AP English Literature and Composition



Table of Contents

Syllabus………………3

Literary Terms………………6

What should I Read? ………………8

What Authors Do & Tone………………12

Poetry Terms………………16

Analyzing Plot and Character………………24

Archetypes and Symbols………………26

Style, Tone, & Irony………………32

Point of View & Theme………………35

Setting & Symbols………………38

Final Thoughts………………40

|AP Literature and Composition |

|Course Outline |

|( Mr. Huskie ( |

Course Description:

This Advanced Placement English Literature and Composition course is designed to provide students with extensive opportunity to read, absorb, analyze, discuss, and critique various literary forms. Through concentrated examination and analysis of both content and form in a variety of literary genres, students will gain an increased critical understanding of how good authors create and convey meaning in their works. Through engaging in class discussions and writing from varied perspectives and approaches, students will demonstrate this increased understanding by offering their assessment of authors’ effective use and development of figurative language, structure, theme, character, and historical/social context. The works selected for study in this class will span a variety of periods and literary movements and will consist of both British and American Literature.

Class Texts:

← The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (Summer Reading)

← The Awakening by Kate Chopin (Summer Reading)

← The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien

← Othello by William Shakespeare

← The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

← Antigone by Sophocles

← Animal Farm by George Orwell (Outside Reading)

← A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams (Outside Reading)

← A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines (Outside Reading)

← Various poetry and short stories

Class Website:

In addition to classroom instruction and discussion, there is a class website we will utilize frequently with which you will be expected to become familiar. The address is . You will find electronic copies of any distributed materials and important due dates on this site; you will also be required to post some assignments and engage in discussions on the class message board. It should go without saying that all responses are expected to be original, appropriate, and relevant to our coursework. If you do not have a computer at home, please see us for library passes during your free periods.

Class Materials:

You will need:

← A pen or pencil, everyday

← A three-ring binder with subject dividers to help you remain organized

← Paper

It is recommended you acquire an AP English Literature and Composition review book.

Grading Policy:

The English Department has established the following grading policy:

✓ 40% Formative Assessments – assignments completed during the learning process

✓ 50% Summative Assessments – assignments completed after learning has occurred and after students have had the chance to practice

✓ 10% Class Participation

Additionally, the following classroom rules apply to this grading policy:

← All worked missed as the result of an excused absence must be made up within one week (extenuating circumstances may be discussed). A note must be provided describing the nature of the absence immediately upon return. It is the responsibility of the student to provide the note and make arrangements for completing the assignments.

← No late work will be accepted.

← Students will NOT be allowed to make up work missed if they are cutting class. No exceptions.

Writing Policy:

In this course, writing is always a work in progress. In order to become a good writer, you must be willing to read, analyze, reread, and research your topic, write multiple drafts, seek peer and teacher feedback, and finally, produce a product you’re willing to retool after receiving constructive criticism. That said, any formal writing assignment given in this class can always be revised for a higher grade, as many times as you wish. The goal of this option is to provide extrinsic motivation that will serve to improve your intrinsic desire to maximize your growth as a writer.

Terms That You Should Already Know

1. Antagonist

2. Personification

3. Connotation & Denotation

4. Point of View

5. Symbolism

6. Theme

7. Imagery

8. Onomatopoeia

9. Flashback & Foreshadow

10. Metaphor & Simile

11. Motif

12. Narration

13. Plot (exposition, rising action, climax, & denouement)

14. Protagonist

15. Syntax

16. Characterization & Motivation

17. Suspense

18. Dialogue

19. Tone & Mood

20. Setting

Terms That You Need to Know

1. Anecdote

2. Allegory

3. Epiphany

4. Flat Characters

5. Irony (situational, dramatic, & verbal)

6. Jargon

7. Omniscient

8. Dialect

9. Archetype & Stereotype

10. Dynamic Characters

11. Paradox

12. Parable & Fable

13. Comedy & Tragedy (in Plato’s sense)

14. Foil

15. Allusion

Terms That You Probably Should Know

1. Antithesis

2. Pastoral

3. In medias res

4. Monologue

5. Soliloquy

6. Style

7. Diction

8. Farce & satire

9. Hyperbole

10. Oxymoron

The Advanced Class

1. Anagnorisis

2. Peripeteia

3. Anaphora

4. Asyndeton & polysyndeton

5. Chiasmus

Good readers and writers write a lot.

But Mr. Huskie…what should I read?

[pic]

Some others (copied from the “suggested reading list” in the back of How to Read Literature Like a Professor – by Thomas C. Foster)

• "Musee des Beaux Arts", "In praise of Limestone" - W.H. Auden

• "Sonny's Blues" - James Baldwin

• Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett

• Beowulf - rec. trans. by Seamus Heaney

• "The Overcoat II", Water Music, World's End - T.C. Boyle

• Hotel du Lac - Anita Brookner

• Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking-Glass - Lewis Carroll

• Nights at the Circus, Wise Children, The Bloody Chamber - Angela Carter

• "Cathedral" - Raymond Carver

• The Canterbury Tales - Geoffrey Chaucer

• Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim - Joseph Conrad

• "The Gingerbread House" - Robert Coover

• The Bridge - Hart Crane

• The Remorseful Day - Colin Dexter

• The Old Curiosity Shop, A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield, Bleak House, Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

• Ragtime - E.L. Doctorow

• _The Alexandria Quartet (Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea_) - Lawrence Durrell

• "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, The Waste Land - T.S. Eliot

• Love Medicine - Louise Erdich

• The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, Absolom, Absolom! - William Faulkner

• Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding

• Tom Jones - Henry Fielding

• The Great Gatsby, "Babylon Revisited" - F. Scott Fitzgerald

• The Good Soldier - Ford Madox Ford

• A Room with a View, Howards End, A Passage to India - E.M. Forster

• The Magus, The French Lieutenant's Woman - John Fowles

• "After Apple Picking", "The Woodpile", "Out,Out-", "Mowing" - Robert Frost

• "The Pedersen Kid", "In the Heart of the Heart of the Country" - William H. Gass

• Blindness, Living, Party Going, Loving - Henry Green

• The Maltese Falcon - Dashiell Hammett

• "The Three Strangers", The Mayor of Casterbridge, Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

• "Young Goodman Brown", "The Man of Adamant", The Scarlet Letter, The House of Seven Gables - Nathaniel Hawthorne

• "Bogland", "Clearances", North - Seamus Heaney

• "Hills Like White Elephants","The Snows of Kilimanjaro", In Our Time, The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway

• The Illiad, The Odyssey - Homer

• The Turn of the Screw, "Daisy Miller" - Henry James

• Dubliners, Portrait of the Artists as a Young Man, Ulysses - James Joyce

• "The Metamorphosis", "A Hunger Artist", The Trial - Franz Kafka

• The Bean Trees, Pigs in Heaven, The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kinygsolver

