TERMS LIT II 1ª parte2012-2013by LAB

The Tatler/The Spectator: the names of the periodicals that Addison and Steele wrote in.

Malapropism: mangled idioms named after Mrs. Malaprop (a character from Sheridan´s The Rivals in
1775)

Eponymous: when the name of a story comes from its main character. EX: Robinson Crusoe, Odyssey,
Moll Flanders.....

Robert Lovelace: Name of the character in Richardson´s novel Clarissa who tries to marry Arabel (her
sister),tricks Clarissa into escaping with him and later drugs and rapes her. She later starves herself to
death and he is shunned and goes to France where he dies in a duel.

Instantaneous description: In Clarissa, the character´s record events and their impressions of them as
they happen: hands shake when they write, they smudge the edges of the letters...

Bildungsroman: a type of novel in which the main character develops physically, morally and
psychologically during the development of the plot. A German term; a coming of age story. The subject
is these novels is the development on the protagonist's mind and character, from childhood into
maturity, which usually involves recognition of one's identity and role in the world

Second Treatise of Government: John Locke's work arguing that true political authority comes not from
God or precedent but from the people. He distinguishes 4 types of value: intrinsic, use, exchange and
overplus

Royal exchange: place in London where international traders and merchants began trading in 1570.
Consumed by the fire of 1666 and rebuilt. Addison used this building as a metaphor in his Spectator nº
69. (global markets)

Tabula rasa: "blank slate" we are born with according to the British philosopher Locke.

Dogmatism: positiveness in expressing one's opinions especially when no supporting evidence is given

Graveyard Poetry: Genre of 18th-century British poetry that focused on death and grief.

Newgate Novel/Biography: Narratives of criminal life which typically had an episodic structure and
where the climax was the redemption of the main character. They are sometimes named after a prison
in London

Goblin Market : A poem by Christina Rossetti where desire is portrayed through the narrative of
delicious fruit being sold and eaten by strange creatures from the forest

Safie: The name of the Turkish maiden in Frankenstein. The DeLacey´s take her in and want to convert
her to Christianity. When she is learning to read and write, she inadvertently teaches the Creature as
well. Her relationship with Felix also shows the Creature that he is alone (without a mate).

Oriental Tale: a type of fiction about exotic (Non-British) things which owed its popularity to the vogue
of the Arabian Nights. EX: Johnson´s Rasselas and the story of Safie en Frankenstein

Orientalism: Term coined by Edward Said: a way of coming to terms with the Orient that is based on the
Orient's special place in European Western Experience. The Orient is the place of Europe's greatest and
richest and oldest colonies, the source of its civilizations and languages, its cultural contestant, and one
of its deepest and most recurring images of the Other.
Romantic Orientalism: The recurrence of recognizable elements of Asian and African place names,
historical and legendary people, religions, philosophies, art, etc. in the writings of the British Romantics

The European fascination with an East that was magical, paradisiac, sensual, but also cruel and despotic;
the influence of this movement can be observed, among other Romantic works, in Coleridge’s “Kubla
Khan”.

Rasselas: A philosophical fable written by Samuel Johnson in the form of an Oriental Tale (made popular
by the vogue of the Arabian Nights)

The Spectator/The Tatler: The title of one of the periodicals founded or boosted by Joseph Addison and
Richard Steel at the beginning of the 18th century

Allusion: a reference to another piece of work or to an event

Elegy: a poetic form that conveys the poet's meditation on loss and death. The most celebrated poem
by Thomas Gray is an example of this poetic mode

Eighteenth Century Literature: something like its root meaning of “letters” and could include a wide
range of printed materials. Also, a period in which letters, in the sense of written correspondence with
others, were important, often published by authors themselves in multi-volume series

Conceit: Extended metaphor with a complex logic that governs a poetic passage or entire poem. By
juxtaposing, usurping and manipulation images and ideas in surprising ways.

Nymph Clarissa: in The Rape of the Lock speaks about how women shouldn´t be judged by only their
beauty. She is the voice of reason.

Clarissa: Samuel Richardson´s masterpiece, an epistolary novel about a woman who inherited money
but was still not free.

