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Suggested schemes for stylistic analyses
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Scheme 1
The scheme of stylistic analysis:
1) Define the functional style, the type of narration, the main compositional forms used. Characterize the typical features of the functional style.
2) Present:
Ø the gist of the contents,
Ø the main subject matter,
Ø general tonality,
Ø the setting.
3) Comment on:
4) the general layer of the vocabulary,
5) the choice of words pertaining to the given functional style.
Ø the language means (EM and SD),
6) The main stylistic functions in connection with
Ø the style,
Ø tonality,
Ø subject matter,
Ø message of the author
Scheme 2
The general scheme of linguo-stylistic analysis
I. The taxonomic stage of linguo-stylistic analysis (LSA)
1. What functional style does the text under analysis belong to?
2. What kind of text is it (a poem, a story, an article, etc.)?
3. What types of narration and compositional forms are used in the text (the author’s narrative, entrusted narrative, dialogue, etc)
II. The content-grasping stage (CFI) of LSA
1. Give a brief essence (summary) of the contents.
2. Find out the logical parts, key -words and sentences expressing:
· The main thought,
· The subject matter,
· The general tonality,
· The setting and the atmosphere,
· Aspects of the tragic and the comic in the text,
· The art of character drawing.
III. The semantic stage of LSA (CII)
1. The semantic structure of the words in the interrelation of the denotative and connotative meaning of words.
2. Polysemy, synonymy, phraseology and their stylistic function.
3. The stylistic differentiation of the vocabulary (literary, neutral and non-literary layers).
4. The signification of the various sentences and SPU.
IV. The stylistic stage of analysis
1. The usage of EM and SD on the lexical, grammatical, syntactical, phonetic levels to portray the tonality (mood), the characters, the author’ concepts.
V. The functional stage of LSA. (CCI).
1. The author’s outlook and the main idea.
2. The peculiarities of composition and individual style of the author.
3. The problems raised and their social and aesthetic relevance. (CCI).
4. Assessment of the value of the text, giving your personal opinion.
Examination Questions and Problems
1Stylistics as a branch of linguistics, its aims and tasks. Different branches of stylistics.
2. Language as a system. The notion of the "norm". Stylistic function(s).
3. Semantic structure of a word. The interrelation of different meanings as a factor of style.
4. Stylistic differentiation of the English vocabulary. Literary and non-literary layers, stylistic functions of different groups of literary, neutral and non-literary layers.
5. Stylistic phraseology; usual and occasional PU, their stylistic functions in the text.
6. Stylistic semaciology. Tropes and figures of speech. Stylistic functions of imagery.
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7. Lexical stylistic devices based on the interrelation of 2 logical meanings.
8. Lexical SD: interrelation of logical and emotive meanings.
9. Lexical SD: interrelation of logical and nominal meaning.
10. Lexical SD: interrelation of logical and phraseological meaning.
11. Syntactical SD (economy of language elements).
12. Syntactical SD (redundancy of language elements).
13. Syntactical SD (replacement of language elements).
14. Lexico-syntactical SD (analogy and recurrence of language elements). 15. Lexico-syntactical SD (contrast and recurrence of language elements). 16. Stylistic grammar. Transposition of LGC as a factor of style.
17. Stylistic functions of articles, plural number and genitive case of a noun.
18. Stylistic functions of the categories of an adjective.
19. Stylistic functions of the categories of a verb.
20. Stylistic functions of an adverb.
21. Types of narration and compositional forms.
22. The functional stylistics and the functional styles, general definition, different
classifications of FS. The FS arousing discussion and controversy.
23.The Belles Lettres Style (different registers, language markers, stylistic functions).
24. The Scientific Functional Style (different registers, language markers, stylistic functions).
25. The Publicist Functional Style (different registers, language markers, stylistic functions).
26. The Style of Official Letters (different registers, language markers, stylistic functions).
27. The Newspaper Functional Style (different registers, language markers, stylistic functions).
28. Colloquial speech; its main stylistic markers and functions. Different points of view on colloquial speech.
29. Phonetic stylistics: sound instrumentation of the text; phonetic EM and SD. English versification.
30. Graphic EM and SD.
31. The morphemic level of stylistic analysis; different means of morphemic foregrounding.
32. Text in speech communication; its categories and features.
33 Semantic structure of the text; text categories.
34. A paragraph and a supraphrasal unity.
35. Speech characterization; different language means of character drawing; "round and flat characters".
36. Aspects of the comic in the text.
37.Tragic elements in the texts of modern literature.
ASSIGNMENTS FOR STYLISTIC ANALYSIS
THE MAN OF PROPERTY IRENE'S RETURN
John Galsworthy
(The passage deals with Irene's return home after Bosinney's death.)
On reaching home, and entering the little lighted hall with his latchkey, the first thing that caught his eye was his wife's gold-mounted umbrella lying on the rug chest. Flinging off his fur coat, he hurried to the drawing-room.
The curtains were drawn for the night, a bright fire of cedar logs burned in the grate, and by its light he saw Irene sitting in her usual corner on the sofa. He shut the door softly, and went towards her. She did not move, and did not seem to see him.
“So you've come back?” he said. “Why are you sitting here in the dark?”
Then he caught sight of her face, so white and motionless that it seemed as though the blood must have stopped flowing in her veins; and her eyes, that looked enormous, like the great, wide, startled brown eyes of an owl.
Huddled in her grey fur against the sofa cushions, she had a strange resemblance to a captive owl, bunched in its soft feathers against the wires of a cage. The supple erectness of her figure was gone, as though she had been broken by cruel exercise; as though there were no longer any reason for being beautiful, and supple, and erect.
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“So you've come back,” he repeated.
She never looked up, and never spoke, the firelight playing over her motionless figure.
