Comic Relief

Comic Relief Definition:

  A Comic Relief is the introduction of comic characters, speeches, or scenes in a serious or tragic work, especially in dramas. Such elements were almost universal in Elizabethan tragedy. Sometimes they occur merely as episodes of dialogue or horseplay for purposes of alleviating tension and adding variety; in more carefully wrought plays, however, they are also integrated with the plot, in a way that counterpoints and enhances the serious or tragic significance.

Example:
     Examples of such complex uses of comic elements are the gravediggers in Hamlet (V. L), the scene of the drunken porter after the murder of the king in Macbeth (II. iii.), the Falstaff scenes in 1 Henry IV, and the roles of Mercurio and the old nurse in Romeo and Juliet.

Chorus

Chorus Definition: A group of person who give much information to decorate and enlarge the act but they are not the character of the act. They make bridge among the past, present and future condition of the act and inform the audience.

Character

Character Definition: A person in a literary work. Any person in a play is considered as a character.

Conceit

Conceit Definition: Conceit is an elaborate figure of speech comparing two very dissimilar things or situations. The comparison may be startling, farfetched, fanciful or highly intellectual and may develop an analogy to its logical limits and beyond. John Donne has used many conceits in his poem, ‘The Good Morrow’. For example: ‘Or snorted we in the seven sleepers den?’

Comedy

Comedy Definition: Comedy is a play which ends happily. In general, any literary work that ends to amuse by dealing with humorous, familiar situation involving ordinary people speaking everyday language. There are different kinds of comedy; such as- comedy of humors, comedy of intrigue and comedy of manners. George Barnard Show’s Arms and The Man is a great comedy. Deve

Consonance

Consonance Definition:

     Consonance refers to repetition of sounds produced by consonants within a sentence or phrase. In this regard consonance can be understood to be a kind of alliteration. What sets it apart from alliterations is that it is the repetition of only consonant sounds. Consonance is the opposite of assonance, which implies repetitive usage of vowel sounds.

Example: 
Sing sweet songs for suzy.

Blank verse

Blank Verse Definition:
   
     Blank Verse consists of lines of iambic pentameter (five-stress iambic verse) which are unrhymed—hence the term "blank." Of all English metrical forms it is closest to the natural rhythms of English speech, and at the same time flexible and adaptive to diverse levels of discourse; as a result it has been more frequently and variously used than any other type of versification. Soon after blank verse was introduced by the Earl of Surrey in his translations of Books 2 and 4 of Virgil's The Aeneid (about 1540), it became the standard meter for Elizabethan and later poetic drama; a free form of blank verse is still the medium in such twentieth-century verse plays as those by Maxwell Anderson and T. S. Eliot. John Milton used blank verse for his epic Paradise Lost (1667), James Thomson for his descriptive and philosophical Seasons (1726-30), William Wordsworth for his autobiographical Prelude (1805), Alfred, Lord Tennyson for the narrative Idylls of the King (1891), Robert Browning for The Ring and the Book (1868-69) and many dramatic monologues, and T. S. Eliot for much of The Waste Land (1922). A large number of meditative lyrics, from the Romantic Period to the present, have also been written in blank verse, including Coleridge's "Frost at Midnight," Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey," Tennyson's "Tears, Idle Tears" (in which the blank verse is divided into five-line stanzas), and Wallace Stevens' "Sunday Morning."

Biography

Biography Definition:

   Late in the seventeenth century, John Dryden defined biography neatly as "the history of particular men's lives." The name now connotes a relatively full account of a particular person's life, involving the attempt to set forth character, temperament, and milieu, as well as the subject's activities and experiences.

Ballad

Ballad Definition:

      A short definition of the popular ballad (known also as the folk ballad or traditional ballad) is that it is a song, transmitted orally, which tells a story. Ballads are thus the narrative species of folk songs, which originate, and are communicated orally, among illiterate or only partly literate people. In all probability the initial version of a ballad was composed by a single author, but he or she is unknown; and since each singer who learns and re- peats an oral ballad is apt to introduce changes in both the text and the tune, it exists in many variant forms.
   Typically, the popular ballad is dramatic, condensed, and impersonal: the narrator begins with the climactic episode, tells the story tersely by means of action and dialogue (sometimes by means of the dialogue alone), and tells it without self-reference or the expression of personal attitudes or feelings.

    The most common stanza form—called the ballad stanza—is a quatrain in alternate four- and three-stress lines; usually only the second and fourth lines rhyme. This is the form of "Sir Patrick Spens"; the first stanza of this ballad also exemplifies the conventionally abrupt opening and the manner of proceeding by third-person narration, curtly sketched setting and action, sharp transition, and spare dialogue:
The king sits in Dumferling towne, Drinking the blude-red wine:
"O whar will I get a guid sailor,
To sail this schip of mine. 

