-fashioned language to parody the lofty style traditionally associated with this form. As Wright says in his introduction, if youre going to have an ode, why not go the whole hog? Oeuvre A work of art, literature, music etc. Oligarchy Government by a small group of people. Olivaceous Of an olive colour. Onomatopoeia Onomatopoeia is the forming and use of words and phrases to mitate or suggest the sounds they describe, such as bang, whisper, cuckoo, splash and fizz. Onomatopoeia is one of the resources of language more often used by poets than prose writers this is because poetry is made for the ear as well as t he eye, and depends more heavily than prose does on sound-effects. Spike Milligans On the Ning Nang Nong makes heavy use of onomatopoeia, but it can play a role in classic poetry too an example is the use of Crashd to describe the noise of battle in Tennysons The Charge of the Heavy Brigade.Opulence Having or indicating wealth. Abundant or plentiful. Overslaugh To pass over or disregard (a person) by giving a promotion, position, etc, to another instead. Oxymoron Oxymoron is a figure of speech in which two terms appear to contradict each other. Some examples have become so familiar that we hardly notice the contradiction, eg earsplitting silence. The word comes from the Greek oxus (sharp) and moros (foolish). P Paladins One of the legendary twelve peers of Charlemagnes court. 2) A knightly champion.Parody Parody is the imitation of the style of another work, writer or genre, which relies on deliberate exaggeration to achieve comic or satirical effect. It is usually necessary to be familiar with the original in order to calculate the parody, though some parodies have become better known than the poems they imitate. Pastiche A work of art that mixes styles, materials etc. 2) A work of art that imitates the style of another artist or period. Pathos Pathos is part of a poem or other work of art which makes the reader or audience feel sorrow or pity.The Greek word pathos means suffering. Pathos is a key skill for any writer, and a highly in force(p) feature of many poems, often in those cases where it is somewhat restrained or understated. Poetry has a special reputation for being able to move us. On the other hand, a clumsy or exaggerated attempt at pathos can result instead in bathos or over-sentimentality or make the reader feel manipulated. Pedant A person who relies too much on academic learning or who is concerned chiefly with unnoticeable detail. Pedantry The habit or an instance of being a pedant, esp. in the display of useless knowledge or mi nute observance of petty rules or details. peregrinate To travel or wander about from place to place. Peripatetic Of or relating to the teachings of Aristotle (384-322B. C. ), Greek philosopher who used to teach whilst walking about. Peripeteia, Peripetia (esp. in drama) an abrupt turn of events or reversal. Persona A persona is a fictional character. Sometimes the term means the mask or alter-ego of the author it is often used for first person works and lyric poems, to distinguish the writer of the work from the character in the work.Personification in which a concept, idea, object or animal is given human qualities (think of every Bugs Bunny cartoon you ever saw). Perspicuity The quality of being perspicuous. Perspicuous (of speech or writing) easily understood lucid. Pertinacious Doggedly steadfast in purpose or belief unyielding. Planchette A heart-shaped board on wheels with a pencil attached that writes messages under supposed spirit guidance. bromide A trite, dul l or obvious remark or statement common place. 2 Staleness or insipidity of thought or language triteness.Pogroms An organised persecution or extermination of an ethnic group, esp of Jews. Polemic Of or involving dispute or controversy. Politburo The executive and policy-making committee of a communist party. politic Artful or shrewd ingenious a politic manager. Pollard An animal, such as a sheep or deer, that has either shed its horns or antlers or has had them removed. Polled (of animals) having the horns cut off or being naturally hornless. Pollinosis Technical name for hay fever. Polymath A person of great and varied learning.Posit To assume or put forward as fact or the factual basis for an argument postulate. Postmodernism Involves not only the continuation, sometimes carried to an extreme, of the countertraditional experiments of modernism, but also attempts to break away form the modernist forms which had, inevitably, become conventional, as well as to overthrow t he elitism of modernist high art by recourse to the models of mass culture in film, television, newspaper cartoons, and popular music. Prescience nowledge of events before they take place foresight. Presentiment A sense of something about to happen.Probabilistic Gives us a sample that seems most probable it gives us a slice of life it makes sure we feel this is a typical representation of the world therefore when they do something out of the norm it is significant. (Humanist tradition = man is the measure of all things). Realism creates situations where humans control everything otherwise it exceeds the realms of probability. Prolepses Slowing down/ speeding up of events and other distortions of the linear sequence. Prolix Wordy, extending to great length. 2) Tending to speak or write at excessive length.Propitious Presenting favourable circumstances or conditions. 