Suddenly she tried to rise, but he prevented her; it was then that he understood.
She had come back like an animal wounded to death, not knowing where to turn, not knowing what she was doing. The sight of her figure, huddled in the fur, was enough.
He knew then for certain that Bosinney had been her lover; knew that she had seen the report of his death — perhaps, like himself, had bought a paper at the draughty corner of a street, and read it.
She had come back then of her own accord, to the cage she had pined to be free of - and taking in all the tremendous significance of this, he longed to cry: “Take your hated body that I love out of my house! Take away that pitiful white face, so cruel and soft- before I crush it. Get out of my sight; never let me see you again!”
And, at those unspoken words, he seemed to see her rise and move away, like a woman in a terrible dream, from which she was fighting to awake - rise and go out into the dark and cold, without a thought of him, without so much as the knowledge of his presence.
Then he cried, contradicting what he had not yet spoken, “No; stay there!” And turning away from her, he sat down in his accustomed chair on the other side of the hearth.
They sat in silence.
And Soames thought: “Why is all this? Why should I suffer so? What have I done? It is not my fault!”
Again he looked at her, huddled like a bird that is shot and dying, whose poor breast you see panting as the air is taken from it, whose poor eyes look at you who have shot it, with a slow, soft, unseeing look, taking farewell of all that is good — of the sun, and the air, and its mate.
So they sat, by the firelight, in the silence, one on each side of the hearth.
And the fume of the burning cedar logs, that he loved so well, seemed to grip Soames by the throat till he could bear it no longer. And going out into the hall he flung the door wide, to gulp down the cold air that came in; then without hat or overcoat went out into the Square.
Along the garden rails a half-starved cat came rubbing her way towards him, and Soames thought: “Suffering! When will it cease, my suffering?”
At a front door across the way was a man of his acquaintance named Rutter, scraping his boots, with an air of “I am master here”. And Soames walked on.
From far in the clear air the bells of the church where he and Irene had been married were pealing in “practice” for the advent of Christ, the chimes ringing out above the sound of traffic. He felt a craving for strong drink, to lull him to indifference, or rouse him to fury. If only he could burst out of himself, out of this web that for the first time in his life he felt around him. If only he could surrender to the thought: “Divorce her - turn her out! She has forgotten you. Forget her!”
If only he could surrender to the thought: “Let her go - she has suffered enough!”
If only he could surrender to the desire: “Make a slave of her- she is in your power!”
If only even he could surrender to the sudden vision: “What does it all matter?” Forget himself for a minute, forget that it mattered what he did, forget that whatever he did he must sacrifice something.
If only he could act on an impulse!
He could forget nothing; surrender to no thought, vision, or desire; it was all too serious; too close around him, an unbreakable cage.
On the far side of the Square newspaper boys were calling their evening wares, and the ghoulish cries mingled and jangled with the sound of those church bells.
Soames covered his ears. The thought flashed across him that but for a chance, he himself, and not Bosinney, might be lying dead, and she, instead of crouching there like a shot bird with those dying eyes …
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1. Speak on the way Irene is presented in the passage:
a) In the author's description and b) in represented speech.
2. Pick out metaphors and similes and analyze them.
3. Discuss epithets in the author's speech and in represented speech.
4. Analyze represented speech used in the passage and its peculiarities.
5. Pick out cases of the combination of represented speech with direct speech and speak on the effect achieved.
6. Speak on the function of repetition.
7. Discuss the images the author repeatedly resorts to describe Irene.
THE GREAT GATSBY
F. Scott Fitzgerald
(The passage deals with the description of the major character of the novel and American society after World War I.)
He did extraordinarily well in the war. He was a captain before he went to the front, and following the Argonne bat ties he got his majority and the command of the divisional machine-guns. After the Armistice he tried frantically to get home, but some complication or misunderstanding sent him to Oxford instead. He was worried now - there was a quality of nervous despair in Daisy's letters. She didn't see why he couldn't come. She was feeling the pressure of the world outside, and she wanted to see him and feel his presence beside her and be reassured that she was doing the right thing after all.
For Daisy was young and her artificial world vas redolent of orchids and pleasant, cheerful snobbery and orchestras which set the rhythm of the year, summing up the sadness and suggestiveness of life in new tunes. All night the saxophones wailed the hopeless comment of the “Beale Street Blues” while a hundred pairs of golden and silver slippers shuffled the shining dust. At the gray tea hour there were always rooms that throbbed incessantly with this low, sweet fever, while fresh faces drifted here and there like rose petals blown by the sad horns around the floor.
Through this twilight universe Daisy began to move again with the season; suddenly she was again keeping half a dozen dates a day with half a dozen men, and drowsing asleep at dawn with the beads and chiffon of an evening dress tangled among dying orchids on the floor beside her bed. And all the time something within her was crying for a decision. She wanted her life shaped now, immediately- and the decision must be made by some force - of love, of money, of unquestionable practicality - that was close at hand.
That force took shape in the middle of spring with the arrival of Tom Buchanan. There was a wholesome bulkiness about his person and his position, and Daisy was flattered. Doubtless there was a certain struggle and a certain relief. The letter reached Gatsby while he was still at Oxford.
1. Speak on the subject-matter of the passage. What SDs are used in the first paragraph to show the mood of the characters after World War I? 2. Analyse the stylistic peculiarities (syntactical and phonetic) in the sentence “She was feeling the pressure of the world outside, and she wanted to see him and feel his presence beside her and be reassured that she was doing the right thing after all.”
3. What EMs and SDs stress the contradictory character of bourgeois society? (Pick out epithets, contextual antonyms, oxymoronic combinations, etc.)
4. Analyse the SDs of zeugma in the sentence “There was a wholesome bulkiness about his person and his position”, and say how it reveals the author's attitude to Tom Buchanan.
