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Intro to Literature: Final Exam Study Guide

1) The terminology in the handout entitled "Scansion Notes" on WebCT

Meter: a measure if the verse according to the individual line.

Foot: the unit of measurement employed with one accented syllable (-) and one or more
unaccented syllables (u) Most common is the IAMBIC FOOT

Iambic Foot: an unaccented syllable followed by an accented syllable (u-u-u-u-u- Is this/

the face/ that launched/ a thou/ sand ships/

Anapest: two unaccented followed by an accented syllable (uu-uu-uu-uu- Run away /

from the light / make a friend / of the moon)

Trochee: one accented followed by one unaccented syllable (-u-u-u-u Take these / to our
/ sovereign / lord, fool)

Dactyl: one accented followed by two unaccented syllables (-uu-uu-uu-uu No one is /

ever made / lovely by / liquoring)

Spondee: two accented syllables (--): Slow time / creeps on

Pyrric: two unaccented syllables (uu):

The individual LINE of VERSE is composed of one or more FEET, which creates
additional terminology to denote various line lengths:

Monometer: one foot Pentameter: five feet

Dimeter: two feet Hexameter: six feet

Trimeter: three feet Heptameter: seven feet

Tetrameter: four feet Octameter: eight feet

Rhyme: Involves degrees of sound identity between words.

End Rhyme: The most common form of RHYME , which are classified by the following
terms:

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Masculine Rhyme: The rhymed syllables are the last syllables of the words in question,
as in surmount and discount.
Feminine Rhyme: rhymed syllables are followed by identical unaccented syllables, as
in delightful and frightful.
Weak Rhyme: rhymed syllables are unstressed, like peaceful and capitol
Slant Rhyme: approximate rhymes, like rover & lover or steel & chill

Internal Rhymes: occur elsewhere on the LINE, in patterns or freely

Eye Rhymes: which look alike but sound differently (eg, remove and love).

OTHER TERMS:

Alliteration: the use of several words or stressed syllables beginning with the same
consonant. Eg. Weeds, wanton, wishful

ASSONANCE: the repetition of the same or similar vowel sounds within a passage. Eg.
Hope , sore, broken

CONSONANCE: repetition of a pattern of consonants with variation in the vowel

sounds: eg, impede, explode, puddle.

ONOMATOPOEIA: words that sound like what they mean. Eg pop

STANZA: group of lines within a given poem, sometimes regular, sometimes not.

COUPLET: simplest stanza, two lines set off together.

QUATRAIN: four line stanza.

Blank Verse: unrhymed iambic pentameter

Free Verse: rhythmic, but metrical foot is not fixed, but varies in loose patterns, or
cadences.

2) The five characteristics of Romanticism

Romanticism: general literary attitude or approach which focuses on emotion, sentiment,

or feeling. Attempt to generate and experience for the reader rather than communicate a
clear idea. Styles and subject matter vary greatly

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Classicism: general literary approach associated with clear, conventional forms and
essay like didacticism. A desire to instruct readers on the proper way to live their lives.
Opposite of Romanticism.

1. Concept of the Poet:

-Poets expose the inner workings of their souls through their art, and the human soul is
the most powerful force on the planet.

-Poets deliver THE TRUTH unvarnished by the social restrictions and fashions of the
mundane world because by expressing the feelings and conflicts, the joy, sorrow, anger,
and awe they find in their own souls, poets make the "real" foundations of human reality
available to the rest of us.

-Romantics tend to believe that poetic truth is more true than facts, figures, and popular
opinion. The poet has a soul much like other humans, but their ability to explore and then
articulate the content of their souls sets them apart from the rest of us.

-Usually self-obsessed "Individualism" and there work can consist on the wandering of
their own consciousness (Crossing Brooklyn Ferry), Emerson, Dickinson, and Whitman's
poems which focus on the poet’s inner life, their personal experiences and feelings as
they interact with the world, whether that interaction is with the sea or a bug or a crowd
of people in Manhattan

-In a Casual reading we can commit the intentional fallacy/Pretend we are them. From
the critical perspective, Romantic self disclosure is just another type of point of view, a
particular compositional strategy to evoke particular responses from the reader. This
theory that poets give us a glimpse of the "real" reality of the world was developed by a
bunch of poets.... so we should be cautious and critical

2. Poetic Spontaneity and freedom

-many poets proclaim that the best poems are spontaneous and come from genuine inner
feelings.

