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English 9-12
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      • Meet Joe Black >
        • Death Takes A Holiday 1934
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        • Alfred Hitchcock
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          • Psycho 1960
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          • Disturbia
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          • Vertigo 1958
        • Rope
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        • it's a Wonderful Life
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        • The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly
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        • Top 25 Cult Films:
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      • Films To Consider: >
        • Breathless, by Jean-Luc Godard (1960)
        • Interstellar
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        • Mr. Holland's Opus >
          • Vimeo Short Films
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        • The Shining
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        • The Hunger Games/Quotes >
          • Suzanne Collins
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        • The Last Samurai
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        • 3 Days of the Condor 1975
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        • A Fist Full of Dollars
        • The Conformist >
          • The Conformist
        • Peter Sellers
        • Gladiator
        • The Last Emperor 1987/ Bertolucci
        • Phenomenon 1996
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        • The Butler
        • Contagion 2011
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      • Citizen Kane >
        • Citizen Kane #2
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      • The Wild Wild West! >
        • John Wayne / True Grit
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      • The Pride of the Yankees 1943
    • German Expressionism in Film >
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      • Dadaist Films
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    • Scary Movies >
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      • Ghost of the Lagoon by Armstrong Sperry
      • Frankenstein 1910 Silent Movie
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      • Buster Keaton
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    • Sports Movies >
      • A River That Runs Through It >
        • Fly Fishing Quotes
      • Money Ball >
        • Money Ball #2
      • Dogville
      • Goal / History of soccer >
        • Goal (page two)
      • Teamwork Movies
      • www.ronaldothefilm.com
      • We Are Marshall
      • Pele
      • Chariots of Fire
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    • Lance Armstrong Doping
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  • English 9 Curriculum Map 2018-19
    • Siddhartha >
      • Siddhartha Vocabulary Words
    • English 9 Unit 1 >
      • Video Games >
        • Video Gaming
        • Video Games #2
        • Game Programmer
        • Video Game Jobs
        • Video Games/Presi/Slideshare
      • Video Games
      • Story Telling /Moth
      • 10 Rules/Carmichael
    • The Cast of Amontillado
    • The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian >
      • The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian Vocabulary Words
    • Direct and Indirect Characterization
    • Overly Sarcastic Productions The Classics
    • English 9 Unit 2 >
      • Food >
        • BBC Fast Food Baby
        • BBC The Truth About Food
        • BBC Beef Burgers
        • GMOs
        • Food
        • Food
        • Food
      • Richard Wright/Blackboy >
        • Black Boy by Richard Wright
      • The Age of the Essay Paul Graham
    • English 9 Unit 3 >
      • Siddhartha >
        • Siddhartha
        • The Odyssey Vocabulary Words >
          • The Odyssey Movie
          • Create a Myth Assignment
          • Odyssey Timelines/ AWESOME!
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          • Freewill vs Determinism quotes
          • Freewill vs Determinism
          • Greek Gods
          • Greek Vases
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          • The Greeks/Gods
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          • Odyssey
          • The Odyssey and the Hero's Journey
          • The Odyssey Presentations
      • Greek and Roman >
        • Untitled
        • What is theater?
        • Ancient Rome
        • The Gladiator Graveyard
        • Spartacus Behing the Myth
        • Helen of Troy
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        • Rome/History/BBC >
          • Marcus Aurelius
          • The Stoics
          • Metal Detecting Roman/Greek
        • Oedipus The King >
          • Oedipus the King/Prezi
        • Homer, The Iliad
        • The Norse Gods
    • English 9 Unit 4 >
      • Graffiti >
        • Bansky
        • Bansky Art Sold fo
        • Street Art
        • The Top Street and Graffiti Artists to Watch in 2015
        • Graffiti Analysis