• "The Horse Dealer's Daughter","The Fox","The Rocking-Horse Winner", Sons and Lovers, Women in Love, Lady Chatterley's Lover, The Virgin and the Gypsy, - D.H. Lawrence

• Le Mort D'Arthur - Sir Thomas Malory

• A Severed Head, The Unicorn, The Sea, the Sea, The Green Knight - Iris Murdoch

• Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

• Going After Cacciato, The things They Carried - Tim O'Brien

• "The Fall of the House of Usher, "The Mystery of the Rue Morgue", "The Pit and the Pendulum", "The Tell-Tale Heart", "The Raven", "The Cask of Amontillado" - Edgar Allen Poe

• The Crying of Lot 49 - Thomas Pynchon

• "In Praise of Prairie", The Far Field - Theodore Roethke

• Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, King Lear, Henry V, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, The Tempest, A Winter's Tale, As You like It, Twelfth Night, Cybeline - William Shakespeare

• Frankenstein - Mary Shelley

• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - unknown

• Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone - Sophocles

• The Fairy Queen - Sir Edmund Spenser

• The Strange Case of Dr. Jekll and Mr. Hyde, The Master of Ballantrae, Kidnapped, Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson

• Dracula - Bram Stoker

• "Fern Hill" - Dylan Thomas

• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain

• Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, The Accidental Tourist - Anne Tyler

• "A&P" - John Updike

• Omeros - Derek Walcott

• The Hearts and Lives of Men - Fay Weldon

• Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf

• "The Lake of Innisfree", "Easter 1916", "The Wild Swans at Coole" - William Butler Yeats

• A Glossary of Terms - M.H. Abrams

• How Does a Poem Mean? - John Ciardi

• Aspects of the Novel - E.M. Forster

• Anatomy of Criticism - Northrop Frye

• Fiction and the Figures of Life - William H. Gass

• The Art of Fiction - David Lodge

• How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry - Robert Pinsky

• Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Music

• The Hero with a Thousand Faces - Joseph Campbell

What do authors do?

• Emphasize

• Craft

• Depict

• Describe

• Render

• Contend

• Establish

• Exhibit

• Make plain

• Expound

• Fashion

• Assert

• Maintain

• Develop

• Suggest

• Convey

• Illustrate

• Elucidate

• Highlight

• Construct

• Portray

• Express

• Illuminate

• Exemplify

• Demonstrate

• Reveal

• Explicate

Words That Describe Language

Words that describe language are different from those that describe tone in that they describe the force or quality of the diction, images, and details. These words qualify how the work was written.

For any words you don’t know, look up a definition using the dictionaries in the back of the room and create a glossary. You will be quizzed on all of these words next week!

✓ Vulgar

✓ Scholarly

✓ Insipid

✓ Precise

✓ Esoteric

✓ Connotative

✓ Plain

✓ Literal

✓ Colloquial

✓ Artificial

✓ Detached

✓ Emotional

✓ Pedantic

✓ Euphemistic

✓ Pretentious

✓ Sensuous

✓ Exact

✓ Learned

✓ Symbolic

✓ Simplistic

✓ Figurative

✓ Bombastic

✓ Abstruse

✓ Grotesque

✓ Concrete

✓ Poetic

✓ Moralistic

✓ Cultured

✓ Picturesque

✓ Homespun

✓ Provincial

✓ Idiomatic

✓ Trite

✓ Obscure

✓ Exact

✓ Evocative

Tone

In a literary work, tone gets in, around, and behind the words to indicate the attitude the work takes toward the characters, setting, subject, or issues, or the attitude a character evinces toward an issue, situation, setting, or another character.

A writer indicates tone through his/her style: word choice (diction), ways of phrasing (syntax) and various comparisons.

Below, you will find a list of “tone” words. Mastering usage of these words will aid you in expanding your vocabulary and developing your ability to write successfully about an author’s tone.

For any words you don’t know, look up a definition using the dictionaries in the back of the room and create a glossary. You will be quizzed on all of these words next week!

“Feeling Good” Attitude Words

✓ Amused

✓ Benevolent

✓ Boisterous

✓ Cheery

✓ Compassionate

✓ Complimentary

✓ Confident

✓ Effusive

✓ Elated

✓ Enthusiastic

✓ Exuberant

✓ Exultant

✓ Fanciful

✓ Festive

✓ Flattering

✓ Genial

✓ Hopeful

✓ Jocular

✓ Joyful

✓ Lighthearted

✓ Loving

✓ Merry

✓ Mirthful

✓ Nostalgic

✓ Optimistic

✓ Passionate

✓ Proud

✓ Sanguine

✓ Sentimental

✓ Sympathetic

✓ Tickled

✓ Vibrant

✓ Whimsical

✓ Wistful

✓ Zealous

“Feeling Bad/Angry” Attitude Words

✓ Admonitory

✓ Accusing

✓ Arrogant

✓ Audacious

✓ Bitter

✓ Cold

✓ Condemnatory

✓ Disgusted

✓ Exacerbated

✓ Exasperated

✓ Furious

✓ Horrific

✓ Incendiary

✓ Incensed

✓ Indignant

✓ Inflammatory

✓ Irate

✓ Irritated

✓ Livid

✓ Manipulative

✓ Offensive

✓ Outraged

✓ Pretentious

✓ Resentful

✓ Sharp

✓ Threatening

✓ Wrathful

“Feeling Sad/Worried” Attitude Words

✓ Anxious

✓ Apprehensive

✓ Ashamed

✓ Chagrined

✓ Concerned

✓ Depressed

✓ Despairing

✓ Disconcerted

✓ Disturbed

✓ Fearful

✓ Foreboding

✓ Gloomy

✓ Hollow

✓ Hopeless

✓ Humorous

✓ Melancholic

✓ Mournful

✓ Ominous

✓ Resigned

✓ Sober

✓ Solemn

✓ Somber

✓ Staid

✓ Upset

✓ Urgent

✓ Vexed

“Feeling Amused/Ironic/Sarcastic” Attitude Words

✓ Amused

✓ Bantering

✓ Clever

✓ Condescending

✓ Contemptuous

✓ Critical

✓ Cynical

✓ Derisive

✓ Disdainful

✓ Eccentric

✓ Facetious

✓ Flippant

✓ Humorous

✓ Insolent

✓ Irreverent

✓ Mocking

✓ Patronizing

✓ Playful

✓ Pompous

✓ Sardonic

✓ Satiric

✓ Scathing

✓ Scornful

✓ Taunting

✓ Teasing

✓ Whimsical

✓ Witty

Neutral Attitude Words

✓ Abrupt

✓ Allusive

✓ Ambiguous

✓ Apathetic

✓ Authoritative

✓ Candid

✓ Ceremonial

✓ Clinical

✓ Colloquial

✓ Commonplace

✓ Coolheaded

✓ Cultured

✓ Detached

✓ Didactic

✓ Dramatic

✓ Esoteric

✓ Factual

✓ Formal

✓ Incredulous

✓ Informative

✓ Instructive

✓ Learned

✓ Lyrical

✓ Matter-of-fact

✓ Objective

✓ Official

✓ Placid

✓ Poignant

✓ Prosaic

✓ Questioning

✓ Reflective

✓ Reminiscent

✓ Restrained

✓ Scholarly

✓ Shocked

✓ Tedious

AP English Poetry Terms

(Presented by Dennis Carroll of High Point University at AP Workshop)

Listed and defined below are literary terms that you will need to know in order to discuss and write about works of poetry. You are already familiar with many of these.

l. alliteration- the repetition of identical or similar consonant sounds, normally at the

beginnings of words. “Gnus never know pneumonia” is an example of alliteration since,

despite the spellings, all four words begin with the “n” sound.

