Reading Modern Tragedy: Hedda Gabler , A Streetcar Named Desire and Death of a Salesman

 Reading Modern Tragedy:   Hedda Gabler , A Streetcar Named Desire and Death of a Salesman 

As the analyses of ancient Greek and Shakespearean tragedy have demonstrated, there is no indestructible fortress of universal harmony, or self confidence, or moral order, or spiritual exaltation, or religiosity separating the classic tragedies of the past from the twentieth century.  On the contrary,  at the heart of tragedy is the alienation wrought of rationality--doubt about the gods, uncertainty about the social order and, most apparently, misgivings and confusion about the individual and his place in the scheme of things . . . exactly the terms and conditions most frequently used to describe the twentieth century and used to exclude the twentieth century from the tradition of tragedy. 

The three plays I wish to consider as examples of modern tragedy-- Hedda Gabler , A Streetcar Named Desire and Death of a Salesman --are, like the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Shakespeare, portrayals of individuals struggling to achieve or maintain some sense of personal identity.  The destinies of these heroes--madness--signal the penetration and exhaustion of the myths to which they attach themselves.  What is perhaps most historically significant about these plays is the resistance which critics have shown to the idea that they are tragedies. 

The modernist opponents of “modern tragedy” have been well acknowledged.  Joseph Wood Krutch, in his essay, "The Tragic Fallacy," is adamant that tragedy is alien to the modern age.  Krutch argues that tragedy is an exalted form, designed to portray nobility and grandeur--ideals which have been forsaken by the modern age. 

No increased powers of expression, no greater gift for words, could have transformed  Ibsen into Shakespeare.  The Materials out of which the latter created his world--his conception of human dignity, his sense of the importance of  human passions, his vision of the amplitude of human life--simply could not  exist for Ibsen, as they did not and could not exist for his contemporaries. 1 

Though tragedies continue to be presented, written about and discussed, Krutch argues that the modern age is so stricken by  "meanness of spirit" that our understanding of tragedy and  use of the term  are  inappropriate, hollow and jejune. 

In The Death of Tragedy, George Steiner presents the thesis that tragedy ended with Racine.  For Steiner the essence of tragedy is the transcendence man achieves through his suffering.  In order for man's suffering to be meaningful, it requires the presence of some hallowed ether to which this suffering appeals.  Steiner argues that in an age where tragedy is possible 

man is ennobled by the vengeful spite or injustice of the gods.  It does not make him innocent, but it hallows him as if he had passed through flame.  Hence there is in the final moments of great tragedy, whether Greek or Shakespearean or neo-classic, a fusion of grief and joy, of lament for the fall of man and of rejoicing in the resurrection of his spirit. 2 

From this perspective,  the announcement that "God is dead" promulgates the death of tragedy. 

In the nineteenth century, Laplace announced that God was a hypothesis of which the rational  mind had no further need; God took the great astronomer at his word.  But tragedy is that form of art which requires the intolerable burden of God's presence.  It is now dead because His shadow no longer falls upon us as it fell on Agamemnon or Macbeth or Athalie. 3 

John Gassner, in his essay, "The Possibilities and Perils of Modern Tragedy," summarizes the implications of the alleged cessation of tragedy.  According to Gassner, those who argue against the possibility of modern tragedy present a vision of the modern world in which "it is said to be incapable of providing the individual with a coherent view of his place in the universe." 

The same critics who disdain a world grown  irrevocably common  are apt to deplore the absence of communion in it.  They regret the absence of tradition and belief in our mongrel culture.  With no myth or cult to assure the continuity of time-honored values, with no religion to relate the individual unequivocably to the universe, with no fixity of class structure to bind men to their place, we presumably cannot have significant dramatic action:  it cannot be significant because it cannot be communally meaningful. 4 

While individual tragedies necessarily treat specific values, cultures, and the relationships between the individual and her or his universe, tragedy, itself, does not require any specific set of values.  Tragedy does not require religious faith, or faith in community, nor does it require an exalted notion of human character.  On the contrary, tragedy engages in a constant program of reconsidering religious faith and questioning communal values.  Tragedy does not require a specific cult or culture. It does, however, require a civilization that is rational enough to discuss cultural limits.  Tragedy does not require that the individual exist in a particular relation to a particular universe, only that the individuals exist and affirm their existence through their connection to the world around and within them.  The pattern we find repeated in tragedy is that of individuals becoming in some way cut off from the universe.  This process, in turn, calls into question the values, the culture, the myths, the community, the relationships, the dreams, visions and ideologies which surround and replenish the individual. 

Notes

1.  J. Wood Krutch,   "The Tragic Fallacy,"  in Tragedy:  Vision and Form , ed. R.W. Corrigan (San Francisco:  Chandler, 1965), p. 272. 

2.  G. Steiner, The Death of Tragedy  (New York:  Knopf, 1961), p. 10. 

3.  Ibid, p. 353. 

  

4.  J. Gassner, "The Perils and Possibilities of Modern Tragedy," Tragedy: Vision and Form , ed. R. W. Corrigan (Chicago:  Chandler, 1965), p. 406. 

Transtextuality in Film Adaptation: Fidelity Revisited

Presentation to a Joint session of the Association for Canadian and Quebec Literatures and the Film Studies Association of Canada, Monday, May 30, 2005; University of Western Ontario

In a course on American literature, I typically showed students scenes from Martin Scorsese’s film adaptation of the Edith Wharton novel, The Age of Innocence. The Scorsese film is what one would commonly describe as a  faithful adaptation of the novel–a Visconti-style film fitting to the turn-of-the-century splendour and mannerisms which Wharton describes. Most of the film’s dialogue and narration are pulled directly from the novel. The scene from the film which I presented to students is the major turning point of the narrative in which May Archer, the novel’s most conspicuous symbol of innocence announces to her husband, Newland, that Countess Olenska, her cousin who was about to become Newland’s mistress, had decided to leave New York and return to Europe. In this scene, the novel announces to us May’s loss of innocence. She has lied to her cousin, claiming to be pregnant and thereby putting a stop to the affair which was about to take place and, in the same manoeuver, taking control of her husband. This episode is the turning point of the novel, and Wharton signals May’s loss of innocence by having her wearing her wedding dress on this occasion, which May has just torn and muddied while getting out of a carriage. At the very end of this crucial “loss of innocence” chapter, Wharton presents us with the image of May turning to exit “her torn and muddy wedding dress dragging after her across the room."

This scene in the novel is markedly filmic, in that May’s loss of innocence is principally and forcefully signaled to us through the visual image of the “torn and muddy wedding dress.” The scene in Scorsese's film is as described in the novel, except that May’s dress is spotlessly clean and without a sign of a tear. How can we talk about this difference between film and novel, this absence of the “torn and muddy wedding dress”? I call it a mistake. An inexplicable oversight. An unaccounted-for error. 

I begin with this example, simple to signal that there are cases in which we can discuss the relationship between a literary work and a film in these terms. The director missed something or something went wrong somewhere. Once we admit this possibility we can begin to look at those changes which are matters of interpretation or intentional shifts from the themes and ideology of the literary work. An obvious example of the latter would be Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of Alice Walker’s The Color Purple. The novel is a series of stories of women striving for and achieving independence from patriarchy. The novel’s heroine, the blues singer Shug Avery, resists all domination by men, most especially her own father who is an evangelical preacher. However, in the musical climax of Spielberg’s film, Shug Avery spontaneously and inexplicably decides to go to her father’s church and ask for his forgiveness, thereby contradicting not only the plot but the central theme and ideology of the novel. Spielberg’s attempts to privilege male-female relationships and male characters become laughably obvious in the conclusion of the film as Spielberg makes the character identified as "Mister ---" the hero of the film through changes to the plot and then desperately reinforces this point through a series of shots and slow dissolve superimpositions not only intertextually connected to the film cliché of the hero riding off into the sunset but graphically reminding us that there is a man behind this film’s happy ending.

