PROSE. Commercial (pop) fiction

Transcription

1 Directions: Yellow words are for 9 th graders. 10 th graders are responsible for both yellow AND green vocabulary. PROSE Artistic unity Commercial (pop) fiction Literary fiction allegory Didactic writing That condition of a successful literary work whereby all its elements work together for the achievement of its central purpose. In an artistically unified work nothing is included that is irrelevant to the central purpose, nothing is omitted that is essential to it, and the parts are arrange in the most effective order for the achievement of that purpose. Fiction written to meet the taste of a wide popular audience and relying usually on tested formulas for satisfying such taste Fiction written with serious artistic intentions, providing an imagined experience yielding authentic insights into some significant aspect of life PROSE GENRES A narrative or description that has a second meaning beneath the surface, often relating each literal term to a fixed, corresponding abstract idea or moral principle: usually, the ulterior meanings belong to a preexisting system of ideas or principles. Poetry, fiction, or drama having as a primary purpose to teach or preach Fantasy Satire Structure A kind of fiction that pictures creatures or events beyond the boundaries of known reality A kind of literature that ridicules human folly or vice with the purpose of bringing about reform or of keeping others from falling into similar folly or vice STRUCTURE The sequential arrangement of plot elements

2 in fiction or drama Plot The sequence of incidents or events of which a story or play is composed Plot manipulation Exposition A situation in which an author gives the plot a twist or turn unjustified by preceding action or by the characters involved The background information for the story Rising action That development of plot in a story or play that precedes and leads up to the climax Climax The turning point or high point in a plot Falling action The segment of the plot that comes between the climax and the conclusion Denouement Tone Sarcasm Surprise The portion of a plot that reveals the final outcome of its conflicts or the solution of its mysteries STYLE The writer s or speaker s attitude toward the subject, the audience, or herself or himself; the emotional coloring, or emotional meaning, of a work Bitter or cutting speech; speech intended by its speaker to give pain to the person addressed An unexpected turn in the development of a plot Suspense That quality in a story or play that makes the reader eager to discover what happens next

3 and how it will end Sentimentality Poeticizing Mystery Editorializing Symbol Allusion Unmerited or contrived tender felling; that quality in a work that elicits or seeks to elicit tears through an oversimplification or falsification of reality Writing that uses immoderately heightened or distended language to sway the reader s feelings An unusual set of circumstances for which the reader craves an explanation; used to create suspense Writing that departs from the narrative or dramatic mode and instructs the reader how to think or feel about the events of a story or the behavior of a character LITERARY DEVICES & TERMS Something that means more than what it is; an object, person, situation, or action that in addition to its literal meaning suggests other meanings as well A reference, explicit or implicit, to something in previous literature or history Moral Theme A rule of conduct or maxim for living expressed or implied as the point of a literary work The central idea or unifying generalization implied or stated by a literary work Setting The context in time and place in which the story occurs chance Coincidence The occurrence of an event that has no apparent cause in antecedent events or in predisposition of character The chance concurrence of two events having a peculiar correspondence between them

4 Conflict Character A clash of actions, desires, ideas, or goals in the plot of a story or drama. Man v. Man; Man v. nature; Man v. society; Man v. fate; Man v. self CHARACTERIZATION Any of the persons presented in a story or play Characterization The various literary means by which characters are presented Protagonist The central character in a story or play Antagonist Developing (dynamic) character Flat character Foil character Round character Static character Any force in a story or play that is in conflict with the protagonist. An antagonist may be another person, an aspect of the physical or social environment, or a destructive element in the protagonist s own nature A character who during the course of a work undergoes a permanent change in some distinguishing moral qualities or personal traits or outlook A character whose distinguishing moral qualities or personal traits are summed up in one or two traits A minor character whose situation or actions parallel those of a major character, and thus by contrast sets off or illuminates the major character; most often the contrast is complimentary to the major character A character whose distinguishing moral qualities or personal traits are complex and many-sided A character who is the same sort of person at the end of a work as at the beginning Stock character A stereotyped character: one whose nature is

5 familiar to us from prototypes in previous literature Direct presentation of character Indirect presentation of character Motivation Epiphany Dilemma The method of characterization in which the author, by exposition or analysis, tells us directly what a character is like, or has someone else in the story do so The method of characterization in which the author shows us a character in action, compelling us to infer what the character is like from what is said and done by the character The incentives or goals that, in combination with the inherent natures of characters, cause them to behave as they do. In commercial fiction actions may be unmotivated, insufficiently motivated, or implausibly motivated A moment or event in which a character achieves a spiritual insight into life or into her or his own circumstances A situation in which a character must choose between two courses of action, both undesirable POINT OF VIEW Point of view The angle of vision from which a story is told Omniscient point of view Third-person limited point of view First-person point of view The author tells the story using 3 rd person, knowing all and free to tell anything, including what the characters are thinking or feeling and why they act as they do The author tells the story using the 3 rd person, but is limited to a complete knowledge of one character in the story and tells us only what that one character thinks, fells, sees, or hears The story is told by one of its characters, using the 1 st person Objective (dramatic) The author tells the story using the third

6 point of view person, but is limited to reporting what the characters say or do; the author doesn t interpret their behavior or tell us their private Stream of consciousness thoughts or feelings Narrative that presents the private thoughts of a character without commentary or interpretation by the author Irony IRONY A situation or a use of language involving some kind of incongruity or discrepancy Verbal irony A figure of speech in which what is said is the opposite of what is meant Dramatic irony Irony of situation/situational irony An incongruity or discrepancy between what a character says or thinks and what the reader knows to be true (or between what a character perceives and what the author intends the reader to perceive) A situation in which there is an incongruity between appearance and reality, or between expectation and fulfillment, or between the actual situation and what would seem appropriate Happy ending ENDINGS An ending in which events turn out well for a sympathetic protagonist Indeterminate ending An ending in which the central problem or conflict is left unresolved Unhappy ending An ending that turns out unhappily for a sympathetic protagonist Surprise ending A completely unexpected revelation or turn

7 of plot at the conclusion of a story or play