Literary Terms

By: Hannah Faulstick

paradox parallelism anaphora parody pedantic

A paradox is a a statement that contains two parts that contradict each other, but when looked at with more thought and depth have an underlining meaning to why they are together.

Examples: "Some day you will be old enough to start

reading fairy tales again."(C.S. Lewis to his godchild, Lucy Barfield, to whom he dedicated The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe)

"Perhaps this is our strange and haunting paradox here in America--that we are fixed and certain only when we are in movement."(Thomas Wolfe, You Can't Go Home Again, 1940)

"The swiftest traveler is he that goes afoot."(Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854)

ParadoxVisual

o DEFINITION A structure used in writing that has similar form throughout the place in which it is used

Examples:

You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time. -Abraham Lincoln Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country. -John F. Kennedy We are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.- Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Parallelism Visual

Anaphora

• This is a sub-type of Parallelism

• This is when a word or phrase is repeated exactly and placed at the beginning of sentences that follow each other

Examples "But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition."(Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., "I Have a Dream," 1963)

"Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine."(Rick Blaine in Casablanca)

"We saw the bruised children of these fathers clump onto our school bus, we saw the abandoned children huddle in the pews at church, we saw the stunned and battered mothers begging for help at our doors."(Scott Russell Sanders, "Under the Influence," 1989)

Anaphora Visual

Parody

A parody is a mockery of a former piece that is meant to be humorous

Examples

The work is a satirical polemic upon Roundheads, Puritans, Presbyterians and many of the other factions involved in the English Civil War. The work was begun, according to the title page, during the civil war and published in three parts in 1663, 1664 and 1678, with the first edition encompassing all three parts in 1684 (see 1684 in poetry).[1] The Mercurius Aulicus (an early newspaper of the time) reported an unauthorized edition of the first part was already in print in early 1662.[2]

 The Dunciad /ˈdʌnsi.æd/ is a landmark literary satire by Alexander Pope published in three different versions at different times. The first version (the "three book" Dunciad) was published in 1728 anonymously. The second version, the Dunciad Variorum was published anonymously in 1729. The New Dunciad, in four books and with a different hero, appeared in 1743. The poem celebrates the goddess Dulness and the progress of her chosen agents as they bring decay, imbecility, and tastelessness to the Kingdom of Great Britain.

The Knight of the Burning Pestle is a play by Francis Beaumont, first performed in 1607 and first published in a quarto in 1613. It is notable as the first whole parody (or pastiche) play in English. The play is a satire on chivalric romances in general, similar to Don Quixote, and a parody of Thomas Heywood's The Four Prentices of London and Thomas Dekker's The Shoemaker's Holiday. The play is notable for breaking the fourth wall from its outset.

Parody Visual

Pedantic DEFINITION: The use of big words in unnecessary places

in order to sound smarter

EX: "The pedant is he who finds it impossible to read criticism of himself without immediately reaching for his pen and replying to the effect that the accusation is a gross insult to his person. He is, in effect, a man unable to laugh at himself." from Sigmund Freud's The Ego and the Id.

EX:The intellectual boy scurried home to ponder his knowledge.

EX:The book was juxtapose the backpack.

PedanticVisual

Works Cited Slide Nordquist, Richard “Paradox” About.com. 2011. New York Times Company. September 29,2011<http://grammer.about.com> Nordquist, Richard “Anaphora” About.com. 2011.

New York Times Company. September 29,2011<http://grammer.about.com>

“Writing Tips: Parallelism.” Writing Center UNLV. 2006. University of Necada, Las Vagas. 29 September 2011<http:// writingcenter.unlv.edu>“What is an example of pedantic in literature?” Cha Cha.com. 2011. Cha Cha. 29 September 2011. <http://www.chacha.com>