 

 

                           
My sense of outrage at the Spielberg film is somewhat tempered when I come to consider the Milos Forman adaptation of Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoos’ Nest. There is a parallel in the cases in that the Kesey novel is an explicit defense of masculinity to the point of suggesting that mental illness and male suicides are a direct result of emasculation and the suppression of masculine sexuality, desires and values, which the Forman film significantly under-plays.

In an essay entitled “Beyond Fidelity: The Dialogics of Adaptation,” Robert Stam argues:

The concept of intertextual dialogism suggests that every text forms an intersection of textual surfaces. All texts are tissues of anonymous formulae, variations on those formulae, conscious and unconscious quotations, and conflations and inversions of other texts. In the broadest sense, intertextual dialogism refers to the infinite and open-ended possibilities generated by all the discursive practices of a culture, the entire matrix of communicative utterances within which the artistic text is situated, which reach the text not only through recognizable influences, but also through a subtle process of dissemination.

Intertextuality, then, helps us to transcend the aporias of “fidelity.”

Although I agree with Stam in general terms, the question which his claim gives rise to in my mind is: Can the concept of adaptation survive in any meaningful or practical sense if “intertextual dialogism” generates “infinite and open-ended possibilities”?

If we cannot find and argue for at least some meaningful, definite, assured points of contact and closure in the comparison of film and literary work, then what is it that prevents us from simply bracketing the concept of adaptation and completely divorcing novel from film in order to treat, analyze and interpret each independently. Despite the temptations of such a divorce, however, it seems clear that there will always be some sort of relationship between the film and the literary work upon which it is based. In fact, Stam goes on to argue for a defined set of relationships between film and novel by invoking Gerard Genette’s concept and taxonomy of transtextual relationships.

That relationship between film and literary work might be characterized as hypertext to hypotext, using Genette’s terms as Stam suggests; that is, the film hypertext could not exist as it is without the earlier existence of the literary hypotext. However, framed this way the relationship remains vague and ambiguous. In individual cases, the relationship could be one of agreement and mutual support, of premise and extrapolation, or the relationship could be antagonistic and critical. Whatever kind of relationship might exist between a film and the work from which it is adapted they fall within and can be judged and understood within some framework of coherence.

In making this claim I am very much influenced by what Bertrand Russell among others calls a “coherence theory of truth”–which is to say that statements, signs, and semiotic units cannot be judged true or false through their correspondence to objects in the world. The only way we have available to us to judge truth is by verifying the degree to which a particular statement is coherent in relation to other statements, signs, events, objects and so on. I agree with Stam’s conclusion that

[. . .] to look at adaptation is to see it as a matter of a source novel hypotext’s being transformed by a complex series of operations: selections, amplification, concretization, actualization, critique, extrapolation, analogization, popularization, and reculturalization. The source novel, in this sense, can be seen as a situated utterance produced in one medium and in one historical context, then transformed into another equally situated utterance that is produced in a different context and in a different medium.

Novel and film are separated and connected through these various transformative processes. There is a connection, a relationship between them which can be judged within an inclusive pattern of coherence. This relationship between literary work and film, which is one of mutual, connected coherence, allows us to talk about adaptations in terms of something like fidelity. Films can be judged to be mistaken, false, “in bad faith,” reduced and inferior; or apt interpretations, honest, “true to the original” and even superior works of art, as well as critiques, rebuttals and parodies in relation to a literary hypotext. We can legitimately note a mistake in Scorsese’s film, claim that Spielberg’s film is a betrayal of the feminist ideology of The Color Purple and that Milos Forman’s film is a softening of the masculinist ideology of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

 

As we move from literary work to a commercial film for a mass audience there is typically a softening and watering down of themes and ideological implications of the literary work accompanied by a shifting down of architextuality to reduce the perlocutionary or affective impact on the audience. When transferred to film, tragedies become satires and thrillers, satires become melodramas, romances and comedies. A classic example of this shifting down would be Elia Kazan’s film version of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire. In Kazan’s version, for example, the audience is prevented, by the sound of a passing train, from hearing Blanch Dubois’s speech in which she makes the metaphorical connection between raw sexual desire and the streetcar named Desire. More strikingly, although the play ends as a tragedy with a dark and seemingly omnipotent fate looming in the figure of Stanley Kowalski, the sexy gorilla, who as indicated in the stage directions: “kneels beside Stella [who is sobbing] and his fingers find the opening of her blouse.” The final line of the play is Steve the poker player’s announcement: “The name of the game is seven-card stud.” It is no accident that the last word of this play is “stud.” In the film version, Stella takes her baby upstairs to escape Stanley, promising in muttering tones that “he will never have the baby or touch me again.” The tragic drama thus becomes a satiric melodrama, with the villain Stanley being defeated in a last-minute reversal.

The shift of narratological structure and architextuality though significant does not yet approach the complexity of a comparison of film hypertext and literary hypotext which Stam has suggested. As every text is a collection, a tapestry of interwoven intertextual references, quotations, allusions and so on, a key to comparing film and literary work is through this intertextuality. Kurt Vonnegut’s short story “Who am I this time?” offers a clear example of what I wish to suggest because the story depends so heavily upon on intertextuality to get its satiric point across. In Vonnegut’s story, the small town of North Crawford’s theatre club decides to produce A Streetcar Named Desire. The play having been chosen, the director discovers that the town has a surplus of older, faded ladies who could play the role of Blanche Dubois, but no-one who could play her sister, the young and passionate Stella. The choice of this particular intertext, A Streetcar Named Desire, allows Vonnegut to display, in a particularly effective way, the malaise associated with the aging and near disappearance of small-town America. A second, significant intertext in Vonnegut’s story is Shakespeare’s tragedy of passionate young lovers, Romeo and Juliet.

In the made-for-television film based on this short story, the intertextual references; ie, Streetcar and Romeo and Juliet, are maintained. In the film, the satire of the short story is reduced and the narratological structure is transformed into romantic comedy in two obvious ways. The first is that the director fills street scenes with young women who are supposedly residents of the town. The film then introduces a third major intertext; the proposal scene from Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being
Earnest.

A key to understanding any text is how it uses and/or transforms an intertext. Oscar Wilde’s play is a satire. The proposal scene, in which Earnest Worthing proposes to his love, Gwendolyn, is a parody of the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare’s Juliet is willing to be frank, throws the rules of courtly love out the window and dares to ask: “What’s in a name?” And answer: “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Oscar Wilde’s Gwendolyn, in contrast, is a dogmatic believer in the rules of propriety and has always dreamed of marrying and will only accept to marry a man named Earnest. Knowing about Juliet is the key to understanding Gwendolyn’s fetish for the name Earnest, and essential to getting Wilde’s irony and satire.

In the made-for-television version of “Who am I this time?” the scene from Earnest is flattened of its satiric import. The scene becomes a lighthearted but sincere proposal of marriage, reiterating rather than parodying the romantic and passionate love already echoed in the Romeo and Juliet and Streetcar Named Desire intertexts. It would be tempting to suggest that, in the adaptation process, if the intertext is transformed from satire to romantic comedy, then the film as a whole will perform the same transformation. Although I think such a claim would warrant investigation, I am not prepared to go quite that far at this point. What I am prepared to suggest is that we should pay particular attention to what happens to transtextual elements as we move from literary work to film and that these elements can become the concrete evidence of the transformation that has taken place in the process of adaptation. Both film and literary work are coherent structures and a change in the intertext must be accompanied by other transtextual and textual adjustments in order to maintain some sort of overall coherence in the film hypertext. With this in mind, I would like to consider two Canadian examples: The Handmaid’s Tale and Anne of Green Gables.

