Literary Terms

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• Middelbare school
• havo, vwo
• Leerjaar 4-6

Literary Terms

Learning Goal

To talk about literature and analyse the deeper meanings, we use a number of literary terms. Today, you'll learn what they are, what they mean and how to use them to analyse a story.

Which are genres and which are themes? 

Genre

Theme

Romance

Revenge

Love

Thriller

Redemption

Science Fiction

Detective

Loss

Fantasy

Coming-Of-Age

Mortality

Abuse

Historical novel

Betrayal

Genre

Category a book belongs to:

• Romance
• Science fiction
• Detective
• Thriller
• Fantasy
• Historical novel

Theme

Underlying message or meaning of a story:

• Love
• Loss
• Redemption
• Revenge
• Abuse

Genre & Theme

Even though the terms are related; they are not the same!

Example: A Romance novel usually deals with the theme of love, but it can cover other themes as well, like abuse, infidelity, betrayal, class differences, etc.

Special Genres

Coming-Of-Age: psychological & moral growth from 

youth to adulthood. Protagonist is usually a teenager.

Psychological novel: delves into the emotions and motivations 

of its protagonist. Why are they the way they are?

Dystopian novel: society gone horribly wrong.

Satire: critical of society in a humorous way.

Comedy of Manners: comedy that satirizes people's behaviour.

The Structure of a Story

Introduction

Conflict

Crises

Climax

Conclusion

Katniss & Peeta win the Hunger Games.

The Gamemakers announce there can be 2 winners.

Katniss & Gale are hunting in the woods of district 12.

Katniss volunteers to participate in the Hunger Games to save her little sister.

Katniss' friend Rue dies in the arena.

Katniss & Peeta have to do a Victors Tour in the districts, but it seems Katniss may have started a revolution...

New York, USA

2163

London, England

Victorian Age

Setting: Place & Time

Setting: Place

Go from big to small: country, state/province, city/village, neighbourhood, house/building

• a gloomy old manor in the English countryside.
• Jackson (city), Mississippi (state), USA (country).
• Imaginary country: Middle-Earth.

Setting: Time

1. Past? Present? Future? Include important periods or events  in history that influence the novel, like WWII, or the prohibition in the Roaring 20's.
2. Sometimes the time span of the novel or story is important: within one hour, two months, three years, decades, etc.

Narrative Point of View

First choose:

• First person: perspective of narrator - I, me, we
• Third person: narrator not a character - he, she, they
• Changing perspective: more than one narrator - switch from 1st to 3rd
• Second person: you - very rare!

Then choose:

• Limited: reader knows the thoughts and feelings of one character. (possible in all POV's)
• Omniscient: narrator and reader know thoughts of all characters. (usually 3rd person)
• Objective: narrator gives no insight into minds of characters. (usually 3rd person)

What is the POV?
Late one evening toward the end of March, a teenager picked up a double-barrelled shotgun, walked into the forest, put the gun to someone else's forehead, and pulled the trigger.
This is the story of how we got there.

1. 1st person, limited
2. 3rd person, limited
3. 3rd person, omniscient
4. 3rd person, objective

What's the POV?
And then, just before I went under, I suddenly stopped caring. I’d been clutching the empty bottle like grim death, I remember, as if I were holding on to life, in a way.

1. 1st person, limited
2. 3rd person, limited
3. 3rd person, omniscient
4. 3rd person, objective

Symbolism

Grass is literally green. What can green mean symbolically, if you look beyond its literal level?

What might an owl stand for symbolically?

1. youth
2. forest
3. anger
4. wisdom

How NOT to explain a title:

Student: It’s about a code by Da Vinci.

Teacher: Really? Wouldn’t have guessed that…

How to do it properly:

Explain all elements, use examples, be precise!

After Sophie Neveu finds her granddad murdered in the Louvre - his body positioned as Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man - she and Robert Langdon follow a series of coded messages hidden in Da Vinci’s art to unravel the ancient mystery of the holy grail.