Allegory. Sustained metaphor in narrative poetry such that the reader can discern two stories: a literal level of storytelling (knight slays dragon, for example) and a level of symbolism (good slays evil). The latter story or meaning lies outside the narrative. William Langland wrote allegory in Piers Plowman, as did Edmund Spenser in The Faerie Queene. See also metaphor, figurative language, symbolism.
Alliteration. A form of internal rhyme in which consonants repeat in a single line of verse. When Chaucer's Parson says he cannot "rum, ram, ruff by lettre" he means he cannot tell a story in alliterative verse. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight alliterates throughout. The opening line is characteristic: "Since the siege and the assault was ceased at Troy" (trans. M. Boroff). Alliteration occurs in Since, siege, assault, and ceased. In alliterative technique spellings don't matter; sounds do. See also assonance.
Arthurian cycle refers to stories of King Arthur and his knights. Arthur and the Round Table provide the point of departure for stories of other knights, including Lancelot, Gawain, Perceval, and many others. See also cycle (2).
Assonance. A form of internal rhyme in which vowel sounds repeat in a single line of verse. Here is an example, from Heaney's translation of Beowulf, line 1061: "will enjoy and endure more than enough." See also alliteration.
Blank verse. Unrhymed iambic pentameter poetic lines. Milton wrote Paradise Lost entirely in blank verse.
Breton lay. A genre of writing akin to medieval romance and featuring love issues often sympathetic to women. The lays of Marie de France (late 12th century) are often characterized as Breton lays as is Chaucer's Franklin's Tale from the Canterbury Tales.
Caroline era. The English historical period of Charles I's rule after the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras but before the Puritan Revolution and the Interregnum.
Chronology & timeline. An aid for students consisting of a sequential chart or breakdown of dates and events. The goal of a chronology is to allow the student to see at a glance relationships between and among authors and historical occurrences. See, for example, Harvard's Chaucer Chronology.
Clerk. (1) Someone associated with the Church, a cleric. (2) A student. Chaucer's pilgrim Clerk was a student at Oxford University. Although medieval students expected to take holy orders (and vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience) and to receive a benefice (a job, for example as a parish priest), many in the later Middle Ages found employment in the civil bureaucracy.
Comedy. (1) One of the three principal dramatic genres of Renaissance drama (the other two being History and Tragedy). In Shakespearean comedy, the action starts out with a problem, the problem intensifies through the first three acts, then a resolution occurs and all is well. Shakespearean comedies usually conclude with marriages. Although there is humor in comedy, the term refers to the happy endings. (2) Christian comedy (as in Dante's Divine Comedy refers to salvation or the possibility of salvation, which renders earthly misfortunes trivial by comparison.
Couplet. Two rhyming lines of poetry with the same metrical scheme. Chaucer wrote much of his Canterbury Tales in rhyming couplets. The opening lines of the General Prologue comprise a couplet:
Whan that April with his showres soote
The droughte of March hath perced to the roote .
. . .
Cycle. (1) Poems or literary works collected together in an anthology. Sonnets, such as those of Sir Philip Sidney or William Shakespeare, were often written in cycles that contained recurring themes (love, friendship, the immortality of verse). (2) Romances were often written in "cycles," with a main character or theme (Arthur, Charlemagne, Trojan War) and branching stories related to the character or theme. Chaucer's Knight's Tale, for example, exists within the cycle of Greece and Rome, whereas his Wife of Bath's Tale was written within the Arthurian cycle. (3) The organization of medieval mystery plays, which were structured around a sequence of plays from Creation to Doomsday. Such plays were also called "cycle dramas."
Cycle dramas. See cycle (3).
De casibus tragedy. Medieval writers understood tragedy to be the fall from a high estate to a lower estate (or position), often depicted as the turning of Fortune's Wheel. Chaucer's Monk from the Canterbury Tales explains tragedy in this way:
Tragedie is to seyn a certeyn storie,
As olde bookes maken us memorie,
Of hym that stood in greet prosperitee,
And is yfallen out of heigh degree high position
Into myserie, and endeth wrecchedly.