2) Favourably inclinded gracious benevolent. Prose poetry A prose poem is a poem that does not use line breaks. This still allows the poet to use alliteration, metaphor, ambiguity, personification, and many other poetic techniques, but it can still be strange to see a poem that goes all the way to the right-hand margin. One thing that may differentiate a prose poem from a very short story is that the latter will have a stronger preference for narrative than the former, but this is very much debatable.John Ashberys For John Clare is a good example, one that explores the contrast between openness and containment as John Clare was a poet who was devoted to nature, but locked in an asylum, it could be suggested that it is very appropriate to see the subject explored without the containment that line-endings would give. Prosody The study and notation of metre. Protagonist The protagonist is the main character, who is not necessarily a hero or a heroine. The antagonist is the opponent the antagonist may be society, nature, a person, or an aspect of the protagonist.The antihero, a recent type, lac ks or seems to lack heroic traits. Providence Is the idea that good can come out of evil. Purulent Of relating to, or containing pus. Q R blatant (of voices or cries) Harshly or hoarsely load. Reactionary Reactionist of relating to or characterised by reaction, esp against radical political or social change. Realism Realistic fiction is said to oppose Romanticism. The romance is said to present life as we would have it be more picturesque, fantastic, adventurous, or heroic than actuality realism is said to present life as it really is.Realistic fiction is written to give the effect that it represents real life and the social world as it appears to the common reader, evoking the sense that the characters actually exist, and that such things might actually happen. Techniques used include the use of the commonplace everyday setting, represented in minute detail. Events, whether ordinary or eccentric are all rendered in the same matter-of-fact, circumstantial and seemingly unse lective way. Recondite Difficult to understand abstruse. ) concerned with obscure subject matter. Refrain A refrain is a repeated part of a poem, particularly when it comes either at the end of a stanza or between two stanzas. Sebastian Barkers The Uncut Stone has a traditional refrain, consisting of two rhymed sentences that never change at the end of each stanza James Fenton uses a slightly looser type of refrain in In Paris With You, where the title returns at the end of almost every stanza, but with slight additions so that it continues the sentence of which it is a part.Some forms, such as villanelles, demand a refrain as part of their definitions. With every line repeated, a pantoum might be said to be made entirely of refrains, but this would be an unusual usage, as refrains tend to be thought of as a moment of repetition within an otherwise flowing poem. Regicidal The person who kills a king. Regicide The killing of a king. Requiem A mass celebrated for the dead 2 Any piece of music composed or performed as a memorial to a dead person or persons.Rhyme Rhyme is the repetition of the end-sounds of words. Examples include Valerie Blooms use of tramp and camp in The River, Roger McGoughs use of breath and death in Oxygen, and Peter Porters rhyme of a single-syllable word with a polysyllable, stars with particulars, in So, Francis, Wheres the Sun? . Each of these is an example of end-rhyme, which means the rhyme occurs at the end of a line, but rhyme can also happen within a line, where it is known as internal rhyme.A rhyme on a stressed syllable, as in the examples above, is sometimes referred to as masculine rhyme its counterpart, feminine rhyme, is made up of a stressed syllable followed by one or more unstressed syllables, such as fishes and wishes in Charles Causleys At the British War Cemetery, Bayeux. These near-exact repetitions of end-sounds are known as full rhyme (sometimes as perfect, true or exact rhyme).There are also various forms of near-rhymes (half-rhymes, slant-rhymes, pararhymes), which are not exact repetitions, but are close enough to resonate, as David Harsents use of supper and blubber as rhymes in Marriage XVI, or P J Kavanaghs happy / Cavafy in Perfection Isnt Like A Perfect Story. Further types of rhyme include eye-rhyme, which looks like it should rhyme but doesnt (e. g. through / although), and rime riche, in which the words that rhyme sound identical (e. g. hare / hair).Rhyme can be used purely for its own sake, because it sounds good, but there may also be further reasons for example, the form of terza rima has overlapping rhymes that give the poem forward motion, as in George Szirtes Preston North End, each stanzas middle line giving the rhyme for the outer two lines of the next stanza. The breath / death rhyme, noted above, is not only nice in the ears but resonates because these two concepts are linked, as they are in the poem. Ribald / Ribaldry Coarse, obscene, or licentious, usually in a hu morous or mocking way SSacrosanct Very sacred or holy inviolable. Sadomasochism The combination of sadistic and masochistic elements in one person, characterised by both aggressive and submissive periods in relationships with others. Sagittal Resembling an arrow straight. Sagittate Shaped like the head of an arrow (esp. , of leaves). Salacious Lustful, lecherous. Salient Prominent, conspicuous, or a striking salient feature. Sallow (human skin) Of an unhealthy yellow. Salutary Salubrious (healthy) producing good effects beneficial. saprophagous (of animals or plants) feeding on dead organic matter.Sardonic Characterised by satire, mockery, or derision (sardonically). Sasquatch (In Canadian folklore) In British Columbia, a hairy beast or manlike monster said to leave huge footprints. Scansion The individual metrical pattern of a particular line or poem. Schism The division of a group into opposing factions. 