-but just because they claim a poem is spontaneous doesnt mean that they didn't
meticulously compose their work and agonized over dingle words and phrases,
sometimes for years at a time.

-Spontaneity and poetic freedom they insisted was integral to good poetry was brought on
because poets had a distaste for being constrained by the traditional themes and poetic
forms of the past.

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-This drove them to create new forms for their poetry and carefully choose what
traditional forms best suited there subject matter

3. Romantic "Nature" Poetry

- Nature poetry does not mean poems about plants, trees, clouds, etc. Poets tended to see
the material, physical world as a reflection of spiritual truths.

-Focus intently upon natural, physical surroundings not for their own sake, but as a way
to explore the universal truths represented by a falling leaf, a ruined cottage, or a grave.
They tend to be both themselves (an image) and an idea (a symbol), particularly when
they are the main focus of a poem. Poets are concerned with human nature and how it is
both reflected by and in our physical surroundings.

-Transcendentalism is a doctrine of feeling, or experience, and as such tends to sound

vague and inconsistent when written out as theory. The founding idea is that the universe
is perfect as it is and any perceptions to the contrary are just a function of our flawed,
conventional ideas about what we think the world should be like. Created by Waldo
Emerson came up with the idea he was a philosopher and poet. Transcendentalists tend to
reject traditional, dualist systems of value like the Ten Commandments or the Boy Scout
oath. Emerson argues there can be no single set of values which will insure a moral or
worthwhile life, transcendentalists like him urge that we follow our “intuition” or
“genius” rather than conform to the conventions and ideology pushed on us by society.

4. The Glorification of the Ordinary and the Outcast

-While Shakespeare wrote about kings, queens, and emperorers and Milton wrote about
Adam, Eve, and Satan, the Romantics focus their work upon farmers, workman in the
street, rain, bugs, etc; i.e. they attempt to disclose the beauty, power, and divinity hiding
just under the surface of everyday existence. They write about their own everyday
experiences through the perspective of an outcast.

-Many poets go out of their way to glorify people and things that are usually excluded
from literature and society.

-This attention to society’s outcasts is yet another way the Romantics try to communicate
the presence of divine order in a world that on its surface seems ugly, degenerate, and
immoral.

5. The Melancholic, Exotic, and Awe-inspiring affect of beauty (the outward

manifestation of divine truth)

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-The Romantic concept of beauty tended to include images and ideas that we don’t
usually associate with prettiness or loviliness. Beauty for the Romantics was the outward
manefestation of divine truth, whether that truth was about love or hatred.

-The feeling associated with the perception of the beauty of absolute truth was not just
pleasure but a kind of awe, what you might feel while entering an ancient cathedral or
standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon.

-Edger Allen Poe is a good example because the mood he sets in many of his poems is
melancholy but he and other poets associate it with beauty. His themes are often simple
but they affect the readers emotions.

4) You should be prepared to define and apply the following specific terms:

scansion- used to talk about sound, how "it" feels

syntax- the way words are put together to form phrases, clauses, and sentences.

speaker- the person, not necessarily the author, who is the voice of the poem.

enjambment- lines that carry over to the next line without a pause or end

objective correlative- a symbolic article used to provide explicit, rather than implicit, access to such
traditionally inexplicable concepts as emotion or colour.

sonnet: two types Petrarchan & Shakespearean: 14 lines, printed as single stanza, but does have formal
divisions

lyric poetry- refers to a usually short poem that expresses personal feelings, which may or may not be set
to music

didactic poetry- is a form of poetry intended for instruction such as for knowledge or to teach.