5. Analyse the last two paragraphs of the passage. Comment on the implication suggested by a kind of antithesis “Doubtless there was a certain struggle and a certain relief, and the unpredictability of the clinching sentence”.
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6. Summing up the analysis discuss the SDs used to describe Daisy's “artificial world”.
AN IDEAL HUSBAND
Oscar Wilde
Act I
(Mrs. Chiveley, a cunning adventuress, comes to Sir Robert Chiltern - a prominent public figure with the purpose of blackmailing him.)
Mrs. Cheveley: Sir Robert, I will be quite frank with you. I want you to withdraw the report that you had intended to lay before the House, on the ground that you have reasons to believe that the Commissioners have been prejudiced or misinformed, or something. Then I want you to say a few words to the effect that the Government is going to reconsider the question, and that you have reason to believe that the Canal, if completed, will be of great international value. You know the sort of things ministers say in cases of this kind. A few ordinary platitudes will do. In modern life nothing produces such an effect as a good platitude. It makes the whole world kin. Will you do that for me?
Sir Robert Chiltern: Mrs. Cheveley you cannot be serious in making me such a proposition!
Mrs. Cheveley: I am quite serious.
Sir Robert Chiltern (coldly): Pray allow me to believe that you are not.
Mrs. Cheveley (speaking with great deliberation and emphasis): Ah! but I am. And if you do what I ask you, I... will pay you very handsomely!
Sir Robert Chiltern: Pay me!
Mrs. Cheveley: Yes.
Sir Robert Chiltern: I am afraid I don't quite understand what you mean.
Mrs. Cheveley (leaning back on the sofa and looking at him): How very disappointing! And I have come all the way from Vienna in order that you should thoroughly understand me.
Sir Robert Chiltern: I fear I don't.
Mrs. Cheveleу (in her most nonchalant manner):My dear Sir Robert, you are a man of the world, and you have your price, I suppose. Everybody has nowadays. The drawback is that most people are so dreadfully expensive. I know I am. I hope you will be more reasonable in your terms.
Sir Robert Chiltern (rises indignantly): If you will allow me, I will call your carriage for you. You have lived so long abroad, Mrs. Cheveley that you seem to be unable to realize that you are talking to an English gentleman.
Mrs. Cheveley (detains him by touching his arm with her fan and keeping it there while she is talking): I realize that I am talking to a man who laid the foundation of his fortune by selling to a Stock Exchange speculator a Cabinet secret.
Sir Robert Chiltern (biting his lip): What do you mean?
Mrs. Cheveley (rising and facing him): I mean that I know the real origin of your wealth and your career, and I have got your letter, too.
Sir Robert Chiltern: What letter?
Mrs. Cheveley (contemptuously): The letter you wrote to Baron Amheim, when you were Lord Radley's secretary, telling the Baron to buy Suez Canal shares — a letter written three lays before the Government announced its own purchase.
Sir Robert Chiltern (hoarsely): It is not true.
Mrs. Cheveley: You thought that letter had been destroyed. How foolish of you! It is in my possession.
Sir Robert Chiltern: The affair to which you allude was no more than a speculation. The House of Commons had not yet passed the bill; it might have been rejected.
Mrs. Cheveley: It was a swindle. Sir Robert. Let us call things by their proper names. It makes everything simpler. And now I am going to sell you that letter, and the price I ask for it is your public support of the Argentine scheme. You made your own fortune out of one canal. You must help me and my friends to make our fortunes out of another!
Sir Robert Chiltern: It is infamous, what you propose — infamous!
Mrs. Cheveley: Oh, no! This is the game of life as we all have to play it. Sir Robert, sooner or later!
Sir Robert Chiltern: I cannot do what you ask me.
Mrs. Cheveley: You mean you cannot help doing it. You know you are standing on the edge of a precipice. And it is not for you to make terms. It is for you to accept them. Supposing you refuse -
Sir Robert Chiltern: What then?
Mrs. Cheveley: My dear Sir Robert, what then? You are ruined, that is all! Remember to what a point your Puritanism in England has brought you. In oil days nobody pretended to be a bit better than his neighbors. In fact, to be a bit better than one's neighbour was considered excessively vulgar and middle-class. Nowadays, with our modem mania for morality, every one has to pose as a paragon of purity, incorruptibility, and all the other seven deadly virtues - and what is the result? You all go over like ninepins - one after the other. Not a year passes in England without somebody disappearing. Scandals used to lend charm, or at least interest, to a man - now they crush hem. And yours is a very nasty scandal. You couldn't survive it. If it were known that as a young man, secretary to a great and important minister, you sold a Cabinet secret for a large sum of money, and that was the origin of your wealth and career, you would be hounded out of public life, you would disappear completely. And after all, Sir Robert, why should you sacrifice your entire future rather than deal diplomatically with your enemy? For the moment I am your enemy I admit it! And I am much stronger than you are. The big battalions are on my side. You have a splendid position, but it is your splendid position that makes you so vulnerable. You can't defend it! And I am in attack. Of course I have not talked morality to you. You must admit h fairness that I have spared you that. Years ago you did a clever, unscrupulous thing; it turned out a great success. You owe to it your fortune and position. And now you have got to pay for it. Sooner or later we have all to pay for what we do. You have to pay now: Before I leave you to-right, you have got to promise me to suppress your report, and to speak in the House in favour of this scheme.
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Sir Robert Chilter: What you ask is impossible.
Mrs. Cheveley: You must make it possible. You are going to make it possible. Sir Robert, you know what your English newspapers are like. Suppose that when I leave this house I drive down to some newspaper office, and give them this scandal and the proofs of it! Think of their loathsome joy, of the delight they would have in dragging you down, of the mud and mire they would plunge you in. Think of the hypocrite with his greasy smile penning his leading article, and arranging the foulness of the public placard.
