WRITINGFORENGLISHCOURSES.PDF

WRITING FOR ENGLISH COURSES Glossary of Literary Terms ACTION: The events in a literary work. Action should not be confused with the more comprehensive term, plot. The action in Hamlet, for example, simply begins with the guards visitation by the Ghost and ends with the carrying out of the dead Hamlet. ALLEGORY: A literary work where the setting, characters, or action make sense on a literal level, but also convey an abstract level of meaning, which is usually religious or political in nature. Unlike metaphors and symbols, an allegorical setting, character or action is one- dimensional: it stands for only one thing. Parables, fables, and satires are all forms of allegory. For example, the character Christian in John Bunyans allegory Pilgrims Progress stands for the human soul; the animals in Aesops fables stand for moral virtues and vices such as persistence and greed; and the animals in George Orwells satiric novel Animal Farm stand for political ideologies. ALLUSION: A brief reference in a literary work to a person, place, thing or passage in another literary work, usually for the purpose of associating the tone or theme of the one work with the other. The many allusions in T. S. Eliots poem “The Wasteland,” for example, refer to the Bible and Miltons Paradise Lost . CHARACTER, CHARACTERIZATION: A character is a person—or, in the case of such works as Aesops fables, a non-human with a human personality—in a literary work. Character can also refer to the particular, unique traits of a person in a literary work. Characterization is the way in which an author presents and defines characters. A flat character is one who is minimally described, stereotypical or who has only one purpose (e.g., your basic blood-sucking Count Dracula), while a round character is one who is presented in greater depth and detail (e.g., the troubled, sympathetic Brad Pitt vampire in Ann