        • Anamorphic Graffiti Illusions by Odeith – Fubiz
    • Romeo and Juliet
    • English 9 Unit 5/ Poetry >
      • Various Poets
    • English 9 Other >
      • English 9 Essay
  • English 12 2017-18
    • Restorative Justice >
      • Juvenile Justice Essay Resources
      • Adam Foss
      • Racial Profiling >
        • Racial Poetry
        • Racial Profiling
      • Racism
      • Bullying #1
      • Race/Racism/Bullying
      • Jim Crow Museum
      • What Would You Do?
      • Bullying
      • Bullying
    • Eng 12/ Life after high school >
      • Personal Statement
      • Vision Board Assignment >
        • Vision Board Project
      • UC Writing Prompts/Journals
      • Hidden Intellectualism by Gerald Graff
      • Job Applications/Business Letter
      • Interview Questions and Answers >
        • Interview Q & A
        • Interview Q & A
      • Job Seeking/Resume/Q and A
      • FAFSA
      • Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
    • Unit 2 Week (3-5) "College Application Essay" >
      • Commencement Speeches #1
      • Commencement Speeches #2
      • Great Speeches
    • Zoot Suit >
      • Zoot Suit 2
    • 1984 Language, Gendetr, and Culture in George Orwell's 1984 >
      • 1984 Key facts, characters, themes, motifs, and symbolism
    • Brave New World 2016 >
      • Brave New World 2017 1
      • Gender, Language, and Identity
      • Brave New World Character Name meanings
      • BNW Vocabulary
      • BNW Chomsky
      • Brave New World Vocabulary Words
      • Brave New World 2016 2
      • The Perennial Philosophy/Huxly
      • Mystic Quotes
      • Papaji Advaita Vedanta
      • Nissargadatta
      • Vedanta Advaita Quotes
      • Kristnamurti Quotes
      • Sola BNW
      • Iron Maiden/ BNW
    • Into The Wild 2016-17
    • Into the Wild/ 11/15 >
      • Into the Wild/ Characters >
        • Into The Wild/Characters >
          • Into the Wild/Themes, Characters
      • Into the Wild/ Vocab
      • Into the Wild/ Quotes
      • into The Wild/ Chapter Reviews
      • Into The Wild/ Symbolism
      • Into To Wild/ Themes
      • Into The Wild/ Glossary
      • Into the Wild/ Quiz 1
      • Into the Wild/Jon Krakauer >
        • Is Ignorance Bliss?
        • Into the Wild/ Essential questions
        • Into the Wild/20/20 >
          • Into the Wild/Eckhart Tolle
        • Chris McCandless Articles/Outside Magazine
        • Into the Wild/Jon Krakaur
        • Into the Wild/2015/Nomads
        • Into the Wild
        • Into the Wild/The Big Two-hearted River/Nick Adams
        • Into the Wild/Who Am I
        • Into the Wild/Pierre Bezuhov/From War and Peace
        • Into The Wild/Various
        • Into the Wild/2015/Rush
        • Into the Wild/Tolstoy
        • Into the Wild/Springsteen
        • Into the Wild/Jack London
        • Into the Wild/Emerson
        • To Build a Fire/Jack Londen
        • Into the Wild/Louis L' Amour
        • Into the Wild/Thoreau
        • Into the Wild/Boris Pasternak
        • Into the Outdoors
        • Into the Wild/Alaska Denali
        • Into the Wild/Snowboarding
        • Into the Wild/2014/15/Supertramp
        • Into the Wild/Vocabulary
        • Into The Wild/Themes >
          • Into the Wild/Themes
        • Into The Wild/Glossary
        • Into the Wild/ Papaji
        • Into the Wild/Eckhart Tolle
        • Into the Wild
        • Into the Wild (Prezi)
        • Into the Wild/John Muir
        • Into the Wild/Quiz
        • Into the Wild /Movie Questions
        • Into the Wild/ Q&A
        • Into the Wild/ Climbing Videos
        • Into the Wild/Moose
    • Standards
    • English 12 Syllabus
    • English 12 2016-17 >
      • English 12a Final Essay
      • Letter To Myself >
        • Letter to Myself
        • Letter to Myself
    • English 12 Essay 2015
    • History of the English Church >
      • History of English
      • History of English
      • The History of English >
        • BBC Anglo-Saxons >
          • Anglo Saxons >
            • Anglo Saxon Lyre
            • Anglo-Saxon The History of English
            • Worst Jobs in History (Middle Ages)
            • The Worst Jobs in History--The Dark Age - Part 1-6
            • The Worst Jobs In History - 1x03 - Tudor
            • The Worst Jobs In History--Roman & Anglo-Saxon
            • The Worst Jobs In History--Medieval
            • The Worst Jobs In History--Tudor
            • The Worst Jobs In History--Stuart
            • The Worst Jobs In History--Georgian
            • The Worst Jobs In History--Victorian
            • The Worst Jobs In History--Urban
            • The Worst Jobs In History--Royal
            • The Worst Jobs In History-- Industrial
            • The Worst Jobs In History--Maritime
            • The Worst Jobs In History--Rural
            • The Worst Jobs In History--Christmas
            • The Medievil Mind >
              • The Medieval Belief
              • The Medievil Treasures BBC
              • The Medieval Power
              • Age of Conquest
              • The Crusades
              • The Black Plague
              • AEngla Land
              • Treasures of the Anglo-Saxons
              • The Staffordshire Hoard
            • Beowulf >
              • In Search of Beowulf