2. allusion- a reference in a work of literature to something outside the work, especially to a well-known historical or literary event, person, or work. When T.S. Eliot writes, "To have squeezed the universe into a ball" in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," he is alluding to the lines "Let us roll our strength and all/ Our sweetness up into one ball" in Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress."

3. antithesis- a figure of speech characterized by strongly contrasting words, clauses, sentences, or ideas, as in “Man proposes; God disposes.” Antithesis is a balancing of one term against another for emphasis or stylistic effectiveness. The second line of the following couplet by Alexander Pope is an example of antithesis:

The hungry judges soon the sentence sign,

And wretches hang that jury-men may dine.

4. apostrophe- a figure of speech in which someone (usually, but not always absent), some abstract quality, or a nonexistent personage is directly addressed as though present. Following are two examples of apostrophe:

Papa Above!

Regard a Mouse.

-Emily Dickinson

Milton! Thou shouldst be living in this hour;

England hath need of thee . . ..

-William Wordsworth

5. assonance- the repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds. “A land laid waste with all its young men slain” repeats the same “a” sound in “laid,” “waste,” and “slain.”

6. ballad meter- a four-line stanza rhymed abcd with four feet in lines one and three and three feet in lines two and four.

O mother, mother make my bed.

O make it soft and narrow.

Since my love died for me today,

I’ll die for him tomorrow.

7. blank verse- unrhymed iambic pentameter. Blank verse is the meter of most of Shakespeare’s plays, as well as that of Milton’s Paradise Lost.

8. cacophony- a harsh, unpleasant combination of sounds or tones. It may be an unconscious flaw in the poet’s music, resulting in harshness of sound or difficulty of articulation, or it may be used consciously for effect, as Browning and Eliot often use it. See, for example, the following line from Browning’s “Rabbi Ben Ezra”:

Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed beast?

9. caesura- a pause, usually near the middle of a line of verse, usually indicated by the sense of the line, and often greater than the normal pause. For example, one would naturally pause after “human’ in the following line from Alexander Pope:

To err is human, to forgive divine.

10. conceit- an ingenious and fanciful notion or conception, usually expressed through an elaborate analogy, and pointing to a striking parallel between two seemingly dissimilar things. A conceit may be a brief metaphor, but it also may form the framework of an entire poem. A famous example of a conceit occurs in John Donne’s poem “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning,” in which he compares his soul and his wife’s to legs of a mathematical compass.

11. consonance- the repetition of similar consonant sounds in a group of words. The term usually refers to words in which the ending consonants are the same but the vowels that precede them are different. Consonance is found in the following pairs of words: “add” and “read,” “bill and ball,” and “born” and “burn.”

12. couplet- a two-line stanza, usually with end-rhymes the same.

13. devices of sound- the techniques of deploying the sound of words, especially in poetry. Among devices of sound are rhyme, alliteration, assonance, consonance, and onomatopoeia. The devices are used for many reasons, including to create a general effect of pleasant or of discordant sound, to imitate another sound, or to reflect a meaning.

14. diction- the use of words in a literary work. Diction may be described as formal (the level of usage common in serious books and formal discourse), informal (the level of usage found in the relaxed but polite conversation of cultivated people), colloquial (the everyday usage of a group, possibly including terms and constructions accepted in that group but not universally acceptable), or slang (a group of newly coined words which are not acceptable for formal usage as yet).

15. didactic poem- a poem which is intended primarily to teach a lesson. The distinction between didactic poetry and non-didactic poetry is difficult to make and usually involves a subjective judgement of the author’s purpose on the part of the critic or the reader. Alexander Pope’s Essay on Criticism is a good example of didactic poetry.

16. dramatic poem- a poem which employs a dramatic form or some element or elements of dramatic techniques as a means of achieving poetic ends. The dramatic monologue is an example.

17. elegy- a sustained and formal poem setting forth the poet’s meditations upon death or another solemn theme. Examples include Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”; Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s In Memoriam; and Walt Whitman’s “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d.”

18. end-stopped- a line with a pause at the end. Lines that end with a period, a comma, a colon, a semicolon, an exclamation point, or a question mark are end-stopped lines.

True ease in writing comes from Art, not Chance,

As those move easiest who have learn’d to dance.

19. enjambment- the continuation of the sense and grammatical construction from one line of poetry to the next. Milton’s Paradise Lost is notable for its use of enjambment, as seen in the following lines:

. . . .Or if Sion hill

Delight thee more, and Siloa’s brook that flow’d

Fast by the oracle of God, . . . .

20. extended metaphor- an implied analogy, or comparison, which is carried throughout a stanza or an entire poem. In “The Bait,” John Donne compares a beautiful woman to fish bait and men to fish who want to be caught by the woman. Since he carries these comparisons all the way through the poem, these are considered “extended metaphors.”

21. euphony- a style in which combinations of words pleasant to the ear predominate. Its opposite is cacophony. The following lines from John Keats’ Endymion are euphonious:

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:

Its loveliness increases; it will never

Pass into nothingness; but still will keep

A bower quiet for us, and a sleep

Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

22. eye rhyme- rhyme that appears correct from spelling, but is half-rhyme or slant rhyme from the pronunciation. Examples include “watch” and “match,” and “love” and “move.”

23. feminine rhyme- a rhyme of two syllables, one stressed and one unstressed, as “waken” and “forsaken” and “audition” and “rendition.” Feminine rhyme is sometimes called double rhyme.

24. figurative language- writing that uses figures of speech (as opposed to literal language or that which is actual or specifically denoted) such as metaphor, irony, and simile. Figurative language uses words to mean something other than their literal meaning. “The black bat night has flown” is figurative, with the metaphor comparing night and bat. “Night is over” says the same thing without figurative language.

25. free verse- poetry which is not written in a traditional meter but is still rhythmical. The poetry of Walt Whitman is perhaps the best-known example of free verse.

26. heroic couplet- two end-stopped iambic pentameter lines rhymed aa, bb, cc with the thought usually completed in the two-line unit. See the following example from Alexander Pope’s Rape of the Lock:

But when to mischief mortals bend their will,

How soon they find fit instruments of ill!

