Literary Terms
Describe a rhyme scheme.
What is an ordered pattern of rhymes at the end of a line? You can denote them with letters, so ABBACDDC...
A descriptive phrase in place of a proper noun.
EX: Ring-giver - King
What is kenning?
Name one of the sonnet writers we've studied.
William Shakespeare, Francesco Petrarch, Thomas Wyatt, Philip Sidney.
Name five pilgrims from The Canterbury Tales.
The Wife of Bath, the Knight, the Squire, the Miller, the Cook, the Friar, the Prioress, the Monk, the Merchant, the Clerk, the Parson, the Plowman, the Summoner, the Reeve, the Pardoner...
(This is medieval, but I had no room)
Who rescues Lanval during his trial?
Who is his fairy lover?
An extended metaphor that often compares two very dissimilar things.
What is conceit?
A melancholy poem typically about loss or death.
What is elegy?
Who is Cain?
What poetic genre is Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love"?
What is Pastoral?
An exaltation of the human, both artistically and academically. Focused on human potential and creating strong citizens.
What is Humanism?
When Renaissance writers copied the "classic" texts to learn better literary techniques.
What is imitation?
What is the name of Petrarch's sonnet collection focusing on his beloved Laura?
Where are the pilgrims going in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales?
What is the Canterbury Cathedral (murder site of Thomas Becket)?
Thomas Malory wrote Le Morte d'Arthur about King Arthur and his court. Where did Arthur and his knights gather as equals?
The physical attributes of a subject typically described in an exaggerated fashion.
What is blazon?
A poetic genre that idealizes rural life and the natural world.
What is pastoral?
Which sonnet (Shakespearean/Petrarchan) is composed of three quatrains and one couplet with an ABAB rhymescheme?
What is Shakespearean?
What are the short romances written by Marie de France called?
EX: Lanval
What are Breton Lays?
Which author wrote In Defense of Poesy after a satirist dedicated Schoole of Abuse to him?
A medieval literary genre that focuses on the three estates: clergy, nobility, and peasantry.
What is estate satire?
An Old English poetic form where half-lines are connected via alliteration.
What is alliterative verse?
Which English courtier translated Petrarch's sonnets, basically introducing the sonnet form to England?
The chief architect of Britain's "foundation" myth.
Who is Geoffrey of Monmouth?
Baldassare Castiglione wrote The Book of the Courtier while serving in the Duchy of Urbino. What does this book do?
What is give advice on becoming a gentleman or lady?
An important term is "sprezzatura," a sort of nonchalance required to become the ideal courtier.