Autobiography (Greek "self-life writing"): a narrative of a life written by the subject; Wordsworth, The Prelude (see vol. 2, p. 322). There are subgenres, such as the spiritual autobiography, narrating the author's path to conversion and subsequent spiritual trials, as in Bunyan's Grace Abounding.
Beast epic: a continuous, unmoralized narrative, in prose or verse, relating the victories of the wholly unscrupulous but brilliant strategist Reynard the
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Fox over all adversaries. Chaucer arouses, only to deflate, expectations of the genre in The Nun's Priest's Tale (see vol. 1, p. 298). Biography (Greek "life-writing"): a life as the subject of an extended narrative. Thus Izaak Walton, The Life of Dr. Donne (see vol. 1, p. 1309).
Comedy: a term primarily applied to drama, and derived from ancient drama, in opposition to tragedy. Comed y deals with humorously confusing, sometimes ridiculous situations in which the ending is, nevertheless, happy. Shakespeare, Twelfth Night (see vol. 1, p. 1079).
Comic mode: man y genres (e.g., romance, fabliau, comedy) involve a happy ending in which justice is done, the ravages of time are arrested, and that which is lost is found. Such genres participate in a comic mode.
Dialogue (Greek "conversation"): Dialogue is a feature of many genres, especially in both the novel and drama. As a genre itself, dialogue is used in philosophical traditions especially (most famously in Plato's Dialogues), as the representation of a conversation in which a philosophical question is pursued among various speakers. Didactic mode (Greek "teaching mode"): genres in a didactic mode are designed to instruct or teach, sometimes explicitly (e.g., sermons, philosophical discourses, georgic), and sometimes through the medium of fiction (e.g., animal fable, parable). Discourse (Latin "running to and fro"): broadly, any nonfictional speech or writing; as a more specific genre, a philosophical meditation on a set theme. Thus Newman, The Idea of a University (see vol. 2, p. 1035). Dramatic monologue (Greek "single speaking"): a poem in which the voice of a historical or fictional character speaks, unmediated by any narrator, to an implied though silent audience. See Tennyson, "Ulysses" (vol. 2,
p. 1123); Browning, "The Bishop Orders His Tomb" (vol. 2, p. 1259); Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (vol. 2, p. 2289); Carol An n Duffy, "Medusa" and "Mrs Lazarus" (vol. 2, pp. 2875-76). Elegy: In classical literature elegy was a form written in elegiac couplets (a hexameter followed by a pentameter) devoted to many possible topics. In Ovidian elegy a lover meditates on the trials of erotic desire (e.g., Ovid's Amores). The sonnet sequences of both Sidney and Shakespeare exploit this genre, and, while it was still practiced in classical tradition by Donne ("On His Mistress" [see vol. 1, p. 1281]), by the later seventeenth century the term came to denote the poetry of loss, especially through the death of a loved person. See Tennyson, In Memoriam (vol. 2, p. 1138); Yeats, "In Memory of Major Robert Gregory" (vol. 2, p. 2034); Auden, "In Memory of W. B. Yeats" (see vol. 2, p. 2429); Heaney, "Clearances" (vol. 2, p. 2833).
Epic (synonym, heroic poetry): an extended narrative poem celebrating martial heroes, invoking divine inspiration, beginning in medias res (see order), written in a high style (including the deployment of epic similes; on high style, see register), and divided into long narrative sequences. Homer's Iliad and Virgil's Aeneid were the prime models for English writers of epic verse. Thu s Milton, Paradise Lost (see vol. 1, p. 1829); Wordsworth, The Prelude (see vol. 2, p. 322); and Walcott, Omeros (see vol. 2, p. 2591). With its precise repertoire of stylistic resources, epic lent itself easily to parodic and burlesque forms, known as mock epic; thus Pope, The Rape of the Lock (see vol. 1, p. 2513).
Epigram: a short, pithy poem wittily expressed, often with wounding intent. See Jonson, Epigrams (see vol. 1, p. 1427).
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Epigraph (Greek "inscription"): any formal statement inscribed on stone; also the brief formulation on a book's title page, or a quotation at the beginning of a poem, introducing the work's themes in the most compressed form possible.
Epistle (Latin "letter"): the letter can be shaped as a literary form, involving an intimate address often between equals. Th e Epistles of Horace provided a model for English writers from the sixteenth century. Thus Wyatt, "Mine own John Poins" (see vol. 1, p. 604), or Pope, "Epistle to a Lady" (vol. 1,
p. 2598). Letters can be shaped to form the matter of an extended fiction, as the eighteenth-century epistolary novel (e.g., Samuel Richardson's Pamela).
Epitaph: a pithy formulation to be inscribed on a funeral monument. Thus Ralegh, "The Author's Epitaph, Made by Himself" (see vol. 1, p. 923). Epithalamion (Greek "concerning the bridal chamber"): a wedding poem,
celebrating the marriage and wishing the couple good fortune. Thu s Spen
ser, Epithalamion (see vol. 1, p. 907).
Essay (French "trial, attempt"): an informal philosophical meditation, usually in prose and sometimes in verse. Th e journalistic periodical essay was developed in the early eighteenth century. Thus Addison and Steele, periodical essays (see vol. 1, p. 2470); Pope, An Essay on Criticism (see vol. 1,
p. 2496). Fabliau (French "little story," plural fabliaux): a short, funny, often bawdy narrative in low style (see register) imitated and developed from French models most subtly by Chaucer; see The Miller's Prologue and Tale (vol. 1,
p. 239). Farce: a play designed to provoke laughter through the often humiliating antics of stock characters. Congreve's The Way of the World (see vol. 1,
p. 2228) draws on this tradition. Georgic (Greek "farming"): Virgil's Georgics treat agricultural and occasionally scientific subjects, giving instructions on the proper management of farms. Unlike pastoral, which treats the countryside as a place of recreational idleness among shepherds, the georgic treats it as a place of productive labor. For an English poem that critiques both genres, see Crabbe, "The Village" (vol. 1, p. 2887).
Heroic poetry: see epic.
Homily (Greek "discourse"): a sermon, to be preached in church; Book of Homilies (see vol. 1, p. 635). Writers of literary fiction sometimes exploit the homily, or sermon, as in Chaucer, The Pardoner's Tale (see vol. 1,
p. 284). Journal (French "daily"): a diary, or daily record of ephemeral experience, whose perspectives are concentrated on, and limited by, the experiences of single days. Thu s Pepys, Diary (see vol. 1, p. 2134). Lai: a short narrative, often characterized by images of great intensity; a French term, and a form practiced by Marie de France (see vol. 1, p. 141). Legend (Latin "requiring to be read"): a narrative of a celebrated, possibly historical, but mortal protagonist. T o be distinguished from myth. Thus the "Arthurian legend" but the "myth of Proserpine." Lullaby: a bedtime, sleep-inducing song for children, in simple and regular meter. Adapted by Auden, "Lullaby" (see vol. 2, p. 2423).
Lyric (from Greek "lyre"): Initially meaning a song, "lyric" refers to a short poetic form, without restriction of meter, in which the expression of personal emotion, often by a voice in the first person, is given primacy over