27. hyperbole- a deliberate, extravagant, and often outrageous exaggeration. It may be used for either serious or comic effect. Macbeth is using hyperbole in the following lines:

. . . .No; this my hand will rather

The multitudinous seas incarnadine,

Making the green one red.

28. imagery- the images of a literary work; the sensory details of a work; the figurative language of a work. Imagery has several definitions, but the two that are paramount are the visual auditory, or tactile images evoked by the words of a literary work or the images that figurative language evokes. When an AP question asks you to discuss imagery, you should look especially carefully at the sensory details and the metaphors and similes of a passage. Some diction is also imagery, but not all diction evokes sensory responses.

29. irony- the contrast between actual meaning and the suggestion of another meaning. Verbal irony is a figure of speech in which the actual intent is expressed in words which carry the opposite meaning. Irony is likely to be confused with sarcasm, but it differs from sarcasm in that it is usually lighter, less harsh in its wording though in effect probably more cutting because of its indirectness. The ability to recognize irony is one of the surer tests of intelligence and sophistication. Among the devices by which irony is achieved are hyperbole and understatement.

30. internal rhyme- rhyme that occurs within a line, rather than at the end. The following lines contain internal rhyme:

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—

While I nodded, nearly napping. . suddenly there came a tapping . . . .

31. lyric poem- any short poem that presents a single speaker who expresses thoughts and feelings. Love lyrics are common, but lyric poems have also been written on subjects as different as religion and reading. Sonnets and odes are lyric poems.

32. masculine rhyme- rhyme that falls on the stressed and concluding syllables of the rhyme-words. Examples include “keep” and “sleep,” “glow” and “no,” and “spell” and “impel.”

33. metaphor- a figurative use of language in which a comparison is expressed without the use of a comparative term like “as,” “like,” or “than.” A simile would say, “night is like a black bat”; a metaphor would say, “the black bat night.”

34. meter- the repetition of a regular rhythmic unit in a line of poetry. The meter of a poem emphasizes the musical quality of the language and often relates directly to the subject matter of the poem. Each unit of meter is known as a foot.

35. metonymy- a figure of speech which is characterized by the substitution of a term naming an object closely associated with the word in mind for the word itself. In this way we commonly speak of the king as the “crown,” an object closely associated with kingship.

36. mixed metaphors- the mingling of one metaphor with another immediately following with which the first is incongruous. Lloyd George is reported to have said, “I smell a rat. I see it floating in the air. I shall nip it in the bud.”

37. narrative poem- a non-dramatic poem which tells a story or presents a narrative, whether simple or complex, long or short. Epics and ballads are examples of narrative poems.

38. octave- an eight-line stanza. Most commonly, octave refers to the first division of an Italian sonnet.

39. onomatopoeia- the use of words whose sound suggests their meaning. Examples are “buzz,” “hiss,” or “honk.”

40. oxymoron- a form of paradox that combines a pair of contrary terms into a single expression. This combination usually serves the purpose of shocking the reader into awareness. Examples include “wise fool,” “sad joy,” and “eloquent silence.”

41. paradox- a situation or action or feeling that appears to be contradictory but on inspection turns out to be true or at least to make sense. The following lines from one of John Donne’s Holy Sonnets include paradoxes:

Take me to you, imprison me, for I

Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,

Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

42. parallelism- a similar grammatical structure within a line or lines of poetry. Parallelism is characteristic of Asian poetry, being notably present in the Psalms, and it seems to be the controlling principle of the poetry of Walt Whitman, as in the following lines:

. . . .Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to

connect them.

Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold,

Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.

43. paraphrase- a restatement of an ideas in such a way as to retain the meaning while changing the diction and form. A paraphrase is often an amplification of the original for the purpose of clarity.

44. personification- a kind of metaphor that gives inanimate objects or abstract ideas human characteristics.

45. poetic foot- a group of syllables in verse usually consisting of one accented syllable and one or two unaccented syllables associated with it. The most common type of feet are as follows:

iambic u /

trochaic / u

anapestic u u /

dactylic / u u

pyrrhic u u

spondaic / /

The following poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge illustrates all of these feet except the pyrrhic foot:

Trochee trips from long to short.

From long to long in solemn sort

Slow Spondee stalks; strong foot! yet ill able

Ever to come up with Dactyl trisyllable.

Iambics march from short to long;

With a leap and a bound the swift Anapests throng.

46. pun- a play on words that are identical or similar in sound but have sharply diverse meanings. Puns can have serious as well as humorous uses. An example is Thomas Hood’s:" They went and told the sexton and the sexton tolled the bell.”

47. quatrain- a four-line stanza with any combination of rhymes.

48. refrain- a group of words forming a phrase or sentence and consisting of one or more lines repeated at intervals in a poem, usually at the end of a stanza.

49. rhyme- close similarity or identity of sound between accented syllables occupying corresponding positions in two or more lines of verse. For a true rhyme, the vowels in the accented syllables must be preceded by different consonants, such as “fan” and “ran.”

50. rhyme royal- a seven-line stanza of iambic pentameter rhymed ababbcc, used by Chaucer and other medieval poets.

51. rhythm- the recurrence of stressed and unstressed syllables. The presence of rhythmic patterns lends both pleasure and heightened emotional response to the listener or reader.

52. sarcasm- a type of irony in which a person appears to be praising something but is actually insulting it. Its purpose is to injure or to hurt.

53. satire- writing that seeks to arouse a reader’s disapproval of an object by ridicule. Satire is usually comedy that exposes errors with an eye to correct vice and folly. Satire is often found in the poetry of Alexander Pope.

54. scansion- a system for describing the meter of a poem by identifying the number and the type(s) of feet per line. Following are the most common types of meter:

monometer one foot per line

dimeter two feet per line

trimeter three feet per line

tetrameter four feet per line

pentameter five feet per line

hexameter six feet per line

heptameter seven feet per line

octameter eight feet per line

Using these terms, then, a line consisting of five iambic feet is called “iambic pentameter,” while a line consisting of four anapestic feet is called “anapestic tetrameter.”

In order to determine the meter of a poem, the lines are “scanned,” or marked to indicate stressed and unstressed syllables which are then divided into feet. The following line has been scanned:

u / u / u / u / u /

And still she slept an az ure- lid ded sleep

55. sestet- a six-line stanza. Most commonly, sestet refers to the second division of an Italian sonnet.

56. simile- a directly expressed comparison; a figure of speech comparing two objects, usually with “like,” “as,” or “than.” It is easier to recognize a simile than a metaphor because the comparison is explicit: my love is like a fever; my love is deeper than a well. (The plural of “simile” is “similes” not “similies.”)

57. sonnet- normally a fourteen-line iambic pentameter poem. The conventional Italian, or Petrarchan sonnet is rhymed abba, abba, cde, cde; the English, or Shakespearean, sonnet is rhymed abab, cdcd, efef, gg.

58. stanza- usually a repeated grouping of three or more lines with the same meter and rhyme scheme.

