ENGL 228 Study Guide - Final Guide: Heroic Verse, Heroic Couplet, Iambic Tetrameter
16 Aug 2016
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Department
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ENGL 228 — Final Exam Study
Course Questions: What can this work tell us about Canada? What can this work tell us about
literature?
Course Topics
-First Nations
-Fur Trade
-Colonization and Settlement
-Loyalist Conservationism
-Copyright
-Issue with this was that when other publishers pirated his work, often the original message
could be altered to benefit the new market.
-Confederation Poets
-Environmental Determinism
-North-West Rebellion
-Residential Schools
-Modernism
-Existentialism
-Literary Publishing
Literary Terms
-Allegory: Something that represents something else, reflective of a larger theme. What appears
to be something in the text, reflects upon a larger theme throughout the text.
-Alliteration: The repetition of initial stressed, consonant sounds in a series of words within a
phrase or verse line. Ex. “We saw the sea sound sing…”
-Consonance: A resemblance in sound between two words or an initial rhyme. Can also refer
to shared consonants (ex. “bed” and “bad”) or reversed (ex. “bud” and “dub”)
-Assonance: The repetition of vowel sounds without repeating consonants, sometimes called
vowel rhyme. Often slow the energy, and make the mood somber (ex. “So old it is that no
man knows how…” long “oh” sound)
-Allusion: A brief, intentional reference to historical, mythical or literary person, place, event or
movement
-Alterity: A state of being other or different — “otherness”
-Anadiplosis: a repetition of the last word of a preceding clause. The word is used at the end of
the sentence, and then again at the beginning of the following sentence
-Anastrophe: When the order of the noun and adjective in the sentence is exchanged, inversion
of the typical word order of a sentence (ex. “Patience I lack”)
-Anecdote: A short narrative within a larger work, accounting an event. Seen in Thompson’s
work to construct a book composed of anecdotes. Leads to attendance of the reader, and to
convey power within the text.
-Blank Verse: Un-rhyming iambic pentameter, also known as heroic verse. This 10-syllable line
is the predominant rhythm of traditional English dramatic poetry. (Ex. Robert Brownings
dramatic monologues)
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-Character: a person in a novel, play or story
-Chiasmus [Inversion]: a crossing that can take many forms within a poem. When one thing is
told in one way, then explained in the oppositie. (Ex. “day and night” then “night and day”)
-Conceit: A concept or idea, often a metaphor making a striking comparison between one thing
to another
-Deixis: refers to the situation in which the grammar of a sentence references the presence of
the situation (ex. me, you, here, now…) identifying the stream of the poem, making it self-
reflexive
-Dramatic Monologue: a poem in which an imagined speaker addresses a silent listener, usually
not the reader
-Enjambment: the continuation of a sentence without a pause beyond the end of a line, couplet
or stanza
-Epic: a long narrative poem in which a heroic protagonist engages in an action of great mythic
or historical significance, tells an elevated battle, tells a story in which the fate of a nation
depends (ex. Malcolm’s Katie is seen as a Canadian Epic)
-Free Verse: non-metrical, non-rhyming lines that closely follow the natural rhythms of speech.
A regular pattern of sound or rhythm may emerge in free-verse, but the poet does not adhere to
a metrical plan in their composition
-Heroic Couplets: a traditional form of poetry, used in epic and narrative poetry, consisting of
rhyming pairs of lines in iambic pentameter
-Hybridity: an exchange between two cultures, hinges on colonialism
-Thompson & Hybridity: the culture of the first nations people change Thompson’s
perspective and together with his own ideals, they merge to a new viewpoint (positive
impact of colonization)
-Moodie: more complicated example, seen with gun and fur trade, dependent upon the
treader (whether they have a native perspective or 19th century white perspective)
-Imagery: elements of a poem that invoke any of the five senses to create a set of mental
images. Use of vivid or figurative language to represent ideas, objects or actions
-Imagism: Modernist poetic movement that flourished 1912-1917, rebellion against content and
form. Relies on the content to make the reader feel the stripping away of aesthetic elements.
