MEDIEVAL
_______ is the early form of the English language spoken and written between the 5th and the 12th centuries.
Old English
_____ is a general term for performances in which actors impersonate the actions and speech of fictional or historical characters (or non-human entities) for the entertainment of an audience, either on a stage or by means of a broadcast; or a particular example of this art, i.e. a play.
Drama
A mocking imitation of the style of a literary work or works, ridiculing the stylistic habits of an author or school by exaggerated mimicry. ______ is related to burlesque in its application of serious styles to ridiculous subjects, to satire in its punishment of eccentricities, and even to criticism in its analysis of style.
Parody
A fictional tale in prose, intermediate in length and complexity between a short story and a novel, and usually concentrating on a single event or chain of events, with a surprising turning point. Joseph Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’ (1902) is a fine example of a _______.
Novella
______ critiques the perceived universality of Western knowledge and the superiority of Western culture. Perspectives of ______ see this hegemony as the basis of Western imperialism.
Decolonialism
A mode of writing that exposes the failings of individuals, institutions, or societies to ridicule and scorn. Various forms of literature may be called ______, from the plays of Ben Jonson or of Molière and the poetry of Chaucer or Byron to the prose writings of Rabelais and Voltaire. The alternative form of ‘indirect’ ______ usually found in plays and novels allows us to draw our own conclusions from the actions of the characters, as for example in the novels of Evelyn Waugh or Chinua Achebe.
Satire
_____ is a very vague critical term usually designating the mood or atmosphere of a work, although in some more restricted uses it refers to the author’s attitude to the reader (e.g. formal, intimate, pompous) or to the subject-matter (e.g. ironic, light, solemn, satiric, sentimental).
Tone
A salient abstract idea that emerges from a literary work’s treatment of its subject-matter; or a topic recurring in a number of literary works. While the subject of a work is described concretely in terms of its action (e.g. ‘the adventures of a newcomer in the big city’), its _______ will be described in more abstract terms (e.g. love, war, revenge, betrayal, fate, etc.).
Theme
______ is a recognizable and established category of written work employing such common conventions as will prevent readers or audiences from mistaking it for another kind.
genre
The continuous flow of sense-perceptions, thoughts, feelings, and memories in the human mind; or a literary method of representing such a blending of mental processes in fictional characters, usually in an unpunctuated or disjointed form of interior monologue. if called _______
Stream of Consciousness
In this period, English is influenced in many aspects of its vocabulary by a new French-speaking ruling class, and by a clergy that wrote mainly in Latin. ______ grammar and syntax are clearly those inherited from the Germanic basis, although now shedding its inflections and distinctions of gender.
Middle English
Characterized by unrhymed lines of iambic pentameter, much of the finest verse in English—by Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Stevens—has been written in _____.
Blank Verse
In the simplest sense, anything that stands for or represents something else beyond it—usually an idea conventionally associated with it. Objects like flags and crosses can function as _____; and words are also ________.
Symbol
A distinctive variety of a language, spoken by members of an identifiable regional group, nation, or social class. ______ differ from one another in pronunciation, vocabulary, and (often) in grammar.
Dialects
____________ is the reasoned discussion of literary works, an activity which may include some or all of the following procedures, in varying proportions: the defence of literature against moralists and censors, classification of a work according to its genre, interpretation of its meaning, analysis of its structure and style, judgement of its worth by comparison with other works, estimation of its likely effect on readers, and the establishment of general principles by which literary works (individually, in categories, or as a whole) can be evaluated and understood.
Literary Criticism or Theory
"True wit is nature to advantage dress'd;What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd."— Alexander Pope
This is an example of a _______.
Couplet
The English ______ (also called the Shakespearean _____ after its foremost practitioner) comprises three quatrains and a final couplet, rhyming ababcdcdefefgg.
Sonnet
_____ is a rather vague metaphorical term by which some critics refer to distinctive features of a written work in terms of spoken utterance.
Voice
Elements of _____ may include culture, historical period, geography, and hour.
Setting
Now the most widely practised verse form in English, it has precedents in translations of the biblical Psalms and in some poems of Blake and Goethe, but established itself only in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with Walt Whitman, the French Symbolists, and the poets of modernism. ______ uses more flexible cadences or rhythmic groupings, sometimes supported by anaphora and other devices of repetition
Free Verse
Now an optional and incidental decorative effect in verse or prose, _______ was once a required element in the poetry of Germanic languages (including Old English and Old Norse) and in Celtic verse
Alliteration
A _______ is the most important and widespread figure of speech, in which one thing, idea, or action is referred to by a word or expression normally denoting another thing, idea, or action, so as to suggest some common quality shared by the two.
Metaphor
The simplest _______ are those of rhyming couplets (aabbcc, etc.) and of the common quatrain forms (abab, abcb, abba).
Rhyme Schemes
Thriving on this openness and flexibility, the ______ has become the most important literary genre of the modern age, superseding the epic, the romance, and other narrative forms.
Novel
The poetic style preferred by William Butler Yeats is _______.
Lyric Poetry