59. strategy (or rhetorical strategy)- the management of language for a specific effect. The strategy or rhetorical strategy of a poem is the planned placing of elements to achieve an effect. The rhetorical strategy of most love poems is deployed to convince the loved one to return to the speaker’s love. By appealing to the loved one’s sympathy, or by flattery, or by threat, the lover attempts to persuade the loved one to love in return.

60. structure- the arrangement of materials within a work; the relationship of the parts of a work to the whole; the logical divisions of a work. The most common units of structure in a poem are the line and stanza.

61. style- the mode of expression in language; the characteristic manner of expression of an author. Many elements contribute to style, and if a question calls for a discussion of style or of “stylistic techniques,” you can discuss diction, syntax, figurative language, imagery, selection of detail, sound effects, and tone, using the ones that are appropriate.

62. symbol- something that is simultaneously itself and a sign of something else. For example, winter, darkness, and cold are real things, but in literature they are also likely to be used as symbols of death.

63. synecdoche- a form of metaphor which in mentioning a part signifies the whole. For example, we refer to “foot soldiers” for infantry and “field hands” for manual laborers who work in agriculture.

64. syntax- the ordering of words into patterns or sentences. If a poet shifts words from the usual word order, you know you are dealing with an older style of poetry or a poet who wants to shift emphasis onto a particular word.

65. tercet- a stanza of three lines in which each line ends with the same rhyme.

66. terza rima- a three-line stanza rhymed aba, bcb, cdc,etc. Dante’s Divine Comedy is written in terza rima.

67. theme- the main thought expressed by a work. In poetry, it is the abstract concept which is made concrete through its representation in person, action, and image in the work.

68. tone- the manner in which an author expresses his or her attitude; the intonation of the voice that expresses meaning. (Remember that the “voice” need not be that of the poet.) Tone is described by adjectives, and the possibilities are nearly endless. Often a single adjective will be enough, and tone may change from stanza to stanza or even line to line. Tone is the result of allusion, diction, figurative language, imagery, irony, symbol, syntax, and style.

69. understatement- the opposite of hyperbole. It is a kind of irony that deliberately represents something as being much less than it really is. For example, Macbeth, having been nearly hysterical after killing Duncan, tells Lenox, “’Twas a rough night.”

70. villanelle- a nineteen-line poem divided into five tercets and a final quatrain. The villanelle uses only two rhymes which are repeated as follows: aba, aba, aba, aba, aba, abaa. Line 1 is repeated entirely to form lines 6, 12, and 18, and line 3 is repeated entirely to form lines 9, 15, and 19; thus, eight of the nineteen lines are refrain. Dylan Thomas’s poem “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” is an example of a villanelle.

|Analyzing Plot and Character |

Plot

✓ Story and Plot

The first thing to consider in reading fiction is plot. Plot, in a literary sense, is the way events are selected and arranged in narrative work to present them most effectively to the reader. Comparing plot with story can help clarify that. Story is a straightforward account of everything that happens in the order it happens. Story provides the materials (the events, the characters, the outcome) from which a plot is constructed.

✓ Plot as Structure

As a story is converted to a plot, some things are left out, things are sometimes rearranged, and casual connections between key events are brought out. The interest in plot is not just in what happens but in why it happens and in the implications or results of what happens: What does it all “mean”? Plot provides the structure of the story, that is, the arrangement of material in it, the ordering of its parts, the design used to draw out and convey its significance.

✓ Entry Points

Pay attention to not only what goes on in a story, but also consider what details the author includes, how they are arranged, and how they relate to each other and work together to convey a unified effect.

Beginning – Consider the following:

✓ What is included – decisions about what to leave out are as important as decisions about what to include.

✓ How it is arranged – Readers become more quickly and deeply involved when the plot starts at an engaging point well into the story and fills in the background events later as needed.

✓ Starting in the middle – a common way for storytellers to proceed is in medias res (Latin for in the middle of things) – background information is usually filled in through flashback and exposition

Middle – Conflict

✓ Physical conflict

✓ Social conflict

✓ Internal/psychological conflict

Middle – Structural Techniques

✓ Suspense

✓ Foreshadowing

✓ Repetition

✓ Climax

✓ Epiphany

Middle – Gaps

✓ Inevitable gaps – because an author can’t include everything, stories inevitably leave gaps, that is, places where things are omitted or not filled in.

✓ Intentional gaps – authors often create gaps intentionally as a way of getting readers actively involved.

✓ Unintentional gaps – in some cases, gaps are unintentional, but significant nonetheless. What the author does not think about is part of her or his idea framework, as much as what she or he consciously does think about (i.e. relegating women in stories to minor roles).

Ending

✓ A sense of wholeness

✓ Dénouement – from the French, this term literally means “unknotting”, the untying of the threads that are tangled and knotted.

✓ A feeling of finality

Character

✓ Techniques of characterization

o Showing

o Saying – dialogue

o Entering a character’s mind

o Naming (allusion)

o Motivation

o Consistency

✓ Types of characterization

o Round/flat

o Dynamic/static

o Major/minor (stock)

o Protagonist/antagonist

|( Checklist on Reading for Plot and Character |

|( Notice the structure of the plot: |

|The handling of beginning, middle, and ending |

|Its use of action, background, development, climax, and conclusion |

|Its use of gaps, flashbacks, suspense, foreshadowing, and repetition |

|( Look for conflicts – physical, social, internal – and use them as a way to get into the story and to explore its |

|complexity. |

|( Be attentive to the methods of characterization: by noticing what we are told and shown, listening to what a character says and |

|what other characters say about him or her, entering a character’s mind, and considering the way she or he is named. |

|( Consider how fully characters are developed: whether they are round or flat, whether they change or pretty much stay the same. |

|Archetypes and Symbols |

Situation Archetypes

|The Quest – This motif describes the search for someone or some talisman (object, lucky charm, or amulet) which, when found and brought back, |

|will restore fertility to a wasted land, the desolation of which is mirrored by a leader’s illness and disability. |

|The Task – This refers to a possibly superhuman feat that must be accomplished in order to fulfill the ultimate goal. |

|The Journey – The journey sends the hero in search for some truth of information necessary to restore fertility, justice, and/or harmony to |

|the kingdom. The journey includes the series of trials and tribulations the hero faces along the way. Usually the hero descends into a real |

|or psychological hell and is forced to discover the blackest truths, quite often concerning his faults. Once the hero is at the lowest level,|

|he must accept personal responsibility to return to the world of the living. |

|The Initiation – This situation refers to a moment, usually psychological, in which an individual comes into maturity. He or she gains a new |

|awareness into the nature of circumstances and problems and understands his or her responsibility for trying to resolve the dilemma. |

|Typically, a hero receives a calling, a message, or signal that he or she must make sacrifices and become responsible for getting involved in |

|the problem. Often a hero will deny and question the calling and ultimately, in the initiation, will accept responsibility. |

|The Ritual – Not to be confused with the initiation, the ritual refers to an organized ceremony that involves honored members of a given |

