A Dictionary of Literary And Thematic Terms.pdf

L iterary

T hematic

T erms

and

Second Edition

EDWARD QUINN

A DICTIONARY OF

A Dictionary of Literary and Thematic Terms, Second Edition

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Quinn, Edward, 1932–

A dictionary of literary and thematic terms / Edward Quinn—2nd ed.

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 0-8160-6243-9 (hc : alk. paper) 1. Criticism—Terminology. 2. Literature—

Terminology. 3. Literature, Comparative—Themes, motives, etc.—Terminology. 4. English

language—Terms and phrases. 5. Literary form—Terminology. I. Title.

PN44.5.Q56 2006

803—dc22

2005029826

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Text design by Sandra Watanabe

Cover design by Cathy Rincon

Printed in the United States of America

MP FOF 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

C ontents

Preface

Literary and Thematic Terms

Index

453

P reface

T his book offers the student or general reader a guide through the thicket of liter-

ary terms. Unlike traditional books of this type, however, it takes an expanded view

of the term literary . One cause of this expansion is the new way of talking about and

teaching literature that has emerged since the late 1960s under the general heading

of “theory.” Theory often deals with subjects that seem at best only peripherally

related to what we think of as literature, but some of its insights have provided us

with new tools to understand the processes of reading, writing, interpreting, and

(alas, to a relatively insigniﬁ cant extent) enjoying literature. This book provides

discussions of the major terms begotten by theory, always with the goal of relating

them to literary study.

Another form of expansion is reﬂ ected in the title word thematic. This is the

ﬁ rst book of literary terms to include within it discussions of major literary themes,

such as death, love, and time, and also of themes that have a particular signiﬁ cance

for our age, such as AIDS, alienation, and anti-Semitism. Still another expansion of

“literature” is its extension to include ﬁ lm, television, and other forms of popular

culture, thus the appearance of terms such as macgufﬁ n, sitcom, and rap.

These updatings and innovations, however, should not obscure the fact that

most of the entries in this book have been in existence for centuries, some of them—

those relating to Aristotle—as old as 2,500 years. Like other living things, the liter-

ary tradition continues to evolve and expand, enriching the lives of all those lucky

enough to come to know it. To that end, this book offers itself as a modest guide.

The subtitle of this new edition might well be labeled, “From Academic

Discourse to Zines” since these are the ﬁ rst and last new entries in the book.

However, while these two appropriately suggest the ever expanding range of what

constitutes “literary” terms, they also indicate the somewhat shifting, deceptive

nature of these terms. At ﬁ rst glance, academic discourse appears to be a rusty relic

of an ivory-towered past, while zines seems to embody the essence of a computer-

generated future. But as the entries themselves indicate, academic discourse has

recently become a hotly “contested site,” while the zines phenomenon is more than

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