Peter Dickenson has already pointed out that

[. . .] the 1990 film of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale [. . .] turned Atwood’s dark dystopian and ironic feminist text into a stock Hollywood romance, complete with a traditional happy ending in which the boy presumably gets the girl.

Although I agree in general terms with this description of the adaptation process, I would like to offer a slight variation by focusing on the transformations of the transtextuality from novel to film.

 

Atwood’s novel opens with three paratextual citations: a quotation from the Bible which is the core of the novel and justifies the existence of the handmaid function, an epigrammatic quote from Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” which clearly signals that what we are about to read is a satire, and a Sufi proverb. The film does away with these epigrams and substitutes a new paratext which establishes a new intertextual allusion to children's fairy tales. The film begins with a paragraph-long summary/comment projected on the screen: “One upon a time there existed a country called Gilead [and so on].” Rather than using any of the novel’s literary intertexts, such as the references to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, the film opens with a series of filmic allusions: a James-Bondish gun battle on a snow-covered mountain, a repeated fairy-tale-like image of a female child wandering lost in the mountains, scenes of a train station and a military occupation alluding to the Holocaust, and scenes of the handmaids which give a nod to the genre of prison film. In my reading of the film, the adaptation begins to make sense as an adaptation at a very precise moment. In the film, as in the novel, the Handmaid is brought to meet Serena Joy, the Wife of the Commander whose child she will be expected to conceive. In the dialogue between Handmaid and Wife, in the film, Serena Joy pointedly mentions: “This is your first time.”

In the novel, however, Serena Joy says: “This is your third time.” Why does the film shift the situation from the Handmaid’s third to her first experience as a commander’s handmaid? In answering this question we discover the coherence of the adaptation process. The overall effect of the numerous changes made in the adaptation process are designed to transform the novel from a satire into a melodrama. In addition to its play on heightened emotions, what defines melodrama is its strict adherence to moral justice. In a melodrama, we are invariably presented with good and innocent characters threatened by conspicuous evil, a villain. The melodrama guarantees us a build-up of suspense through a predictable series of surprises and reversals leading to the last-minute rescue of an innocent victim by a good hero and in the denouement the assurance that justice has unquestionably been served. Atwood’s novel in addition to being a dystopian satire is the first-person narration of a woman’s internal struggle to survive. In the course of the novel, the Handmaid’s conscious decision to survive also implies that she must not only co-operate in her role as a handmaid but she chooses to play the role of a prostitute with her commander and then to be unfaithful to both her commander and her husband, Luc, by having an affair with Nic, the commander’s driver. The novel suggests to us that with time this handmaid might and future handmaids definitely will become adjusted and accepting of their roles and duties.

The film eliminates these sources of internal conflict and moral ambiguity by making the Handmaid a figure of innocence and restructuring the storyline around the only conflict that melodrama permits: good and innocence versus evil. The once-upon-a-time epigraph and opening images of innocence (a child wondering lost) and evil (the Holocaust) suggestively reinforce the style and structure of the melodrama. In addition, in the film, the Handmaid’s husband is explicitly shown to have been killed whereas in the novel he is thought to still be alive. Nic is unquestionably heroic and an object of love, rather than the ambiguous, ultimately unknown, target of lascivious desire and source of the Handmaid’s infidelity to her husband, Luc. The film goes on to complete the Handmaid’s story in keeping with the structure of melodrama. She defeats evil by murdering the commander and is unequivocally rescued by her lover/hero in the nick of time (no pun intended). The film's denouement confirms her goodness, innocence and the happy ending of a victory over evil. The relationship between novel and film is the relationship between a satiric hypotext with undertones of tragedy and a melodramatic hypertext with undertones of romance.

In his essay “Stand by Your Man: Adapting L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables,” Benjamin Lefebvre describes the television mini-series produced by Kevin Sullivan as transforming Montgomery’s novel from a satire of “the conventions of patriarchal romance” into “a conventional
romance." As Lefebvre points out, in the novel Anne and her friends attempt to act out Tennyson’s epic poem “Elaine and Lancelot”; however, the poem which Anne recites, in the miniseries, while floating down the river in imitation of Elaine’s funereal voyage to Camelot is Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shallot.” Lefebvre concludes that while “it would be worthwhile to consider the shift from Anne reenacting Elaine [. . .] to the Lady of Shallot, my point is that the intertextual referent for this scene in the 1985 miniseries is not Montgomery’s novel but the 1934 film."

I have a strong hunch that the intertexts for this scene in both audiovisual productions were the numerous paintings done of “The Lady of Shallot,” the most popular of which was painted in Gothic style by Waterhouse in 1883. Montgomery seems to assume that her readers will be well acquainted with the Elaine poem and is quite clear that Anne and her friends are. Sullivan’s production conflates the Elaine poem and “The Lady of Shallot” such that if we didn’t know better we would assume that “The Lady of Shallot” is the Elaine poem. Anyone familiar with the Elaine poem would know that Elaine is a beautiful young woman who is so stubbornly romantic that no-one can dissuade her from her decision to die of unrequited love–not her brothers, nor her father, nor Launcelot himself (the object of her unrequited love). “The Lady of Shallot” is a much more enigmatic and Gothic poem, and the Lady herself could not be connected to Anne. The Sullivan production uses the scene to promote a romance between Gilbert Blythe and Anne. In the novel, the scene between them concludes with Anne’s firm rejection of Gilbert’s offer of friendship. In the conclusion of this chapter of the novel, Anne announces to Marilla that “today’s mistake is going to cure me of being too romantic." In other words, Anne’s playing Elaine, the “lily maid,” has cured her of being like Elaine. If Anne plays the Lady of Shallot as she does in the film and miniseries she cannot be cured of the romanticism specifically associated with Elaine.

When we observe “Elaine and Lancelot” in relation to the other explicitly quoted intertexts of the novel such as “Pippa Passes” and “The Maiden’s Vow” we discover a common thread of women who remain single and chaste but have a profound effect on other people’s lives. This motif is carried forward in Anne’s life models and mentors: Old Mrs. Barry, Miss Stacy and Marilla. It also reminds us that all the male-female relationships of the novel involve strong women--Marilla, Mrs. Allen, Rachel Lind, and Mrs. Barry--and muted or absent men.

In the TV version, Pippa and the poet Browning disappear. Elaine is erased by the Lady of Shallot, “The Maiden’s Vow” in which a woman simply prays to honour her lost courtier is replaced by a historical anachronism, “The Highwayman,” in which a barmaid commits suicide to warn her American lover that the British have set a trap for him. The television miniseries transforms Montgomery’s meliorist satire on the dialectic of Romanticism and Victorianism into a romantic comedy in which young lovers must overcome the blockage of an older character, Marilla. My suggestion is that these and other film adaptations of Canadian literary works can and should be read in the context of a coherent transtextual relationship which can be analyzed, perhaps judged, and certainly better understood when we closely attend to the intertextual and textual shifts which have taken place.