Drama. A broad literary genre that includes different kinds of plays, including mystery play and morality play from the Middle Ages and comedy, history, and tragedy from the early modern period.
Early modern period. See Renaissance.
Elizabethan era. The historical time of Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603), a time when poetry and drama flourished. Famous writers of this time included Edmund Spenser (The Faerie Queene), Sir Philip Sidney (sonnet cycle, Arcadia, An Apology for Poetry), Christoopher Marlowe (Dr. Faustus), William Shakespeare (dramatic comedies, histories, and tragedies; sonnet cycle), Ben Jonson (Every Man in His Humour, Volpone), and many others. See also Ricardian era, Jacobean era, Caroline era.
End-stopped lines. Verse lines that cause the reader to pause at the end. Punctuation for this can include a comma, semicolon, colon, or period. Sometimes a line has no punctuation but yet the thought is complete and the reader must pause.
English sonnet. See Shakespearean sonnet.
Enjambment. The technique of not end-stopping poetic lines with the result that the thought carries over from one line to the next. Adj. enjambed. For an example of enjambed (or run-on) lines, consult Milton's sonnet On the Late Massacre in Piedmont, lines 5-14 (where he seems to be showing off his skill at writing non-end-stopped lines).
Epic. A kind of narrative writing derived from Homer that features formal conventions such as an epic hero, invocation of the Muse, epithets ("rosy-fingered Dawn"), epic similes, catalogues, and a descent to the underworld. The subject of epic is usually very broad and important: the wrath of Achilles, the mind of Odysseus (Homer), "arms and the man" (Virgil), the state of souls after death (Dante), or justifying the "ways of God to man" (Milton). Some works called epics, such as Beowulf or the Song of Roland, were not composed to imitate the classical epics. These are sometimes called "folk epics."
Estates satire. Satire written around the so-called three estates or social classes of the clergy (church people), the nobility (the highest class or estate), and commoners. The General Prologue of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales depicts nine and twenty pilgrims in their several estates or "degrees."
Fabliau. (Plural fabliaux). Originally a French form, the fabliau ("little fable") is a genre of medieval storytelling with indecent or obscene content, stock characters (old jealous husbands, lusty young wives, lecherous students or friars), and considerable detail. Chaucer's Miller's Tale is often considered to be the most accomplished fabliau ever written in any language.
Figure of speech. See Figurative language.
Figurative language. The non-literal use of language and the tendency of language to have more than one meaning. A figure of speech is a way of recognizing this tendency. Figures of speech (like "I'm fed up to here") might need to be explained to a non-native speaker. The phrase "All hands on deck" involves figurative language, since "hands" refer to men who can use their hands to help guide the ship. When one says that Saint George is a "figure" for Christ, it means that he has Christ-like qualities. See also metaphor, simile, symbolism , allegory, kenning.
Folk epic. Epic-like works composed outside of the tradition of Homer and Virgil. Examples include the English Beowulf (about A. D. 1000) and the French Song of Roland. The latter is often referred to as a chanson de geste, a song of battle-deeds.
Foot, feet, metrical. The basic metrical unit of verse lines. In the phrase iambic pentameter the word "iambic" refers to the foot, in this case an iamb, and "pentameter" refers to the number of such feet (five).
Frame tale. A narrative composed with an outer story which frame inner tales, such as Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron or Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. In the Decameron, young men and women flee the plague in Florence and retreat to a country villa (outer tale), where they tell stories (inner tales) to pass the time. In the Canterbury Tales pilgrims to Canterbury (outer frame) tell tales (inner stories) to entertain themselves along the way.
Genre. The form of a literary work, such as novel, lyric poem, narrative poem, drama. For British Literature I the chief literary genres are drama (the plays of Shakespeare), narrative poem (Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, John Milton's Paradise Lost), and lyric poems (the sonnets of Shakespeare, for example). The word genre comes from the Latin term of classification genus.
History. One of the three principal dramatic genres of Renaissance drama, the other two being Comedy and Tragedy. In Shakespeare's history plays, we learn the basic facts of a king's life but presented in very dramatic fashion. Shakespeare will take liberties with the historical record in the order better to tell his story. History plays are often closely allied to tragedy in form and structure.