Elegiac Sonnets: Sonnets written in 1784 by Charlotte Smith that revived the sonnets and inspired
Coleridge and Wadsworth.

Umbriel: The gnome in Pope´s Rape of the Lock that goes and asks the Goddess Spleen to get back
Belinda´s lock

Augustan Age: the first part of the 18th century, named after Roman Emperor Augustus, under whose
rule Latin literature achieved its highest standards

The Beggar´s Opera: The title of a play published in 1727 during the Walpole administration which
narrates the socio-historical situation in GB and uses musical asides called "airs" in the most satirical
moments.

Lamia: In one of Keats poems (by the same name) the woman who is transformed from a snake to later
capture and seduce her lover. She is half whore half saint, considered to be Keats´ perfect woman.

Ballad Opera

1. A type of play that mixed spoken lines with lyrics of popular tunes. (today it would be called a musical)

2. Satirized regular opera and spoke out on social problems of the day.

3. John Gay's "The Beggar's Opera"

4. A form of musical theatre, popular in eighteen-century England, which parodied the lack of
verisimilitude and excessive dramaticism of Italian operas

musical air: A musical voice sung by a single voice in opera or some forms of musical theatre. We can
see it

Perfect style: According to Dafoe, a style of writing that is easily understood by many, sincere and
unbiased and giving the illusion of authenticity.

Houyhnhnms: a race of truthful horses in Gulliver´s Travels who live by reason

Blank Verse: poetry that's written in un-rhymed iambic pentameter

Mother Midnight : (bawd, midwife, abortionist, pawnbroker..) a good influence on Moll and her
spiritual mother. She helps women in trouble

picaresque novel: Novel in which the rogue (protagonist and narrator) moved by fortune and self-
interest, lead a socially and geographically mobile life that enables the author to show contemporary
society. The rogue usually lives off his wits in a corrupt society.

Realism: an attempt to give the illusion of ordinary life. In which unexceptional people undergo
everyday experiences.

Metrical Romance: Story of adventure, love, chivalry, and daring deeds containing an element of the
supernatural, or mystery. Ex: Scott´s Lay of the Last Minstrel or The Lady of the Lake.

Pamela: novel written by Samuel Richardson (considered his best work) who used epistles to tell the
story of a servant girl

Oroonoko, or The Royal Slave: Novel written by Aphra Ben in the 18th century about an African Prince
enslaved in Surinam

criminal biography/ Newgate Biography: -Inspired in confessions of real criminals that supposedly
dictated their lives to the priests in charge in charge of the prisons

-a work which recounts the ancestry, upbringing, criminal career and incarceration of the central
character, tried and often sentenced to death. Typically the character also confesses and repents.

lyrical poetry: short poem written in a repeating stanzaic form, often designed to be set to music. Used
to express feelings, Ex: Walter Scott´s ballads

Comedy of manners: Form of comic drama that became popular in 17th century France and the English
Restoration emphasizing a cultivated or sophisticated atmosphere and witty dialogue. It satirized
society´s manners. Concerned with the upper middle class. Brilliant, witty, cynical view of human nature
which it shows to be sensual, egoistic and predatory (Ex: The Man of Mode, Pride and Prejudice)

M. B. Drapier: Jonathan Swift´s pen name

Vitalist Debate: A debate in the 18th c. about whether life needs an electrical current to make it work
/an extra essential force (spark of life)(from Abernethy) or it comes from the material organism itself
(from William Lawrence, who was Percy´s personal physician!).

Novel of incident: A novel in which the main focus is on the course and the outcome of events in the
plot.
Novel of Character: The narrative focuses on what the protagonist will do next and how the story will
turn out.

savage misanthropy: hatred of the animal called man (Swift)

Flower verse: A sub-genre of female poetry which celebrates the scent, texture and color of flora.

Newgate: The most famous and crowded London prison

Sublime: Inspires awe: feeling emotions in the presence of nature; vast spaces, mountainous country
and wild, untamed landscapes; literature of sentiment.