Sir Robert Chiltern: Stop! You want me to withdraw the report and to make a short speech stating that I believe there are possibilities in the scheme?
Mrs. Cheveley (sifting down on the sofa): Those are my terms.
Sir Robert Chiltern (in a low voice): Iwill give you any sum of money you want.
Mrs. Cheveley: Even you are not rich enough, Sir Robert, to buy back your past. No man is.
1. Note the structure of the excerpt, the role and the character of the author's remarks.
2. Note the blending of colloquial and literary variants of language in the speech of the characters.
3. Pick out sentences of epigrammatic character in Mrs. Cheveley's speech and dwell on the typical features of bourgeois society revealed in them.
4. Comment on the connotation of the word “gentleman” in Sir Chiltern's indignant speech: “You seem to be unable to realize that you ere talking to an English gentleman”.
5. Note the peculiar use of the verbs: “to buy”, “to sell”, “to pay” in the speech of the characters. What insight into bourgeois society is given through manipulations with these words?
6. Discuss the EMs and SDs used by Mrs. Cheveley in her monologues. Whit insight into Mrs. Cheveley's character is given through the EMs and SDs she uses.
7. Speak on the SDs used by Mrs. Cheveley to characterize the English press.
8. Comment on the language used by Sir Robert Chiltern and Mrs. Cheveley and say how the author shows their characters through their speech.
9. Summing up the discussion of the scene speak on O. Wilde's exposure of the evils of bourgeois society.
THE KITCHEN CHIMNEY
Robert Frost
1. Builder, in building the little house,
In every way you may please yourself;
But, please, please me in the kitchen chimney:
Don't build me a chimney upon a shelf.
2. However far you must go for bricks.
Whatever they cost a-piece or a pound,
Buy me enough for a full-length chimney
And build the chimney clear from the ground.
3. It's not that I am greatly afraid of fire,
But I never heard of a house that throve
(And I know of one that didn't thrive)
Where the chimney started above the stove.
4. And I dread the ominous stain of tar
That there always is on the papered walls,
And the smell of fire drowned in rain
That there always is when the chimney's false.
5. A shelf’s for a clock or vase or picture.
But I don't see why it should have to bear
A chimney that only would serve to remind me
Of castles I used to build in air.
1. Pick out cases in which Frost gives concrete descriptions of building the kitchen chimney.
2. Comment on the poet's address to the builder that opens the first stanza and speak on the peculiar use of the words “please” in this stanza.
3. Say why it is important to “build the chimney clear from the ground”. Note the implication in the third stanza “But I never heard of a house that throve (and I know of one that didn't thrive) where the chimney started above the stove”.
4. Comment on the poet's dread of “the ominous stain of tar” (the fourth stanza) and say what may be implied in the lines: “And the smell of fire drowned in rain that there always is when the chimney's false”.
5. Speak on the meaning of the expression “to build castles in the air” and say why the poet alludes to this expression in the conclusion of his poem.
6. Comment on the conversational tone Frost builds into his verse. Speak on the EMs and SDs that show, “Frost's poems are people talking” as one of his critics maintained.
7. Discuss the form of the poem, its rhythm and rhyme.
8. Summing up the analysis speak about the message of the poem and the main SDs employed by the poet.
SONNET 116
William Shakespeare
1. Let me not to the marriage of true minds
2. Admit impediments. Love is not love
3. Which alters when it alteration finds,
4. Or bends with the remover to remove:
5. O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark
6. That looks on tempests, and is never shaken.
7. It is the star to every wandering bark
8. Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken;
9. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
10. Within his bending sickle's compass come:
11. Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
12. But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
13. If this be error and upon me proved,
14. I never writ, nor man ever loved.
1. Be ready to paraphrase and interpret any part of the sonnet.
2. Speak on the idea of the sonnet.
3. Discuss the structure of the sonnet.
4. Find the modifiers of rhythm that are used in the sonnet and comment on them.
5. Speak on the rhymes of the sonnet: a) cases of imperfect rhyme; b) the rhyme of the epigrammatic lines.
6. Discuss the idea of the epigrammatic lines.
7. Find cases of metaphors and metaphoric periphrases employed in the sonnet and comment on them.
8. Discuss the SD used by the poet in the description of Time.
9. Find cases of alliteration (and other cases of sound repetition) that help to bring out the idea of the sonnet (lines 3, 4).
10. State the stylistic function of the interjections: “O, no!” (line 5).
11. Summing up the analysis of the sonnet speak on the poet's conception of love and the various SDs used to bring the poet's idea home. Express your own attitude to the subject.
THE DAFFODILS
William Wordsworth
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils.
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company!
I gazed - and gazed - but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
1. Analyze the rhythmical arrangement and rhymes of the poem.
2. Comment on the contextual meanings of the metaphor “dance” (and “dancing”) in the poem and its stylistic function.
3. Speak on the epithets and metaphors used to describe flowers in the poem.
4. Speak on the SDs employed to characterize the state of mind of the poet.
5. Summing up the analysis say what SDs are used to describe nature and what is the poet's attitude to it.
SONNET 73
William Shakespeare
1. That time of year thou mayst in me behold
2. When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
3. Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
4. Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
5. In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
6. As after sunset fadeth in the west,
7. Which by and by black night doth take away,
8. Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
9. In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
10. That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
11. As the death-bed whereon it must expire
12. Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.
13. This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
14. To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
1. Read the sonnet and be ready to translate and paraphrase any part of it.
2. Speak on the structure of the sonnet.
3. Speak on the idea of the sonnet and on the images the poet resorts to in describing his decline.
4. Comment on the implication in the phrase “consumed with that which it was nourish'd by”. Note the contrast between the words “to consume” and “to nourish”, which are contextual antonyms here.