              • Beowulf PPt Presentations
              • British Literature Learning Videos >
                • Paganism vs Christianity
                • The Germanic Tribes
                • Beowulf & the Anglo-Saxons (1-8)
            • The Canterbury Tales
        • Language
    • English 12 Reading >
      • Epic of Gilgamesh Audio 2000 BC.
      • Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Late 14th-century
      • The Wife of Bath's Tale 1405-1410 from canterbury Tales
      • The Passionate Shepard
      • Shakespeare 1564-1616 >
        • Shakespeare/ Tudor England
        • Novels/Plays >
          • Hamlet's, "To Be or Not to Be"
          • A Midsummer Night's Dream
          • Macbeth
          • Macbeth
          • Macbeth Act by Act
          • Shakespeare Poems
          • Globe Theater
          • Shakespeare Sonnets
          • Sonnet 1
          • Sonnet 1 Blog:
          • Sonnet 18
          • Sonnet 29
          • Sonnet 29 Blog:
          • Sonnet 75
          • Sonnet 75 Blog
          • Sonnet 130
      • Romeo & Juliet/ Shakespeare 4/15 >
        • Romeo & Juliet/ Shmoop Resources
        • Shakespeare Glossary
        • Shakespeare's Globe
        • Quotes about Shakespeare >
          • Shakespeare Quotes
          • Shakespeare Castles
        • Romeo & Juliet/ Characters
        • Romeo & Juliet/ Themes, Motifs, Symbolism
        • Elizabethan Clothing
        • Royal Shakespeare Company
        • Romeo and Juliet 1
        • Romeo and Juliet 2
        • Romeo and Juliet 3
        • Romeo and Juliet/ 60 Second
    • Six Centuries of Verse: Metaphysical & Devotional Poets >
      • Ben Johnson
      • John Donne
      • Andrew Marvell >
        • Jonathan Swift
        • A Modest Proposal
      • To His Coy Mistress
    • Romanticism 1790-1850 >
      • Romantic Spirit
      • Mysticism
      • William Blake
      • William Wordsworth
      • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
      • John Keats
      • Percy Bysshe Shelley
      • Mary Shelley
      • Lord Byron
      • James Joyce
  • My Favorite People
    • Favorite Artists >
      • Brian Dettmer Book Cutting
      • Bansky
      • Julian Schnabel
      • Phillip Guston
      • David Salle
      • Robert Motherwell
      • Picaso
      • Raushenburg
      • Francisco Clemente
      • Joseph Beuys
      • Cy Twombly
      • Jean Michel Basquiat
      • Keith Haring
      • Kenny Scharf
      • Kaws
      • Sun Xun
      • L' Arte
      • Richard Serra
    • AESOP
    • Adyashanti
    • Maya Angelou
    • Jane Austin
    • James Baldwin
    • Bansky Quotes
    • Coleman Barks
    • Joseph Beuys
    • Harold Bloom >
      • Harol Bloom/ How to read and why
    • Jorge Luis Borges
    • Robert Bly 1 >
      • Robert Bly 2
    • David Bowie
    • Ray Bradberry >
      • There Will Come Soft Rains
      • Usher II
      • The Veldt
      • Marionettes Inc.
      • Fehrenheit 451
      • Fahrenheit 451 Vocabulary
      • Fahrenheit 451 Quotes
    • Russell Brand >
      • Russell Brand
    • David Brooks
    • Barbara Brodsky
    • James Brown
    • Buddha >
      • Buddha
    • Warren Buffet
    • James Cameron
    • Albert Camus
    • Jack Canfield
    • George Carlin
    • Lewis Carrol
    • Caroline Casey
    • Paulo Coelho/Alchemist >
      • The Alchemist by
      • Paulo Coelho
    • John Coltrane >
      • John Coltrane
    • Steven Covey >
      • Steven Covey
      • The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People/Steven Covey
    • Charlie Chaplin
    • Noam Chomsky
    • Deepak Chopra >
      • Ask Deepak
      • Deepak Chopra
    • Winston Churchill
    • Mihaly Csikszentmihaly
    • Ram Dass
    • Simone De Beauvoir
    • Anthony De Mello
    • Daniel Dennett
    • Shanti Devi
    • Junot Diaz
    • WALT DISNEY QUOTES
    • Fyodor Dostoyevsky >
      • Fyodor Dostoyevsky/ The Brothers Karamazov
    • Carol Dweck/Mindsets
    • Bob Dylan >
      • Bob Dylan
    • Thomas Edison Quiz
    • Albert Einstein >
      • Albert Einstein
    • T. S. Eliot
    • Ralph Waldo Emerson
    • Jane Eyre
    • Anneliese Marie Frank
    • William Faulkner
    • F Scott Fitsgerald >
      • The Roaring 20's
      • F Scott Fitzgerald 2014-15
      • The Great Gatsby
    • Benjamin Franklin
    • Robert Frost
    • Stephen Fry >
      • Stephen Fry
    • Neil Gaiman
    • Dan Gilbert
    • Malcom Gladwell
    • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
    • Gurdjieff
    • Steven Hawking /black Holes
    • Hafez/Hafiz #1 >
      • Hafez/Hafiz Poems #2
      • Hafez/Hafiz #3
      • Hafez/Hafiz #4
      • Hafez #5 >
        • Hafiz Poems #7
      • Hafez Poems #6
      • Hafez Poems #8
    • Thich Nhat Hanh
    • Tyrone Hayes
    • Ernest Hemingway
    • Hermann Hesse >
      • Siddhartha Quotes
    • Christopher Hitchens
    • HOU HSIAO-HSIEN
    • Langston Hughes >
      • Langston Hughes/ Poems
      • Langston Hughes
    • Aldous Huxley >
      • Brave New World 4/15 >
        • Secret Societies >
          • The Knights Templar
          • The Freemasons
          • The Rosicrucians
          • The Illuminati
          • The Carbonari
        • BNW/ Chemtrails vs Contrails
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Analyzing Poetry

