Define & Explain
What are the two main foregrounding techniques? Explain them.
What is the most common metre in English poetry?
iambic metre
What do we call historical areas of enquiry into the development of literatures written in English?
literary histories
What is a good interpretation?
How do we call this rhetorical device?
"a concrete or abstract element is presented as if it were alive or human"
personification
What is genre? Name one example.
“a group of literary works that share significant characteristics in terms of content, form and/or function” (Nünning 31)
Complete the sentence: _________ is the expectation of freedom to construct meaning.
Polyvalence convention
What is the difference between the level of the enounced and the level of enunciation? Why are these terms relevant?
•Level of the enounced = content of the poem (WHAT is said)
•Level of enunciation = form of the poem (HOW it is said)
When analysing literature, we are usually interested in both the content and the form of the text.
Why do we talk about the speaker and not the author when interpreting a poem? What is the difference between the two?
The poet does not generally express themselves directly in a poem; instead they delegate statements and feelings to the fictive speaker in the text. The term generally applied to this mouthpiece is ´speaker´ which cannot be equated with the historical author. (see Nünning 53)
What is a metaphor? Give an example.
a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable
e.g. "love is a rose"
Define and explain defamiliarization.
high degree of deviation from everyday language
deautomatisation
"in order to make us feel objects, to make a stone feel stony, man has been given the tool of art." (Shklovsky)
What is the basic rhythmic structure of a poem called?
metre
Who wrote this poem? What is its name and which literary period does the poem belong to?
"A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
(...)"
William Wordsworth: I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud; Romanticism --> human relationship to nature, meditation on its beauty
What does it mean to approach texts using the hermeneutic circle?
we must approach the whole via its parts and the parts via the whole (Hans-Georg Gadamer in Nünning 23)
Name the syntactic figure in this Hamlet quote:
"To be, or not to be - that is the question."
ceasura (+ antithesis)
Define what a paratext is. Give an example.
text (in the broad cultural studies definition) that surrounds the text
e.g. book cover, title page, epigraphs, chapter titles, reviews, interviews, pictures ...
Name three signs for fictionality in literary works.
According to Jakobson, of which function of language is this an example? Explain this function.
"How do you say 'tree' in Chinese?"
Metalingual function: Language is used to talk about language; clarifying language
Generally, how does the metre contribute to the meaning of poems?
it enhances emotion and mood (e.g. iambic pentameter can convey a sense of order/predictability), the rhythm can highlight key ideas (= emphasizes meaning), it reflects natural speech, musicality & sound (= the poem can feel more intimate)
Identify the rhetorical device and define it.
"Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,
And in our faults by lies we flattered be."
pun: a play on words, using two identical or similar sounding words with different and perhaps contradictory meanings
What is blank verse?
unrhymed iambic pentameter lines, no stanzas (verse paragraphs), standard form for dramatic poetry in 17th century (e.g., Shakespeare plays)
Name two figures of contiguity and explain them.
- Metonymy: replacement of one term with another to which it is ontologically, logically or casually connected
- Synecdoche: replacement of a part with a whole or vice versa
Which type of verse is demonstrated in the following example?
"The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled."
free verse
Identify the verse and metre and interpret these two lines of Romeo and Juliet.
"From forth the fatal loins of these two foes,
A pair of star-crossed lovers take their lives,"
(Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet)
blank verse, iambic pentameter
possible interpretation:
introduction of the rivalry between the two families, "fatal" -> tragic nature of the events that will unfold
"loins" -> parents of the two families in conflict
introduction of the two main characters, their fate is determined by the stars ("star-crossed")
"take their lives" -> foreshadowing of the suicides
iambic pentameter: common English metre, formality -> tragedy
blank verse: serious tone
name the semantic device in italics:
O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
Metonymy --> “vintage” understood to mean “wine”