5. Discuss the thought expressed in the epigrammatic lines of the sonnet.
6. Comment on the following assertion made by a critic that “Shakespeare thought in terms of metaphors”.
7. Discuss the use of metaphors in the sonnet. Use the following questions as a guide: a) What kinds of metaphors are used in the sonnet? b) From where does the poet draw his metaphors? c) What idea is revealed through the metaphors employed in the sonnet?
8. Pick out the cases where periphrasis is used, and comment on them.
9. State what SDs are used in the poet's description of night (lines 7, 8) and comment on them.
10. Pick out the archaic words and forms which occur in the sonnet and explain their usage.
11. State what syntactical SD is used in the first line of the sonnet, find similar cases (lines 5, 9, 13) and comment on them.
12. Pick out cases of parallelism and discuss the function of this SD in the sonnet.
13. Note deviations from the conventional rhythmical pattern (in line 8) and comment on them.
14. Discuss the possible use of a modifier of rhythm (spondee) in line 14: “To love that well which thou must leave ere long”.
15. Summing up the analysis of the sonnet speak on its message and the main SDs used by the poet to achieve the desired effect.
Glossary of literary and stylistic terms
Aesthetic function – Greek aistheticos, perceptive; aisthanesthai, to feel, or to perceive. Connected with the appreciation or criticism of the beautiful. Aesthetics is the philosophy of fine arts. (CLT)
Alliteration (L. ad “to +lit(t)era “letter”) – a phonetic stylistic device; a repetition of the same consonant at the beginning of neighboring words or accented syllables. (ELT)
Allusion (L. alludere “to allude”) - a hint at something, presumably known to the reader, frequently from literature, history, bible or mythology. (ELT)
Anadiplosis (Gr. “doubling”) – a repetition of the last word or any prominent word in a sentence or clause at the beginning of the next, with an adjunct idea. See framing, repetition. (ELT)
Analogy - Greek analogia, proportion. The process of reasoning from parallel cases (in its logical sense). In the literary way, it is the description of something known in order to suggest in certain respects something unknown. An analogue is a word or thing bearing analogy to, or resembling, another. (CLT)
Anaphora (Gr. Anaphora “‘carrying back”) - a phonetic stylistic device; the repetition of words or phrases at the beginning of successive clauses, sentences or lines. (ELT)
Anticlimax (Gr. Anti “against” + climax “ladder”) – slackening of tension in a sentence or longer piece of writing wherein the ideas fall off in dignity, or become less important at the close. (ELT)
Antithesis (Gr.) – an opposition or contrast of ideas expressed by parallelism of strongly contrasted words placed at the beginning and at the end of a single sentence or clause, or in the corresponding position in two or more sentences or clauses. A. is often based on the use of antonyms and is aimed at emphasizing contrasting features. (ELT)
Antonomasia (Gr. “naming instead”) – 1. A figure of speech close to metonymy, which substitutes an epithet, or descriptive phrase, or official title for a proper name. 2. The use of a proper name to express a general idea. (ELT)
Aposiopesis (Gr. Aposoipan “to be quite silent”). The sudden breaking off in speech, without completing a thought, as if the speaker was unable or unwilling to state what was in the mind. (ELT)
Archaism (Gr. Arcaios “ancient”) – Ancient or obsolete word, or style, or idiom gone out of current use. (ELT)
Archetype - Greek archetupon, pattern, model. The original pattern, from which copies are made; a prototype. In his Contributions to Analytical Psychology, Jung, the psychologist makes a distinction between collective consciousness (the acceptable dogmas and ‘isms’ of religion, race and class), and those predetermined patterns and archetypes in the collective unconscious. These archetypes are inherited in the human mind from the typical experiences of our ancestors – birth, death, love, family life, struggle.
These experiences, to give unity to a diversity of effects, are expressed in myths, dreams, literature. Writers use archetypal themes, and archetypal images. (CLT)
Assonance (L. assonare “to respond”). A phonetic stylistic device; agreement of vowel sounds (sometimes combined with likeness in consonants). (ELT)
Asyndeton (Gr. A ‘not’ + syndetos “bound together”). The deliberate avoidance of conjunctions. (ELT)
Chronotop – the interrelation of time and space in the text of the emotive prose. (RT)
Climax (gradation) – (Gr. klimax “ladder”) – a figure in which a number of propositions or ideas are set forth in a series in which each rises above the preceding in force. (ELT)
Climax – The highest point of an action in a story; culmination preceding the denouement. (ELT)
Cohesion – tendency to unite from Latin cohaesus, stuck together (CE)
Colloquialisms – words that occupy an intermediate position between literary and non-literary stylistic layers and are used in conversational type of everyday speech. (awfully sorry, a pretty little thing, etc.). Latin colloquium, from colloqui, to speak together. Pertaining to words peculiar to the vocabulary of everyday talk. (CLT, ELT)
Composition – The arrangement and the disposition of all the forms of the subject matter presentation make up the composition of the literary text. (ELT)
Concept – an idea, esp. an abstract idea, a theoretical construct within some theory from Latin conceptum, something received or conceived. (CE)
Connotation - Latin connotare, to mark together. Connotation is the implication of something more than the accepted or primary meaning; it refers to the qualities, attributes, and characteristics implied or suggested by the word. From its plain meaning and its sound the word may have associations, images, echoes, impressions. Poetry in particular makes full use of connotations, and creates wider ripples of meaning in the mind of the responsive reader. (CLT)
Context - Latin contextus, from contexere, to weave together. Those parts of a work of literature which precede and follow a given word, phrase or passage. Such words or phrases,to be properly understood or judged, should be read in their context. (CLT)
Contrast - Late Latin contrastare, to stand against. The juxtaposition of images or thoughts to show striking differences. (CLT)
