Terms : Hide Images
| 2812795700 | Genre | the French term for a type, species, or class of composition. A literary genre is a recognizable and established category of written work employing such common * CONVENTIONS as will prevent readers or audiences from mistaking it for another kind. Much of the confusion surrounding the term arises from the fact that it is used simultaneously for the most basic modes of literary art (* LYRIC, * NARRATIVE, dramatic); for the broadest categories of composition (poetry, prose fiction), and for more specialized sub-categories, which are defined according to several different criteria including formal structure (*SONNET, *PICARESQUE NOVEL), length (*NOVELLA, *EPIGRAM), intention (*SATIRE), effect (*COMEDY), origin (*FOLKTALE), and subject-matter (*PASTORAL, *SCIENCE FICTION). While some genres, such as the pastoral * ELEGY or the *MELODRAMA, have numerous conventions governing subject, style, and form, others—like the *NOVEL—have no agreed rules, although they may include several more limited *SUBGENRES. Adjective: generic. See also decorum, form, mode, type. | 0 | |
| 2812803062 | Theme | a salient abstract idea that emerges from a literary work's treatment of its subject-matter; or a topic recurring in a number of literary works. While the subject of a work is described concretely in terms of its action (e.g. 'the adventures of a newcomer in the big city'), its theme or themes will be described in more abstract terms (e.g. love, war, revenge, betrayal, fate, etc.). The theme of a work may be announced explicitly, but more often it emerges indirectly through the recurrence of *MOTIFS. Adjective: thematic | 1 | |
| 2812819186 | Novel | nearly always an extended fictional prose * NARRATIVE, although some novels are very short, some are non-fictional, some have been written in verse, and some do not even tell a story. Such exceptions help to indicate that the novel as a literary *GENRE is itself exceptional: it disregards the constraints that govern other literary forms, and acknowledges no obligatory structure, style, or subject-matter. Thriving on this openness and flexibility, the novel has become the most important literary genre of the modern age, superseding the *EPIC, the * ROMANCE, and other narrative forms. Novels can be distinguished from *SHORT STORIES and *NOVELLAS by their greater length, which permits fuller, subtler development of characters and themes. (Confusingly, it is a shorter form of tale, the Italian novella, that gives the novel its name in English.) There is no established minimum length for a novel, but it is normally at least long enough to justify its publication in an independent volume, unlike the short story. The novel differs from the prose romance in that a greater degree of *REALISM is expected of it, and that it tends to describe a recognizable secular social world, often in a sceptical and prosaic manner inappropriate to the marvels of romance. The novel has frequently incorporated the structures and languages of non-fictional prose forms (history, autobiography, journalism, travel writing), even to the point where the non-fictional element outweighs the fictional. It is normally expected of a novel that it should have at least one character, and preferably several characters shown in processes of change and social relationship; a *PLOT, or some arrangement of narrated events, is another normal requirement. Special *SUBGENRES of the novel have grown up around particular kinds of character (the *K"UNSTLERROMAN, the spynovel), setting(the *HISTORICAL NOVEL, the *CAMPUS NOVEL), and plot (the detective novel); while other kinds of novel are distinguished either by their structure (the *EPISTOLARY NOVEL, the *PICARESQUE NOVEL) or by special emphases on character (the *BILDUNGSROMAN) or ideas (the * ROMAN A THESE). Although some ancient prose narratives like Petronius' Satyricon (1st century CE) can be called novels, and although some significant forerunners of the novel—including Francois Rabelais's Gargantua (1534)—appeared in the 16th century, it is the publication in Spain of the first part of Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quixote de la Mancha in 1605 that is most widely accepted as announcing the arrival of the true novel. In France the inaugural landmark was Madame de Lafayette's La Princesse de Cleves (1678), while in England Daniel Defoe is regarded as the founder of the English novel with his Robinson Crusoe (1719) and Moll Flanders (1722). The novel achieved its predominance in the 19th century, when Charles Dickens and other writers found a huge audience through serial publication, and when the conventions of realism were consolidated. In the 20th century a division became more pronounced between the popular forms of novel and the various experiments Of * MODERNISM and *POSTMODERNISM—from the *STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS to the *ANTI-NOVEL; but repeated reports of the 'death of the novel' have been greatly exaggerated. Adjective: novelistic. See also fiction. | 2 | |
| 2812834130 | Bildungsroman | a kind of novel that follows the development of the hero or heroine from childhood or adolescence into adulthood, through a troubled quest for identity. The term ('formation-novel') comes from Germany, where Goethe's Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (1795-6) set the pattern for later Bildungsromane. Many outstanding novels of the 19th and early 20th centuries follow this pattern of personal growth: Dickens's David Copperfield (1849-50), for example. When the novel describes the formation of a young artist, as in Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), it may also be called a *.KUNSTLERROMAN. For a fuller account, consult Franco Moretti, The Way of the World (1987). | 3 | |
| 2812841208 | Romance | a fictional story in verse or prose that relates improbable adventures of idealized characters in some remote or enchanted setting; or, more generally, a tendency in fiction opposite to that of *REALISM. The term now embraces many forms of fiction from the *GOTHIC NOVEL and the popular escapist love story to the 'scientific romances' of H. G. Wells, but it usually refers to the tales of King Arthur's knights written in the late Middle Ages by Chretien de Troyes (in verse), Sir Thomas Malory (in prose), and many others (see chivalric romance). Medieval romance is distinguished from *EPIC by its concentration on *COURTLY LOVE rather than warlike heroism. Long, elaborate romances were written during the *RENAISSANCE, including Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso (1532), Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene (1590-6), and Sir Philip Sidney's prose romance Arcadia (1590), but Cervantes's *PARODY of romances in Don Quixote (1605) helped to undermine this tradition. Later prose romances differ from novels in their preference for *ALLEGORY and psychological exploration rather than realistic social observation, especially in American works like Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Blithedale Romance (1852). Several modern literary *GENRES, from *SCIENCE FICTION to the detective story, can be regarded as variants of the romance (see also fantasy, marvellous). In modern criticism of Shakespeare, the term is also applied to four of his last plays—Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, and The Tempest—which are distinguished by their daring use of magical illusion and improbable reunions. The Romance languages are those languages originating in southern Europe that are derived from Latin: the most important of these are Spanish, French, Italian, and Portuguese. In Spanish literature, the term has a special sense, the romance [ro-mahn-thay] being a *BALLAD composed in *OCTOSYLLABIC lines. For a fuller account, consult Gillian Beer, The Romance (1970). | 4 | |
| 2812848725 | Romantic Comedy | a general term for *COMEDIES that deal mainly with the follies and misunderstandings of young lovers, in a lighthearted and happily concluded manner which usually avoids serious *SATIRE. The best-known examples are Shakespeare's comedies of the late 1590s, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Twelfth Night, and As You Like It being the most purely romantic, while Much Ado About Nothing approaches the *COMEDY OF MANNERS and The Merchant of Venice is closer to *TRAGICOMEDY. See also New Comedy | 5 |
