ENGL 200 Midterm Exam

: “manifestation or showing forth”, sudden revelatory experience or a work in which an experience occurs. Introduced by James Joyce-Stephen Hero, Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man. Insight when one understands suddenly the essence of an object, gesture, statement, situation, moment, or mentality. Seeing commonplace for what it is. Mystical. Religious connotations.

Corpus of images, language used to convey a visual picture, represent a sensory experience, figurative language expressing abstract ideas, use of simile, personification, metonymy. Chief element in poetry and imaginative lit. describes literally or “hope: thing with feathers”. Concrete mental image. Ties into symbolism and themes.

Brief fictional prose narrative 1000-10000 words. Centers on one event. Simple purpose. Specific dramatic revelation builds toward.

Nuanced and thorough analysis of a text. Interrelationships among textual elements emphasized to illuminate complexities/ambiguities. Associated with new criticism

Reflective attentive consideration and analysis of a lit work. Evaluation of a work. Balanced analysis. Readers personal response, bio background/hist context. Many different kinds.

John Crowe Ransom. Formal literary criticism characterized by close textual analysis. 1940-50s. objective. Consider nature of the object rather than its effects. Images, rhythm, symbols, repetition, irony, paradox. Attack on romanticism and impressionism. Affective fallacy = interpretation based on psychological response of reader. Intentional fallacy = interpretation on authors intentions.

Combination of place, historical time, and social milieu that provides general background for characters and plot. General or specific settings. Drama: physical backdrop of play. Determines atmosphere

Statements that a text makes about the subject. Express or implied. Main idea or message of a text. Major and minor-secondary and primary themes. Can be moral (common in older works) or unmoralized perspective (archetypal or philosophical). Related to but distinguished from motif.

A recurrent, unifying element in a work such as an image,, symbol, character type, action, idea, object, or phrase. May be really widespread. Thematic element, informs and casts a revealing light on the theme.

Vantage point from which the narrative is told, first, second, or third person. First person is usually the main person, unreliable. Third person omniscient and limited. Usually privy to all but can conceal as well as reveal. Second person addresses you directly.

: a term referring to the manner of expression of the speaker in a literary work. The narrator or character. Underlines characterization, imagery, plot, theme. Can be subjective or objective.

: Jacques Derrida, linguistics term. mutually exclusive terms. (signifier/signified. Beginning/end) both can exist within the same discourse. Hierarchy in miniature. Phallocentric.

Poststructuralist approach to literary criticism involving close reading a text to find contradictions, intertwined yet opposite discourses. Criticizes western logic and idealism. All elements of human nature can be understood through a system of signs.

Conversation between two or more characters in a literary work

The way in which the message of a piece is presented by an author, and the message itself, constitutes his/her style. High (grand) =epics, middle (mean) =love poems, low (base, plain) =comedy. Accord between style and subject matter = decorum. Compatibility between the style of a work and its classical times, action, characters, and setting. Divided into binary oppositions classical/romantic, poetry/prose, poetic diction, discourse. Frye- use of everyday speech = demotic, formal language = hieratic. Genre. Postmodern, Victorian, alliterative, decadent, didactic, formal, journalistic, scientific, Shakespearean, joycean. Periodic/loose refer to sentences. Paratactic/Hypotactic refers to overall work. Paratactic = lose sentences. Hypotactic = wordy/formal sentences