classical art-focuses on the art, not the artist. poet artists are social servants. they are there to help fellow
man. artist not important/work is. Humanity doesnt change world stays the same. god outside of humanity
... separate

romantic art: Cult of personality; focus on artist. person represented as piece of culture access to god is
through individual. inside heard through small voice express their souls so that we see ourself, connecting
humankind

narrative structure: how it unfolds

descriptive structure: wants you to look at a specific thing

reflective structure: pondering a subject or event

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dramatic monologue- a piece of spoken verse within plays that are often linked to key themes of the play
or offer great insight into the feelings of the speaker

discursive structure:builds towards a clear idea in section like an argument

free verse- form of poetry written without use of rhyme, but still considered poetry.

popular/commercial literature-literature which poor and middle class had access to. Included short
fictions, ballads; equivalent to teenage books we have today.

canonical/serious literature-the collection of works that the writer feels all educated people in that culture
(should) have read.

Materialist criticism

ideology: how we see things such as sexual preferences. these change over time

patriarchal- structure of society, head of the household, head of the church, etc.

misogyny- hatred of women or girls.

anaphora- emphasizing words by repeating them at the beginnings of neighboring clauses.

Plot-arrangement of the action

Story-a sequence of events which contain a plot, theme, characters, etc.

Freytag's Pyramid (all stages)

1. Exposition: setting the scene. The writer introduces the characters and setting, providing description
and background.

2. Inciting Incident: something happens to begin the action. A single event usually signals the
beginning of the main conflict. The inciting incident is sometimes called 'the complication'.

3. Rising Action: the story builds and gets more exciting.

4. Climax: the moment of greatest tension in a story. This is often the most exciting event. It is the event
that the rising action builds up to and that the falling action follows.

5. Falling Action: events happen as a result of the climax and we know that the story will soon end.

6. Resolution: the character solves the main problem/conflict or someone solves it for him or her.

7. Dénouement: (a French term, pronounced: day-noo-moh) the ending. At this point, any remaining
secrets, questions or mysteries which remain after the resolution are solved by the characters or explained
by the author. Sometimes the author leaves us to think about the THEME or future possibilities for the
characters.

Narrative-a story that is created in a constructive format that describes a sequence of fictional or non-
fictional events.

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Narration-refers to the way a story is told.

Narrator (different types)- the entity that tells the story to the audience.

first-person-brings greater focus on the feelings, opinions, and perceptions of a particular character in a
story

third-person limited- an alternative that doesn't require the writer to reveal all that a first-person
character would know.

third-person omniscient-gives a panoramic view of the world of the story, looking into many characters
and into the broader background of a story.

Narrative Frame-a narrative technique whereby an introductory main story is composed, at least in part,
for the purpose of setting the stage for a fictive narrative or organizing a set of shorter stories, each of
which is a story within a story.

Persona-the voice or figure of the author who tells and structures the story and who may or may not share
the values of the actual author.

Point of View (different kinds)-also called focus; the point from which people, events, and other details in
a story are viewed. This term is sometimes used to include both focus and voice.

Intentional fallacy-in literary criticism, addresses the assumption that the meaning intended by the author
of a literary work is of primary importance. By characterizing this assumption as a "fallacy," a critic
suggests that the author's intention is not important.

Affective fallacy-is a term from literary criticism used to refer to the supposed error of judging or
evaluating a text on the basis of its emotional effects on a reader.

Personification fallacy-

Characterization-the fictional or artistic presentation of a fictional personage.

Image-broadly defined, any sensory detail or evocation in the work. the use of figurative language to evoke
a feeling of

Symbol-a person, place, thing, even, or pattern in a literary work that designates itself and at the same time
figuratively represents or stands for something else.

Setting- the time and place of the action in a story, poem, or play.

Verisimilitude-ts literary context is defined as the fact or quality of being verisimilar, the appearance of
being true or real; likeness or resemblance of the truth, reality or a fact's probability. Verisimilitude comes
from Latin verum meaning truth and similis meaning similar.

Tone-the attitude a literary work takes toward its subject.

Mood-mood is a feeling that you get while your reading a book or a feeling that a work of literature
evokes.

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Figurative language-a word or phrase that departs from everyday literal language for the sake of
comparison, emphasis, clarity, or freshness.