-The powerful depiction of subjects that are vast, obscure, and powerful; of greatness that is
incomparable or immeasurable. The term is related, for instance, to the Romantic portrayal of nature

Wit: quickness and liveliness of mind, inventiveness, to enliven works w/ metaphors/similes and images.
Had to be curbed by judgment

Nature: To Augustans meant universal and permanent nature.

Restoration: A period marked by Charles II´s return from exile in 1660 (Stuart Monarchy reinstated)

Intrusive Narrator: an omniscient narrator who, in addition to reporting the events of a novel's story,
offers further comments on characters and events, and who sometimes reflects more generally upon
the significance of the story ; their motives and behaviour. (can express his/her own views)

ex. moral commentary on human life. (Jane Austen uses this type of narrator).

Zeugma: Employs one word to designate two drastically different actions in one line (EX: Or stain her
honour, or her new brocade)

Charlotte Smith: Her work inspired Wordsworth and Coleridge. She was a successful female poet in a
time when female poets were rare. She revived the sonnets.

"Elegiac Sonnets" /"Beachy Head" /"Emmeline" ( a novel) /"The Emigrants"

Samuel Johnson: Wrote Lives of the Poets, Rasselas, Rambler and the famous first true English
Dictionary. Also wrote the poem; the Vanity of Human Wishes

neoclassical verse: A type of verse that uses a balance of parallels and antithesis, elegant allusions to
classical lit., public, rhetorical manner, craving for generosity

Periphrasis: elaborate and roundabout manner of speech that uses more words than necessary. Ex:
bananas = elongated yellow fruit

Noble savages: people uncorrupted by society/civilization are models of innocence and virtue. Term
coined by Jean Jacques in the 18th century.

epistolary novel: A narrative form of letters popular in the 18th century./ A novel retold by the use of
letters. Adds great realism because it mimics real life and the different points of view of the characters
(Clarissa and Frankenstein)
musical "airs": musical aside sketches in which satirical comments of the play are contained (Used in
The Beggar´s Opera)

Laputa: A land (actually a flying island) in Gulliver´s Travels that is an allegory of the Political life under
the Whig Sir Robert Walpole (Ireland´s revolt vs. GB)

Graveyard Poets: a group of 18th century poets who produced subjective and melancholy poems
containing Gothic images and reflections on death. Their work is considered to pre-figure the Romantic
movement.

The Dunciad (4th book): Pope´s last major work, a continuance to An Essay on Man, talks about the rot
of social fabric.

Epic: long fictional narrative en verse. A long narrative poem on a serious subject presented in an
elevated or formal style. Can narrate national origins.

Deism: The religion of the Enlightenment (1700s): natural religion, believe in the existence of a supreme
being, but that he created all and let the humans forge their own destiny. The view that God is
immanent in nature and not transcendent.

Rasselas: prose fable by Samuel Johnson about the "hunger of imagination, which prays upon life"
=seeing things the way we want, not as they really are

Novel: long fictional narrative in prose

Quotidian: daily; usual or customary; ordinary. Stuart Curran said that women in the Romantic poetry
wrote about domestic, everyday occurrences.

Scriblerus Club: Gay, Swift, Pope and Arbuthnot, group famous for satire and practical jokes.

Direct speech: This term is used to refer to the exact words spoken by a speaker. The words are given
between quotation marks (" ") in writing: For example, So I said/he said “What am I going to do?”

-Used a lot in Pride and Prejudice through letters.

heroic couplets: Typical form of English neoclassical style: ten syllables, 5 feet each, two line rhyme.
(used in many heroic tragedies)

-a rhymed pair of iambic pentameter lines that dominated the English poetry of the 18th century.

Sensibility

An important 18th‐century term designating a kind of sensitivity or responsiveness that is both aesthetic
and moral, showing a capacity to feel both for others' sorrows and for beauty.

Entire complex of thoughts feelings, and suppositions characteristic of an individual or an age/ divided
the world between rational thought and that of feeling.