The Sour Glossary

actually (adverb) as an actual or existing fact; really. (Random House Unabridged Dictionary) [False cognate warning: Francophones will sometimes mistakenly use “actually” (or actual)  when they mean currently, presently, at the moment and up to date.] allegory [. . .]  symbolic fictional narrative that conveys a second meaning (or meanings) beyond the explicit, literal details of the story (my definition, adapted from Merriam Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature). A simple allegory would be something like a story about Mary Whiteteeth and Johnny Toothbrush and their enemy named Sugar. The story, in this case, is not about these three characters but about the importance of brushing your teeth. "[. . .] the term allegory can refer to specific method of reading a text." allusion (noun) IIn literature, an implied or indirect reference to a person, event, thing or a part of another text. [. . . ] Allusions to biblical figures and figures from classical mythology are common in Western literature [. . .]. (Merriam Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature) Apocrypha (noun) 1.   With a capital letter (Apocrypha) it means a group of 14 books, not considered canonical, included in the Septuagint and the Vulgate as part of the Old Testament, but usually omitted from Protestant editions of the Bible. 2.   various religious writings of uncertain origin regarded by some as inspired, but rejected by most authorities. 3.  writings, statements, etc., of doubtful authorship or authenticity. (Random House Unabridged Dictionary) The opposite would be the canon. apocryphal  (adjective) 1.   of doubtful authorship or authenticity. 2.   of or pertaining to the Apocrypha, of doubtful sanction; uncanonical. 3.  false; spurious: He told an apocryphal story about the sword, but the truth was later revealed. (Random House  Unabridged Dictionary) comedy (noun) 1. a play, movie, etc., of light and humorous character with a happy or cheerful ending; a dramatic work in which the central motif is the triumph over adverse circumstance, resulting in a successful or happy conclusion. 2. that branch of the drama which concerns itself with this form of composition. 3. the comic element of drama, of literature generally, or of life. 4. any literary composition dealing with a theme suitable for comedy, or employing the methods of comedy. 5. any comic or humorous incident or series of incidents. (Random House Unabridged Dictionary) canon (noun) 5.   a standard; criterion: the canons of taste. 6.   the books of the Bible recognized by any Christian church as genuine and inspired. 7.   any officially recognized set of sacred books. 8.   any comprehensive list of books within a field. 9.   the works of an author that have been accepted as authentic: There are 37 plays in the Shakespeare canon.  (Random House Unabridged Dictionary) The opposite would be  Apocrypha. The adjective form is "canonical." Note that in literary studies the word "canon" has sometimes been used to identify those books considered to be part of "great literature" and therefore worthy of study. conceit (noun) 1. an excessively favorable opinion of one's own ability, importance, wit, etc. 2. something that is conceived in the mind; a thought; idea: He jotted down the conceits of his idle hours. 3. imagination; fancy. 4. a fancy; whim; fanciful notion. 5. an elaborate, fanciful metaphor, especially of a strained or far-fetched nature. 6. the use of such metaphors as a literary characteristic, esp. in poetry. (Random House Unabridged Dictionary) Note: 5 and 6 (above) are the relevant definitions for literary studies. consummate (verb) 1. to bring to a state of perfection; fulfill. 2. to complete (an arrangement, agreement, or the like) by a pledge or the signing of a contract: The company consummated its deal to buy a smaller firm. 3. to complete (the union of a marriage) by the first marital sexual intercourse. (Random House Unabridged Dictionary) courtly love "A modern term for the literary cult of heterosexual love that emerged among the French aristocracy from the late 11th century onwards, with a profound effect on subsequent Western attitudes to love. [ . . . .] An elaborate code of behaviour emerged around the tormented male lover's abject obedience to a disdainful, idealized lady, who was usually his social superior. [. . . .] this form of adoration also imitated both feudal servitude and Christian worship, despite celebrating the excitements of clandestine adultery (as in stories of Lancelot and Guinevere) rather than the then merely economic relationship of marriage" (The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms).  A  philosophy of love and a code of lovemaking which flourished in chivalric times, first in France and later in other countries, especially in England. The exact origins of the system cannot be traced, but fashions set by the Provençal troubadours and ideas drawn from the Orient and especially from Ovid were probably the chief sources. The conditions of the feudal society and the veneration of the Virgin Mary, both of which tended to give a new dignity and veneration to woman,* also affected it.  [. . . .] Andreas Capellanus late in the twelfth century wrote a treatise in which he summarized prevailing notions of courtly love through imaginary conversations and through his thirty-one "rules"** (A Handbook to Literature). *Note that in some interpretations of history, the Catholic Church raised the profile and importance of the Blessed Virgin in order to counter the growing popularity and influence of courtly love.**In recent times, Ellen Fein and Sherrie  Sneider wrote a series of popular books with the repeated title of The Rules instructing women on how to behave on dates and in relationships with men." coy (adjective) 1. artfully or affectedly shy or reserved; slyly hesitant; coquettish. 2. shy; modest. 3. showing reluctance, especially when insincere or affected, to reveal one's plans or opinions, make a commitment, or take a stand (Random House Unabridged Dictionary) If we deconstruct (that is, study the history) of the word “coy,” we will discover that it is most often applied to women. In fact, being coy was for a long time considered part of traditional, typical and expected female behaviour. Being coy was considered part of the “essence” of being a woman. Therefore, when a woman said “no,” it was understood that she really meant “yes.” The word “coy” is a good example to demonstrate how sexism can be subtly inscribed in the language. In Romeo and Juliet, Juliet actually apologizes to Romeo for her failing to be coy, but she tells him, “I’ll prove more true than those that have the cunning to be strange.” “To be strange” here means the same thing as “to be coy.” cuckold (noun) 1. the husband of an unfaithful wife. (verb) 2. to make a cuckold of (a husband). [ allusion to the cuckoo's habit of laying its eggs in other birds' nests] (Random House Unabridged Dictionary) deconstruction (noun) a philosophical and critical movement, starting in the 1960s and especially applied to the study of literature, that questions all traditional assumptions about the ability of language to represent reality and emphasizes that a text has no stable reference or identification because words essentially only refer to other words [. . .] (Random House Unabridged Dictionary). This term and its verb form, “to deconstruct,” are strongly associated with Jacques Derrida, a French philosopher, and a paper he delivered in 1966 at Johns Hopkins University entitled “Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences.” When questioned after the presentation, Derrida defined deconstruction by saying: “Here or there I have used the word déconstruction, which has nothing to do with destruction. That is to say, it is simply a question of (and this is the necessity of criticism in the classical sense of the word) being alert to the implications, to the historical sedimentation of the language we use [. . .].” (Davis, Robert Con ed. Contemporary Literary Criticism 497). In Against Deconstruction, John M. Ellis pointed out that deconstruction turns out to be principally a movement against essentialism (35). By deconstructing words, and therefore concepts, we discover that they are constructed over time within a culture and in relation to other words. The meaning of a word does not come from its reference to an “essence” existing in reality and outside of language. decorum ( noun) 1. dignified propriety of behavior, speech, dress, etc. 2. the quality or state of being decorous; orderliness; regularity. 3. Usually, decorums. an observance or requirement of polite society. —Synonyms: politeness, manners, dignity. See etiquette. dialectic (adjective) Also, dialectical. 1. of, pertaining to, or of the nature of logical argumentation. 2. dialectal. –(noun). 3. the art or practice of logical discussion as employed in investigating the truth of a theory or opinion. 4. logical argumentation. 5. Often, dialectics. a. logic or any of its branches. b. any formal system of reasoning or thought. 6. See Hegelian dialectic. dysphemism (noun) 1.   the substitution of a harsh, disparaging, or unpleasant expression for a more neutral one. 2.   