When asked to analyze or "explicate" a poem, it is a good idea to read the poem several times before starting to write about it (usually, they are short, so it is worth the time). Remember that no one was born reading a book of poetry, but that it is a learned skill that gets easier with practice. 

When I read a poem for the first time, these are the general steps I follow:
  • I read once to determine the literal meaning of the poem. 
  • I read the poem again and then try to paraphrase it in a few sentences, in my own words. A good paraphrase is very close to what the poem says literally, without reference to the uses of figurative language or other poetic devices.
  • Based upon my general sense of the poem, I think about a strategy for approaching the poetic elements, or non-literal strategies used in the poem. Although most good poets use several strategies at the same time, usually one dominates in a particular poem. For instance, does the poet get his or her point across primarily by relying on treatment of a particular theme? Does the poet rely upon development of a particular set of figurative language? Does the poet make a point by using a particular structure? Upon rhyme and meter?  If possible, mark what you notice, in pencil, on the poem itself  to indicate interesting features and details which may be worth discussing. 
  • Next, I construct a "reading" or explication of the poem, based upon what I have observed. There is no one "correct" reading of a poem; many readings are possible. But there are readings that are better than others. The best readings are strongly supported by evidence gleaned while reading the text closely. The best readings take into account all of the evidence in the poem. A reading that ignores evidence that contradicts the reading is a poor reading. 
When writing in response to an assignment, keep in mind the constraints put upon you by the assignment itself and the actual questions you are answering.  A written analysis of a poem should not simply paraphrase it, although the analysis may include paraphrase.
The following are questions you can ask about any poem you encounter. Remember, however, that not all of the questions will apply to every poem you read, and also that  you do not have to write about every answer to every question.
 
