Aspects of Techniques

                    







            What is Literature?            












Literature can be defined as creative imagination. That includes poetry, drama, prose, fiction etc. It can represent people, culture, language, traditions, customs, rituals etc. It can express one’s experience artistically, interestingly and subjectively. Literature includes personal feelings most of the time.   Moreover it appeals to our senses. 


Aspects of Techniques

Alliteration

Recurrence of the same consonant sound in words close together. Usually for effects to emphasis the ideas- to draw attention to certain ideas.

Eg: O Wild West Wind, thou breathe of Autumn’s being.

Ambiguity

Having two meanings, could be a pun.

 Antithesis

The placing of ideas side by side for contrast; the juxtaposition of opposites. 

Eg: In friendship false, implacable in hate

     Resolved to ruin or to rule the State (Dryden, From Absalom and Achitophel)

Assonance

The repetition of vowel sound close together.

Eg: Round and round the spicy downs the yellow lotus- dust is blown (Tennyson, The Lotus Eaters)

Ballad

Ballads are variety of folk song, but they are so numerous that grouping them into a special class seems to be rational. It was William Shenstone in 1761 who suggested the term “ballad” to distinguish the narrative of “action” from songs that were expressions of sentiment. In ancient times what we now call a ballad went under many names- song, tale, ditty. Since the 18th century, the word has been used in a particularized sense. There are two types of ballads- Folk and literary ballads. Both contained a story expressed in simple language, formally intended to be sung. Form- easy rhymes, repetitions, oral transmissions.

Metaphor

An expressed or implied comparison. A metaphor is not something exclusively “poetic”. It is used in prose as well as poetry and also in common speech. Metaphor is a way of providing an image to stand for/ or symbolize an idea, a metaphor does not use the word ‘like’- therefore it is a tacit or implied comparison. In good poems, metaphors are frequently highly individual extensions of words in which the poet makes a word or expression which serves his purpose perhaps in a fashion it had never served before.  

Eg: The Sea is a hungry dog.  (James Reeves, The Sea)

Simile

This is a direct comparison. The comparison is made directly between two objects

 with the words ‘as’ or ‘like’.

Eg: He was like a giant.

Ode

Originally this was any kind of poem written to be sung to music but now refers to a lyric which has dignity of mood and language, a high level of emotions, and seriousness. Odes do not have a distinct form. The Ode in contrast is a “ceremonious poem on an occasion of public or private dignity, in which personal emotion and general meditation are limited.” The Greek word “Ode” which has been accepted into most modern languages meant a choric song, usually accompanied by a dance.  

Eg: Ode to Autumn (John Keats)

 Paradox

Something which taken literary, seems absurd and contradictory but which is true.

Eg: He was conspicuous by his absence.

Rhyme and Rhythm

Rhyme- repetition of the same or similar sounds usually at the end of line

Rhythm- the ‘sound’ or ‘beat’ of poetry.

Metre

The stress pattern of a line of poetry. Most common the stress patterns in English poetry are that of five stresses in a line, each made up of two syllables. The stress falls on 2,4,6,8,10 syllables- Iambic pentameter.

Eg: Double, double, toil and trouble

       Fire burn and cauldron bubble (Macbeth)    

Irony

Words which express an idea different/ opposite to their literal meaning.

Lyric

Usually a poem with musical qualities concerned with thoughts, emotions, moods or feelings of a poet.

Climax

A series of events reaching a crisis; words or phrases placed in ascending order of importance.

Eg: I came, I saw, I conquered. (Julius Caesar)   

Epic
An epic (Greek: word, story poem) is a lengthy narrative poem, usually concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation.

Mock- Heroic

Typically satires or parodies that mock, common classical stereotypes of heroes and heroic literature. This inverts a heroic work by putting a fool in the role of hero by exaggerating heroic qualities; as a result they become absurd.   

Rhyming couplet
A couplet is a pair of lines of verse that consists two lines that rhyme and have the same matter.

Colloquialism
Words/ phrases of ordinary speech- rhythms of ordinary speech; not formal diction.



   
         

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