an expression so substituted. (Random House Unabridged Dictionary) The antonym (word meaning the opposite) is euphemism. Some examples of common dysphemisms are: "knocked up" (for pregnant),  "to fuck" (for " to have sexual intercourse"), "on the rag" (for "menstruating"), " pissed off" (for " angry"). dystopia (noun) a modern term invented as the opposite of utopia, and applied to any alarmingly unpleasant imaginary world, usually of the projected future. The term is also applied to fictional works depicting such worlds. A significant form of science fiction and of modern satire, dystopian writing is exemplified in H.G. Wells's The Time Machine (1895) and George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). (Concise  Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms) earnest (adjective) 1. serious in intention, purpose, or effort; sincerely zealous: an earnest worker. 2. showing depth and sincerity of feeling: earnest words; an earnest entreaty. 3. seriously important; demanding or receiving serious attention. Synonyms: fervent, intent, purposeful, determined, industrious, ambitious. EARNEST, RESOLUTE, SERIOUS, SINCERE imply having qualities of depth and firmness. EARNEST implies having a purpose and being steadily and soberly eager in pursuing it: an earnest student. RESOLUTE adds a quality of determination: resolute in defending the right. SERIOUS implies having depth and a soberness  of attitude that contrasts with gaiety and frivolity; it may include the qualities of both earnestness and resolution: serious and thoughtful.  SINCERE suggests genuineness, trustworthiness, and absence of superficiality: a sincere interest in music. (Random House  Unabridged Dictionary) essay (noun) a short written composition in prose that discusses a subject or proposes an argument without claiming to be a complete or thorough exposition. A minor literary form, the essay is more relaxed than the formal academic dissertation. The term ('trying out') was coined by the French writer Michel de Montaigne in the tile of his Essais (1580), the first modern example of the form. Francis Bacon's Essays (1597) began the tradition of essays in English. (Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms) essentialism  The idea that words get their meanings from one-to-one correspondence with the “essences” of objects in the world.   etiquette (noun) 1. conventional requirements as to social behavior; proprieties of conduct as established in any class or community or for any occasion. 2. a prescribed or accepted code of usage in matters of ceremony, as at a court or in official or other formal observances. 3. the code of ethical behavior regarding professional practice or action among the members of a profession in their dealings with each other: medical etiquette. [ —Synonyms:  DECORUM, PROPRIETY imply observance of the formal requirements governing behavior in polite society. ETIQUETTE refers to conventional forms and usages: the rules of etiquette. DECORUM suggests dignity and a sense of what is becoming or appropriate for a person of good breeding: a fine sense of decorum. PROPRIETY (usually plural) implies established conventions of morals and good taste: She never fails to observe the proprieties. ethnocentrism (noun) 1. the belief in the inherent superiority of one's own ethnic group or culture. 2. a tendency to view alien groups or cultures from the perspective of one's own. (Random House Unabridged Dictionary) etymology (noun) 1. the derivation of a word. 2. an account of the history of a particular word or element of a word. 3. the study of historical linguistic change, esp. as manifested in individual words (Random House Unabridged Dictionary) euphemism (noun) 1.   the substitution of a mild, indirect, or vague expression for one thought to be offensive, harsh, or blunt. 2.   the expression so substituted: "To pass away'" is a euphemism for "to die." (Random House Unabridged Dictionary) The antonym (word meaning the opposite) is dysphemism. Some examples of euphemisms are: "being in a family way" (for "pregnant") "having her lady's time" (for menstruating), "making love" or "being intimate" (for "having sexual intercourse"), "powder room" (for "toilet") fate (noun) 1. something that unavoidably befalls a person; fortune; lot: It is always his fate to be left behind. 2. the universal principle or ultimate agency by which the order of things is presumably prescribed; the decreed cause of events; time: Fate decreed that they would never meet again. 3. that which is inevitably predetermined; destiny: Death is our ineluctable fate. 4. a prophetic declaration of what must be: The oracle pronounced their fate. 5. death, destruction, or ruin. 6. the Fates, in Classical Mythology, three goddesses of destiny, known to the Greeks as the Moerae and to the Romans as the Parcae. (Random House Unabridged Dictionary) NB This word is important and often comes up in discussions of tragedy.  Be careful not to confuse the word “fate” (destiny) with “faith” (religious or spiritual belief). Fate is often an important theme in tragedy. We see this theme in Oedipus, the King and Romeo and  Juliet. Some readers might also see the theme of fate in Streetcar Named Desire. genre (noun)  A type or category of literature or film marked by certain shared features or conventions. The three broadest categories of genre include poetry, drama, and fiction. These general genres are often subdivided into more specific genres and subgenres. For instance, precise examples of genres might include murder mysteries, westerns, sonnets, lyric poetry, epics, tragedies, etc. Bookstores, libraries, and services like Redbox or Netflix may label and subdivide their books or films into genres for the convenience of shoppers seeking a specific category of literature.  (Literary Terms and Definitions at http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/lit_terms_G.html) I have typically listed the literary genres as poetry, drama and prose, with prose divided in fiction and non-fiction, fiction into novels and short stories.  As you can see the number of genres can quickly expand and become a bit chaotic.  I have found it useful to offer this pie chart to illustrate the differences and connections among tragedy, comedy, satire and melodrama--the most typical genres of drama and fiction. Comedy and tragedy are in direct opposition to each other in terms of their most typical features; nonetheless, there is a genre called  tragicomedy which incorporates features of both.  Satire and melodrama are directly opposed to each other, but G.B. Shaw labelled his  play The Devil's Disciple "a melodrama," while intending it to be a satire.  All variations are possible.  However, the line between  side-by-side genres is sometimes blurry and often debated when it comes time to categorize a specific literary work. For example,  historically some critics have claimed that the play, Streetcar Named Desire isn't a tragedy, but that it is a melodrama.  Both genres  share intense emotions as a potential feature.  A melodrama shares features of both tragedy and comedy.  Some comedies seem close  to melodrama, in particular, if they are love stories.  We typically categorize these plays, films and stories as romantic comedies.  Some  satires lean strongly toward comedy, like the short stories and novels of Kurt Vonnegut.  Some satires lean toward tragedy like Orwell's  1984 and Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. The pie chart is useful in clarifying some of what is going on in the film adaptations of literary works; i.e. how much a work is being  transformed and effects of specific changes.  For example, Kurt Vonnegut's short story "Who am this time?" is a comic satire, but is  transformed into a romantic comedy in the TV movie of the same name.  By changing the ending of the play in the film version, Elia  Kazen transformed Streetcar Named Desire from a tragedy with satiric leanings into a melodrama.  Film adaptation of A Handmaid's  Tale transformed the story into a melodrama, and so on. grammar (noun) 1. the study of the way the sentences of a language are constructed; morphology and syntax. 2. these features or constructions themselves: English grammar. 3. an account of these features; a set of rules accounting for these constructions: a grammar of English. 4. Generative Grammar. a device, as a body of rules, whose output is all of the sentences that are permissible in a given language, while excluding all those that are not permissible. 5. See prescriptive grammar. 6. knowledge or usage of the preferred or prescribed forms in speaking or writing: She said his grammar was terrible. 7. the elements of any science, art, or subject. 8. a book treating such elements. (Random House Unabridged Dictionary) haste (noun) 1. swiftness of motion; speed; celerity: He performed his task with great haste. They felt the need for haste. 2. urgent need of quick action; a hurry or rush: to be in haste to get ahead in the world. 3. unnecessarily quick action; thoughtless, rash, or undue speed: Haste makes waste. (Random House Unabridged Dictionary) Adjective form is "hasty." Traditional expression "to make haste" means "to hurry" or "to rush." Hegelian dialectic (noun) an interpretive method, originally used to relate specific entities or events to the absolute idea, in which some assertible proposition (thesis) is necessarily opposed by an equally assertible and apparently contradictory proposition (antithesis), the mutual contradiction being reconciled on a higher level of truth by a third proposition (synthesis). hegemony (noun) "the OED defines that which is 'hegemonic' as 'the ruling part, the master-principle'. Often used to refer to power which is so dominant that it appears unquestionable, even natural" ("Glossary." Allen, Graham. Intertextuality). hermeneutics (noun) The science of interpretation. heterosexual ( adjective) 1. of, pertaining to, or exhibiting heterosexuality. 