Literary Terms
Literature, usually prose fiction, entirely or partly written as letters, such as Stoker's Dracula or Walker's The Color Purple
Epistolary Literature
Who is the narrator?
Scout (Jean Louise) Finch, who tells the story from her childhood perspective (age 6 to almost 9).
What is "Iceman" referring to?
The title refers to Theodore "Hickey" Hickman, but also symbolically to a joke about his wife and the Iceman (death).
Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Mansfield Park, Sense and Sensibility, Northanger Abbey
Jane Austen
1918-1937 (most productive during 1920s)
Intellectual and cultural revival of African American culture, between the end of WWI and lead up to WWII.
Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
Harlem Renaissance
German word, refers to a novel structured as a series of events where the hero travels in quest of a goal. (coming of age)
Bildungsroman
Where and when is the novel set?
Maycomb County, Alabama, during the 1930s Great Depression.
What was Parritt’s crime?
He betrayed his anarchist mother by selling information to the police.
The Age of Innocence, The House of Mirth, Ethan Frome
Edith Wharton (Naturalism)
1680-1820
Emphasized on individualism and reason, natural rights.
John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant, Thomas Paine
Age of Enlightenment
A group of American writers that rebelled against America’s lack of cosmopolitan culture in the early 20th century.
Example: T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and Ernest Hemingway
The Lost Generation
What happens to Tom Robinson?
Tom Robinson is found guilty despite evidence proving his innocence. He is shot 17 times while trying to escape prison.
What is the "pipe dream"?
A delusional hope for a better future that allows the characters to avoid facing their failures, often expressed as "tomorrow".
Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov
Fyodor Dostoevsky (Realism)
1558-1603
Time of English Renaissance, exploration and cultural growth.
William Shakespeare, “Romeo and Juliet”
Elizabethan Era
A term coined by E.M. Foster; a character with a depth and a complex personality.
For example: Harry Potter, whose feelings, personality, and history are slowly revealed as progressing through the books.
Round Character
Who attempts to kill Scout and Jem, and who saves them?
Bob Ewell attacks them with a knife to get revenge on Atticus for exposing his perjury in court. Then Boo Radley saves them and kills Bob Ewell in the struggle.
How does the play end?
Hickey is arrested for the murder of his wife, and the regulars, thrilled to believe he was just crazy, return to their drunken pipe dreams, while Larry, having witnessed everything, loses his detached, cynical perspective.
Sonny’s Blues, If Beale Street Could Talk
James Baldwin (Harlem Renaissance)
1850-1900 AD
French art movement, In favor of depictions of ‘real life’, painters used the world around them and engaged in real activities for their works.
Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady
Realism
In a plot, the tying up of loose ends. In a tragedy, sometimes called the catastrophe.
Denouement (Pronounced day-new-MAH)
Who are the "mockingbirds" in the novel?
Tom Robinson and Boo Radley. Miss Maudie explains they are innocent beings who do nothing but bring joy, making it a sin to harm them.
How long has Hope stayed in the bar?
20 years, since his wife died.
Name 5 works of William Shakespeare.
Romeo and Juliet, Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest, Twelfth Night, etc.
Dates:1770-1848
What it is: Literary and artistic movement distinguished by the interest in human psychology, expression and interest in the natural world.
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Romanticism