3 Division within or separation from an established church especially the Roman Catholic Church, not necessarily involving differences in doctrine. Self-reflexive A term applied to literary works that openly reflect upon their own processes of artful composition how they are written put together.Senescence / senescent 1) evolution Old 2) Characteristic of old age. Sententious Characterised or full of aphorisms, terse, pithy sayings, or axioms, tending to indulge in pompous moralising. Sentient / Sentience Having power of sense perception or sensation, conscious. Sestina A sestina is a form that uses six six-line stanzas, each using the same six words at the end of its lines in different orders, followed by an envoi of three lines using two of those words to each line. They tend to be written in iambic pentameter, and without rhyme.Later sestinas sometimes allow homophones such as hare and hair for the repeat words, or even looser interpretations. Simile (The use of) an expression comparing one thing with another, always including t he words as or like. (noun) Sjuzhet How the events are arranged and related to the narrative sequence. Solecism The non-standard use of a grammatical construction. 2) A violation of good manners. Solipsism / solipsist / solipsistic Philosophy the extreme form of scepticism which denies the opening night of any knowledge other than ones own existence. onnet A sonnet, in English poetry, is a poem of fourteen lines, usually in iambic pentameter, that has one of two regular rhyme schemes although there are a couple of exceptions, and years of experimentation that have loosened this definition. One of these schemes is known as the Petrarchan, after the Italian poet Petrarch it consists of a group of eight lines, rhymed abbaabba, followed by a group of six lines with different rhymes. The distribution of these rhymes can vary, including cdcede, cdecde, cdedce, or even cdcdcd.Often, at the point where the eight-line section, known as the octave, turns into the six-line section, or s estet, there is a volta, from the Italian for turn this is a shift in the poems tone, subject or logic that gains power from (or demands? ) the matching shift in its structure. The Shakespearean sonnet breaks into three quatrains, followed by a couplet, rhymed abab cdcd efef gg as the name suggests, this is the form Shakespeare used for his sonnets, although he did not invent it. In Shakespeares usage, the three quatrains tend to make an argument in three stages, which the couplet will sum up or comment on.The main exceptions are the curtal sonnet, a form invented by Gerard Manley Hopkins that roughly maintains the 86 ratio over a ten-and-a-half line poem, and the Meredithian sonnet of 16 lines. The fact that these are still referred to as a curtal and a Meredithian sonnet, however, shows that they are not (yet? ) considered sonnets per se. There are also innumerable individual exceptions to the form a poet may refer to a poem as a sonnet because it meets some of the descriptions above, or even just because s/he says so.This means that life history a poem a sonnet is not necessarily to define it strictly, but to say that it stands in relation to the long tradition of sonnets. Specious evidently correct or true, but actually wrong or false. 2 Deceptively attractive in appearance. Spelunker A person whose hobby is the exploration of caves. Spurious Not genuine or real. 2 Having the appearance of another part but differing from it in origin (of plants). Stanza A stanza is a group of lines within a poem the blank line between stanzas is known as a stanza break.Like lines, there is no set length to a stanza or an insistence that all stanzas within a poem need be the same length. However, there are names for stanzas of certain lengths two-line stanzas are couplets three-lines, tercets four-lines, quatrains. (Rarer terms, like sixains and quatorzains, are very rarely used. ) Whether regular or not, the visual effect and, sometimes, the aural effect is one of uniting the sense of the stanza into one group, so poets can either let their sentences fit neatly within these groups, or create flow and tension by enjambing across the stanza breaks.Stentorian (of the voice) uncommonly loud. Stress Stress is the emphasis that falls on certain syllables and not others the arrangement of stresses within a poem is the foundation of poetic rhythm. The process of working out which syllables in a poem are stressed is known as scansion once a metrical poem has been scanned, it should be possible to see the metre. By way of example, the word produce can be pronounced with the stress on either syllable a farmer may proDUCE carrots, which a greengrocer will sell as PRODuce.Similarly, the differently placed stress is what separates the English and American pronunciations of defence. Longer words may have more than one stress photography, for example, is stressed on both -tog- and -phy. In some places, including the Oxford English Dictionary, a differen ce is drawn between