Literary Terms

1. Literary Terms for Beowulf Author Unknown

2. Point of View • The point from which the story is told. Usually the narrator, character or outside observer who tells the story. http://cctvimedia.clearchannel.com/ktvf/car%20accident.jpg

3. First Person Point of View • When a character in the story tells the story. • Example: When “I” or “Me” is used in a story or movie to tell the story. http://www.worth1000.com/entries/42000/42129AFhe_w.jpg

4. Types of 1st Person Point of View • Participant – The narrator is a central/major character in the story and is directly involved in the action. • Lily, The Secret Life of Bees • Major character - The major characters may have prejudices or needs to justify their own actions to themselves which may distort what we're told. • Scout, To Kill a Mockingbird • Minor character - The minor characters observe the action without being an integral part of it, and they lack essential information. We may have to guess about what really happened or is happening. • Nick Carroway, The Great Gatsby

5. Continued . . . • Innocent Eye Narrator – the character telling the story may be child or a developmentally disabled individual; the narrator is thus naive. The contrast between what the innocent-eye narrator perceives and what the reader understands may produce an ironic effect. • Lily, The Secret Life of Bees, Scout, To Kill a Mockingbird, or Marguerite, I Know Why a Caged Bird Sings • Stream of Consciousness - (interior monologue) is a narrative method in modern fiction in which the author tells the story through an unbroken flow of thought and awareness. The technique attempts to capture exactly what is going on in the mind of a character. • Virginia Woolf’s, Mrs. Dalloway • Different times of a narrator’s life • Scout, To Kill a Mockingbird and Go Set a Watchman; Marguerite, I Know Why a Caged Bird Sings

6. Second Person Point of View When “you” is used to narrate the story. It can be intimate or accusatory. This should be used in adventure and recipe books. http://www.pandora.ca/pictures9/676276.jpg

7. Can anyone guess what point of view teachers never teach with? • 2nd Point of View • Which means students do not know how to write on second person point of view. • This is a non-participant point of view. You will see the use of “you,” “your,” “yourself” but is rarely used in literature.

8. Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White Mr. Zuckerman had the best swing in the county. It was a single long piece of heavy rope tied to the beam over the north doorway. At the bottom end of the rope was a fat knot to sit on. It was arranged so that you could swing without being pushed. You climbed a ladder to the hayloft. Then, holding the rope, you stood at the edge and looked down, and were scared and dizzy. Then you straddled the knot, so that it acted as a seat. Then you got up all your nerve, took a deep breath, and jumped. For a second you seemed to be falling to the barn floor far below, but then suddenly the rope would begin to catch you, and you would sail through the barn door going a mile a minute, with the wind whistling in your eyes and ears and hair. Then you would zoom upward into the sky, and look up at the clouds, and the rope would twist and you would twist and turn with the rope. Then you would drop down, down, down out of the sky and come sailing back into the barn almost into the hayloft, then sail out again (not quite so far this time), then in again (not quite so high), then out again, then in again, then out, then in; and then you’d jump off and fall down and let somebody else try it. Mothers for miles around worried about Zuckerman’s swing. They feared some child would fall off. But no child ever did. Children almost always hang onto things tighter than their parents think they will. (pgs. 68-69)

9. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte • Should students read an epistolary novel such as, Jane Eyre. Charlotte Bronte tends to use the word “you.” However, students need to understand this type of concept is a “direct address” and not a second person point of view.

10. Third Person Limited Point of View • The narration does not use “I” or “me”. Only he/she/it. • The narrator focuses on the thoughts and feelings of just one character. http://www.3d-screensaver-downloads.com/images/harry-potter-screensaver/big3.jpg

11. Third Person Limited • THIRD PERSON LIMITED is similar to omniscient, except the writer can only access the thoughts and feelings of one character.  The writer stays by the side of this character, so the story is limited to this one person’s experiences, and the narrator tells the story through this one character’s eyes and mind.  Austen’s PRIDE AND PREJUDICE is told in third person limited, with Elizabeth Bennet serving as the point of view character.  By putting limitations on what the reader is able to know, suspense and mystery become much more available to the writer.  Also, the narrator often takes on the attitudes of the point of view character, assuming that the character’s beliefs about the events of the story are true.  This brings the focus in on this one select character and makes the story much more personal.