|community and an Initiate. This situation officially brings the young man or woman into the realm of the community’s adult world. |

|The Fall – Not to be confused with the awareness in the initiation, this archetype describes a descent into action from a higher to a lower |

|state of being, an experience which might involve defilement, moral imperfection, and/or loss of innocence. This fall is often accompanied by|

|expulsion from a kind of paradise as penalty for disobedience and/or moral transgression. |

|Death and Rebirth – The most common of all situational archetypes, this motif grows out of the parallel between the cycle of nature and the |

|cycle of life. It refers to those situations in which someone or something, concrete and/or metaphysical dies, yet is accompanied by some |

|sign of birth or rebirth. |

|Nature vs. Mechanistic World – Expressed in its simplest form, this refers to situations which suggest that nature is good whereas the forces |

|of technology are bad. |

|Battle Between Good and Evil – These situations pit obvious forces which represent good and evil against one another. Typically, good |

|triumphs over evil despite great odds. |

|The Unhealable Wound – This wound, physical or psychological, cannot be healed fully. This would also indicate a loss of innocence or purity.|

|Often the wounds’ pain drives the sufferer to desperate measures of madness. |

|The Magic Weapon – Sometimes connected with the task, this refers to a skilled individual hero’s ability to use a piece of technology in order|

|to combat evil, continue a journey, or to prove his or her identity as a chosen individual. |

|Father-Son Conflict – Tension often results from separation during childhood or from an external source when the individuals meet as men and |

|where the mentor often has a higher place in the affections of the hero than the natural parent. Sometimes the conflict is resolved in |

|atonement. |

|Innate Wisdom vs. Educated Stupidity – Some characters exhibit wisdom and understanding intuitively as opposed to those supposedly in charge. |

Character Archetypes

|The Hero – In its simplest form, this character is the one ultimately who may fulfill a necessary task and who will restore fertility, |

|harmony, and/or justice to a community. The hero character is the one who typically experiences an initiation, who goes through the |

|community’s rituals, etc. Often he or she will embody characteristics of Young Person from the Provinces, Initiate, Innate Wisdom, Pupil, and|

|Son. |

|The Tragic Hero (Aristotle)- A tragic hero meets all five qualities as outlined by Aristotle. He must: be of noble birth, be virtuous but not|

|perfect, possessing a tragic flaw (hamartia) that leads to his downfall, have a reversal of fortune (peripeteia), recognize that he is at |

|least partially responsible for his own downfall (anagnorisis) and evoke feelings of pity/fear in his audience because his downfall is not |

|wholly his fault and thus, the punishment, usually death, does not fit the crime. |

|The Antihero (Byronic hero) - is a larger-than-life, but flawed character who could be considered, by traditional standards, to be a rebel. |

|This hyper-sensitive loner, obsessively following a quest—which, being a Romantic Quest, is doomed to failure—usually ends up dead at the end |

|of his story, either as the unintended consequence of the hero’s own choices and actions, or as a conscious choice. |

|Young Person from the Provinces – This hero is taken away as an infant or youth and raised by strangers. He or she later returns home as a |

|stranger and is able to recognize new problems and new solutions. |

|The Initiates – These are young heroes who, prior to the quest, must endure some training and ritual. They are usually innocent at this |

|stage. |

|Mentors – These individuals serve as teachers or counselors to the initiates. Sometimes they work as role models and often serve as father or|

|mother figures. They teach by example the skills necessary to survive the journey and quest. |

|Hunting Groups of Companions – These loyal companions are willing to face any number of perils in order to be together. |

|Loyal Retainers – These individuals are like the noble sidekicks to the hero. Their duty is to protect the hero. Often the retainer reflects|

|the hero’s nobility. |

|The Temptress – Characterized by sensuous beauty, she is one whose physical attraction may bring |

|about the hero’s downfall. |

|The Christ Figure – This character represents a person of ultimate sacrifice for the well-being of others. |

|The Devil Figure – This character represents evil incarnate. He or she may offer worldly goods, fame, or knowledge to the protagonist in |

|exchange for possession of the soul or integrity. This figure’s main aim is to oppose the hero in his or her quest. |

|The Evil Figure with the Ultimately Good Heart – This redeemable devil figure (or servant to the devil figure) is saved by the hero’s nobility|

|or good heart. |

|The Scapegoat – An animal or more usually a human whose death, often in a public ceremony, excuses some taint or sin that has been visited |

|upon the community. This death often makes them a more powerful force to the herd. |

|The Outcast – This figure is banished from a community for some crime (real or imagined). The outcast is usually destined to become a |

|wanderer. |

|The Earth Mother – This character is symbolic of fulfillment, abundance, and fertility; she offers spiritual and emotional nourishment to |

|those who she contacts; she is often depicted in earth colors with large breasts and hips. |

|The Friendly Beast – These animals assist the hero and reflect that nature is on the hero’s side. |

|The Platonic Ideal – This source of inspiration often is a physical and spiritual ideal for whom the hero has an intellectual rather than |

|physical attraction. |

|The Unfaithful Wife – This woman, married to a man she sees as dull and distant, is attracted to a more virile or interesting man. |

|The Damsel in Distress – This vulnerable woman must be rescued by the hero. She also may be used as a trap, by an evil figure, to ensnare the|

|hero. |

|The Star-Crossed Lovers – These two characters are engaged in a love affair that is fated to end in tragedy for one or both due to the |

|disapproval of society, friends, family, or the gods. |

|The Creature of Nightmare – This monster, physical or abstract, is summoned from the deepest, darkest parts of the human psyche to threaten |

|the lives of the hero/heroine. Often it is a perversion or desecration of the human body. |

Symbolic Archetypes

|Light vs. Darkness – Light usually suggests hope, renewal, or intellectual illumination; darkness implies the unknown, ignorance, or despair. |

|Water vs. Desert – Because water is necessary to life and growth, it commonly appears as a birth or rebirth symbol. Water is used in baptism |

|services, which solemnizes spiritual baths. Similarly, the appearance of rain in a work of literature can suggest a character’s spiritual |

|bath. |

|Heaven vs. Hell – Humanity has traditionally associated parts of the universe not accessible to it with the dwelling places of the primordial |

|forces that govern its world. The skies and mountaintops house its gods; the bowels of the earth contain the diabolic forces that inhabit its|

|universe. |

|Haven vs. Wilderness – Places of safety contrast sharply against the dangerous wilderness. Heroes are often sheltered for a time to regain |

|health and resources. |

|Supernatural Intervention – The gods intervene on the side of the hero or sometimes against him. |

|Fire vs. Ice – Fire represents knowledge, light, life, and rebirth while ice like desert represents ignorance, darkness, sterility, and death.|

|Colors |

|Black (darkness) – chaos, mystery, the unknown, before existence, death, the unconscious, evil |

|Red – blood, sacrifice, violent passion, disorder, sunrise, birth, fire, emotion, wounds, death, sentiment, mother, Mars, the note |