  1. Who is the speaker? Is it the poet or a character/persona the poet takes on?  What is the tone of voice adopted? Can you detect any irony? How precisely is the speaker defined?  (Note:  You should refer to the speaker as "the speaker" and not as "the poet," even if the voice seems to be the poet's own.
  2. Who is the speaker's audience? Does the audience help to define the speaker?
  3. What is the poem's literal meaning?
  4. What is the poem's theme? Is the theme stated explicitly or implicitly?
  5. What is the poem's structure? Does it develop in a straightforward manner to a logical conclusion? Is there a shift or turn in its development? How is the shift indicated? Why does a shift take place?
  6. How is the poem organized? How does its organization contribute to the development of the poem's subject or theme?
  7. What is the poem's meter? How does it contribute to the development of the poem's subject or theme? Are there any strategic points where the poem breaks with its rhyme scheme? Why?
  8. What is the poem's rhyme scheme? How does it contribute to the development of the poem's subject or theme?  Is there any evidence of internal rhymes, slant rhymes, etc?
  9. Do the lines end with a completion of a thought or closed punctuation (i.e., are they end-stopped)? Or do the lines flow without pause, from one to the next (i.e., are they enjambed)? If enjambed, does it occur from one couplet to the next, one quatrain to the next, etc?
  10. How would you characterize the poem's language or diction ? What effect does this choice of language have on your response to the poem and its speaker?
  11. What imagery is developed in the poem? Does the poet use metaphor, simile, personification, etc? Does he/she use symbolism? Considering the poem's subject matter, are these images obvious ones, or are they unusual and unexpected? Do they contribute to the poem's subject or theme? If so, how?
  12. Is there any evidence of repetition, alliteration, onomatopoeia, or other sound effects in the poem? What do they contribute?
  13. Is there any significance to the placement of words in the poem? Is the rhythm of any particular words or lines noteworthy?
  14. Is there any significance to the poem's punctuation or the capitalization and spelling of words? (Note:  These features are often the result of modern editing and not original to the author)


