LIST OF LITERARY TERMS

SOLILOQUY: Soliloquy means “”talking to one’s own self or “”loud thinking””. A character expresses his secret thoughts and feelings so loudly that the audience can hear him, but other characters on the stage are supposed not to hear him.

CHORUS: The term Chorus is taken from Greek drama. In English drama it is applied to a character who speaks the prologue and epilogue communicates to the audience the exposition, setting and off stage events in the play.

Fin de Siecle: It is a French term which means “”end of a century.”” In English literature, it applies to the end of the 19^th century, when the Victorian Age was in its decline, and with its decline, literature also declined considerably. It was a decade of decadent literature.

COMIC RELIEF:  Comic Relief was dramatic devise used in the Elizabethan tragedy. It was the use of humorous characters, speeches or scenes inserted in a tragic work. Its function was to provide some emotional relief to the audience from the sustained tragic tension in the tragedy.

LOCAL COLOUR: Local colour means a detailed representation in fiction of the setting, dialect, customs, dress and ways of thinking and feeling which are characteristics of a particular region, such as Hardy’s WESSEX or D.H. Lawrence’s MINING COUNTRYSIDE OF A ENGLAND.

APHORISM: Aphorism is a short, pithy and memorable statement full of deep meaning. The neo-classical poets such as Dryden, Pope, Dr. Johnson are largely remembered for their Aphorisms, ‘’the proper study of mankind kind is man “”is a memorable aphorism in Pope’s Essay on Man.

ECLOGUE: An Eclogue is apart or a section of a long poem. There may be several Eclogues in a long poem. Spenser’s SHEPHERD’S CALENDAR, for Example, has twelve Eclogues, one for each month of the year.

OPERA: Opera is a musical drama in which dialogues are spoken in musical verse accompanied with orchestra. Shakespeare’s THE TEMPEST is an opera, though the dialogues in it are not accompanied with orchestra.

PARABLE: A parable is an allegorical story, containing a moral lesson. A parable is different from a fable in the point that the characters in it are human beings, not animals as in the fable. Among the best known parables are those in the New Testament, for example, the parable of the prodigal son.

LAKE POETS: Words worth, Coleridge and Southey are called Lake Poets. They are so called because at one time or another each of them lived in the beautiful lake districts in the north- western part of England. These Districts made them lovers and worshippers of Nature.