I've decided to post a new literary concept or term each day. Please feel free to add to it, this can be seen as a pool of information.

Enjoy the swim.

[This message has been edited by Euda (edited 02-25-2006).]

Day 1

ab ovo

Latin for "from the egg"

This term refers to a story which starts from the beginning of the events it narrates, as opposed to one which starts in the middle - which is refered to as in medias res.

Horace used this expression notably in Ars Poetica.

How common is medias res? I only really remember stories that begin and go on to explain like years of backplot, which doesn't really seem to fit.

Good idea on the thread, by the way.

in medias res isn't that common, mainly because writers find it more convienent to start with an introduction.

If you're looking for an example, Fight Club was begun in this manner.

Day 2

Aleatory writing

Derived from Latin meaning dice.

Aleatory means depending on the throw of a die, and it refers to writing (as well as the other arts) achieved by some random means, by leaving things to chance or accident. No doubt many creative artists have depended on the element of luck and chance, the totally unexpected; and the history of inspiration provides many instances of quality experience which have helped in the creative act. In fact, one may go so far as to say that it may be a fundamental part of the process of inspiration and invention.

Those who practice aleatoric techniques are somewhat more deliberate. The do not leave things to chance; they creat the opportunities for chance. There is a certian method in their madness, as it were. For example, a writer may write down a large number of words on different pieces of paper, throw the paper into the air, see how they fall - and join the words together according to their random disposition. Or, one might shuffle them like cards and then record the sequence that ensues. There are a number of ways this can be accomplished.

William Burroghs is well known for his 'cut-up' technique in which he snips up pages and allows the andom falling of the words and prhases to guide him. B.S. Johnson composed The Unfortunates - a novel in a box. It consists of a box of seperately bound chapters which the reader is invited to rearrange as he or she sees fit. Tom Phillip's Humanment is the result of taking a Victorian novel called A Human Document by WH Mallock and inking out the words and letters to find a book within a book. Ian Hamilton Finlay has also made various experiments or a aleatory kind in the creation of concrete poetry. Pollock used this concept in his art regularly.

Day 3

Analects

Comes from the Greek for "things gathered up"

A collection of passages taken from an author. They are crumbs and gleanings. Confucious, though he is supoosed to have written nothing, is credited with the authorship of analects. A well-known Confucian example is: 'Do not do unto others awhat you would not wish done unto you'. There are of course a number of ribald Confuciansims.

Day 3

Anagnorisis

From the Greek for "recognition"

A term used by Aristotle in Poetics to describe the moment of recognition (of truth) when ignorance gives way to knowledge. According to Aristotle, the ideal moment of anagonorisis coincides with peripeteia, or reversal of fortune. The classic example is in Oedipus Rex when Oedipus discovers he has himself killed Laius.

I felt like doing two today.

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Originally posted by Euda:
Aristotle

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I dressed up as Aristotle in 6th grade for a speech.

The best technique: Dramatic Irony.

When the reader is completely aware of something critical that certain characters are ignorant of. The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams empoys it a lot.

Day 4

scriptio continua

Latin for continuous script.

Writing without word spearation or marks of punctuation, astringoflettersrepresentingastringofsounds. All Western writing before the late 7th century was in scriptio continua; word-seperation was intorduced in Ireland, and over the next century or so spread into the Germanic and Romance vernaculars, and into Latin.

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Originally posted by Euda:
Day 4

scriptio continua

Latin for continuous script.

Writing without word spearation or marks of punctuation, astringoflettersrepresentingastringofsounds. All Western writing before the late 7th century was in scriptio continua; word-seperation was intorduced in Ireland, and over the next century or so spread into the Germanic and Romance vernaculars, and into Latin.

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Wow, that's really interesting. Thanks for doing this daily literary concept thing, Euda, it's great!

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Originally posted by Euda:
[b]Day 3

Anagnorisis

From the Greek for "recognition"

A term used by Aristotle in Poetics to describe the moment of recognition (of truth) when ignorance gives way to knowledge. According to Aristotle, the ideal moment of anagonorisis coincides with peripeteia, or reversal of fortune. The classic example is in Oedipus Rex when Oedipus discovers he has himself killed Laius.