|C, anger, excitement, heat, physical stimulation |

|Green – hope, growth, envy, Earth, fertility, sensation, vegetation, death, water, nature, sympathy, adaptability, growth, Jupiter and Venus, |

|the note G, envy |

|White (light) – purity, peace, innocence, goodness, spirit, morality, creative force, the direction East, spiritual thought |

|Orange – fire, pride, ambition, egoism, Venus, the note D |

|Blue – clear sky, the day, the sea, height, depth, heaven, religious feeling, devotion, innocence, truth, spirituality, Jupiter, the note F, |

|physical soothing and cooling |

|Violet – water, nostalgia, memory, advanced spirituality, Neptune, the note B |

|Gold – majesty, sun, wealth, corn (life dependency), truth |

|Silver – moon, wealth |

|Numbers |

|Three – The Trinity (Father, Son, Holy Spirit), mind, body, spirit, birth, life, death |

|Four – Mankind (four limbs), four elements, four seasons |

|Six – devil, evil |

|Seven – divinity (3) + mankind (4) = relationship between man and God, deadly sins, days of the week, days to create the world, stages of |

|civilization, colors of the rainbow, gifts of the Holy Spirit |

|Shapes |

|Oval – woman, passivity |

|Triangle – communication, between heaven and earth, fire, the number 3, trinity, aspiration, movement upward, return to origins, sight, light |

|Square – pluralism, earth, firmness, stability, construction, material solidarity, the number four |

|Rectangle – the most rational, most secure |

|Cross – the tree of life, axis of the world, struggle, martyrdom, orientation in space |

|Circle – heaven, intellect, thought, sun, the number two, unity, perfection, eternity, oneness, celestial realm, hearing, sound |

|Spiral – the evolution of the universe, orbit, growth, deepening, cosmic motion, relationship between unity and multiplicity, macrocosm, |

|breath, spirit, water |

|Nature |

|Air – activity, creativity, breath, light, freedom (liberty), movement |

|Ascent – height, transcendence, inward journey, increasing intensity |

|Center – thought, unity, timelessness, spacelessness, paradise, creator, infinity |

|Descent – unconscious, potentialities of being, animal nature |

|Duality – yin-yang, opposites, complements, positive-negative, male-female, life-death |

|Earth – passive, feminine, receptive, solid |

|Fire – the ability to transform, love, life, health, control, sun, God, passion, spiritual energy, regeneration |

|Lake – mystery, depth, unconscious |

|Crescent Moon – change, transition |

|Mountain – height, mass, loftiness, center of the world, ambition, goals |

|Valley – depression, low-points, evil, unknown |

|Sun – hero, son of Heaven, knowledge, the Divine eye, fire, life force, creative-guiding force, brightness, splendor, active awakening, |

|healing, resurrection, ultimate wholeness |

|Water – passive, feminine |

|Rivers/Streams – life force, life cycle, journey |

|Stars – guidance |

|Wind – Holy Spirit, life, messenger |

|Ice/Snow – coldness, barrenness |

|Clouds/Mist – mystery, sacred |

|Rain – life giver |

|Steam – transformation to the Holy Spirit |

|Cave – feminine |

|Lightning – intuition, inspiration |

|Tree – where we learn, tree of life, tree of knowledge |

|Forest – evil, loss, fear |

|Objects |

|Feathers – lightness, speed |

|Shadow – our dark side, evil, devil |

|Masks – concealment |

|Boats/Rafts – safe passage |

|Bridge – change, transformation |

|Right hand – rectitude (morality, decency, righteousness), correctness |

|Left hand – deviousness |

|Feet – stability, freedom |

|Skeleton – morality |

|Heart – love, emotions |

|Hourglass – the passage of time |

|Analyzing Style, Tone, and Irony |

Style ~ the manner in which a writer uses words, constructs sentences, incorporates figurative expressions, and handles rhythm, timing, and tone, all resulting in the effectiveness and individuality of expression.

Reading for Style – Effectiveness of Expression

In discussing style, one must consider the following features:

← Words and Word Choice (Diction)

← Sentences and Sentence Structure (Syntax)

← Rhythm

← Imaginative Comparisons (Figurative Language)

Style: Words - Diction

The words selected by an author affect the way the work articulates the subject as well as the sound, rhythm, and feel of the writing. In many cases, diction becomes a part of characterization.

(Some) Types of Diction

← Simple Words

← Complex Words (often used to convey something carefully and with precision)

← Concrete Words

← Abstract Words

← Colloquialisms (informal, conversational expressions)

← Slang

← Dignified, Sophisticated terminology

← Technical Terms

|In order to be effective, diction must be well-suited to its purpose and its context. |

Style: Sentences - Syntax

Consider the implications of:

← Sentence length

← Punctuation

← Conjunctions

← Grammar

How does the syntax influence the tone?

|In order to be effective, the syntax an author employs must suit the characters and contexts in a manner that reveals purpose. |

Style: Rhythm

Rhythm is the pattern of flow and movement created by the choice of words (diction) and the arrangement of phrases and sentences (syntax).

Factors affecting Rhythm:

← The length and composition of sentences

← The use of pauses (punctuation) within the sentences

← The use of repetitions

← The ease or difficulty in pronouncing the combinations of word sounds in the sentences

For example:

Long sentences with little punctuation might have a smooth and flowing rhythm, but the rhythm also could be almost breathless or fast or slow depending on how quickly or slowly the words can be spoken.

Short sentences, or longer ones broken by punctuation into short phrases, may have a rough or choppy rhythm. If such sentences use a lot of short, single-syllable words, the rhythm might have a fast, even staccato-type of rhythm.

|In evaluating rhythm, consider terms and feelings one might use to describe music or other art forms (i.e., fast, slow, syncopated,|

|disjointed, smooth, halting, graceful, edgy, rough, deliberate) |

Style: Imaginative Use of Language

Consider the following:

← Figurative Comparisons – non-literal expressions

← Metaphor

← Simile

← Personification

← Metonymy

← Synecdoche

← Paradox

← Hyperbole

← Litote

Tone ~ In a literary work, tone gets in, around, and behind the words to indicate the attitude the work takes toward the characters, setting, subject, or issues, or the attitude a character evinces toward an issue, situation, setting, or another character.

|In the absence of spoken inflections, tone is conveyed through style: word choice (diction), ways of phrasing (syntax) and kinds |

|of comparisons (figurative language). |

Irony ~ a way of expression in which the writer creates a discrepancy or incongruity between what is (reality) and what seems to be (appearance).

Verbal Irony ~ what is said is the opposite of what is meant

Look for:

← Exaggeration

← Contradictory word choice

← Sheer absurdity

← Cutting tone (sarcasm)

Dramatic Irony ~ when a character says or does something that the reader or audience realizes has a meaning opposite to what the character intends

Look for:

← Archetypes (tragic hero, tragedy)

← Foreshadowing

Situational Irony ~ a result or situation that turns out very differently from what was expected or hoped for

Look for:

← Reversals – when something turns around from what it used to be, or what was expected, or what was desired

← Irony

|Analyzing Point of View and Theme |

Point of View

✓ Reading for Narrator

The way a story is narrated is part of its point of view, the approach used in presenting the events of the story. To describe and discuss point of view effectively requires giving attention to the person telling the story and the perspective from which the story is told. In considering the point of view, the reader must consider the benefits and limitations of that particular perspective.

