literary canon: group of texts considered to be of most value. belles lettres: literature that is not practical or purely informative.

light, entertaining but sophisticated literature. Trope: deviation of meaning on the level of individual words, a figure of speech with an unexpected twist in the meaning of words (as opposed to schemes, which only deal with patterns of words) on the level of individual words and includes for example, metaphor, simile, metonymy, personification, synecdoche and verbal irony. Scheme: word forms, word order, larger syntactical meanings, a figure of speech that deals with word order, syntax, letters, and sounds, rather than the meaning of words. It occurs on the level of larger units (sentences, articles): parallelism. Metaphor: substituting a word by another on the basis of analogy (likeness) components: tenor literal level, vehicle figurative level, grounds link between tenor and vehicle (analogy) (ex. success is a ladder) Simile: always like or as Personification: qualities that belong to the animate world are attributed to the non-animate Metonymy: figure of speech where one word is replaced by another closer to its meaning. Unlike metaphor, which works through similarity, metonymy works through other kinds of association (cause-effect, attribute, material-object, containment, etc.). (ex. Moscow made a short statement) Synecdoche: type of metonymy. It means replacing a part for a whole and vice versa. (ex. Twenty eyes watched our every move). Irony: figure of speech based on significant discrepancy of what is said and what is meant, appears both as trope and as scheme (verbal-(also called sarcasm) refers to spoken words. It is an irony in which a speaker makes a statement in which its actual meaning differs sharply from the meaning that the words seemingly express. Within the verbal irony we distinguish: antiphrasis (appearing as a trope small person is referred to as a giant), paralipsis (a speaker draws attention to a subject by pretending to neglect it)structural: scheme, unrealistic style or narrator dramatic: is associated mainly with drama, but occurs also in fiction, poetry and others. It involves a situation in a narrative in which the reader knows something about present or future circumstances that the character does not know. Socratic: rhetorical strategy that stands on pretending ignorance regarding a question or philosophical problem. The irony comes from the speaker's continuing presentation of himself as stupid even as he demolishes inferior ideas others present to him. Socrates often used it in his arguments and therefore it is named after him. Romantic: the narrator creates an illusion of reality but then destroys it by revealing that he is making up the story as he goes. The world is full of paradoxes and irony. First writers using this type of irony were Frederick Schlegel and Soren Kierkegaard.) Metre: describes the linguistic sound patterns of a verse and is more or less regular poetic rhythm. It is a plan of stresses and lengths in a line (or more lines). metric foot: the smallest unit of the sound pattern (metre) There are several two syllable metrical feet such as iamb, trochee and spondee and several three syllable metrical feet such as dactyl, anapaest and ampibrach [ beat (stressed), U off-beat (unstressed)]. Iamb: is a two syllable metrical foot consisting of one lightly stressed/shorter syllable followed by stressed/longer syllable. [U ] (rising duple rhythm) (ex. behind, before) Trochee: is a two syllable metrical foot consisting of a stressed/longer syllable followed by lightly stressed/shorter (or unstressed) syllable. [ U] (falling duple rhythm) (ex. rabbit, forward) Spondee: is a two syllable metrical foot consisting of two stressed/long syllables. It occurs mainly at the end of a line. [ ] (no more) Dactyl: is a three syllable metrical foot that consists of one stressed/long syllable followed by two unstressed/short syllables, [ U U] (falling triple rhythm) (ex. agitate) Anapaest: is a three syllable metrical foot used in formal poetry. It consists of two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed one (as in a-na-paest). It may be seen as a reversed dactyl. [U U ] (rising triple rhythm) (ex. understand, repossess) Amphibrach: is a three syllable metrical foot that consists of one stressed/longer syllable between two unstressed/short syllables. [U U] (ex. redouble) metrical systems: quantitative-casomira the decisive value is the quantity of the syllable, typical of old Indian (Sanskrit), Greek and Latin, rare in Eng., syllabic-decisive value is the number of syllables in a line, poetry in the Romance or some Slavonic, Japanese, accentual-tonicky decisive value is the number of accents in the line, Germanic lang., accentual-syllabic-most freq in Eng and Czech, both the number of accents and of