12. Third Person Omniscient Point of View • The all knowing narrator can tell us about the past, present and future of all the characters (godlike). http://landru.i-link-2.net/shnyves/God.creating.stars.jpeg

13. 3rd Person Point of View • Non-Participant Point of View - The nonparticipant point of view is also called the third-person point of view because third-person pronouns (he, him, she, her, they, and them) are used to tell the story. • The Grandfather, The Princess Bride •  The nonparticipant point of view can be subdivided into three types: • Omniscient narrator - The author enters the minds of all the characters. • Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, The Scarlet Letter; Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women • Selective (limited) omniscient narrator - The author limits his omniscience to the minds of a few of the characters or to the mind of a single character. • A Jury of Her Peers by Susan Glaspell • Objective narrator - The author does not enter a single mind, but instead records what can be seen and heard. This type of narrator is like a camera or a fly on the wall. • The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

14. 5 Stages of Psychic Distance (Close 3rd Person) • Basic Situation, General Details, No Emotion • Specific Person, Added Detail, Mild Emotion • Characters are more personal • Extreme Emotion • All Fragments, Particular(ing), Second Person

15. Example of Psychic Distance • Excerpt - The Journey From Platform Nine and Three Quarters • He stopped a passing guard, but didn't dare mention platform nine and three-quarters. The guard had never heard of Hogwarts and when Harry couldn't even tell him what part of the country it was in, he started to get annoyed, as though Harry was being stupid on purpose. Getting desperate, he asked for the train that left at eleven o'clock, but the guard said that there wasn't one. In the end, the guard strode away, muttering about time wasters. Harry was now trying hard not to panic. According to the large clock over the arrivals board, he had ten minutes left to get on the train to Hogwarts and he had no idea how to do it; he was stranded in the middle of a station with a trunk he could hardly lift, a pocket full of wizard money, and an owl. • How far does this psychic distance get?

16. Finally . . . “What if?” • What if the point of view changes from a different character’s perspective? • What would the outcome of the novel, play or poem be like? • An example . . . If we were to take Ophelia’s voice . . . We would have to consider the following… • Her silence • Her mannerisms • Her insanity • Her Valentine’s Song • “Gertrude Talks Back” by Margaret Atwood • Sandra Cisneros “Eleven” – Question 2, 1995

17. Narrator • The person that is telling the story. http://www.unca.edu/housing/images/services/video-game-lending-library/videos/covers/forest-gump.jpg

18. Unreliable Narrator • A narrator who, intentionally or unintentionally, relates events in a subjective or distorted manner. The author usually provides some indication early on in such stories that the narrator is not to be completely trusted. • Ellen “Nelly’ Dean, Wuthering Heights. • To get an understanding of Unreliable Narration the following must be applied . . . • Reconstruct meaning to test validity • Too self interested • Not sufficiently experienced • Not sufficiently knowledgeable • Not sufficiently moral • Too emotional • Actions to inconsistent with words • Culturally displaced • Compare the facts to the situation • Apply your knowledge to the world

19. Setting • The time and place of a literary work. • Example: The setting for “The Cask of Amontillado” is “Early evening in an Italian city during a carnival immediately preceding Lent.”   http://cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides2/PoeTales.jpg

20. Theme • A central message of a literary work. It is a generalization about people or about life that is communicated through the literary work. Readers think about what the work seems to say about the nature of people or about life. http://www.militarymuseum.org/Resources/saving%20private%20ryan%20poster.jpg http://victoryatseaonline.com/war/otherwars/images/patriot.gif

21. Character • A person or an animal who takes part in the action of a literary work. Characters are sometimes classified as round or flat, dynamic or static. http://web.mit.edu/kayla/Public/Backgrounds/LOTR%20Frodo.JPG http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.numberonestars.com/movies/images2/cars.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.madeinatlantis.com/movies_central/2006/cars.htm&h=829&w=560&sz=96&hl=en&start=4&tbnid=Y6EU5SvonuLBTM:&tbnh=144&tbnw=97&prev=/images%3Fq%3DCars%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official_s%26sa%3DG

22. Dynamic Character • This character develops and grows during the course of the story. http://www.eurpac.com/hepicts/tsdvd/princess%20diaries%20dvd.jpg

23. Round Character • This character shows many different traits--faults as well as virtues. http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/malcolm/gallery/images/340/malcolm4.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/malcolm/gallery/season3/malcolm4.shtml&h=255&w=340&sz=10&hl=en&start=16&tbnid=XhkiSujuGSyOkM:&tbnh=89&tbnw=119&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmalcom%2Bin%2Bthe%2Bmiddle%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official_s%26sa%3DG

24. Static Character • This character does not change much in the story. http://static.flickr.com/39/82639167_4bdae091fd_m.jpg

25. Flat Character http://www.darrenfrodsham.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/images/batman.jpg http://members.tripod.com/~film_circle/rushhour.jpg • Has only one or two traits.

