Literature

A body of written works. The name has traditionally been applied to those imaginative works of poetry and prose distinguished by the intentions of their authors and the perceived...

• a lo divino

  Spanish “in the sacred style” or “in sacred terms” in Spanish literature, the recasting of a secular work as a religious work, or, more generally, a treatment of a secular theme in religious terms through the use of allegory, symbolism, and metaphor....

• ab ovo

  Latin “from the egg” in literature, the practice of beginning a poetic narrative at the earliest possible chronological point. The Latin poet and critic Horace approvingly notes in Ars poetica that Homer does not begin a tale of the Trojan War with the...

• Abenteuerroman

  German “adventure novel” in German literature, a form of the picaresque novel. The Abenteuerroman is an entertaining story recounting the adventures of the hero, but it often incorporates a serious aspect. An example of the genre is the 17th-century...

• abstract poem

  a term coined by Edith Sitwell to describe a poem in which the words are chosen for their aural quality rather than specifically for their sense or meaning. An example from “Popular Song” in Sitwell’s Façade (1923) follows: The red retriever-haired satyr...

• accent

  in prosody, a rhythmically significant stress on the syllables of a verse, usually at regular intervals. The word accent is often used interchangeably with stress, though some prosodists use accent to mean the emphasis that is determined by the normal...

• accentual-syllabic verse

  in prosody, the metrical system that is most commonly used in English poetry. It is based on both the number of stresses, or accents, and the number of syllables in each line of verse. A line of iambic pentameter verse, for example, consists of five...

• acrostic

  short verse composition, so constructed that the initial letters of the lines, taken consecutively, form words. The term is derived from the Greek words akros, “at the end,” and stichos, “line,” or “verse.” The word was first applied to the prophecies...

• adab

  Islāmic concept that became a literary genre distinguished by its broad humanitarian concerns; it developed during the brilliant height of ʿAbbāsid culture in the 9th century and continued through the Muslim Middle Ages. The original sense of the word...

• adage

  a saying, often in metaphoric form, that embodies a common observation, such as "If the shoe fits, wear it,’’ "Out of the frying pan, into the fire,’’ or "Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.’’ The scholar Erasmus published...

• aesthetic distance

  the frame of reference that an artist creates by the use of technical devices in and around the work of art to differentiate it psychologically from reality. German playwright Bertolt Brecht built his dramatic theory known in English as the alienation...

• African American literature

  body of literature written by Americans of African descent. Beginning in the pre-Revolutionary War period, African American writers have engaged in a creative, if often contentious, dialogue with American letters. The result is a literature rich in expressive...

• African literature

  the body of traditional oral and written literatures in Afro-Asiatic and African languages together with works written by Africans in European languages. Traditional written literature, which is limited to a smaller geographic area than is oral literature,...

• Agate, James

  English drama critic for the London Sunday Times (1923–47), book reviewer for the Daily Express, novelist, essayist, diarist, and raconteur. He is remembered for his wit and perverse yet lovable personality, the sparkle and fundamental seriousness of...

• Agnon, S. Y.

  Israeli writer who was one of the leading modern Hebrew novelists and short-story writers. In 1966 he was the corecipient, with Nelly Sachs, of the Nobel Prize for Literature. Born of a family of Polish Jewish merchants, rabbis, and scholars, Agnon wrote...

• aisling

  in Irish literature, a poetic or dramatic description or representation of a vision. The Vision of Adamnán is one of the best-known examples. In the 18th century the aisling became popular as a means of expressing support for the exiled Roman Catholic...

• Akutagawa Prize

  Japanese literary prize awarded semiannually for the best work of fiction by a promising new Japanese writer. The prize is generally considered, along with the Naoki Prize (for the best work of popular fiction), Japan’s most prestigious and sought-after...

• Albanian literature

  the body of written works produced in the Albanian language. The Ottoman Empire, which ruled Albania from the 15th to the early 20th century, prohibited publications in Albanian, an edict that became a serious obstacle to the development of literature...

• Alexander romance

  any of a body of legends about the career of Alexander the Great, told and retold with varying emphasis and purpose by succeeding ages and civilizations. The chief source of all Alexander romance literature was a folk epic written in Greek by a Hellenized...

• alliteration

  in prosody, the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words or stressed syllables. Sometimes the repetition of initial vowel sounds (head rhyme) is also referred to as alliteration. As a poetic device, it is often discussed with assonance...

• alliterative prose

  prose that uses alliteration and some of the techniques of alliterative verse. Notable examples are from Old English and Middle English, including works by the Anglo-Saxon writer Aelfric and the so-called Katherine Group of five Middle English devotional...