I felt like doing two today.[/B]

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:O I was going to do anagnorisis! Great thread, BTW.

OK, um... caesura: a break or pause in the rhythm of a verse. For example, in line 6 of Tennyson's Tithonus:

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5 Me only cruel immortality
6 Consumes; I wither slowly in thine arms

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Day 5

apophasis

From the Greek for 'from speaking'.

Affirming by apparent denial, a stressing through the negation of a statement. A famous example is contained in Hamlet's parting words to Gertrude at the end of the 'bedroom scene' (III, iv)

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Not this, by no means, that I bid you do:
Let the bloat King tempt you again to bed;

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He goes on to emphasize a series of injunctions; these are usually made use of to further the affirmation.

Day 6

Internal Evidence

A term used in analytical and textual criticism (especially in the dating of a literary work) to refer to features of style (e.g. syntax, imagery, idiom, spelling, rhyme, punctuation), or details of environment, fasion and period, which might give some indication of when the work was written. For some it is possible to date within a few years.

Day 6

ploce

From the Greek for 'plaited, woven'.

It denotes the complication of a dramatic plot. It can also be used to describe the figurative device of repitition.

Day 7

Gnomic Verse

Derived from the Greek for 'opinion' or 'judgement'.

A gnome has come to mean a short pithy statement of a general truth; thus a maxim or aphorism. The adjective gnomic was first applied to a group of 6th century BC Greek poets but there are much earlier examles of gnomes in Chinese, Sanskrit and Egyption. The Book of Proverbs, which follows The Psalms in the Old Testament, is one of the best examples of gnomic utterance. Beowulf also contains a number of gnomic passages, although if you're looking for something slightly more recent Francis Quarle's Book of Emblems is one of the best known collections.

Nice thread.

Day 8

Protatic Character

A Character introduced at the beginning of a play, usually for the purpose of exposition. Probably a development of the Chorus. In drawing-room comedy it is often a servant.

Day 8

Chorus

Greek for 'dance'.

Originally the Chorus was a group of preformers at a religious festival, especially at fertility rites. By some process of symbiosis Greek tragedy aquired, or grew out of, these choral rites. At any rate, the Chorus became an essential and integral part of Greek tragic drama. In the works of Aeschylus the mentator on the action; and in Euripides it provided a lyric element. The Romans copied the idea of a Chorus from the Greeks, and Elizabethan dramatists took it over from the Romans. However, a full scale Chorus has seldom been used in English drama, or indeed European drama.

Usually the Chorus has been reduced to one person, as in Henry V, Pericles and The Winter's Tale. Milton used a full Chorus in his closet drama Samson Agonistes, but thereafter there are few instances until TS Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral, in which the remarkable Chorus of the womeon of Canterbury takes part in the action, comments on and provides the atmosphere. Elliot also used a Chorus of the Eumenides in The Family Reunion. There have been occasional uses of a single Chorus commentator on the action (moving in and out of the play). Notable instances are the scurrilous Thersites, in Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, the Fool in King Lear, and Antony's henchman Enobarbus in Antony and Cleopatra. Other important instances in drama are to be found in Brecht's The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Anouilh's Antigone, Tennessee William's The Glass Menagerie and Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge. The use of a kind of group Chorus is also to be found occasionally in novels. For example, there are the rustics in George Eiliot's Silas Marner, the Mellstock musicians in Thomas Hardy's Under the Greenwood Tree and the rustics in The Return of the Native. A not dissimilar use of Chorus is to be found in some of Faulkner's novels: for instance, The Hamlet, The Mansion and The Reivers

I figured I'd better go into detail on a Chorus since I mentioned it in the above post.

Day 9

Chosism

French for 'thingism'.

This denotes a highly detailed description of objects, things (often inanimate) - their shape, color, texture, density - that some French novelists associated wtih the nouveau roman tended to strive for. It had its facination but can be quite overdone, which tends to be counter-productive. Alain Robbe-Grillet and Michael Butor, among others, were particularly skilled at it.