Denotation - Latin denotare, to set a mark on, to point out, specify, designate. The meaning of a term excluding the feelings of the writer; the literal and factual meaning of a word. In logic, the aggregate of objects that may be included under a word, compared with connotation. (CLT)
Denouement (catastrophe) – The unwinding of the action; the events in a story or play immediately following the climax and bringing the action to an end. (ELT)
Description – The presentation of the atmosphere, the scenery and the like of the literary work. Latin describere to write down, copy. In a literary work, description presents the chief qualities of time and place, and creates the setting of the story. (CLT)
Detail (poetic) – The part selected to represent the whole, both typifying and individualizing the image. A detail may be directly observed and directly expressed feature or an image or represented in an association with some other phenomenon. (ELT)
Dialect – Words and expressions used by peasants and others in certain regions of the country: baccy (tobacco), unbeknown (unknown), winder (window), etc. Greek dialectos, from dialegesthai, to discourse. The language of a particular district or class. (ELT,CLT)
Dialogue – The speech of two or more characters addressed to each other. Greek dialogos, a conversation; dialegesthai, to discourse. A conversation between several people. A literary work in the form of a conversation; when joined to action the dialogue becomes a drama. The recent use of the word dialogue denotes an exchange of views and ideas between people or parties of different oinions, e.g. Roman Catholics and Protestants. (CLT)
Drama - Greek drama, a deed, action on the stage, from dran, to do, act. Latin dramatis personae, characters of the play. Stage-play. The composition and presentation of plays. (CLT)
Dramatic (interior) monologue – The speech of the narrator as his own protagonist or the character speaking to himself when he is alone but addressing the audience in his imagination. (ELT, ССРЯ)
Ellipsis - Greek elleipsis; elleipen, to fall short, deficiency. The omission in a sentence of one or more words, which would be needed to express the sense completely. (CLT)
Emotive connotation – An overtone or an additional component of meaning expressing the speaker’s attitude, his feelings and emotions. (AR)
Epiphora – repetition of the final word or word-group. E.g. “I wake up and I am alone, and I walk round Warlley and I am alone, and I talk with people and I am alone” (J.Braine). (AR)
Epithet – Greek epitheton, attributed, added; epi, on, tithenai, to place. An adjective expressing a quality or attribute considered characteristic of a person or thing. An appellation or a descriptive term. (CLT)
Exposition (setting) – Latin exposition-(em), a showing forth. Giving the necessary information about the characters and the situation at the beginning of a play or novel. (CLT)
Fairy tales – Stories of mythical beings, such as fairies, gnomes, pixies, elves, or goblins. Such tales are found in the folklore of many countries and were handed down by word of mouth. (CLT)
Figure of speech – Any of the devices of figurative language, ranging from expression of the imagination to deviation from ordinary usage for the sake of ornament. Quite a number of figures of speech are based on the principle of recurrence. Recurrent may be elements of different linguistic layers: lexical, syntactic, morphological, phonetic. Some figures of speech emerge as a result of simultaneous interaction of several principles of poetic expression, i.e. the principle of contrast and recurrence; recurrence+ analogy; recurrence+ incomplete representation. (CLT, AR)
Falling action – the part of a play or a novel, which follows the climax. (CLT)
Folklore – Old English folc, Middle English folk, people.The beliefs, tales, legends, songs, sayings of a people handed down by a word of mouth. It includes the traditional customs, ceremonies and ways of life; and the study of them. The term was first introduced by W.J.Thoms in the Athenaeum in 1846. (CLT)
Folk tale - Old English folk, Middle English folk, people. A popular story handed down by oral tradition or written form from much earlier days. This term covers a wide range material from myths to fairy-tales. (CLT)
Framing (ring repetition) – A kind of repetition in which the opening word is repeated at the end of a sense-group or a sentence (in prose), or at the end of a line or stanza (in verse). Framing is of special significance in poetry, where it often adds to the general musical effect: “Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean – roll!” (Byron). (CLT)
Functional style – A system of expressive means and vocabulary, answering the needs of a certain sphere of human activity. (ELT, CCРЯ)
Genre – French, from Latin gener -, stem of genus, birth. Kind, style. A literary type, such as epic, lyric, tragedy, comedy. From the fifteenth century to the eighteenth, the various genres showed marked differences, which were acceptedby the writers of the time. (CLT)
Hyperbole - Greek huperbole, overshooting; from huperballain, to throw beyond, to exceed; huper, over, ballein, to throw. Exaggeration, for the purpose of emphasis. (CLT)
Idea (message) – the underlying thought and emotional attitude transmitted to the reader by the whole poetic structure of the literary text. (AR) Latin mittere, missum “ to send”. The main idea of a piece of art. A literary work carries the message not in a straightforward way but through the characters, events and the author’s conceptions. (AR, CLT)
Image – a mental picture or association of ideas evoked in a literary work, esp. in poetry. (CE)
Imagery (tropes) -Figurative language intended to evoke a picture or idea in the mind of the reader; figures of speech collectively. (ELT) Latin imago, image; imitari, to imitate. (CLT)
Imitation style – A style based on a sparing use of obsolete and archaic words and constructions and the avoidance of anything obviously modern to convey the flavour of the epoch. (AR)
Implication – a certain undercurrent of meaning revealing the author’s attitude, the author’s message realized in word connotations. (AR)
Incomplete representation - an aesthetic principle of re-creating an object or phenomenon of reality by selecting out of infinity of features pertaining to the object only those which are most characteristic. (AR)