26. Protagonist • The main character in a literary work. http://www.tribute.ca/tribute_objects/images/movies/napolean_dynamite/napoleandynamite3.jpg

27. Antagonist • A character or force in conflict with a main character or the protagonist. http://www.tvcrazy.net/tvclassics/wallpaper/superman/smallville/lex-luthor.jpg

28. Plot • The sequence of events in a literary work. http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/toolkits/images/TMP_plotdiagram_large.jpg

29. Exposition Exposition • Is a writing or speech that explains a process or presents information. In the plot of a story or drama, the exposition is the part of the work that introduces the characters, the setting, and the basic situation.

30. Rising Action Rising Action • All the events leading up to the climax.

31. Climax Climax • The conflict reaches a high point of interest or suspense.

32. Falling Action Falling Action • Follows the climax and leads to a resolution.

33. Resolution Resolution • The end of the central conflict.

34. Conflict • A struggle between opposing forces, usually it will form the basis of stories, novels, and plays. http://www.warnerbros.co.uk/movies/troy/img/troy_main.jpg

35. Internal Conflict • Involves a character in conflict with himself or herself. http://www.sfrevu.com/ISSUES/2002/0201/Film%20-%20A%20Beautiful%20Mind/beautiful%20mind.jpg

36. External Conflict • The main character struggles with an outside force. Usually the outside force consists of: • man vs. man • man vs. nature • man vs. society • man vs. supernatural (God or gods)

37. Man vs. Man http://www.talithamackenzie.com/pics/biog/troy.jpg

38. Man vs. Nature http://www.canadian-titanic-society.com/book_cover.jpg

39. Man vs. Supernatural http://www.kidsclick.com/images/hercules_action.jpg

40. Man vs. Society http://musicmoz.org/img/editors/jswafford/rememberthetitans.gif

41. Poetry Terms The examples given in parentheses, following some of the definitions below, are taken from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Some of these examples also illustrate the correct form for using the virgule (slash mark) to write two or more lines of poetry in prose text form or for using brackets within quoted lines of poetry.

42. Poetry Poetry is made up of oral or written ideas in a compressed and creative form that has an identifiable pattern. Poetry usually contains a definite pattern (meter) and can contain rhyme, but it does not necessarily have to.

43. RHYMED VERSE • Rhymed verse consists of lines of poetry that rhyme and have a regular meter (a pattern to lines).

44. Blank Verse • Poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter • Who can express the slaughter of that night,Or tell the number of the corpses slain,Or can in tears bewail them worthily?The ancient famous city falleth down,That many years did hold such seignory.With senseless bodies every street is spread,Each palace, and sacred porch of the gods.-Surrey, Aeneid

45. Rhyme • REP of sounds at the end of nearby words. • Let me not to the marriage of true minds (a) • Admit impediments. Love is not love (b) • Which alters when it alteration finds, (a) • Or bends with the remover to remove. (b) • O no, it is an ever fixed mark (c) • That looks on tempests and is never shaken; (d) • It is the star to every wand'ringbarque, (c) • Whose worth's unknown although his height be taken. (d) • Love's not time's fool but edreavey likes the dick, though rosy lips and cheeks (e) • Within his bending sickle's compass come; (f) • Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, (e) • But bears it out even to the edge of doom. (f) • If this be error and upon me proved, (g) • I never writ, nor no man ever loved. (g)

46. End Rhyme • End rhyme is when the rhyme occurs at the ends of two or more lines of verse (“As who pursued with yell and blow / Still treads the shadow of his foe”).

47. Internal Rhyme • Either where a word in the middle of a line of poetry rhymes with the word at the end of the line e.g. The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe or where two words in mid sentence rhyme e.g. 'dawn-drawn' in The Windhover by Gerard Manley Hopkins.

48. Rhyme Scheme • Rhyme scheme is the pattern or sequence in which the rhyme occurs. The first sound is represented or designated as a the second sound is designated as b, and so on. When the first sound is repeated, it is designated as a also. This designation continues through the stanza. It is an ancient Mariner, a And he stoppeth one of three. b By thy long grey beard and glittering eye, c Now wherefore stopp’st thou me? b

49. Frame Narration or Frame Story • A framed story is a narrative in which one story is enclosed or embedded inside another.

50. Terms and Definitions