2. Biol. pertaining to the opposite sex or to both sexes. –n. 3. a heterosexual person. heterosexuality (noun) sexual feeling or behavior directed toward a person or persons of the opposite sex. hyperbole (noun) A figure of speech that is an intentional exaggeration for emphasis or comic effect. (Merriam Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature) hypocrisy (noun) 1. a pretense of having a virtuous character, moral or religious beliefs or principles, etc., that one does not really possess. 2. a pretense of having some desirable or publicly approved attitude. hypocrite (noun) 1. a person who pretends to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that he or she does not actually possess, esp. a person whose actions belie stated beliefs. 2. a person who feigns some desirable or publicly approved attitude, esp. one whose private life, opinions, or statements belie his or her public statements. —hypocritical (adjective) —hypocritically (adverb) —Synonyms: deceiver, dissembler, pretender, pharisee. ideology (noun) 1.the body of doctrine, myth, belief, etc., that guides an individual, social movement, institution, class, or large group. 2. such a body of doctrine, myth, etc., with reference to some political and social plan, as that of fascism, along with the devices for putting it into operation. 3. in philosophy, the study of the nature and origin of ideas.a system that derives ideas exclusively from sensation. 4. theorizing of a visionary or impractical nature. (Random House Unabridged Dictionary) in his book Ideology: An Introduction, Terry Eagleton describes ideology as follows: " A dominant power may legitimate itself by promoting beliefs and values congenial to it; naturalizing and universalizing such beliefs so as to render them self-evident and apparently inevitable; denigrating ideas which might challenge it; excluding rival forms of thought, perhaps by some unspoken but systematic logic; and obscuring social reality in ways convenient to itself. Such `mystification', as it is commonly known, frequently takes the form of masking or suppressing social conflicts, from which arises the conception of ideology as an imaginary resolution of real contradictions" (5-6). intertextuality (noun) a term coined by Julia Kristeva to designate the various relationships that a given text may have with other texts. These intertextual relationships include anagram, allusion, adaptation, translation, parody, pastiche, imitation and other kinds of transformation. The literary theories of structuralism and post-structuralism, texts are seen to refer to other texts (or to themselves as texts) rather than to external reality. The term intertext has been used variously for a text drawing on other texts, for a text thus drawn upon, and for the relationship between both. (Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms) In Intertextuality, Graham Allen describes "intertextuality" in the opening of the book this way: The idea that when we read a work of literature we are seeking to find a meaning which lies inside that work seems completely commonsensical. Literary texts possess meaning; readers extract that meaning from them. We call the process of extracting meaning from texts reading or interpretation. Despite their apparent obviousness, such ideas have been radically challenged in contemporary literary and cultural theory. Works of literature, after all, are built from systems, codes and traditions established by previous works of literature. The systems, codes and traditions of other art forms and of culture in general are also crucial to the meaning of a work of literature. Texts, whether they be literary or non-literary, are viewed by modern theorists as lacking in any kind of independent meaning. They are what theorists now call intertextual. The act of reading, theorists claim, plunges us into a network of textual relations. To interpret a text, to discover its meaning or meanings, is to trace those relations. Reading thus becomes a process of moving between texts. Meaning becomes something which exists between a text and all other texts to which it refers and relates, moving out from the independent text into a network of textual relations. The text becomes the intertext. (1) irony (noun) The three traditional types of irony are: i) verbal irony, saying something but you mean something else, sometimes the opposite (antiphrasis); this is the dictionary definition (i.e., opposite meaning) but this is rare in real life and literature.  When people think of "irony," what often comes to mind is "sarcasm," which is a low form of verbal irony. ii) situational irony; when the opposite of what we expect to happen happens; also called the irony of fate; this strongly applies to Oedipus, the King iii) dramatic irony; so-called because it often occurs in plays (theatre, film and TV); a situation becomes amusing because we know something that one or more of the characters doesn’t; example, John starts talking to his wife Mary about his “good friend” Steven while Steven is hiding in the bedroom closet Linda Hutcheon, in Irony's Edge, describes what she calls "semantic irony" as always having two meanings and those meanings rub against each other. What is the final meaning of an ironic statement? Consider the rabbit/duck image:  As with the duck/rabbit image,  irony “happens” when we are faced with two or more meanings and they conflict with each other. We have to hold on to both (or all) the meanings. The problem with these various descriptions and types of irony (verbal, situational, dramatic, semantic) is that they all seem so different from one another.  In my own thinking, Paul de Man's description of irony as an extended form of "parabasis" (179) is useful because it is more encompassing and comprehensive than anything else I have encountered. "Parabasis," in de Man's words, "is the interruption of a discourse by a shift in rhetorical register" (178). I see the shift of register (of say from a serious tone to comic or vice versa, or maybe religious register to scientific, or formal to vernacular) as the key to signaling verbal irony. The idea of "the interruption of a discourse" goes a long way in describing all forms of irony.  "Discourse" in a basic sense is just the way sentences are held or glued together with expression like "on the other hand,"  "however," "additionally" and "in conclusion."  A discourse can be something broader and vaguer like the theme of a composition or  speech which we can demonstrate by noting repeated words, synonyms or concepts. Putting something into a speech that contracts or seems to mock the seriousness of your own theme can be called "ironic."  A "narrative discourse" is how a story is held together, usually through a build-up of expectations based on the formulas that stories often follow or thematic elements and the ethos of the characters.  Irony in this case is a particular twist in the story that contradicts expectation in a particularly sharp, incisive, poetic and surprising way; i.e, "situational irony."  To reach my conclusion I have to invent another form of discourse, which I would have to call "mental discourse" which is a mental construct of our expectations which erases the absolute distinction between a discourse and a situation.  Imagine you are looking out the window on a cold, rainy, sleet-filled day and a friend sidles up beside you and says "Beautiful weather."  You both know that he is being ironic because his comment contradicts, is incongruous in, this situation.  I would describe this situation as a "mental discourse" of expectations which his comment "interrupts."  The same argument can be applied to dramatic irony. You might argue that the "interruption of a discourse" could be something random rather than ironic.  I have noticed that many instances of what I would call "ironic" and consequently comic or dramatic, my son and his cohort call "random."   The ironic and the random are clearly on the same axis.   To return to the pedagogical issue discussed in my posting on irony (Do No Harm Part II:  Avoid Irony), keep in mind, that if you employ irony in your teaching or lecturing, you are "interrupting" your own discourse. literal (adjective) 1. in accordance with, involving, or being the primary or strict meaning of the word or words; not figurative or metaphorical: the literal meaning of a word. 2. following the words of the original very closely and exactly: a literal translation of Goethe. 3. true to fact; not exaggerated; actual or factual: a literal description of conditions. 4. being actually such, without exaggeration or inaccuracy: the literal extermination of a city. 5. (of persons) tending to construe words in the strict sense or in an unimaginative way; matter-of-fact; prosaic. (Random House Unabridged Dictionary) literary (adjective) 1. pertaining to or of the nature of books and writings, especially those classed as literature: literary history. 