Autobiography

Autobiography Definition:

     An Autobiography is a biography written by the subject about himself or herself. It is to be distinguished from the memoir, in which the emphasis is not on the author's developing self but on the people and events that the author has known or witnessed, and also from the private diary or journal, which is a day-to-day record of the events in one's life, written for personal use and satisfaction, with little or no thought of publication.

Example:
      The latter type are the seventeenth-century diaries of Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn, the eighteenth-century journals of James Boswell and Fanny Burney, and Dorothy Wordsworth's remarkable Journals, written 1798-1828, but not published until long after her death. The first fully developed autobiography is also the most influential: the Confessions of St. Augustine, written in the fourth century.

Antihero

Antihero Definition:

       The chief person in a modern novel or play whose character is widely discrepant from that which we associate with the traditional protagonist or hero of a serious literary work. Instead of manifesting largeness, dignity, power, or heroism, the antihero is petty, ignominious, passive, ineffectual, or dishonest.

Analogy

Analogy Definition:

       An analogy is a literary device that helps to establish a relationship based on similarities between two concepts or ideas. By using an analogy we can convey a new idea by using the blueprint of an old one as a basis for understanding. With a mental linkage between the two, one can create comprehension regarding the new concept in a simple and succinct manner.

Example:
    In the same way as one cannot have the rainbow without the rain, one cannot achieve success and riches without hard work.

Asyndeton

Asyndeton Definition:

          Assonance refers to repetition of sounds produced by vowels within a sentence or phrase. In this regard assonance can be understood to be a kind of alliteration. What sets it apart from alliterations is that it is the repetition of only vowel sounds. Assonance is the opposite of consonance, which implies repetitive usage of consonant sounds.

     Example:
“A long song”. (Where the ‘o’ sound is repeated in the last two words of the sentence)

Antithesis

Antithesis Definition:

    An antithesis is used when the writer employs two sentences of contrasting meanings in close proximity to one another. Whether they are words or phrases of the same sentence, an antithesis is used to create a stark contrast using two divergent elements that come together to create one uniform whole. An antithesis plays on the complementary property of opposites to create one vivid picture. The purpose of using an antithesis in literature is to create a balance between opposite qualities and lend a greater insight into the subject.

Example:
         When Neil Armstrong walked on the moon it might have been one small step for a man but it was one giant leap for mankind.

Anastrophe

Anastrophe Definition:

  Anastrophe is a form of literary device wherein the order of the noun and the adjective in the sentence is exchanged. In standard parlance and writing the adjective comes before the noun but when one is employing an anastrophe the noun is followed by the adjective. This reversed order creates a dramatic impact and lends weight to the description offered by the adjective.

Example:
      He spoke of times past and future, and dreamt of things to be.

Assonance

Assonance Definition:

  Assonance refers to repetition of sounds produced by vowels within a sentence or phrase. In this regard assonance can be understood to be a kind of alliteration. What sets it apart from alliterations is that it is the repetition of only vowel sounds. Assonance is the opposite of consonance, which implies repetitive usage of consonant sounds.

Example:
“A long song”.
(Where the ‘o’ sound is repeated in the last two words of the sentence)

Anagram

Anagram Definition:
     Anagrams are an extremely popular form of literary device wherein the writer jumbles up parts of the word to create a new word. From the syllables of a phrase to the individual letters of a word, any fraction can be jumbled to create a new form. Anagram is a form of wordplay that allows the writer to infuse mystery and a little interactive fun in the writing so that the reader can decipher the actual word on their own and discover a depth of meaning to the writing.
 
Example:
    An anagram for "debit card" is "bad credit". As you can see, both phrases use the same letters. By mixing the letters a bit of humor is created.

Amplification

 
Amplification Definition:
    Amplification refers to a literary practice wherein the writer embellishes the sentence by adding more information to it in order to increase its worth and understandability. When a plain sentence is too abrupt and fails to convey the full implications desired, amplification comes into play when the writer adds more to the structure to give it more meaning.

Example:
Original sentence- The thesis paper was difficult. After amplification- The thesis paper was difficult: it required extensive research, data collection, sample surveys, interviews and a lot of fieldwork.

Allusion

Allusion Definition:

An allusion is a figure of speech whereby the author refers to a subject matter such as a place, event, or literary work by way of a passing reference. It is up to the reader to make a connection to the subject being mentioned.
Example:
It’s no wonder everyone refers to Mary as another Mother Teresa in the making; she loves to help and care after people everywhere- from the streets to her own friends.
In the example the author uses the mention of Mother Teresa to indicate the sort of qualities that Mary has.

Alliteration

Alliteration Definition:

Alliteration is a literary device where words are used in quick succession and begin with letters belonging to the same sound group. Whether it is the consonant sound or a specific vowel group, the alliteration involves creating a repetition of similar sounds in the sentence. Alliterations are also created when the words all begin with the same letter. Alliterations are used to add character to the writing and often add an element of ‘fun’ to the piece.

  Example:
The Wicked Witch of the West went her own way. (The ‘W’ sound is highlighted and repeated throughout the sentence.)