Day 10

Jabberwocky

A form of nonsense; unintelligible speech or writing. At its worst it degenerates into whimsy, that apparently ineradicable cancer of English humour. Lewis Carroll invented the Jabberwock and wrote a poem called Jabberwocky in Alice through the Looking-Glass. Alice discovered the poem prined backwards in a looking-glass book. She held it up to the mirrir and read (the first verse):

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'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

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Humpty Dumpty says that 'brillig' means 'four o'clock in the afternoon - the time when you start broiling things for dinner'.
The reader can invent for himself. 'Slity toves' are, perhaps slithery creatures. 'Gyre and gimble' perhaps suggests a slow and solemn dance of joy. 'Mimsy' - delicate and bearing blossoms?
The work had some influence on Joyce's Finnegans Wake.

[This message has been edited by Euda (edited 03-05-2006).]

Day 11

Metanoia

Greek for 'after thought, change of mind'

A figurative device in which a statement is made, and then withdrawn or lessened in its impact. For example: 'I'll murder you. You will be punished.'

Day 12

readerly/writerly

Terms devised by Roland Barthes, a French critic, to make a distinction between two basic kinds of text. The lisible (readerly) and the scriptible (writerly). He expounds on this in his book S/Z. By a readerly text he mans a book (a novel) to which a reader's response is more or less passive. For example, a 'realistic' novel (or any 'classic text' as Barthes terms them), presents to us a recognizable world with easily recognizable characters and events. The reader accepts the meaning without needing to make much effort. A writerly text, however, makes demands on the reader; he or she has to work things out, look for and provide meaning. Obvious examples of writerly texts are Joyce's Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. A writerly text tends to focus attention on how it is written, on the mechanics of it, the particular use of language. A writerly text tends to be self-concious; it calls attention to itself as a work of art. It also makes the reader into a producer. Barthes makes the point that the writerly text is of value because the goal of literary work (of literature as work) is to make the reader no longer a consumer, but a producer of the text. However, as Barthes demonstrates in his analysis of Balzac's short story Sarrasine (which is basically a readerly story but which Barthes discusses as a writerly one), a critic may, if he or she wishes, read any story as either writerly or readerly. A readerly or writerly reading is not inherent in the text but may be a part of the reading.

Great stuff, Euda!

Posts like these are what make the interent really worth my time.

Day 13

Recoil

A term used when speaking of tragedy to indeicate that the protagonist has brought about his (or her) own doom.

I'm glad people are reading and enjoying this post.

Day 14

Genre

A French term for a kind, a literary type or class. The major Classical genres were: epic, tragedy, lyric, comedy and satire, to which would now be added novel and short story. From the Renaissance and until well on into the 18th century the genres were carefully distinguished, and writers were expected to follow the rules prescribed for them.

Nice, I'm taking AP Latin IV (and Greek lit/poetry as an independent study at college) and I pretty much know most of those devices. You should add stuff like anaphora, litotes, zegumas, and chiasmi.

By the way, The Odyssey started in medias res.

Day 15

Rhapsody

Greek for stitch song.

In ancient Greece a rhapsodist was an itinerant minstrel who recited epic poetry. Part came from memory; part was improvised. A rhapsodist was thus a poet who 'stitched' together various elements.

In a more general sense a rhapsody may be an effusive and emotional (perhaps even ecstatic) utterance in verse or, occasionally, in prose.

Day 15

Rhetoric

Greek from 'speaker in the assembly'.

Rhetoric is the art of using language for persuasion, in speaking or writing; especially in oratory. The Classical theoreticians codified rehetoric very throughly. A knowledge and command of it was regarded as essential. The major textbooks included Aristole's Rhetoric; Quinteilian's Institutio Oratoria; Cicero's De Invertione, De Optimo Genere Oratorum and De Oratore. Cicero himself was an accomplished rhetorician. So great was the influence of these men (and, later of Longinus in the work ascribed to him On the Sublime) that in the Middle Ages rhetoric became part of the trivium, together with logic and grammar.