✓ Person

Consideration of point of view starts with listening to who is telling the story: Does it use a first-person narrator or a third-person narrator? Is the narrator given a name, or is the narrator an unnamed, unidentified voice relating what happens from outside the events? You cannot always identify a specific person as the narrator, but you usually can discern the narrator’s relation to the action. Does the narrator participate in the action as a major or minor character, or does s/he observe the action, looking on from the outside?

✓ Perspective: Inside or Outside

Understanding point of view continues with paying attention to the perspective from which the story is told. The narrator inevitably relates the story from a certain vantage point. To get the most from a story, it is important to determine what that vantage point is. The reader can be told everything from both inside and outside the characters and events, or can be given pieces of the aforementioned.

✓ Perspective: Time

Narrative necessarily relates events after they’ve happened. The reader needs to consider if the events are recent or from the distant path, whether the amount of time that has passed matters, or if time has influence the perspective of the narrator.

First-Person Narration

✓ A first-person point of view is easily recognized by the narrator’s use of I or we in telling the story. First-person is necessarily limited because an I or we cannot have omniscient awareness of events. The strength of first-person narration is in its personal, intimate relationship with the events of the work.

✓ In many cases, a first-person narrator is very knowledgeable about what has happened and why. However, because the narrator is closely involved, the narrator’s knowledge and understanding is limited. S/he may not know all that is happening to other characters, or may not understand now or then why and how things happened as they did.

o Naïve narrator

o Reliable narrator

o Unreliable narrator

Second-Person Point of View

✓ Second-Person point of view is utilized when an author wishes to directly include the reader in his/her story. It can be identified through the author’s use of “you”, “we”, and “us”.

✓ Like first-person point of view, the strength of this perspective is in the intimacy it establishes. A personal connection is created between the reader and the narrator/events of the work. This perspective is also employed when an author wishes for the reader to contemplate the conflicts, motives, and tone of the characters and reflect upon their context-specific and universal implications.

Third-Person Point of View

✓ In describing and discussing third-person point of view, you always need to include both a person and a perspective (i.e., omniscient, objective, limited). Though this perspective may not be as intimate as that of first, it retains a certain objectivity and distance that can be contextually valuable.

Third-Person Omniscient

✓ Third-person omniscient is when a story is told by an external narrator who seems to know everything about some events, both the present and the past, and is able to see into the minds and hearts of more than one character.

✓ It’s important to keep in mind that the omniscient point of view doesn’t mean the narrator has to tell the reader everything about a sequence of events or a set of characters. The narrator doesn’t necessarily have limited access to knowledge but rather that the narrator voluntarily limits what she or he relates.

Third-Person Objective

✓ In contrast to the omniscient perspective, the narrator does not look into the mind of any of the characters or explain why any of the characters do what they do. An important note is that an objectively narrated story does not necessarily mean the story is objective.

Third-Person Limited

✓ When a story is told by a narrator who seems to know everything about some parts of the story, or everything that happens to or affects one character or a few characters, but does not know about other important things, the point of view is third-person limited (omniscient).

o Center of Consciousness

▪ A variant on the third-person limited – the narrator relates the story in third-person but does so by centering attention on one character and of what that character is conscious, what s/he does, sees, thinks, remembers, feels, and experiences.

o Stream of Consciousness

Theme

• Stating a Theme

A theme should be expressed in two parts: a subject and a predicate (something about the subject).

o A format that often works in stating a theme is:

The __________ of __________

(predicate) (topic/subject)

o Fill in the 2nd blank with the topic or subject of the work

o Fill in the 1st blank with a word about that subject; words like importance, significance, and impact usually work well

o Improve the sophistication of your language by adding precise descriptors before both blanks and ending it with a prepositional phrase that considers either historical context, conflict, or other crucial element of the message

Statements of theme must grow out of details in the story, not out of the reader’s ideas, experiences, values or thought of finding a moral or lesson in the work

|( Checklist on Reading for Point of View and Theme |

|( Notice who is telling the story (the narrator) and the point of view (the perspective from which the story is told): |

|First-person: a partially knowing I or we, sometimes reliable, sometimes naïve or unreliable |

|Third-person omniscient: an all-knowing, often anonymous, reporter |

|Third-person objective: a reporter of words or actions, not thoughts or motives |

|Third-person limited: a partially knowing observer or participant (often using a center of consciousness – seeing a story through the |

|consciousness of a particular character) |

|Stream of consciousness: |

|( Think about a story’s theme, the central idea or concept conveyed in the story – what it all adds up to. Be sure the theme you come up with|

|is firmly grounded in the story and that you have specific details to support the theme’s presence and importance. |

|Analyzing Setting and Symbols |

What does setting suggest?

Setting as Place

Consider the implications of:

← The broad setting

← The specific setting (place within place)

Setting as Time

Consider the implications of:

← Season

← Time of day

← Historical events

← If the piece is “contemporary”, look to the publishing date

← Social milieu (environment) – the trends, values, behaviors, attitudes, and ideals of society at the time

Setting as Cultural Context

Consider the implications of:

← Social circumstances (social and political problems)

← Cultural transplantation

How does setting affect characterization? mood? conflict?

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Symbolism

← The analysis of symbols indicates a cluster of possible meanings

← In writing about symbolism, one should convey a sense of the symbol’s openness, inclusivity, and plurality

← Consider using words like could, perhaps, suggests, possibly when writing about symbols

Recognizing Symbols

Consider the following:

← Prominence

← Significance/Weight

← Image (the literal role always comes first)

← The symbol must seem likely/plausible/convincing within the context

Types of Symbols

← Literary symbols derive their meaning from the context itself

← Conventional symbols (i.e., the American flag, Star of David) ripple with associations and meanings that particular groups have consciously assigned

← Traditional symbols (i.e., a rose) are not necessarily deliberate, but represent generally accepted meanings across culture

← Archetypal symbols (i.e., water, the color white) are patterns of meaning that originate in folk tales, myths, religious writings, fairy tales, etc. and are recognizable across various literary works

Final Thoughts

• Make it a lifelong habit to seek out intelligent people with whom you disagree.

• Note the censorship instinct, the desire to grandstand, and the ease at which others claim “offense”.

• Ask yourself if you are reducing people with whom you disagree to “caricatures of evil”.

• Remember that arguments that make us most uncomfortable are often the ones we most badly need to have.

Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the "transcendant" and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don't be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as if they were mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence. Suspect your own motives, and all excuses. Do not live for others any more than you would expect others to live for you. (Christopher Hitchens)

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