Intertextuality - is the interrelation of the texts of the present and preceding cultures (citations, reminiscences, fragments and formulas of realia, idioms, etc.) (GLT); the interrelation of the author, the text and the reader’s thesaurus or the vocabulary of texts familiar to the reader. (Толочин, 1996, КМД)
Introduction – Latin introducere, from ducere, to lead. An essay, sometimes a poem, which prepares the way for a literary work, “stating what it is to contain, and how it should be executed in the most perfect manner” (Johnson, CLT)
Invariant – an entity or quality that is unaltered by a particular transformation of coordinates. (CE)
Jargon – Old French jargon, warbling of birds, chatter, talk. Unintelligible words; barbarisms or debased language. A way of speech full of unfamiliar terms; the vocabulary of science, profession, or art. (CLT) Jagonisms (cantisms). Words used within certain social and professional groups. (AR)
Lacuna. Latin, lacuna, a ditch, a pool. In a metaphorical sense, a gap, a deficiency. A hiatus, a blank or defect in a manuscript or book. (CLT)
Leit-motif, -iv (G. leit- “ leading” + motiv “motive”) – лейтмотив. The word was coined as a musical term, but is often used with a non-musical significance. It is applied to the theme associated throughout a literary composition with a certain person, situation or sentiment. (ELT)
Literary (poetic) time – time conditioned by the laws of the narrative and the work’s content. (ELT)
Litotes - Greek litos, plain, meager. An ironically moderate form of speech. Sometimes a rhetorical understatement, in which a negative is substituted for the positive remark. ‘A citizen of no mean city’ for ‘a great city’. (CLT)
Local colour - Writing in which the scene set in a particular locality plays an unusually important part. The use of local colour in the English novel developed in the nineteenth century. The Brontes set their novels in Yorkshire; George Eliot placed hers in Warwickshire. (CLT)
Lyric (poetry) – Greek luricos, singing to the lyre; a lyric poet.Originally a song intended to be sung and accompanied on the lyre. The meaning has been enlarged to include any short poem directly expressing the poet’s own thoughts and emotions. The ballad, ode, elegy, and sonnet are special forms of the lyric. (CLT)
Metaphor (metaphoric) – Greek metaphora, transference; meta, over, pherein, to carry. The application of a name or a descriptive term to an object to which it is not literally applicable. An implied comparison. It is based on the idea of the similarity in dissimilars. (CLT)
Metonymy - Greek metonumia, expressing change, name-change. The substitution of the name of an attribute of a thing for the name of the thing itself, as crown for king, city for inhabitants, Shakespeare for Shakespeare’s plays. (CLT)
Narration (narrative) – (L. narrare “ to tell”) – A form in which a story is told by relating events in a sequence of time. (ELT)
Onomatopoeia – (Gr. onomatopoiia “word-making”) A phonetic stylistic device; the use of words in which the sound is suggestive of the object or action designated: buzz, cuckoo, bang, hiss. E.g. “And now there came chock-chock of wooden hammers.” (ELT)
Oxymoron – (Gr. oxys “sharp” + moros “ foolish”. A figure of speech consisting in the use of an epithet or attributive phrase in contradiction to the noun it defines. Ex.: Speaking silence, dumb confession… (Burns)
Parable – Greek parabole, comparison, putting beside; from paraballein, to throw beside. A short, simple story setting forth a moral lesson. The Prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan, parables of Christ, are, perhaps, the most famous examples. (CLT)
Paradox – Greek paradoxos, contrary to received opinion or expectation. A statement which, though it seems to be self-contradictory, contains a basis of truth. A statement conflicting with received opinion or belief. A paradox often provokes the reader to consider the particular point afresh, as when Shakespeare says, “Cowards die many times before their deaths”. (CLT)
Paragraph – (Gr. para “beside” + grapheio “I write”) A distinct part of writing, consisting of one or several sentences; a portion or section which relates to a particular point and is generally distinguished by a break in the lines. (CLT)
Parallelism - (Gr. parallelos “going beside”). A syntactic stylistic device; specific similarity of construction of adjacent word groups equivalent, complimentary, or antithetic in sense, esp. for rhetorical effect or rhythm. (ELT)
Periphrasis – (Gr. peri “all round” + phrazein “to speak” A figure of speech; the use of a longer phrasing with descriptive epithets, abstract general terms, etc., in place of a possible shorter and plainer form of expression, aimed at representing the author’s idea in a roundabout way. (ELT)
Personification – (L. persona “person”). A figure of speech whereby an inanimate object or idea is given human characteristics. (ELT)
Plot (plot structure) – French complot, conspiracy. In Aspects of the Novel, E. M. Forster says: A story is a narrative of events arranged in time sequence… A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. (CLT)
Poeticisms – words used exclusively in poetry and the like. Many of these words are archaic or obsolete, such as whilsome (sometimes), aught (anything), ne (no, not), haply (may be), etc. (AR)
Poetic structure – the cohesion of the two layers, i.e. of the strictly verbal and the supraverbal constitutes what is known as the poetic structure of the literary text. (AR)
Polysyndeton – (Gr. poly “many” + syndetos “ connected”). Repetition of conjunction in close succession, as of one connecting homogeneous parts, or clauses, or sentences; opposed to asyndeton. E.g. “And in the sky the stars are met, and on the wave a deeper blue, and on the leaf a browner hue, and in the heaven that clear obscure…” (Byron) (ELT)
Precis – (Fr. “precise”). A compressed and condensed statement of the substance of long series of communications or of a narrative. (ELT)
Professionalisms – Characteristic words and phrases used within the sphere of a particular profession. In fiction P. are used in to mark the speech of a character with certain peculiarities. They are used mostly figuratively, hence they should not be confused with technical words. E.g. “Will she stay the course?” about Fleur in The White Monkey, using the expression referring to horse - racing. (ELT, ССРЯ)
