p. 1074). Burlesque (French and Italian "mocking"): a work that adopts the conventions of a genre with the aim less of comically mocking the genre than of satirically mocking the society so represented (see satire). Thu s Pope's Rape of the Lock (see vol. l ,p. 2513) does not mock classical epic so much as contemporary mores.
Canon (Greek "rule"): the group of texts regarded as worthy of special respect or attention by a given institution. Also, the group of texts regarded as definitely having been written by a certain author.
Catastrophe (Greek "overturning"): the decisive turn in tragedy by which the plot is resolved and, usually, the protagonist dies.
Catharsis (Greek "cleansing"): According to Aristotle, the effect of tragedy on its audience, through their experience of pity and terror, was a kind of spiritual cleansing, or catharsis.
Character (Greek "stamp, impression"): a person, personified animal, or other figure represented in a literary work, especially in narrative and drama. Th e more a character seems to generate the action of a narrative, and the less he or she seems merely to serve a preordained narrative pattern, the "fuller," or more "rounded," a character is said to be. A "stock" character, commo n particularly in man y comic genres, will perform a predictable function in different works of a given genre.
Classical, Classicism, Classic: Each term can be widely applied, but in English literary discourse, "classical" primarily describes the works of either Greek or Roma n antiquity. "Classicism" denotes the practice of art forms inspired by classical antiquity, in particular the observance of rhetorical norms of decorum and balance, as opposed to following the dictates of untutored inspiration, as in Romanticism. "Classic" denotes an especially famous work within a given canon.
Climax (Greek "ladder"): a moment of great intensity and structural change, especially in drama. Also a figure of speech whereby a sequence of verbally linked clauses is made, in which each successive clause is of greater consequence than its predecessor. Bacon, Of Studies: "Studies serve for pastimes, for ornaments, and for abilities. Their chief use for pastimes is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in judgement" (see vol. l,p . 1561).
Convention: a repeatedly recurring feature (in either form or content) of works, occurring in combination with other recurring formal features, constitutes a convention of a particular genre.
Decorum (Latin "that which is fitting"): a rhetorical principle whereby each
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formal aspect of a work should be in keeping with its subject matter and/ or audience.
Denouement (French "unknotting"): the point at which a narrative can be resolved and so ended.
Dramatic irony: a feature of narrative and drama, whereby the audience knows that the outcome of an action will be the opposite of that intended by a character.
Ecphrasis (Greek "speaking out"): a topos whereby a work of visual art is represented in a literary work. Auden, "Musee des Beaux Arts" (see vol. 2,
p. 2428). Exegesis (Greek "leading out"): interpretation, traditionally of the biblical text, but, by transference, of any text. Exemplum (Latin "example"): an example inserted into a usually nonfictional writing (e.g., sermon or essay) to give extra force to an abstract thesis. Thu s Johnson's example of "Sober" in his essay "On Idleness" (see vol. 1,
p. 2678). Hermeneutics (from the Greek god Hermes, messenger between the gods and humankind): the science of interpretation, first formulated as such by the Germa n philosophical theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher in the early nineteenth century.
Imitation: the practice whereby writers strive ideally to reproduce and yet renew the conventions of an older form, often derived from classical civilization. Suc h a practice will be praised in periods of classicism (e.g., the eighteenth century) and repudiated in periods dominated by a model of inspiration (e.g., Romanticism).
Parody: a work that uses the conventions of a particular genre with the aim of comically mocking a topos, a genre, or a particular exponent of a genre. Shakespeare parodies the topos of blazon in Sonnet 130 (see vol. 1,
p. 1074). Pathetic fallacy: the attribution of sentiment to natural phenomena, as if they were in sympathy with huma n feelings. Thu s Milton, Lycidas, lines 146�
47: "With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head, / And every flower that sad embroidery wears" (see vol. 1, p. 1810). For critique of the practice, see Ruskin (who coined the term), "Of the Pathetic Fallacy" (vol. 2, p. 1322). Peripeteia (Greek "turning about"): the sudden reversal of fortune (in both directions) in a dramatic work. Persona (Latin "sound through"): originally the mask worn in the Roman theater to magnify an actor's voice; in literary discourse persona (plural personae) refers to the narrator or speaker of a text, by whose voice the author may mask him- or herself. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (see vol. 2, p. 2289).
Protagonist (Greek "first actor"): the hero or heroine of a drama or narrative.
Rhetoric: the art of verbal persuasion. Classical rhetoricians distinguished three areas of rhetoric: the forensic, to be used in law courts; the deliberative, to be used in political or philosophical deliberations; and the demonstrative, or epideictic, to be used for the purposes of public praise or blame. Rhetorical manuals covered all the skills required of a speaker, from the management of style and structure to delivery. These manuals powerfully influenced the theory of poetics as a separate branch of verbal practice, particularly in the matter of style.
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Scene: a subdivision of an act, itself a subdivision of a dramatic performance and/or text. Th e action of a scene usually occurs in one place.
Sensibility (from Latin, "capable of being perceived by the senses"): as a literary term, an eighteenth-century concept derived from moral philosophy that stressed the social importance of fellow feeling and particularly of sympathy in social relations. Th e concept generated a literature of "sensibility," such as the sentimental novel (the most famous of which was Goethe's Sorrows of the Young Werther [1774]), or sentimental poetry, such as Cowper's passage on the stricken deer in The Task (see vol. 1, p. 2893).
Soliloquy (Latin "single speaking"): a topos of drama, in which a character, alone or thinking to be alone on stage, speaks so as to give the audience access to his or her private thoughts. Thu s Viola's soliloquy in Shakespeare, Twelfth Night 2.2.17-41 (vol. 1, p. 1095).
Sublime: As a concept generating a literary movement, the sublime refers to the realm of experience beyond the measurable, and so beyond the rational, produced especially by the terrors and grandeur of natural phenomena. Derived especially from the first-century Greek treatise On the Sublime, sometimes attributed to Longinus, the notion of the sublime was in the later eighteenth century a spur to Romanticism.
Taste (from Italian "touch"): Although medieval monastic traditions used eating and tasting as a metaphor for reading, the concept of taste as a personal ideal to be cultivated by, and applied to, the appreciation and judgment of works of art in general was developed in the eighteenth century. Topos (Greek "place," plural topoi): a commonplace in the content of a given kind of literature. Originally, in classical rhetoric, the topoi were tried-andtested stimuli to literary invention: lists of standard headings under which a subject might be investigated. In medieval narrative poems, for example, it was commonplace to begin with a description of spring. Writers did, of course, render the commonplace uncommon, as in Chaucer's spring scene at the opening of The Canterbury Tales (see vol. 1, p. 218).