Sentimental

- a particular cultural phenomenon of the 18th century and a kind of literature . Its brackground was a
moral philosophy that developed against reason and unemotional will. It claimed an innate feeling of
sympathy for others and connoted an intense emotional responsiveness to beauty and sublimity
regarding nature and art.
. it replaced the old comedy of manners. Goodness triumphs over vice. It deals in high moral sentiments
rather than witty dialogue and the embarrassments of its heroines move the audience not to laughter
but to tears

-Made people cry, not laugh, swayed their emotions.

-Thought which says human beings are basically good and that virtue is instinctive. It locates the base of
social conduct in instinctual feeling rather than divinely sanctioned moral codes. People began to feel
pleasure in charity (and philanthropy in general) which led to social reforms.(abolishing of slavery,
improvements of jails, hospitals…)

heroic quatrains or elegiac stanzas : iambic pentameters rhyming ABAB named after Gray´s poem Elegy
written in a Churchyard

Tyburn: The Principle place of public execution/ gallows in London

Sir Plume: A character who tries to convince the Baron in the Rape of the Lock to give back the lock

Gothic : A literary genre that idealized medieval culture and architecture in opposition to neo classical;
terror, horror and supernatural.

irony : A figure of speech in which the speaker can say one thing and mean its opposite. Implies an
attitude quite different to the one expressed.

Moral Reform: Steele and Addison helped readers to find a moral balance between the old Puritan
respectability and the new wit, grace and enlightenment

Brobdingnag: Land of enlightened, rural giants in Gulliver´s Travels.

Elegy: A poetic form that conveys the poet´s meditation on loss and death. Thomas Gray´s poetry is an
example.

Belinda: The woman that epitomizes the ideals of beauty and elegance of the upper class in The Rape of
the Lock

Robinsonnade: Sub-gender of novels, about desert island adventures based on a famous work by Defoe.
Slightly dystopian about the friendliness of nature and utopian about the powers of human
achievement.

Free indirect speech/discourse: A combination of 1st person and 3rd person speech, where you are
presented with the consciousness or point of view of a character, but through a third person form.
(Used by Jane Austen)

Philosophic Skepticism : originated in Ancient Greece, advocated by Montaigne, says that all knowledge
is derived from our senses/way of thinking which originated in the Ancient Greece and argues that the
knowledge derives from our senses, but as our senses don’t represent our world properly, reliable
knowledge can’t be achieved

Interregnum: Period between the reigns of Charles I and Charles II in England between 1649-1660,
Cromwellian rule.

spiritual biography: Relates the acts of God´s grace in the life of a person from sin to redemption
Stream of consciousness voice: A ( first-person) narrator's perspective by attempting to replicate the
thought processes (as opposed to simply the actions and spoken words) of the narrative character.
Often, interior monologues and inner desires or motivations, as well as pieces of incomplete thoughts,
are expressed to the audience.

heroi-comical poem: a comic poem that treats trivial material in an epic style (The Rape of the Lock)

Heteroglossia: existence of different narrative voices in a text.

Oxymoron: a condensed form of paradox in which two contradictory words are used together (EX:
Sweet sorrow). A figure of flat contradiction.

Master Bates: the name of the character in Gulliver´s travels who Gulliver is apprenticed to
(homophonic association w/ masturbation)

Historical Novel: A novel where fictional characters take part in actual historical events and interact
with real people from the past. Walter Scott excelled at these. (Waverly)

Grub Street: a famous street in London were all the hacks hung around. Here we find the first
professional class of authors. It appears in The Duncaid and in Johnson´s Dictionary.

Caesura: the break or pause between the two halves of a line of poetry

Yahoos: the slaves of the Houyhnhnms, who have no reason, only appetites and passions/Creatures that
physically resemble humans and fill the protagonist with disgust in Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels

Sylphs: In the Rape of the Lock, they teach the women to exalt their beauty and they also protect
women.

Graveyard school: A school of poets and poetry obsessed with death, graves and suicide. Revival of
gothic architecture. (Gray, Young, Blair, Wordsworth, Blake)

Novel of Character: Focuses more on the protagonist's motives for what he or she does/how the
protagonist as a person will turn out

Royal Society: Institution chartered by Charles II: Group of 12 men interested in Natural Philosophy
(science) formed in 1660 in England.