Common Literary Forms and Genres:
Allegory: A narrative in which literal meaning corresponds clearly and directly to symbolic meaning. For example, the literal story in John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress—Christian’s journey from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City—is an allegory for the spiritual journey from sin to holiness.

Anecdote: The brief narration of a single event or incident.

Aphorism: A concise expression of insight or wisdom: “The vanity of others offends our taste only when it offends our vanity” (Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil).

Autobiography: The nonfictional story of a person’s life, told by that person. St. Augustine’s Confessions is an early, canonical work in this genre (see also memoir,below).

Ballad: Traditionally, a folk song telling a story or legend in simple language, often with a refrain. A number of poets outside the folk tradition have adopted the ballad form, as Samuel Taylor Coleridge did in “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.”

Biography: The nonfictional story of a person’s life. James Boswell’s Life of Johnson is one of the most celebrated works of biography. When the author of a biography is also its subject, the work is an autobiography (see above).

Black comedy: Disturbing or absurd material presented in a humorous manner, usually with the intention to confront uncomfortable truths. Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 is a notable example.

Burlesque: A humorous imitation of a serious work of literature. The humor often arises from the incongruity between the imitation and the work being imitated. For example, Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock uses the high diction of epic poetry to talk about a domestic matter.

Confessional poetry: An autobiographical poetic genre in which the poet discusses intensely personal subject matter with unusual frankness. The genre was popular from the late 1950s to the late 1960s, due in part to Robert Lowell’s Life Studies (1959).

Didactic literature: Literature intended to instruct or educate. For example, Virgil’s Georgics contains farming advice in verse form.

Dirge: A short poetic expression of grief. A dirge differs from an elegy (see below) in that it often is embedded within a larger work, is less highly structured, and is meant to be sung. Ariel’s song “Full fathom five thy father lies” in Shakespeare’s The Tempest is an example of a dirge.

Drama: A composition that is meant to be performed. The term often is used interchangeably with play (see below), but drama is a broader term that includes some forms that may not strictly be defined as plays, such as radio broadcasts, comedy sketches, and opera.

Dramatic monologue: A poem that contains words that a fictional or historical character speaks to a particular audience. Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s “Ulysses” is a famous example.

Dystopic literature: A genre of fiction that presents an imagined future society that purports to be perfect and utopian but that the author presents to the reader as horrifyingly inhuman. Usually the author intends to warn contemporary readers that their own society resembles, or is in danger of resembling, this flawed future world. George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World are well-known works of dystopic literature.

Eclogue: A short pastoral poem (see below) in the form of a soliloquy (see below) or dialogue between two shepherds. Virgil’s Eclogues is the most famous example of this genre.

Elegy: A formal poem that laments the death of a friend or public figure, or, occasionally, a meditation on death itself. In Greek and Latin poetry, the term applies to a specific type of meter (alternating hexameters and pentameters) regardless of content, but only some elegies in English obey that meter. Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem “Adonais,” which mourns the death of John Keats, is an example of an elegy.

Epic: A lengthy narrative that describes the deeds of a heroic figure, often of national or cultural importance, in elevated language. Strictly, the term applies only to verse narratives like Beowulf or Virgil’s Aeneid, but it is used to describe prose, drama, or film works of similar scope, such as Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace or Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables.

Epigram: A succinct, witty statement, often in verse. For example, William Wordsworth’s observation “The child is the father of the man.”

Essay: A form of nonfictional discussion or argument that Michel de Montaigne pioneered in the 1500s. Essays are flexible in form: although they usually are short prose works, there are also examples of book-length essays (by John Locke) and verse essays (by Alexander Pope).

Fable: A short prose or verse narrative, such as those by Aesop, that illustrates a moral, which often is stated explicitly at the end. Frequently, the characters in a fable are animals that embody different human character traits.

Fiction: An invented narrative, as opposed to one that reports true events.

Legend: A story about a heroic figure derived from oral tradition and based partly on fact and partly on fiction. The terms legend and myth (see below) are often used interchangeably, but legends are typically rooted in real historical events, whereas myths are primarily supernatural. The stories of King Arthur and Robin Hood are examples of legends.

Lyric: A short poetic composition that describes the thoughts of a single speaker. Most modern poetry is lyrical (as opposed to dramatic or narrative), employing such common forms as the ode and sonnet.

Memoir: An autobiographical work. Rather than focus exclusively on the author’s life, it pays significant attention to the author’s involvement in historical events and the characterization of individuals other than the author. A famous example is Winston Churchill’s Memoirs of the Second World War.

Metafiction: Fiction that concerns the nature of fiction itself, either by reinterpreting a previous fictional work or by drawing attention to its own fictional status. Examples of the former include John Gardner’s Grendel, which retells the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf from a new perspective, and Michael Cunningham’s The Hours, which portrays three women connected to Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, including Woolf herself. An example of the latter is Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being, in which the narrator tells the story and simultaneously comments on his own telling of the story.