Tend to be short, no use of narrators or speakers that can interfere with the form. The idea that
a good poem doesn’t use superfluous words
-Irony: implies a distance between what is said, and what is meant. The reader is able to see the
implied meaning in spite of such contradiction
-Dramatic Irony: a contrast between reality and a character’s intention or ideals
-Metaphor: a comparison that is made directly (ex. “beauty is truth, truth beauty”) or less
directly (ex. “marriage of two minds”) but without using “like,” “as,” or “than”
-Motif: a central or recurring image or action in a literary work that is shared by other works
and may serve an overall theme. Sometimes described as expressions of a collective
unconscious
-Novel: an extended work of fiction, written in prose. Developed in 18th-century England
-Onomatopoeia: a figure of speech in which the sound of a word imitates its sense (ex. quack,
boom, hiss)
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-Oral Story: an intimate ancient tradition between the storyteller and their audience. The
storyteller and listeners are physically close, often seated together in a circular fashion. Seen in
First Nations culture
-Paradox: a seemingly self-contradictory phrase or concept that illuminates a truth (ex.
describing man as “great lord of all things, yet a prey to all”)
-Persona: dramatic character, distinguished from the poet, who is the speaker of the poem
-Postcolonialism:
-Romance: a long narrative with stirring action featuring a struggle between good and evil.
Romance is interested in humans, rather than epics which are interested in heroes and Gods.
Often interest in sex, and relationships. Limited to a particular love story, rather than how it
would effect the world
-Rhyme: repetition of syllables
-Eye Rhyme: work when spelled, not spoken (ex. “through” and “rough”)
-End Rhyme: common, usually the final spoken word (ex. “stair” and “prayer”)
-Satire:
-Simile: comparison made with “as,” “like,” or “than” (ex. “love is like a flower”
-Sketch: a literary model, a documentary prose piece centred on a person, place, event,
phenomena or thing. Often embellished, there is a focus of the literature, when reading
sketches the reader should look for a central object/ theme in mind
-Sonnet: a 14-lined poem with a variable rhyme scheme
-Sublime: an infinite experience, that threatened to overpower the importance of human
existence within the universe. (ex. painters depicting humans within a painting, to allow a
human connection to the sublime, inexplainable feeling, the idea of humans within the
wilderness)
-Symbol: something in the world of the senses, including an action that reveals or is a sign for
something else (ex. rose is symbolic of love)
-Theme: the foundation for the entire literary piece, connecting all aspects of the work with
another. Typically the main subject or motif of a work (ex. theme of Romeo and Juliet = love)
-**Sellepsis (zeugma): The “us” of a word or expression to perform two syntactic functions,
especially to modify two or more words of which at least one does not agree in number, case
or gender, as the use of are in “neither he nor we are willing”
-Volta: Poem turns from one subject to another, shifting the reader’s attention from one
conflict/ resolution, to another
Poetic Meter
-Iamb: a metrical foot consisting of unaccented syllable, followed by accented syllable (ex.
“unite” and “provide”)
-Trochee: a metrical foot consisting of an accented syllable, followed by unaccented (ex.
“garden” and “highway”)
-Anapest: a metrical foot consisting of two unaccented syllables, followed by an accented
(ex. “underfoot” and “overcome”)
-Dactyl: a metrical foot consisting of an accented syllable, followed by two unaccented (ex.
“poetry” and “basketball”)
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Document Summary
Issue with this was that when other publishers pirated his work, often the original message could be altered to benefit the new market. Allegory: something that represents something else, reflective of a larger theme. What appears to be something in the text, reflects upon a larger theme throughout the text. Alliteration: the repetition of initial stressed, consonant sounds in a series of words within a phrase or verse line. Consonance: a resemblance in sound between two words or an initial rhyme. Assonance: the repetition of vowel sounds without repeating consonants, sometimes called vowel rhyme. Often slow the energy, and make the mood somber (ex. So old it is that no man knows how long oh sound) Allusion: a brief, intentional reference to historical, mythical or literary person, place, event or movement. Alterity: a state of being other or different otherness . Anadiplosis: a repetition of the last word of a preceding clause.
