American Literature: General Information

Genre of novel or short story in which a mystery is solved mainly by the action of a professional or amateur detective. Where the mystery to be solved concerns a crime, the work may be called crime fiction. MORE

A novel with a period in history as its setting, which includes historical events and characters. MORE

In literature, written messages, ranging from those addressed to the public and those sent from lover to lover, to business letters and thank-you notes. The common quality they share is a lively style, echoing the personality of the sender yet aimed at the mind and heart of the receiver. MORE

Or mystery story, literary genre in which the cause (or causes) of a mysterious happening, often a crime, is gradually revealed by the hero or heroine. MORE

In modern literary usage, a sustained work of prose fiction a volume or more in length. It is distinguished from the short story and the fictional sketch, which are necessarily brief. MORE

Literary work in which the shepherd's life is presented in a conventionalized manner. In this convention the purity and simplicity of shepherd life is contrasted with the corruption and artificiality of the court or the city. The pastoral is found in poetry, drama, and fiction, and many subjects. MORE

In literature, tales of love and chivalric adventure, in verse or prose, that became popular in France about 1200 and spread throughout Europe. MORE

Short work of prose fiction, usually consisting of between 500 and 10,000 words, which typically either sets up and resolves a single narrative point or depicts a mood or an atmosphere. MORE

In literature, short, narrative poem usually relating a single, dramatic event. Two forms of the ballad are often distinguished—the folk ballad, dating from about the 12th cent., and the literary ballad, dating from the late 18th cent. MORE

Poetry which conveys meaning through the physical arrangement of the words on the page as well as through the words themselves. MORE

A lyric poem, usually a fairly long one, with lines of different lengths and complex rhythms, addressed to a particular person or thing. MORE

Imaginative literary form, particularly suitable for describing emotions and thoughts. Poetry is highly ‘compressed’ writing, often using figures of speech to talk about one thing in terms of another. MORE

A poem of 13 or sometimes 10 lines with only two rhymes, and with the first line used as a refrain after the eighth and thirteenth lines. MORE

From The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
The most complicated of the verseforms initiated by the troubadours (q.v.), the s. is composed of six stanzas of six lines each, followed by an envoi (q.v.) of three lines, all of which are unrhymed. MORE

A short poem with 14 lines of 10 or 11 syllables each and a regular rhyming pattern according to the scheme: the Italian sonnet consists of an octave and a sestet, whereas the English sonnet consists of three quatrains and ends with a rhyming couplet. MORE

From The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
Introduced into France in the 16th c. the v. first had as its only distinguishing features a pastoral subject and use of a refrain; in other respects it was without rule, although a sequence of four 8-line stanzas with a refrain of one or two lines repeated at the end of each stanza. MORE

From Columbia Encyclopedia
Term applied to certain American artists and writers who were popular during the 1950s. Essentially anarchic, members of the beat generation rejected traditional social and artistic forms. MORE

From The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
A computer is a processor that can manipulate numerical or verbal symbols rapidly. Given a lexicon of available words and a set of rules for permissible combinations of them, it can be programmed to generate verbal strings. It becomes an interesting question, then, whether to call these strings poetry. MORE

Term used to describe a flowering of African-American literature and art in the 1920s, mainly in the Harlem district of New York City. MORE

From The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
A school of poetry which flourished in England and America between 1912 and 1914 and emphasized the virtues of clarity, compression, and precision. MORE

A type of post-modernist fiction that mixes elements of fantasy, fable, and folklore with realistic narrative, imbuing it with a fabulous or dreamlike quality. MORE

Modernism is based on a concern with form and the exploration of technique as opposed to content and narrative. In literature, writers experimented with alternatives to orthodox sequential storytelling. MORE

From Encyclopedia of American Poetry: The Twentieth Century
Interpreted broadly, the category of performance poetry might include any poem that is read, sung, recited, acted, or otherwise performed before an audience. In recent decades, however, the term “performance poetry” has emerged to indicate a more specific body

A late 18c and early 19c movement in art, literature and music, characterized by an emphasis on feelings and emotions, often using imagery taken from nature, and creating forms which are relatively free from rules and set orders. MORE

From Contemporary Youth Culture: An International Encyclopedia
SLAM is a hybrid of spoken word and performed poetry, sometimes with music, that gives individuals an opportunity to voice their opinions and feelings on any topic; conveys urgency, action, and excitement. MORE

Transcendentalism was a series of new ideas that flourished among writers and philosophers in New England during the 19th century. MORE