Humanism. The new emphasis on the works and worth of men and women associated with the early modern period, which included a special concern with the Greek and Latin classics by authors such as Homer, Virgil, Ovid, and the Greek dramatists. The Greek writers were virtually unknown during the Middle Ages. The humanist movement was especially associated with the Dutch writer Desiderius Erasmus, who was well known in England. Humanist writers focused on the achievements and possibilities of men rather than on abstract issues of theology associated with the medieval period.
Iambic pentameter. Verse lines written mostly with the stress pattern of five units of light-heavy. An iamb is a poetic foot consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. The word delay is naturally an iamb. Pentameter means "five feet" or five metrical units. Hence iambic pentameter means verse lines composed of five iambs per line. In the verse line "The curfew tolls the knell of parting day," stress falls on the first syllable of "curfew," "tolls," "knell," the first syllable of "parting," and "day." The symbol for light stress is while the symbol for heavy stress is the acute accent above the stressed syllable ('). Most of the verse lines in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Shakespeare's dramatic lines, and Milton's blank verse lines in Paradise Lost are written in this pattern.
Imagery, images. The technique in poetry to create mental pictures or images through words. Poets often create patterns of imagery for specific prosodic reasons.
Interregnum refers to the period of English parliamentary governance between the reigns of king Charles I (beheaded in 1649) and the Restoration to the throne of his son Charles II in 1660. Oliver Cromwell led England as dictator in his capacity as Lord Protector of the Commonwealth from 1653-58.
Jacobean era refers to the reign of the English king James I, the Scottish king who succeeded Elizabeth I in 1603 and who ruled until 1625. See also Elizabethan era, Caroline era, Ricardian era.
Kenning. A trope or figure of speech characteristic of Old English diction in which two separate words are put together to form a single concept: "whale-road" for sea, for example, or "earth-vault" for underground cavern, or "oar-steed" for ship.
Lyric. Short, emotional poetry (lyric poetry). In English the chief example of the lyric poem is the sonnet. Lyric is so called because of its associations with song (compare "song lyrics"). The opposite of lyric is narrative poetry, for example the epic poetry of Homer, Virgil, Dante, or Milton. In classical thought, Erato was the Muse (compare "erotic") and Apollo with his lyre was the god of lyric poetry. Calliope was the Muse of epic poetry.
Metaphor. Figurative use of language involving comparison of one thing with another.
Meter, poetic. The pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in verse. See also Iambic pentameter.
Microcosm & macrocosm. In medieval and early modern writings and thought, the theory that humans in their material and spiritual composition (body and soul) mirror the universe at large. Man was the microcosm or "little world" (as in John Donne's Holy Sonnet # 2: "I am a little world made cunningly") reflecting and acted upon by the great world or macrocosm.
Middle Ages or the medieval period. The Middle Ages were so called because this historical period "came between" the classical period of Greece and Rome and the revival of classical learning in the Renaissance (or early modern period). The Middle Ages lasted from about 400 - 1500. Chaucer (about 1343-1400) lived during the medieval period; Shakespeare and Milton lived during the early modern period. These designations are all constructed or interpreted and not actual events. (Note the correct spelling of "medieval," which means "middle" + "age" [Lat. aevum].)
Middle English. The form of English spoken approximately from 1150 - 1450. Before 1150 English was highly inflected (with special endings for noun and adjective cases and for verb endings). The English spoken from about 500 - 1150 is called Old English; Modern English began to be spoken and written between 1450 and 1500.
Modern English refers to the speech and writing in England from the late fifteenth century to the present day. Modern English includes Shakespeare's language but not Chaucer's. See also Old English, Middle English.
Morality play. A type of medieval allegorical drama organized around the struggle between vices and virtues. The play of Everyman, in which Death visits Everyman (the character) and tells him he cannot take anyone or anything to the grave with him except is Good Deeds, is the outstanding example of this dramatic genre. See also Mystery play.
Muses. The often-invoked Nine female classical patrons of the arts and sciences: Erato (lyric poetry & mime), Calliope (epic poetry), Melpomene (tragedy), Thalia (comedy and pastoral poetry), Clio (History), Euterpe (lyric poetry & music), Terpsichore (dance), Polyhymnia (song & rhetoric), Urania (astronomy). Milton invokes Urania along with the Holy Spirit to inspire and guide his Paradise Lost.
