Literature

relation between number of times an event happened and number of times it is narrated

Singulative narration: telling once, what happened once

Repetitive narration: telling n times what happened once

Iterative narration: telling once what happened n times

Diegetic Model: Position and participation of narrator

Omniscience: degree of familiarity with actions/events

--> Omniscient narrator: disembodied voice; knows practically everything (innermost feelings, past, present, future)

--> 3rd-person limited omniscience: story told through eyes of one single character, access to this one's feelings, thoughts etc.

Perceptibility: degree of perception of narrating self

overt narrator: narrator who reflects on/talks about role as narrator - self-conscious

covert narrator: no narratorial mediation - effaced narrator

Reliability: degree of trustworthiness

--> reliable narrator: seems to be objective & trustworthy

--> unreliable narrator: stories are suspect - main source: limited knowledge and or personal involvement

Narrative forms:

--> letter narration (aka diary narration)

--> stream of consciousness: interior monologue - non-mediated stream of thought or impressions - seemingly random, formless, casual - grammatical 1st person

A: Extra-, heterodiegetic narrator: superior to narrative, does not participate --> unknown, neutral voice

B: Intra-, homodiegetic narrator: part of story, plays a role, is involved --> narrator-character (possibly autodiegetic)

C: Intra-, heterodiegetic narrator: part of story, observer, without playing a role

D: Extra-, homodiegetic narrator: above the story (at the time of narrating the events), tells of time when part of the events (possibly autodiegetic)

--> Focalizer: Subject of focalisation

--> Focalized: Object of focalisation

Types of Focalization:

--> External focalization: aka narrator-focalization - on-looker

--> Internal focalization: inside represented events

Persistence of Focalization:

--> Fixed focalization: one and the same focalizer throughout story

--> Variable focalization: focalization shifts between several focalizers

Perception of Focalized:

--> from without: outward manifestation of object are presented (internal focalizers can only focalize from without, except he/she focalizes him-/herself e.g. inner monologue)

--> from within: focalizer penetrates feelings, thoughts

the recognition of a reality different from the masking appearance - things are not always what they seem to be

Verbal Irony: figure of speech, when a person says one thing but means the opposite

Situational Irony: incongruity between what is expected to happen and what actually happens (brings reader closer to meaning of story)

Dramatic Irony: discrepancy between what character believes and what reader (or audience) knows to be true (in plays only)

Symbol: a symbol has different meanings on different levels ("also stands for something else") - He gave her a rose. --> He actually gave her a rose + he loves her, or likes her, or she hates roses and he hates her... She should understand the symbol

Metaphor: does not make sense literally - it means something else - consists of tenor (main subject, compared to:), vehicle (seems anomalous) and tertium comparationis (common ground) -  He (tenor) was always a good deal of an oyster (vehicle). --> He's not actually an oyster, but the tertium comparationis is being shy and "introverted".

Similie: "like" or "as" - comparison - I wandered lonely as a cloud.

Metonymy: literal term for one thing is applied to closely associated other term - "the White House" for the American presidency

Synechdoche: pars pro toto - a part of something is used to signify the whole - "wheels" for a car

Hyperbole: exaggeration for the sake of emphasis - "emphasising an overstatement" - Till China and Africa meet.

Litotes: "playing down an understatement" - It was nothing.

Prosopopeia: either an inanimate object or abstract concept is spoken of as though it were endowed with life or human attributes/feelings

My computer hates me.

specific location in space and/or time - the actual immediate surrounding of an event(, a character or an object)

--> elements:

1) geographical location, topography, scenery, physical arrangements (e.g. where windows & doors are)

2) occupations, daily manners of living of characters

3) time or period

--> functions:

- objective correlative (foreshadowing)

- defines genre (e.g. gothic, pastoral)

- symbolic function

- local colour (setting as protagonist)

- characterisation of a protagonist

Flat characters:

- lacking complexity

- two-dimensional

- undeveloping

- predictable

Round characters:

- several qualities

- multi-dimensional

- developing

- surprising

Three axes - classification along continua

(a) axis of complexity: consistent, single trait -----> multitude of traits, inconsistent, contradictory

(b) axis of development: static, no development -----> dynamic, changing, fully developed

(c) axis of penetration in the inner life: only seen from outside -----> consciousness presented from inside

frame narrative:

