KS 2021/2022 A LITERARY GLOSSARY

F Roux-Mecenate

ALLEGORY
a story that can be understood on two or more levels, the superficial one
of the narrative and a political, ethical or historical one.

ALLITERATION
a stylistic device in which a number of words, having the same first
consonant sound, occur close together in a series.

ANAGRAM
a word created by rearranging the letters of another word.

ANALEPSIS
retrospective, flashback.

CARPE DIEM
Meaning “seize the day”, the phrase encourages the enjoyment of this life
and its pleasures given the finality of death. Common theme in 16th and
17th century poetry

CHIASMUS
a mirror inversion: “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled and whoever
humbles himself will be exalted” (Matthew 23: 11-12)

CYNICISM
a dark attitude toward the world, especially toward human beings. Cynical
people (also called “cynics”) believe that human beings are basically

motivated by greed and self-interest; they are distrustful of others, usually

very negative, and suspicious of sentimentality.

DIRECT SPEECH / REPORTED SPEECH/ FREE INDIRECT SPEECH

direct speech means to say exactly what someone else said. It is usually
put inside quotation marks (". . .")
Reported speech (also called indirect speech) means to say what
someone else said, without actually quoting them. Meaning, you don't
necessarily use their own words. (no quotation marks but a verb to
introduce someone else’s speech.
Free indirect speech is a style of third-person narration which uses some
of the characteristics of third-person along with the essence of first-person
direct speech.
Wiki ex :
• Quoted or direct speech: He laid down his bundle and thought of
his misfortune. "And just what pleasure have I found, since I came
into this world?" he asked.

• Reported or normal indirect speech: He laid down his bundle and

thought of his misfortune. He asked himself what pleasure he had
found since he came into the world.

• Free indirect speech: He laid down his bundle and thought of his
misfortune. And just what pleasure had he found, since he came into
this world

DOUBLE ENTENDRE
a pun in which one of the two meanings is risqué or bawdy. cfin
Elizabethan times: to die= to lose one’s life and to reach sexual orgasm.

DYSTOPIA
some works describe worlds which are evil or absurd and reveal some
dangerous tendencies in our own society. (ex Orwell’s 1984, Huxley’s
Brave New World)






EMPHATIC STATEMENT
is when something is expressed forcibly and clearly, can sometimes be
part or be compared to an overstatement (exaggeration).

EUPHEMISM
the use of an indirect expression to avoid bluntness.

EXTRADIEGETIC NARRATOR
Many traditional novels are narrated from the extradiegetic level. It’s the
opposite of the intradiegetic narrator (see below): the narrator exists
outside (extra) the diegesis (events described by the story). An easy
example of this is Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen,, which has a
third-person omniscient narrator. There are a lot of examples of this,
though: think of virtually any narrative that has a narrator that doesn’t
represent a character in the story.

FIRST PERSON NARRATIVE

a narrative written in the first person.

HYPERBOLE
a figure of speech that involves an exaggeration of ideas for the sake of
emphasis. It is a device that we employ in our day-to-day speech. For
instance, when you meet a friend after a long time, you say, “It’s been
ages since I last saw you.” You may not have met him for three or four
hours, or a day, but the use of the word “ages” exaggerates this statement
to add emphasis to your wait. Therefore, a hyperbole is an unreal
exaggeration to emphasize the real situation. Some other common
Hyperbole examples are given below.

IN ABSENTIA
a character in absentia is a character who in mentioned while not present
at the events referred to.

IN MEDIAS RES
the technique of beginning a story in the middle of the action.

INTRADIEGETIC NARRATOR
An intradiegetic narrator is one that is inside (intra) the narrative (diegetic).
This narrator may be represented by a character, telling his story from the
first-person perspective (for example, Huckleberry Finn). You may even
have a narrator (as seen in the Great Gatsby) who tells the story of
someone else. As long as the narrator exists in the story, he is an
intradiegetic narrator. Similarly, anything inside the story is considered to
take place on an intradiegetic diagetic level.

INTRUSIVE NARRATOR
a narrator who comments on the characters and action.

IRONY
-a literary technique, originally used in Greek tragedy, by which the full
significance of a character's words or actions is clear to the audience or
reader although unknown to the character, often aiming at denouncing
something.
-a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one
expects and is often wryly amusing as a result.
-the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally
signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect.

LEXICAL FIELD
a set of semantically related words whose meanings delimit each other.
MAGIC REALISM
fiction in which realism mingles with magic or fantasy. Much used in post-
modern literature to emphasize the fact that any narration is an invention.

METAPHOR
an analogy between two objects, created by using one instead of another,
thus creating identification (ex: Shakespeare: ”All the world is a stage”)
an extended metaphor links several images

METONYMY
instead of using word, using a term related to it in some semantic way.
(ex: the White House for the US government)

NARRATIVE VOICE
The narrative Point of View/voice is the perspective from which the events
in the story are observed and recounted. To determine the point of view,
one has to identify who is telling the story, that is, the viewer through
whose eyes the readers see the action (the narrator).The following
aspects have to be considered: :
A.Pronoun: First (I, We)/Second (You)/Third Person narrator (He, She, It,
They]
B.Narrator’s degree of Omniscience [Full, Limited, Partial, None]
C.Narrator’s degree of Objectivity [Complete, None, Some (Editorial?),
Ironic]
D.Narrator’s “Un/Reliability

OMNISCIENT NARRATOR
the voice in which a story is written that is outside the story and knows
everything about the characters and events in the story

OXYMORON
two words used together that have, or seem to have, opposite meanings

PLEA
A plea is an appeal or request for something, made in an intense or
emotional way

PORTMANTEAU WORD
a word formed by telescoping two words (Brexit= Britain and exit / slithy=
lithe and slimy: Carroll)

PROLEPSIS
relating an event before it happens chronologically (contrary of analepsis)

ROUND AND FLAT CHARACTERS

a distinction made by EM Forster to describe two types of characters. Flat
characters, like humours, are built round a simple idea and not capable of
evolving; round characters are more complex, subtle and can surprise us.

SATIRE
Satire is a technique employed by writers to expose and criticize
foolishness and corruption of an individual or a society, by using humor,
irony, exaggeration, or ridicule. It intends to improve humanity by
criticizing its follies and foibles. A writer in a satire uses fictional
characters, which stand for real people, to expose and condemn their
corruption.

A writer may point a satire toward a person, a country, or even the entire
world. Usually, a satire is a comical piece of writing which makes fun of an
individual or a society, to expose its stupidity and shortcomings. In
addition, he hopes that those he criticizes will improve their characters by
overcoming their weaknesses.

SYNECDOCHE
A form of metonymy in which the part stands for the whole, or the whole
for the part.

UNRELIABLE NARRATOR
is one that is not to be fully believed. His or her credibility is compromised
due to some admission of insanity or an obviously false claim that the
reader knows is incorrect, or due to the story revealing information about
the narrator that makes the reader question the believability of claims
made. It can be used for dramatic effect to create an ending with a twist
or can be merely hinted at by other characters as a way to make the
reader question if the narrator should be trusted. It is a way for an author
to psychologically thrill his or her audience. It is also a reminder that any
story told from first person point of view has limitations. cf Lolita (V.
Nabokov)