Mystery play. A type of medieval cycle drama organized around significant moments from both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. A cycle would usually span Creation to Doomsday and include the Fall of Adam, Noah's Flood, the Sacrifice of Isaac, Herod, and the Crucifixion. Absolon in Chaucer's Miller's Tale had played the character Herod in a mystery play. See also Morality play.
Narrative refers to extended nondramatic poetry or prose related by a narrator. Epic poetry is a form of narrative. The opposite of narrative is lyric.
Octave. The first eight lines of a Petrarchan sonnet (especially). The Petrarchan sonnet's octave invariably rhymes abba abba.
Old English. The Germanic language spoken from the fifth century to about 1150 and written from about 700 to 1150 in England as a result of the Anglo-Saxon invasions beginning in the early fifth century. Old English is the language of the epic poem Beowulf and is difficult for modern readers to read with any fluency. Old English poetry had its own specialized vocabulary and poetic techniques, including kennings, alliteration, and assonance.
Persona or persona mask. Another way of saying narrator when the words of the narrator can be seen to differ or diverge from what the author must think or feel. The narrator of the General Prologue of the Canterbury Tales is a persona because he has only enthusiasm for pilgrims, like the Monk or Friar, who do not merit such praise.
Petrarchan sonnet. A fourteen-line lyric poem rhyming abba abba in the octave and variously in the sestet. Sometimes called the "Italian sonnet." Wyatt, Surrey, Donne, and Milton all wrote Petrarchan sonnets. Shakespeare wrote in an alternate form (the "Shakespearean sonnet")
Prosody. Study of the metrical systems of poetry. See, for example, iambic pentameter, a common prosodic scheme.
Protectorate. See Puritan Revolution, Interregnum.
Puritan Revolution. The rise to power of the Puritans in England in the second quarter of the seventeenth century. The English Civil War between various parliamentary factions including Puritans, on the one hand, and the crown (Charles I), on the other, lasted from 1642-46. Oliver Cromwell ruled England as Lord Protector of the Commonwealth from 1653-58 before he abdicated in favor of his son Richard, who governed the Protectorate from 1658-59. John Milton was Oliver Cromwell's Latin Secretary.
Reformation. The historical period when new voices and new religious organizations challenged the authority of the Catholic Church. The Reformation in England was led by Henry VIII, who organized the Church of England in a break from Rome. The leaders of the Reformation on the continent included Martin Luther (Lutheranism), John Calvin, and Martin Zwingli. Issues included the authority of the Pope and the wealth of the Church, the focus on the Virgin Mary, the Catholic Church hierarchy (as opposed to individual salvation), and Transubstantiation (the turning of bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus in the Mass).
Renaissance. A word meaning "rebirth" and referring to the post-medieval period (sometime after about 1500 in England) when writers and thinkers felt they were making a break with the issues and concerns of the Middle Ages and returning to the brilliant qualities represented by classical literature and philosophy. A synonym for Renaissance these days is early modern period, which does not carry the same "loaded" linguistic freight as Renaissance. In England the Renaissance may be said to extend from about 1500 to about 1660 (or the Restoration).
Restoration. The period of English governance represented by the return to rule of Charles II in 1660, who fled England during the Puritan Revolution and the Interregnum.
Rhyme (or rime) royal. A formal verse pattern with seven-line stanzas rhyming ababbcc.
Ricardian era refers to the historical time of Richard II, king of England from 1377-99. Authors during Richard's reign included Geoffrey Chaucer, William Langland (Piers Plowman), the anonymous author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and John Gower (Confessio Amantis). Chaucer performed many official duties for Richard.
Romance. A popular medieval and early modern genre concerned with warfare and human love. The genre began in the twelfth century with the writings of Chrétien de Troyes concerning the Arthurian cycle of tales, including tales of Lancelot and Guinevere, King Arthur's Queen, and of Perceval and the Holy Grail. Geoffrey Chaucer wrote several important romances (notably theKnight's Tale and Troilus and Criseyde); Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene is an allegorical romance loosely based on the Arthurian cycle.