Literal language- the words mean exactly what they say in the plainest and most obvious sense.

Metaphor-one thing pictured as if it were something else, suggesting a likeness or analogy between them.

Simile-a direct, explicit comparison or one thing to another, usually using the words, like or as to draw the
connection.

Metonymy-is a figure of speech used in rhetoric in which a thing or concept is not called by its own name,
but by the name of something intimately associated with that thing or concept.

Allegory-as in metaphor, one thing is implicitly spoken of in terms of something concrete, but in an
allegory the comparison is extended to include an entire work or large portion of a work.

Parable-a short fiction that illustrates an explicit moral lesson.

Irony (3 types)-a situation or statement characterized by a significant difference between what is expected
or understood and what actually happens or is meant.

Cosmic Irony-a type of irony that arises out of the difference between what a character aspires to and what
so-called universal forces deal him or her.
Dramatic Irony-a plot device in which a character holds a position or has an expectation that is reversed
or fulfilled in a way that the character did not expect but that we, as readers or audience members, have
anticipated because our knowledge of events or individuals is more complete that the character's
Situational Irony-in a narrative, the incongruity between what the reader and/or character expects to
happen and what actually does happen.

Theme-a generalized, abstract paraphrase of the inferred central or dominant idea or concern of a work, the
statement of a poem makes about its subject

Allusion-a reference- whether explicit or implicit, to history, the Bible, myth, literature, painting, music
and so on- that suggests the meaning or generalized implication of details in the story, poem or play.

Drama-specific mode of fiction representation in performance.

Stage directions-The words in the printed text of a play that inform the director, crew, actors, and readers
how to stage, perform, or imagine the play.

Stage business- incidental activity performed by an actor for dramatic effect.

Dialogue-the words spoken in a play by the actors.

Blocking-is a theatre term which refers to the precise movement and positioning of actors on a stage in
order to facilitate the performance of a play, ballet, film or opera.

Proscenium stage-is a theatre space whose primary feature is a large archway (the proscenium arch) at or
near the front of the stage, through which the audience views the play.

Thrust stage-is one that extends into the audience on three sides and is connected to the backstage area by
its up stage end.

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Tragedy (main conventions)-a drama usually characterized by a good, noble character who is brought to
their demise by their confrontation with a superior force.

Comedy (main conventions)-a broad category of dramatic works. Characteristics are, the values that are
expressed and that typically present the conflict within the play are social and determined by the general
opinion of society.

Metadrama-drama about drama, or any moment of self ‐consciousness by which a play draws attention to
its own fictional status as a theatrical pretence.

Metafiction- a type of fiction that self-consciously addresses the devices of fiction.

Mirror action-the use of sentence structure to mirror actions. Short sharp words, structure for quick
actions and longer, lengthy words and structure for long flowing actions.

Low/physical comedy-is a type of comedy characterized by "horseplay," slapstick and/or farce.

Humor- is the tendency of particular cognitive experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement.

Farce- a comedy written for the stage or film which aims to entertain the audience by means of unlikely,
extravagant, and improbable situations, also characterized by physical humour, the use of deliberate
absurdity or nonsense, and broadly stylized performances.

Slapstick-a type of comedy involving exaggerated extreme physical violence or activities which exceed the
boundaries of common sense, such as a character being hit in the face with a heavy frying pan or running
into a brick wall.

High/verbal comedy-humor that employs subtlety, wit, or the representation of refined life

Wit-a form of intellectual humor.

Sample Essay Questions

1) Analyze the class ideology of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" then compare and contrast that play with
the ideology of some other work we have read ("The Jewlery," "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," or "Sure Thing"
are good candidates).

2) Analyze a motif in Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" as a step toward making a particular interpretive claim
about the short story.

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3) Discuss the difference (or lack thereof) between canonical and popular literature by comparing and
contrasting "Tintern Abbey" to any text (from any souce) you want.

4) Analyze the structural characteristics of “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" as a step toward making an
interpretive claim about its thematic elements.

READ!

A Midsummer Night's Dream - pg1272-1324

Crossing Brooklyn Ferry - Handout

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