Myth: A story about the origins of a culture’s beliefs and practices, or of supernatural phenomena, usually derived from oral tradition and set in an imagined supernatural past. Ovid’s Metamorphoses is a famous early example. Some writers, such as William Blake and William Butler Yeats, have invented their own myths. Myths are similar, but not equivalent, to legends (see above).

Noir: A fiction genre, popularized in the 1940s, with a cynical, disillusioned, loner protagonist. Noir often involves crime or the criminal underworld. The term stems from “film noir,” which describes films of similar style and content. Classic examples of noir fiction include Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep and Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon.

Nonfiction: A narrative work that reports true events.

Novel: A fictional prose narrative of significant length. Since the novel form became popular in the 1700s, however, the term has come to describe other works—nonfiction novels, novels in verse, short novels, and others—that do not necessarily fit this strict definition.

  • Autobiographical novel: A novel that tells a nonfictional, autobiographical story but uses novelistic techniques, such as fictionalized dialogue or anecdotes, to add color, immediacy, or thematic unity. Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is an autobiographical novel.

  • Bildungsroman: A German term, meaning “formation novel,” for a novel about a child or adolescent’s development into maturity, with special focus on the protagonist’s quest for identity. James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a notable example.

  • Epistolary novel: A novel written in the form of letters exchanged by characters in the story, such as Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa or Alice Walker’s The Color Purple. This form was especially popular in the 1700s.

  • Historical novel: A novel set in an earlier historical period that features a plot shaped by the historical circumstances of that period. Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient, written in the early 1990s, portrays a tragic romance set against the backdrop of World War II.

  • Novel of ideas: A novel, such as Jean-Paul Sartre’s Nausea, that the author uses as a platform for discussing ideas. Character and plot are of secondary importance.

  • Novel of manners: A novel that focuses on the social customs of a certain class of people, often with a sharp eye for irony. Jane Austen’s novels are prime examples of this genre.

  • Picaresque novel: Originally, a realistic novel detailing a scoundrel’s exploits. The term grew to refer more generally to any novel with a loosely structured, episodic plot that revolves around the adventures of a central character. Cervantes’s Don Quixote is a classic picaresque novel.

  • Social protest novel: A novel in which the author’s aim is to tell a story that illuminates and draws attention to contemporary social problems with the goal of inciting change for the better. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which exposed the horrors of African- American slavery, and John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, which popularized the plight of penniless migrant workers during the Great Depression, are examples.

  • Verse novel: A full-length fictional work that is novelistic in nature but written in verse rather than prose. Examples include Aleksandr Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin and Vikram Seth’s The Golden Gate.

Novella: A work of fiction of middle length, often divided into a few short chapters, such as Henry James’s Daisy Miller.

Ode: A serious lyric poem, often of significant length, that usually conforms to an elaborate metrical structure. An example is William Wordsworth’s “Ode: Intimations of Immortality.”

Parable: A short narrative that illustrates a moral by means of allegory (see above).

Parody: A humorous and often satirical imitation of the style or particular work of another author. Henry Fielding’s Shamela is a parody of Samuel Richardson’s Pamela.

Pastiche: A work that imitates the style of a previous author, work, or literary genre. Alternatively, the term may refer to a work that contains a hodgepodge of elements or fragments from different sources or influences. Pastiche differs from parody in that its imitation is not meant as a form of mockery. For example, John Fowles’s The French Lieutenant’s Woman was written in the 1960s but imitates the style of the Victorian novel.

Pastoral: A celebration of the simple, rustic life of shepherds and shepherdesses, usually written by a sophisticated, urban writer. Christopher Marlowe’s poem “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” epitomizes pastoral themes.

Play: A story meant to be performed in a theater before an audience. Most plays are written in dialogue form and are divided into several acts. Many include stage directions and instructions for sets and costumes.