Palladianism: in 18th century, architecture (variant of Neoclassicist) that preferred stylistic simplicity
(balance and symmetry).Used mathematical proportions. Pope designed his house like this.

Methodism: An independent Protestant church founded by John Wesley, which began as a reform
movement within the Anglican Church. It has a greater emphasis on personal spirituality, Bible study,
evangelistic preaching, and lively services. He and his brother Charles preached to the poor.

The battle of the Books: It is a satirical work by Jonathan Swift, discussing the constant quarrel between
the Moderns and the Ancients. (ways of learning)

Originally in France, but revived in a short satire written by Swift as a prolegomena (prefatory remarks
or observations) to The Tale of the Tub published in 1704.

Frances Burney

-early 19th century England/France

-had a lump in her breast- convinced she was going to die: had mastectomy- survived

-wrote many journals and letters

"Evelina" Novel

Mock Epic: A parody of conventional epic poetry (Iliad /Odyssey) in order to expose the triviality of an
ordinary event by using machinery and devices of the epic.. (EX: The Rape of the Lock)

Lilliput: Land of diminutive urban people (Lilliputians) who turn out to be vicious and ambitious
(Gulliver´s Travels)

The Lives of the Poets: By Samuel Johnson (1777), in 2 parts, included the biographies of selected poets
of the time

Old Bailey: The main criminal court in London, mentioned in key texts of 18th century English literature,
such as The Beggar’s Opera or Moll Flanders.

Classical Morality: Morality with rigid distinctions between goodness and badness. The Roman morals
brought back in the neoclassical age.

Proleptic (narrative device): proleptic : Of a calendar, extrapolated to dates prior to its first adoption; of
those used to adjust to or from the Julian calendar or Gregorian calendar.

Describes an event as having been assigned too early a date.

(rhetoric) Anticipating and answering objections before they have been raised; procataleptical

Synonyms : foreshadowing, anticipatory

Periodical Essay: A prose genre originated in the 18th c. that can be considered both journalistic and
literary. About social life, philosophical debate, domestic economy….. Basically invented when Steele
launched his Tatler.

Elegy Written in Country Churchyrad: An elegiac couplet written by Gray written in heroic
quatrains/elegiac stanzas. It marked the transition from classical Roman (Neoclassical) towards
Romanticism.

Robert Walpole: First true Prime Minister of UK (Whig) in the first half of the 18th c, criticized in The
Beggar´s Opera

closed heroic couplet: Pentameter couplet closed by a coma, semi colon, question mark or exclamation
point. 2 successive rhyming lines that contain a complete thought.

Satire: A literary form which diminishes or derrogates a subject by making it ridiculous and by evoking
toward it amusement, scorn or indignation.

The Enlightenment: Intellectual revolution in the 18th c.: age of criticism/ decline of religion/defence of
reason and debate/rise of science

Cave of Spleen: Evil place where crooked creatures did lurid things ( In the Rape of the Lock). Umbriel
goes there and returns with only sighs, sobs and passions.
Divine apparatus/Divine Machinery/ Machinery: Supernatural agents in epic fiction, usually Gods or
Goddesses. In the Mock -epic Rape of the Lock, tiny and insignificant characters; sylphs, zephyrs,
gnomes…

Personification: representing a thing or abstraction in a human form

Friday: name of a character in the novel Robinson Crusoe that Crusoe adopts as his slave.

Dissenters: those who didn´t want to follow the ceremonies and ritual aspects of the Roman Catholic
Church; more personal relationship with God. (Protestants)

Omniscient narrator: A mode of narration that is presented by a narrator with an overarching point of
view, seeing and knowing everything that happens within the world of the story, including what each of
the characters is thinking and feeling

The Life of Samuel Johnson: A biography of Samuel Johnson written by James Boswell (Augustan)

travel narrative: Writings that describe either the author's journey to a distant and alien place, or
writings which discuss the customs, habits, and wildlife of a distant place. (Ex: Oroonoko and Gulliver´s
Travels)