Pun (paronomasia, a play on words) – (It. Puntiglio “ fine point”). The humorous or ludicrous use of a word in more than one sense; a play on words. E.g. “ When I am dead, I hope it may be said: “His sins were scarlet, but his books were read”. Here the pun is based on two homophones, read and red. (ELT)
Realia – real-life facts and material used in teaching. [C20 from neuter plural of Late Latin realis; see real ]. (CE)
Recurrence - repetition, events, things happening frequently, regularly. (OALDCE)
Repetition (reiteration) – Latin repetere, to try again, from petere, to seek. One of the basic devices of art. It is used in musical composition, painting, poetry, and prose. Repetition sets up a tide of expectation, helps to give unity to a work of art. In poetry, devices based on repetition are the refrain, the repetend, alliteration, assonance, rhythm, and the metrical pattern. (CLT)
Reported (represented) speech - the form of utterance, which conveys the actual words or thoughts of the character through the mouth of the writer but retains the peculiarities of the speaker’s mode of expression. (Galperin, 1977)
Rhythm – Greek rhythmos, Latin rhythmus, measured motion, rhythm, cognate with rhein, to flow. Rhyme is identity of sound between two words extending from the last fully accented vowel to the end of the word, as in fair, chair, or smite, write, or ending, bending. (CLT)
Rising action with complications (story) – the part of the plot, which represents the beginning of the collision (conflict) and the collision itself. (AR) The development of the story, and the obstacles and dangers that the participants encounter. (ATA)
Simile – (L. similes “like”). A figure of speech, which draws a comparison between two different things in one or more aspects; an imaginative comparison. (ELT)
Slang (slangy word) – Words and phrases in common colloquial use, in some or all of their senses being outside of the literary language, but continually forcing their way into it. It is opposed to standard English. S. is often humorous, witty and adds to the picturesqueness of the language. (ELT)
Soliloquy – (L. solus “alone” + loqui “to speak”) Thinking aloud on the stage; speech recited by a character in a play regardless of the presence of other characters. (ELT)
Sonnet – (It. Sonetto) A poem of 14 verses confined to a single theme and closely connected metrically by an interlocking scheme. The lines of a S. are grouped either into an octave and a sestet, or into three quatrains and a couplet. (ELT)
Stream-of-consciousness technique – is a technique for revealing thoughts and feelings flowing, in perpetual soliloquy, through the mind of the character. (ELT)
Style – Latin stilos, a pointed instrument for writing on waxed tablets; also, way of writing. The effective use of language, especially in prose, whether to make statements or to rouse emotions. (F.L. Lucas, CLT, ССРЯ)
Stylistic reference is the usage of words preferably used in a certain functional style and conditioned by the respective sphere of activity. (AR, ССРЯ)
Supraverbal (poetic) layer of the literary text comprises plot, theme, composition, genre, style, images, which, nevertheless, entirely revealed in verbal sequences. (AR)
Surface (plot) layer - is the theme of a literary work, which allows of a schematic formulation, such as: “this is a story of race discrimination in the USA” and the like. (AR)
Suspense (retardation) – (L. suspended). A device to produce a state of uncertainty, usually with anxiety or expectation. The deliberate sustaining of anticipation by means of postponement; the retarding of the satisfaction of knowing how it all comes out. (ELT)
Synecdoche – (Gr. synecdoche). A figure of speech, alike to metonymy, by which a part is put for the whole, or the whole for a part, or an individual for a class, or an indefinite number for a definite one, or singular for plural. (ELT)
Synonym – (Gr. synonymos “ synonymous”). One or two words or more words or phrases having the same or nearly the same essential meaning, but suitable to different contexts. (ELT)
Synopsis - Greek sunopsis, sun, with, together, opsis, a view. A collective or general view of any subject; a summary. (CLT)
Tale – Anglo-Saxon talu, speech, number. A fictitious narrative, told in prose or verse. It is often simple in theme, skillful in presentation. The term, usually synonymous with short story, can refer to a novel for example: A Tale of Two Cities by Dickens. (CLT)
Theme - Greek thema, proposition, from tithenai, to put. The subject, on which one speaks; the term is more often used to indicate its central idea. (CLT)
Trope - Greek tropos, turn, way; trepo, turn. The figurative, elaborate use of word. The tem is applied to metaphor, simile, personification and hyperbole. Tropes could be employed in forms of irony. (CLT)
Understatement (meiosis) - Greek meiosis, lessening. The use of understatement to give the impression that a thing is less in size and importance than it really is. Often applied in the negative form illustrated under litotes. It is commonly used in colloquial English. “That was some opera”. (CLT)
Vulgarism - Latin vulgaris, from vulgus, the common people. A vulgar, unrefined way of speech closely connected with slang and colloquialism. (CLT)
Zeugma - Greek zeugma, band, bond, from zeugnumi, I yoke. A figure of speech by which a verb or an adjective is applied to two nouns, though strictly appropriate to only one of them. (CLT) Use of a word in the same grammatical relation to two adjacent words in the context: one metaphorical and the other literal in sense. E.g. “And the boys took their places and their books” (Dickens). (ELT)
Bibliography
AR – Sosnovskaya V.B. Analytical Reading, Moscow “Higher School” Publishing House, 1974.
ССРЯ - Кожина М.Н. Стилистический словарь русского языка [Электронный ресурс].
CE – Collins Cobuild Essential Dictionary, London, 1996.
CLT – Scott A. F. Current Literary Terms. A Concise Dictionary of their Origin and Use, London, 1965.
ELT – Мосткова С.Я., Смыкалова Л.А., Чернявская С.П. English Literary Terms, – Изд-во «Просвещение», 1967.
Galperin I.R. Stylistics. Moscow “Higher School”, 1977.
OALDCE – Hornby A.S. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English. Russian Language Publishers, Moscow, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1982
RT – Барковская Н.В. Терминологический минимум и рекомендации для самостоятельной работы по курсу «Введение в литературоведение», Екатеринбург, 1999
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