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Terms for subject Literature (1001 entries)

auditory imagery	Descriptive language that refers to noise, music, or other sounds.
Augmentative Alternative Communication	AAC
Augustan Period (or The Age of Pope)	This period is considered to include literature written in England between about 1700 and 1745. This period saw the rapid development of the novel as a popular form of literature. Satire was often utilised.
author	The composer or writer of any literary work, be it a novel, essay or poem. It is more appropriate, however, to identify a poem's author as a poet.
author's craft	Similar to writer's craft, this term refers to the style and devices used by an author.
authorial attitude	see authorial intention.
authorial intention	The phrase indicates what the author meant when s/ he wrote a text. Many modern critics suppose that what the author may or may not have intended is immaterial, that there is no fixed meaning in a text, and that an individual reader's interpretation is all-important.
auto-da-fe	From the Portuguese, meaning "act of faith", the term refers to the late medieval church's ceremonial execution en masse of accused witches, Jews, heretics, or Muslims. The execution was frequently achieved by burning at the stake.
autobiographical memoir	a book concerned with events in the author's life, but not a comprehensive autobiography.
autobiographical novel	In contrast with the autobiography, an autobiographical novel is a semi-fictional account established in part on the author's life experience, but these experiences are often transposed onto a fictional character or intermixed with fictional events.
autobiography	a narrative of a person 's life written by her or himself.
avant-garde	This phrase is used to describe modern work that is at the cutting edge or 'ahead of its time'. Avant-garde literature deliberately sets out to be innovative, and even to shock. Writers often experiment with form and technique in this type of writing.
ballad	A poem which tells a story, usually in the form of four-line stanzas or quatrains. Lines one and three are generally unrhymed iambic tetrameters, whilst lines two and four are iambic trimeters.
Ballot Counter	BC
bard	An ancient Celtic poet, singer and harpist who recited heroic poems by memory, or more generally, in modern usage, a synonym for any poet. When referred to as The Bard, this is a reference to Shakespeare.
Baroque	A term used to describe a style of architecture, art and music, but it can be used appropriately for writing. Features include florid, exuberant and dramatic form, which is usually associated with the 17th century. Metaphysical writing is sometimes described as such.
bathos	When a writer who is intending to be pathetic, exceeds a limit and descends into the ridiculous.
be a licence to print money	if a company or activity is a licence to print money, it causes people to become very rich without having to make any effort	nouray
beat	The stress of the rhythm or foot in poetry and other texts.
Beat movement	a 1950s loose-knit group of American anti-establishment writers, sometimes known as the Beat Generation. They deliberately shocked middle-class Americans (whom they called 'squares') The group was influenced by jazz and Zen Buddhism. Notable writers include Kerouac (who is credited with inventing the term 'beat') The movement as such was short-lived, but influenced others.