Romanticism & Emotion
This defining feature of Romantic literature emphasises intense personal feelings, often in contrast to the rationalism of the Enlightenment.
What is emotion? or What is emotional intensity?
The words "cat" and "hat" or "love" and "dove" are examples of this literary device, where words share similar ending sounds.
What is rhyme?
This traditional Japanese form of poetry follows a 5-7-5 syllable structure and often focuses on nature and fleeting moments.
What is a Haiku?
This is the name of the novel’s elderly fisherman, who struggles against a giant marlin in the open sea.
Who is Santiago?
A key theme in Gothic literature, this emotion is evoked through eerie settings, supernatural elements, and psychological torment.
What is fear?
A darker sub-genre of Romanticism, this literary movement often featured supernatural elements, decayed settings, and psychological horror.
What is Gothic literature?
When an author says, “Her smile was as bright as the sun,” they are using this type of comparison that includes "like" or "as."
What is simile?
In this poetic form, the first letter of each line spells out a word or message when read vertically.
What is Acrostic poetry?
Though he no longer fishes with Santiago, this loyal young boy cares for him and admires his strength.
Who is Manolin?
Ghosts, vampires, and curses often appear in Gothic fiction, representing this common theme, which explores the unknown and the unexplainable.
What is the supernatural?
Romantic poets and writers often depicted this awe-inspiring concept, which refers to nature’s ability to evoke beauty, peace and majesty. Word begins with a sibilant sound.
What is the sublime?
This narrative technique places two contrasting elements side by side—like good and evil, or light and dark—to highlight their differences and create tension.
What is juxtaposition?
Also called shape poetry, this form of poetry visually represents its subject, like a poem about a tree arranged in the shape of a tree.
What is concrete poetry?
Santiago battles this massive type of fish for three days, seeing it as both a worthy opponent and a symbol of his own endurance.
What is a Marlin?
Symbolised by crumbling castles, abandoned churches or rotting corpses—this theme also applies to moral and psychological collapse, reflecting the fragility of human existence. Rhymes with the infinitive form of the past participle 'said'.
What is decay?
Kate Chopin’s short story 'The Story of an Hour' reflects Romantic themes by portraying this deeply personal and fleeting emotional experience of Louise Mallard.
What is freedom? or What is emancipation?
Unlike its weaker counterpart, which relies on "like" or "as," this literary device operates by direct substitution—turning roads into journeys, storms into anger, and hearts into stone.
What is metaphor?
This 14-line poetic form, famously used by Shakespeare, often follows a specific rhyme scheme and explores themes of love, time, and beauty.
'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?'
What is a sonnet?
Hemingway’s prose in The Old Man and the Sea follows this literary principle, which suggests that deeper meanings lie beneath the surface.
What is Iceberg theory?
I creep in whispers, soft yet unkind,
Turning reason to echoes confined.
A fevered dream, a fractured sight,
I twist the day and shroud the night.
What am I, that bends the sane,
And leaves them lost inside their brain?
What is madness?
Beyond grief and madness, "The Raven" explores this philosophical concept—the idea that human beings are doomed to seek meaning in a world that offers only silence, symbolised by the narrator’s desperate questioning of the bird.
What is existential angst/despair?
Despite being commonly misunderstood, this literary device occurs when there is a contradiction between expectation and reality—like a fire station burning down or a pilot with a fear of heights.
What is irony?
In poetry, the rhyme scheme AABB is known as this, often used in nursery rhymes. Think of two people in a relation ship and a word that rhymes with dime.
What is a rhyming couplet?
Hemingway was heavily influenced by this philosophy, which argues that individuals must create their own meaning in an indifferent universe, a theme reflected in Santiago’s lonely struggle.
What is existentialism?
An enigma wrapped in shadowed prose,
A question where no answer shows.
A path obscured, a tale untold,
What am I, that keeps its hold?
What is mystery?