American Literature: Terms & Concepts

The word book has come to have many meanings, e.g., any collection of sheets of paper, wood, or other material sewn or bound together; a division of a written work (books of the Bible, books of Caesar's Gallic War); and statements of financial accounting (bookkeeping).

Popular form of comedy employing improvised dialogue and masked characters that flourished in Italy from the 16th to the 18th century.

Particular kind of work within an art form, differentiated by its structure, content, or style. For instance, the novel is a literary genre and the historical novel is a genre of the novel.

Assessment and interpretation of literary works. The term ‘criticism’ is often taken to mean exclusively adverse comment, but in fact it refers to all literary assessment, whether positive or negative.

Figure of speech using an analogy or close comparison between two things that are not normally treated as if they had anything in common.

The Newbery Medal is awarded annually by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association, to the author of the most distinguished contribution to US literature for children.

A term specifically applied to the work of late-19th-century French writers who reacted against the descriptive precision and objectivity of realism and the scientific determinism of naturalism.

In speech, emphasis given a particular sound, called prosodic systems.

From Dictionary of Shakespeare
A group of two or more syllables in a metric line of verse, one of which is more strongly emphasized or stressed than the others, that forms the basis of the rhythm.

In prosody, a line to be scanned in five feet (see versification). The third line of Thomas Nashe's "Spring" is in pentameter: "Cold doth / not sting, / the pret / ty birds / do sing."

Or rime, the most prominent of the literary artifices used in versification.

From The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
The act of discovery or interp. of the meter (q.v.) of a poem as realized in one of its lines; also the graphic transcription thereof, usually by symbols, numbers, or letters either above the line or alone. S. is a notation system for meter in metrical poetry just as sheet music notates music or writing notates speech.

A Japanese verse form consisting of five lines, the first and third having five syllables, the others seven. [C19: from Japanese, from tan short + ka verse].

Principles of metrical practice in poetry. In different literatures poetic form is achieved in various ways; usually, however, a definite and predictable pattern is evident in the language.