  • Comedy: A lighthearted play characterized by humor and a happy ending.

  • Epic theater: Bertolt Brecht’s Marxist approach to theater, which rejects emotional and psychological engagement in favor of critical detachment. His plays The Threepenny Opera and Mother Courage are two famous works in this genre.

  • Farce: A form of high-energy comedy that plays on confusions and deceptions between characters and features a convoluted and fast-paced plot. Farce often incorporates buffoonery, slapstick, and stock characters to provoke uproarious laughter. Molière was a master of farce with such plays as The Imaginary Invalid.

  • Miracle play: A play from the Middle Ages featuring saints or miraculous appearances by the Virgin Mary.

  • Morality play: A play written in the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries that presents an allegory (see above) of the Christian struggle for salvation.

  • Mystery play: A short play based on a biblical story. Mystery plays, popular in the Middle Ages, often were presented in cycles, in which dozens of plays were performed at different locations throughout a city and collectively presented the most significant moments in the Bible.

  • Noh drama: A ritualized form of Japanese drama that evolved in the 1300s involving masks and slow, stylized movement.

  • Problem play: A play that confronts a contemporary social problem with the intent of changing public opinion on the matter. Henrik Ibsen popularized this form in plays such as Hedda Gabler.

  • Tragedy: A serious play that ends unhappily for the protagonist. Sophocles’ Antigone is one of the best-known Greek tragedies.

  • Tragicomedy: A play such as Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale that mixes elements of tragedy and comedy.

  • One-act play: A play consisting of a single act, without intermission and running usually less than an hour. Edward Albee’s Zoo Story is a well-known example.

Primitivist literature: Works that express a preference for the natural over the artificial in human culture, and a belief that the life of primitive cultures is preferable to modern lifestyles. Primitivism is often associated with a nostalgia for the lost innocence of a natural, childlike past. Jean-Jacques Rousseau was one of the foremost advocates of primitivism in works such as Julie, ou la Nouvelle Héloïse.

Propaganda: A work of didactic literature that aims to influence the reader on a specific social or political issue. Thomas Paine’s Common Sense is an example of propaganda instrumental in the American Revolution.

Prose: Any composition not written in verse. The basic unit of prose is the sentence, which distinguishes it from free verse (see poetry, above), in which the basic unit is a line of verse. Prose writing can be rhythmic, but on the whole, rhythm in prose is less pronounced than in verse. Prose works encompass everything from Henry James’s The Ambassadors, with its elaborate sentences, to Amy Tan’s interconnected stories in The Joy Luck Club.

Prose poem: A poetic work that features the strong rhythms of free verse (see Rhythm and Meter,above) but is presented on the page in the form of prose, without line breaks. Arthur Rimbaud’s Illuminations is an example of a prose poem.

Romance: A nonrealistic story, in verse or prose, that features idealized characters, improbable adventures, and exotic settings. Although love often plays a significant role, the association of “romance” with “love” is a modern phenomenon. Romances, such as Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, were particularly popular in the Middle Ages and Renaissance.

  • Chivalric romance: A romance that describes the adventures of medieval knights and celebrates their strict code of honor, loyalty, and respectful devotion to women. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is an example of a chivalric romance.

Satire: A work that exposes to ridicule the shortcomings of individuals, institutions, or society, often to make a political point. Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels is one of the most well known satires in English.

Science fiction: Fiction that is set in an alternative reality—often a technologically advanced future—and that contains fantastical elements. The genre traces its roots to the works of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells in the late 1800s. Notable 20th-century science fiction writers include Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov.

Short story: A work of prose fiction that is much shorter than a novel (rarely more than forty pages) and focused more tightly on a single event. Katherine Mansfield’s “The Garden Party” is a masterful short story.

Short-short story: A particularly compressed and truncated short story. Short-short stories are rarely longer than 1,000 words.

Soliloquy: A speech, often in verse, by a lone character. Soliloquies are most common in drama, perhaps the most famous example being the “To be or not to be” speech in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.


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