Sestet. The final six lines of a sonnet. A typical ending for the Petrarchan sestet is cde cde but there are many variations. The Shakespearean sonnet invariably rhymes the sestet efef gg.
Shakespearean sonnet. A special rhyme of the sonnet associated with Shakespeare's sonnet cycle (sometimes called the "English sonnet," although Edmund Spenser and Mary Wroth, among others, experimented in alternative rhyme schemes for sonnets). The rhyme scheme of the Shakespearean sonnet is invariably abab cdcd efef gg. See also Petrarchan sonnet.
Simile. A simple form of figurative language in which one thing (a rose) is likened to something else (a person): "My love is like a red red rose." Similes usually contain the word like or as in the comparison. Similes are similar to metaphors, but metaphors are usually more complicated and sustained than similes, which are made and then forgotten. Metaphors can resonate throughout a poem or poetic passage and qualify or comment on other parts of the poem.
Sonnet. A fourteen-line lyric poem consisting of an eight-line unit (the octave) and a six-line unit (the sestet). Sonnets were written in two basic types: the Petrarchan sonnet rhyming abba abba in the octave and variably in the sestet (sometimes with a concluding couplet, sometimes not); and the English or Shakespearean sonnet, rhyming abab cdcd efef gg. Both Petrarchan and Shakespearean sonnets often have a turn, whereby the sentiments established in the early part of the sonnet begin to shift, often heralded with a word such as "but." Sonnets during the Renaissance or early modern period often were written in cycles. Sonnet cycles were so-called because they contained several themes or issues that the sonnet writer returned to frequently. Shakespeare, in his cycle of 154 poems, wrote on the pleasures and pains of love, the difficulties of friendship, and the immortality of poetry.
Stanza. A poetic unit with a variable number of lines. Chaucer sometimes wrote poetry in rhyme royal, verse in seven-line stanzas rhyming ababbcc.
Stock characters. Characters in medieval and early modern literature who are instantly recognizable as types: the old jealous husband, the lusty young wife, the scheming student (from Chaucer's Miller's Tale) or the "braggart soldier" (Falstaff from several of Shakespeare's history plays and The Merry Wives of Windsor). Some of these characters were developed in the Italian Commedia dell'arte, including Arlecchino, from whom we get our word harlequin. A stock character in modern joke telling would be the "travelling salesman."
Symbolism. The pointed use of metaphor such that one thing (a rose, for example) stands for something else (love). In the line "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may," rosebuds symbolize the worldly life that takes no account of the future. The phrase implies that when one becomes old the opportunities offered in youth will be gone. The U.S. flag symbolizes the United States and often the wars fought on her behalf.
Theology. The systematic study of religious issues and doctrine. Theology was the chief object of study at the University of Paris and at Oxford University in the Middle Ages. Chaucer's pilgrim Clerk probably was a student of theology.
Timeline, see Chronology.
Tragedy. One of the three principal genres of Renaissance drama, the other two being Comedy and History. In Shakespearean tragedy, we learn of a problem in the beginning, and this problem intensifies to the middle of the tragedy (about Act 3), when a death occurs. Events unravel from that point on, leading to the eventual death of the protagonist.
Turn. The moment in many sonnets when the sentiments established in the earlier part of the lyric begin to change. Sometimes a turn occurs between the octave and sestet (especially in Petrarchan poems) and sometimes in the concluding lines (the couplet of a Shakespearean sonnet, for example). In Shakespeare's Sonnet 3, for example ("Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest"), the turn coincides with the couplet: "But if thou live rememb'red not to be, / Die single, and thine image dies with thee."
Verse. (1) a synonym for poetry; (2) a poetic line.
2. 7th ed. pages 2944 ff. I have consulted other sources, including and especially C. Hugh Holman, A Handbook to Literature, 4th ed. and The American Heritage Dictionary, New College Edition, but I have tried to compose this Glossary with an eye to the vocabulary needs of students of British Literature I. Explanation of terms are keyed to the readings from the course. Feedback about difficulties using this Glossary appreciated.