syllables, basic unit is the foot, the stress is linked with the syllable in the length of its vowel, the quality of stresses is decisive in Eng. Alliteration: repetition of the sounds made by the initial consonants in certain patterns (used in old English poetry) Assonance: repetition of the same vowel sound, especially in stressed syllables, embedded within nearby words Consonance: repetition of sounds made by the final consonants or consonant groups of nearby words end rhyme vs. internal rhyme: rhyme (the last vowel or consonant repeated/echo, repetition of identical or similar sounds in different words) in which the last word at the end of each verse is the word that rhymes X rhyme in which a word in the middle of each line of verse rhymes eye rhyme: Words that seem to rhyme when written down as text because parts of them are spelled identically, but which are pronounced differently from each other in modern English. (ex. their/weir, love/prove, forth/worth, come/home, bury/fury, stove/shove) masculine vs. feminine rhyme: M: final syllable stressed (single monosyllabic rhyme), F: final syllable unstressed(words of two or more syllable rhyme) free verse: based on the difference of heavily stressed words and weakly, which runs across the line structure terza rima: aba bcb cdc ded three-line sections, interlinking one with another, first used by dante sonnet: Petrarchan vs. English: P:11-syllable lines abba abba cde cde (or cdcdcd) E: 5 stress lines, usually iambic pentameter ab ab cd cd ef ef gg villanelle: A1bA2 abA1 abA2 abA1 abA2 abA1A2 (Wilde, Auden, Plath) rhyme royal: seven pentametric lines ab abb cc ottava rima: eight line stanza ab ab ab cc Spenserian stanza: nine line pentametric ab ab bc bc c arena stage: audience all around the stage proscenium stage: stage with an apron thrust stage: a stage and the audience seated around it (Greek, Elizabethan) basic features of naturalist theatre: illusive theatre proper a perfect illusion of reality on stage basic features of the epic theatre (Brecht): left wing, x naturalist, the wires showing basic features of the theatre of the absurd: after WW2, illusive theatre (fragments) lyric: is a literary text that usually does not have a plot. There is no chronology of events in the lyrics, but rather objects and situations. It rather expresses the feelings, perceptions, and thoughts of a single poetic speaker (not necessarily the poet) in an intensely personal, emotional, or subjective manner -> uttered in first person, musical quality Epic: is a literary text that usually has a plot (tells a story) and there are more characters. It is uttered in first person. In English, the term epic is rather ambiguous because it might as well mean epos. Epic literature is divided into a) narrative poetry (ballad, epic/epos) b) fiction (novel, short story, novella) narrative poetry (epic is a long narrative poem about heroes or sometimes even demi-gods. Originally it was a narrative joined with incantation. It is usually told in an elevated style of language. Usually, the epic has a vast setting, and covers a wide geographic area., ballad is a song that tells a story and the story is usually told through dialogue and action. The language is usually simple. Originally it was a narrative joined with dance.) fiction: is a literary subgenre of epic. Divides into three types: a) Novel involves better description of characters or settings; psychological portraits or history. The plot is usually shown in a broader way. b) Short story does not involve either history or psychological portraits. It only describes characters. c) Novella is sometimes called long-short story (somewhere between novel and short story). It deals with a single issue and leads to an unexpected turning point. It is not very typical genre in English literature (one of few examples is The Old Man and the Sea). It was mainly cultivated in Germany. Tragedy: subcategory of drama (there is no narrator and only the characters tell the story). Tragedy tells about a misfortune and death of the main character mainly. The final death of the main hero is associated deeply with CATHARSIS (purification / duevn oista). The ancient spectator identifies himself with the main hero -> moment of transgression in their minds -> social aspect. Comedy: subcategory of drama. Conflict is humorous and has happy endings or a compromise. Unlike in tragedy, there is no death involved. Utopia: ideal state,society prose, verse, drama Dystopia: reverse of utopia (Orwells 1984) the pastoral: idealized life of the shepherds , contempory life in the country in verse,drama allusion: reference to another lit text (direct mention, quotation or in a less obvious manner) intertextuality: lit text inderdependent with all those that have gone before them metatextuality: texts refer to themselves Shakespeare- play-within-the play