LITERARY TERMS Group #5: assonance, ballad, bard, bathos, belle-lettres, bibliography, Bildungsroman, blank verse, bombast, and burlesque
ASSONANCE the repetition of two or more vowel sounds in a group of words or lines in poetry and prose The Hammer by Carl Sandburg I have seen The old gods go And the new gods come. Day by day And year by year The idols fall And the idols rise. Today I worship the hammer.
BALLAD A simple narrative verse that tells a story that is sung or recited
Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe It was many and many a year ago, In a kingdom by the sea, That a maiden there lived whom you may know By the name of Annabel Lee; And this maiden she lived with no other thought Than to love and be loved by me. from Annabel Lee, audio Word used in audio: suf fuse [suh-fyooz] verb. to overspread with or as with a liquid, color, etc.
I was a child and she was a child, In this kingdom by the sea, But we loved with a love that was more than love I and my Annabel Lee With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago, In this kingdom by the sea, A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling My beautiful Annabel Lee; So that her highborn kinsmen came And bore her away from me, To shut her up in a sepulchre In this kingdom by the sea.
The angels, not half so happy in Heaven, Went envying her and me Yes! that was the reason (as all men know, In this kingdom by the sea) That the wind came out of the cloud by night, Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
But our love it was stronger by far than the love Of those who were older than we Of many far wiser than we And neither the angels in Heaven above Nor the demons down under the sea Can ever dissever my soul from the soul Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side Of my darling my darling my life and my bride, In her sepulchre there by the sea In her tomb by the sounding sea.
BARD Originally, a Celtic poet who sang epic poems while playing a harp. In time, bard was used to refer to any poet. Today, it is often used to refer to William Shakespeare (the Bard of Avon).
BATHOS [BEY-THOS] (from Greek bathys, "deep"), unsuccessful, and therefore ludicrous, attempt to portray pathos in art, i.e., to evoke pity, sympathy, or sorrow. The term was first used in this sense by Alexander Pope in his treatise Peri Bathous; or, The Art of Sinking in Poetry (1728). Bathos may result from an inappropriately dignified treatment of the commonplace, the use of elevated language and imagery to describe trivial subject matter, or from such an exaggeration of pathos (emotion provoked by genuine suffering) as to become overly sentimental or ridiculous.
EXAMPLE OF BATHOS IN POETRY Even great poets occasionally lapse into bathos. William Wordsworth s attempt to arouse pity for the old huntsman in Simon Lee is defeated by the following lines: Few months of life has he in store As he to you will tell, For still, the more he works, the more Do his weak ankles swell.
ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF BATHOS Bathos = an abrupt descent from the exalted to the banal, either in style or content [opposite of climax is bathos] For instance, "In the United States, Osama bin Laden was wanted for conspiracy, murder, terrorism, and unpaid parking tickets."
BELLE-LETTRES \BEL-LETR Ə \ French term for the world of books, criticism, and literature in general NOTE: For this literary term, no example is required.
BIBLIOGRAPHY a list of works cited or otherwise relevant to a subject or other work NOTE: For this literary term, no example is required.
BILDUNGSROMAN [BIL-DOONGZ-ROH-MAHN] Bildungsroman, class of novel that deals with the maturation process, with how and why the protagonist develops as he does, both morally and psychologically. The German word Bildungsroman means novel of education or novel of formation [ bild = German for build]
BILDUNGSROMAN (CONT.) To spur the hero or heroine on to their journey, some form of loss or discontent must jar them at an early stage away from the home or family setting. NOTE: For this literary term, no example is required.
BILDUNGSROMAN (CONT.) The process of maturity is long, arduous, and gradual, consisting of repeated clashes between the protagonist's needs and desires and the views and judgments enforced by an unbending social order. Eventually, the spirit and values of the social order become manifest in the protagonist, who is then accommodated into society. The novel ends with an assessment by the protagonist of himself and his new place in that society.
BLANK VERSE non-rhyming poetry written in iambic pentameter, the primary meter used in English poetry and the works of Shakespeare and Milton It is blank because the lines generally do not rhyme.
All Afternoon by Charles Tomlinson BLANK VERSE All afternoon the shadows have been building A city of their own within the streets, Carefully correcting the perspectives With dark diagonals, and paring back Sidewalks into catwalks, strips of bright Companionways, as if it were a ship This counter-city. But the leaning, black Enjambements like ladders for assault Scale the façade and tie them to the earth, Confounding fire-escapes already meshed In slatted ambiguities. You touch The sliding shapes to find which place is which And grime a finger with the ash of time That blows through both, the shadow in the shade And in the light, that scours each thoroughfare To pit the walls, rise out of yard and stairwell And tarnish the Chrysler s Aztec pinnacle.
BOMBAST Inflated, pretentious speech or writing that sounds important but is generally balderdash NOTE: For this literary term, no example is required.
BURLESQUE Literary work, film, or stage production that mocks a person, a place, a thing, or an idea by using wit, irony, hyperbole, sarcasm, and/or understatement. For example, a burlesque may turn a supposedly distinguished person into a buffoon or a supposedly lofty subject into a trivial one. A hallmark of burlesque is its thoroughgoing exaggeration, often to the point of the absurd.
EXAMPLE OF BURLESQUE: DON QUIXOTE Cervantes (1547-1616) used burlesque in Don Quixote to poke fun at chivalry and other outdated romantic ideals.
WORKS CITED Bathos." Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc.. Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc.. 22 Feb. 2011. Web. 21 Feb. 2011. <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/bathos>. The Bildungsroman Genre. The Victorian Web. Nagoya, University, Japan, 21 Feb. 2005. Web. 21 Feb. 2011. <http://www.victorianweb.org/genre/hader1.html>. Bildungsroman. Encyclopedia Britannica. Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 30 Jan. 2012. <http://www.britannica.com/ebchecked/topic/65244/bildungsroma n>. Chrysler Building. London an NYC. 24 Dec. 2010. Web. 21 Feb. 2011. <http://www.londonandnyc.com/2010_12_01_archive.html >. Cummings, Michael J. Literary Terms. 2010. Web. 21 Feb. 2011. <http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/xlitterms.html>.poetry Foundation.org. Poetry Foundation., 2011. Web. 21 Feb. 2011. <http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?i d=2046>. Suffuse. Dictionary.com. 2014. Web. 2 Feb. 2014. <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/suffuse>.