2. pertaining to authorship: literary style. 3. versed in or acquainted with literature; well-read. (Random House Unabridged Dictionary) love (noun) 1. a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person. 2. a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection, as for a parent, child, or friend. 3. sexual passion or desire. 4. a person toward whom love is felt; beloved person; sweetheart. 5. (used in direct address as a term of endearment, affection, or the like): Would you like to see a movie, love? 6. a love affair; an intensely amorous incident; amour. 7. sexual intercourse; copulation. 8. (cap.) a personification of sexual affection, as Eros or Cupid. 9. affectionate concern for the well-being of others: the love of one's neighbor. 10. strong predilection, enthusiasm, or liking for anything: her love of books. 11. the object or thing so liked: The theater was her great love. 12. the benevolent affection of God for His creatures, or the reverent affection due from them to God. 13. Chiefly Tennis. a score of zero; nothing. 14. a word formerly used in communications to represent the letter L. 15. for love, a. out of affection or liking; for pleasure. b. without compensation; gratuitously: He took care of the poor for love. 16. for the love of, in consideration of; for the sake of: For the love of mercy, stop that noise. 17. in love, infused with or feeling deep affection or passion: a youth always in love. 18. in love with, feeling deep affection or passion for (a person, idea, occupation, etc.); enamored of: in love with the girl next door;  in love with one's work. 19. make love, a. to embrace and kiss as lovers. b. to engage in sexual activity. 20. no love lost, dislike; animosity: There was no love lost between the two brothers. –v.t. 21. to have love or affection for: All her pupils love her. 22. to have a profoundly tender, passionate affection for (another person). 23. to have a strong liking for; take great pleasure in: to love music. 24. to need or require; benefit greatly from: Plants love sunlight. 25. to embrace and kiss (someone), as a lover. 26. to have sexual intercourse with. –v.i. 27. to have love or affection for another person; be in love. 28. love up, to hug and cuddle: She loves him up every chance she gets. —Syn. 1. tenderness, fondness, predilection, warmth, passion, adoration. 1, 2. LOVE, AFFECTION, DEVOTION all mean a deep and enduring emotional regard, usually for another person. LOVE may apply to various kinds of regard: the charity of the Creator, reverent adoration toward God or toward a person, the relation of parent and child, the regard of friends for each other, romantic feelings for another person, etc. AFFECTION is a fondness for others that is enduring and tender, but calm. DEVOTION is an i ntense love and steadfast, enduring loyalty to a person; it may also imply consecration to a cause. 2. liking, inclination, regard,  friendliness. 21. like. 22. adore, adulate, worship. —Ant. 1, 2. hatred, dislike. 21, 22. detest, hate. (Random House Unabridged Dictionary) maidenhead (noun) 1. the hymen. 2. maidenhood; virginity. metaphor (noun) 1. a figure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable in order to suggest a resemblance, as in "A mighty fortress is our God.' 2. something used, or regarded as being used, to represent something else; emblem; symbol (Random House Unabridged Dictionary). metaphysical (adjective) 1.pertaining to or of the nature of metaphysics. 2. In philosophy: concerned with abstract thought or subjects, as existence, causality, or truth. Concerned with first principles and ultimate grounds, as being, time, or substance. 3. highly abstract, subtle, or abstruse. 4. designating or pertaining to the poetry of an early group of 17th-century English poets, notably John Donne, whose characteristic style is highly intellectual and philosophical and features intensive use of ingenious conceits and turns of wit metonym (noun) a figure of speech that consists of the use of the name of one object or concept for that of another to which it is related, or of which it is a part, as "scepter' for "sovereignty,' or "the bottle' for "strong drink,' or "count heads (or noses)' for "count people." (Random House Unabridged Dictionary) See Wikipedia for a discussion of the concept of metonymy, as opposed to metaphor, and its importance in cognition and linguistics. nature (noun) Few terms are so important to the student of literature--and so difficult--as this one. [. . . .] Both neoclassicists and romanticists would  "follow Nature"; but the former drew from the term ideas of order, regularity, and universality, both in "external" nature and in human nature, while the latter found in nature the justification for their enthusiasm for irregularity ('wildness") in external nature and for individualism in human nature. Other contradictory senses may be noted: the term nature might mean, on the one hand, human  nature (typical human behavior), or, on the other hand, whatever is antithetical to human nature and human works--ahs has not been  "spoiled" by human beings. (A Handbook to Literature) novel (noun) a prose narrative fiction of considerable length and complexity oxymoron (noun) a figure of speech which seems incongruous or contradictory, or has a seemingly self-contradictory effect, as in "cruel kindness' or "to make haste slowly." (Random House Unabridged Dictionary) In the poem "To His Coy Mistress," "vegetable love" is an example of an oxymoron. In Romeo and Juliet, Juliet tells Romeo that "parting is such sweet sorrow." "Sweet sorrow" has become the most famous oxymoron in English literature. (Random House  Unabridged Dictionary) pantheism (noun) A philosophic-religious attitude which finds the spirit of God manifest in all things and which holds that whereas all things speak the glory of God it is equally true that the glory of God is made up of all things. Finite objects are at once both God and the manifestation of God. The term is impossible to define exactly since it is so personal a conviction as to be differently interpreted by different philosophers but for its literary significance, it is clearly enough described as an ardent faith in NATURE as both the revelation of deity and deity itself. (A Handbook to Literature) personification (noun) 1. the attribution of a personal nature or character to inanimate objects or abstract notions, esp. as a rhetorical figure. 2. the representation of a thing or abstraction in the form of a person, as in art. 3. the person or thing embodying a quality or the like; an embodiment or incarnation: He is the personification of tact. 4. an imaginary person or creature conceived or figured to represent a thing or abstraction. (Random House Unabridged Dictionary) play (noun) 1. a dramatic composition or piece; drama. 2. a dramatic performance, as on the stage. (Random House Unabridged Dictionary) poem (noun) a composition in verse postmodernism (noun) term used to designate a multitude of trends in the arts, philosophy, religion, technology, and many other areas that come after and deviate from the many 20th-century movements that constituted modernism. [. . .. ] Widely debated with regard to its meaning and implications, postmodernism has also been said to relate to the culture of capitalism as it has developed since the 1960s. In general, the postmodern view is cool, ironic, and accepting of the fragmentation of contemporary existence. It tends to concentrate on surfaces rather than depths, to blur the distinctions between high and low culture, and as a whole to challenge a wide variety of traditional cultural values. (The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition) poststructuralism (noun) Any of various theories or methods of analysis, including deconstruction and some psychoanalytic theories, that deny the validity of structuralism's method of binary opposition and maintain that meanings and intellectual categories are shifting and unstable. (The  American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition.) promiscuity (noun) 1. the state of being promiscuous. 2. promiscuous sexual behavior. 3. an indiscriminate mixture. promiscuous (adjective) 1. characterized by or involving indiscriminate mingling or association, esp. having sexual relations with a number of partners on a casual basis. 2. consisting of parts, elements, or individuals of different kinds brought together without order. 3. indiscriminate; without discrimination. 4. casual; irregular; haphazard. —Syn. 1. unchaste. 2. hodgepodge, confused, mixed, jumbled. See miscellaneous. 3. careless. —Ant. 1, 2. pure. 3. selective. propriety (noun) 1. conformity to established standards of good or proper behavior or manners. 2. appropriateness to the purpose or circumstances; suitability. 3. rightness or justness. 4. the proprieties, the conventional standards of proper behavior; manners: to observe the proprieties. —Synonyms: decency, modesty. See etiquette. 2. aptness, fitness, seemliness. 3. correctness. psychoanalysis ( noun) 1. a systematic structure of theories concerning the relation of conscious and unconscious psychological processes. 2. a technical procedure for investigating unconscious mental processes and for treating psychoneuroses. (Random House  Unabridged Dictionary) pun (noun) 1. the humorous use of a word or phrase so as to emphasize or suggest its different meanings or applications, or the use of words that are alike or nearly alike in sound but different in meaning; a play on words. 