--> providing setting/context for embedded narrative

--> evoke mood/atmosphere

--> characterising narrator of embedded narrative

embedded narrative:

--> mirror events in frame narrative

--> thematically exploit contrasts/analogies between frame and embedded narrative

--> comment on events in frame narrative

Mise-en-abyme: internal reduplication of a literary work or part of work(, often suggesting an infinite succession of internal duplications)

Structuralism: emphasises structures underlying the surface of text

New Criticism: concentrates on work itself, disregarding historical context/author's biography)

Comparative Literature: compares literatures from different languages/cultures/nations

Post-structuralism: meanings are shifting & unstable, some things remain undecidable/open/ambivalent

Postmodernism: critique of representational function of language, questionability of literature to "faithfully" represent reality (key feature: Metafiction)

Psychoanalytical Literary Criticism: subconscious

Feminist Criticism: gender relations, examines/challenges representations of women

self-consciously, systematically drawing attention to its status as an artifact in order to pose questions about the relationship between fiction and reality

a borderline discourse: a kind of writing which places itself on the border between fiction and criticism, which takes the border as its subject

Miracle Plays: 11th-14th cen.

Mystery Plays: 14th-15th cen.

Morality Plays: 15th-16th cen.

1558-1603

15th-17th cen.

Restauration: 1660-1700

Augustan Age: 1700-1744

Age of Sensibility: 1745-1789

1789-1837

1937-1901

1901-1945

1945-present

- Post-War writing

- Post-Colonial writing

Theme: Bible & Martyrdom

acting out, so people still get the gist, even though they don't speak latin

instruction & entertainment

Theme: Religion and Bible, but no connection to church service (maybe even more religious than Miracle Plays, because it's been "brought to people", made public)

established by trade guilds (e.g. bakers --> last supper)

pagiant = wagon with two stories

not biblical, religious stories, yet christian values

performed by professional actors

use of allegorical figures (death, hope, fellowship etc.)

--> transition between purely biblical to more psychological drama

Everyman:

allegory: what happens to everyman will eventually happen to every christian

conversation between death and every( )man

a character, alone on the stage, utters his/her thoughts aloud

- representing inner self

- mirroring soul

- (in tragedy) hero's fall

en vogue during renaissance (such as Shakespeare)

back to classical beliefs and values (threshold btw Middle Ages and Modernity)

greek & latin become more important

Age of discovery, Britain becomes a world power

human body is interesting and beautiful

development from petrarchan platonic love (16th cen.) to physical presence and sexual dimension (17th cen.) e.g. Shakespeare and Metaphysical poetry

fixed, closed form:

14-lines

English (or Shakespearian):                Italian (or Petrarchan):

3 quartrains (abab, cdcd, efef)            2 quartrains (abba, abba)

1 couplet (gg)                                         1 sestet (cde, cde)

each quartrain contains a stage of

argument

volta/turn: (petrarchan after line 8, Shakespearian sometimes also after line 12)

Theme: idealised beautiful lady, different social status, unreachable (platonic love)

often occur in sonnets (criticised, mocked or not)

comparisons of beloved's body to natural phenomena

e.g. golden hair, rose lips, hand of ivory, breasts white like snow etc

origin in Bible and courtly love (petrarchan tradition)

by the time of Shakespeare already completely standardised, not original anymore

metaphysical:

branch of philosophy, dealing with truth & existence

behind the physical, sth abstract

Metaphysical:

term for group of poets in 17th cen. (originally disrespectful)

linking intellect and feelings (mixing two different things)

argumentative, persuasive poetry

essay structure (again intellect & love poetry): dialectic (thesis - antithesis - synthesis)

language: paradox and conceits

far-fetched metaphor, requires intellect (intellectual effort) to make sense of tertium comparationis

e.g. our two souls as twin compasses

frequently used in Metaphysical poetry

apparently self-contradicting statement, which works after closer look

e.g.

it was heaven and hell

it was the best of times, it was the worst of times

she's fire and ice

frequently used in sonnets

His Coy Mistress (Andrew Marvell):

Thesis: if time were no issue, her reluctance wouldn't be a problem (possibility of endless admiration, which technically she really would deserve) - hyperbolic (parody) use of blasons

Antithesis: dramatic change of tone - awareness of morality "tempus fugit"

Synthesis: conclusion - love one another immediately, live the moment, response to "tempus fugit" = "carpe diem"

The Good Morrow (John Donne)