The rules for oral and written composition (these rules altered little from Cicero's day until well on in the 19th century) were divided into five processes in a logical order: invention, arrangement (or disposition), style, memory and delivery (each had a large number of sub-divisions). Invention was the discovery of the relevant material; arrangement was the organization of material into sound structural form; under style came the consideration of the appropriate manner for the matter and the occasion (e.g. the grand style, the middle and the low or plain); under memory came guidance on how to memorize speeches; the section devoted to delivery elaborated the technique for actually making a speech.

[This message has been edited by Euda (edited 03-12-2006).]

Day 15

Rhetorical Irony

A form of irony in which the attitude and tone of the speaker or writer is the exact opposite of what is expressed. Such irony is common in the work of Swift, Voltaire, Samuel Butler and Anatole France.

Day 16

index expurgatorius

A list of passages in a book which, by order of the Roman Catholic Church, must be deleted before it can be read by members of the Church. This index was abolished in 1966.

quote:

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Originally posted by Brimstone:
You should add stuff like anaphora, litotes, zegumas, and chiasmi.

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You could have added them in...but I'll do it, since people might be curious now.

Anaphora

Greek for 'carrying up'

A rhetorical device involving the repetition of a word or group of words in successive clauses. It is often used in ballad, oratory and sermon, but it is common in many literary forms.

Litotes

From the Greek for 'single, simple, and meagre'

A figure of speach which contains an understatement for emphasis, and is therefore the opposite of a hyperbole. Often used in everyday speech (frequently in the negative) and usually with laconic or ironic intetions. A simple example is 'not bad' meaning 'very good'.

Zeugma

Greek for 'bonding'

A figure of speach in which the same word (a verb or preposition) is applied to two others in different senses. For example: 'she looked at the object with suspicion and a magnifying glass'; or 'Mis Bolo went home in a flood of tears and a sedan chair (Dickens).

Chiasmus

Greek for 'a placing crosswise'

A reversal of grammatical structure in successive phrases or clauses. As in this example from Pope's Essay on Man

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His time a moment, and a point his space.

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This device is closely related to antithesis.

Day 17

ideal spectator

Two basic meanings may be distinguished:
(a) the everyman for whom the dramatist writes; for all practical purposes synonymous with the average person;
(b) a character in a play who either expresses the attitudes and feelings of the dramatist or is representative of the majority of the audience.

The French term is raisonneur and bother 'characters' are related to the Greek Chorus and the single character acting as a chorus, as well as, possibly to the confidant.

The ideal specator of category (b) is not much involved in the plot but is rather an onlooker; a sort of neutral character, like Horatio in Hamlet or Kent in King Lear.

Day 18

negative capability

A famous phrase used by Keats when writing to his brothers George and Thomas in the winter of 1817. The relevent and explanitory passage is:

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I had not a dispute, but a disquisition, with Dilke upon various subjects; several things dove-tailed in my mind, ad at once it struck me what quality went to form a man of achievement, especially in literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously - I mean negative capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, myseteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason. Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caugt from the penetralium of Mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. This pursued through volumes would perhaps take us no farther than this; that a great Poet the sense of beauty overcomes every other consideration, or rather obliterates all consideration.

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Accept, therefore, the insight into beauty and be cautious of rationalization. In his Ode on a Grecian Urn Keats summarized part of his philosophy in this matter:

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'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,' - that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

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Day 19

Obscurity

Obscurity in literature may be deliberate or involuntary. In either case an 'obscure' writer is one whose meaning is difficult to discern. Some 19th century French poets like Mallarme and Rimbaud were found obscure, but seem less so now. In the 20th century Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot and David Jones have been charged with obscurity. Marks of obscurity are: an elliptical syle (loose syntax; anacoluthon; asyndenton, etc), recondite allusion and reference, archaic or ornate language, private and subjective imagery, and the use of words and phrases from foreign languages. A writer who wilfully disguises the fact that he has little or nothing to say in this manner is usually found out in the end.