2. the word or phrase used in this way. (verb) 3. to make puns. (Random House Unabridged Dictionary) For examples and further discussion see: http://grammar.about.com/od/pq/g/punterm.htm Puritan (noun) 1. a member of a group of Protestants that arose in the 16th century within the Church of England, demanding the simplifications of doctrine and worship, and greater strictness in religious discipline: during part of the 17th century the Puritans became a powerful political party. 2. a person who is strict in moral or religious matters, often excessively so. (Random House Unabridged Dictionary) Note: When referring to a member of this religious group, "Puritan" is capitalized. When referring to someone who is "strict in moral or religious matters" but not a member of the religious group, "puritan" is in lower case. The adjective form is "puritanical." quenchen (verb) Middle English verb meaning "quench, extinguish, put an end to." ("Glossary." The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer. 2nd Edtion, edited by F.N. Robinson. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1957.) queynte (noun) "pudendum" [that is, female genitalia, vulva, vagina] ("Glossary." The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer. 2nd Edtion, edited by F.N. Robinson. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1957.) Note: the word is derived from the verb "quenchen." queynte (adjective) "strange, curious, curiously contrived; elaborate, ornamented; neat; artful, sly; graceful; 'make it queynte,' be offish or disdainful, make it strange or difficult; also show pleasure or satisfaction. ("Glossary." The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer. 2nd Edtion, edited by F.N. Robinson. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1957.) Note we can see both the noun and adjective forms of the Middle English word "queynte" in the description of Nicolas's first attempt to make a pass at Alyson in "The Miller's Tale": Whil that hir housbonde was at Oseneye, As clerkes ben ful subtile and ful queynte And privelyy he caught hire by the queynte, And seyde, "Ywis, but if ich have my wille, For deerne love of thee, lemman, I spille." (3274-3278) raisonneur (noun) A character in a drama who is the level-headed, calm personification of reason and logical action. (A Handbook to Literature) restoration (noun) 1. the act of restoring; renewal, revival, or reestablishment. 2. the state or fact of being restored. 3. a return of something to a former, original, normal, or unimpaired condition. 4. restitution of something taken away or lost. 5. something that is restored, as by renovating. 6. a reconstruction or reproduction of an ancient building, extinct animal, or the like, showing it in its original state. 7. a putting back into a former position, dignity, etc. 8. Dentistry. a. the work, process, or result of replacing or restoring teeth or parts of teeth. b. something that restores or replaces teeth or parts of teeth, as a filling, crown, or denture. 9. the Restoration, a. the re-establishment of the monarchy in England with the return of Charles II in 1660. b. the period of the reign of Charles II (1660–85), sometimes extended to include the reign of James II (1685–88). –adj. 10. (cap) of, pertaining to, or characteristic of the Restoration: Restoration manners. Restoration comedy English comedy of the period of the Restoration, stressing manners and social satire. rhetoric (noun) 1. (in writing or speech) the undue use of exaggeration or display; bombast. 2. the art or science of all specialized literary uses of language in prose or verse, including the figures of speech. 3. the study of the effective use of language. 4. the ability to use language effectively. 5. the art of prose in general as opposed to verse. 6. the art of making persuasive speeches; oratory. 7. (in classical oratory) the art of influencing the thought and conduct of an audience. (Random House Unabridged Dictionary) satire (noun) "a text which ridicules [mocks] or ironically comments on socially recognizable tendencies [and the tendencies of a society] or the style or form of another text or author" ("Glossary." Allen, Graham. Intertextuality). scabbard (noun) The holster or case in which the blade of a sword or dagger is kept; a sheath. The English word "vagina" (1682) and the French word "vagin" derive from the Latin "vagin" or "vagino" meaning scabbord or sheath. Pictures of scabbards and swords. semiotics, or semiolgogy "The systematic study of signs, or, more precisely, of the production of meanings from sign-systems, linguistic or non-linguistic" (Baldick, Chris. Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms). "Sign-systems can be any recognizable field of human communication. Clothing might signify withing the cultural fashion system, for example. semiotics and semiology as developed in structuralism and poststructuralism can treat anything emanating from a signifying system as a text to be read" (Allen, Graham. Intertextuality. "Glossary."). short story (noun) a piece of prose fiction, usually under 10,000 words. (Random House Unabridged Dictionary) shrift (noun) 1. the imposition of penance by a priest on a penitent after confession. 2. absolution or remission of sins granted after confession and penance. 3. confession to a priest. (Random House Unabridged Dictionary) simile (noun) a figure of speech in which two unlike things are explicitly compared, as in "she is like a rose." (Random House Unabridged Dictionary) structuralism (noun) 1.   any theory that embodies structural principles. 2.   See structural anthropology. 3. See structural linguistics." a movement which stems particularly from Saussure's vision of semiology, the study of all the sign-systems operative in culture. Structuralism took texts, from works of literature to aspects of everyday communication, and accounted for them in terms of the system from which they were produced" ("Glossary." Allen, Graham. Intertextuality. ) structural anthropology a school of anthropology founded by Claude Lévi-Strauss and based loosely on the principles of structural linguistics structural linguistics 1.   approach to language study in which a language is analyzed as an independent network of formal systems, each of which is composed of elements that are defined in terms of their contrasts with other elements in the system. (Random House Unabridged Dictionary) tragedy (noun) 1. a dramatic composition, often in verse, dealing with a serious or somber theme, typically that of a great person destined through a  flaw of character or conflict with some overpowering force, as fate or society, to downfall or destruction. 2. the branch of the drama that is concerned with this form of composition. 3. the art and theory of writing and producing tragedies. 4. any literary composition, as a novel, dealing with a somber theme carried to a tragic conclusion. 5. the tragic element of drama, of literature generally, or of life. 6. a lamentable, dreadful, or fatal event or affair; calamity; disaster: the tragedy of war. [[ goat + song; reason for name variously explained] (Random House Unabridged Dictionary) transtextuality (noun) " . . . all that sets the text in a relationship, whether obvious or concealed, with other texts" (Genette, Gérard. Palimpsests: Literature  in the Second Degree). Genette's term "transtextuality" is his particular variation on the idea most other critics call intertextuality. He reduces the term intertextuality to "a relationship of copresence between two texts or among several texts . . . the actual presence of one text within another." ("Glossary." Allen, Graham. Intertextuality. ) Genette categories the various forms of transtextuality; that is, all the possible relations between two texts, as follows: i) intertextuality: quotation, allusion and plagiarism ii) paratextuality: titles, covers, epigraphs, introductions iii) metatextual: a critical relationship iv) architextuality: genre suggested by title v) hypertextuality: hypertext to hypotext; film adaptations are often described as "hypertexts" with the literary upon which the film is based called a "hypotext" Utopia [or utopia] (noun) 1. an imaginary island described in Sir Thomas More's Utopia (1516) as enjoying perfection in law, politics, etc. 2. an ideal place or state. 3. any visionary system of political or social perfection. (Random House Unabridged Dictionary) [literally, "utopia" = no where] woo (verb) to seek the favor [favour], affection, or love of, especially with a view to marriage. Synonyms: court, pursue, chase. Origin: before 1050; Middle English "wowe," Old English "wōgian"  (Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2015.) As discussed in my earlier posting, "How to Make Love to a Logophile," until the 1920s the expression "to make love" meant "to court" or "to woo."  "Woo" is used a half dozen times in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.  My favourite instance occurs when Juliet realizes that she has not followed the proper feminine behaviour according to the rules of courtly love and tells Romeo: "[. . .]if thou think'st I am too quickly won, I'll frown and be perverse an say thee nay, So thou wilt woo; [. . .]"