English Review: Midterm Exam Literary Terms

exposition

personification

theme

foreshadowing

simile

metaphor

tone

aphorism

alliteration

satire

symbol

irony—verbal, dramatic, and situational

Lao-Tse

Jean Valjean

Ivan Ilyich

Indra and the Ants

Federigo
Assorted characters from TFA

From Things Fall Apart: Five questions from chapters 23-end.

“The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter” (245)

• 
  What is the tone of the poem?
  

From the “Tao Te Ching” 544

• 
  What happens if we try to change the universe?
  
• 
  What rhetorical device does Lao-Tze use frequently in his text?
  

“Analects” of Confucius 550

• 
  Re-read them—to the point where you can recognize them as belonging to Confucius.
  

“Four Noble Truths” 583

• 
  Re-read them—to the point where you can recognize them as belonging to the Buddha.
  

“Indra and the Ants” (handout)

• 
  What fundamental Hindu belief is the basis of this story?
  

Rumi (804)

• 
  What common theme do the two stories share?
  

From The Thousand and One Nights 784

• 
  What moral do all of the stories share in common?
  

from The Pillow Book 770

• 
  Despite the author's seemingly progressive views on some issues, her remarks reflect a "feudal" way of thinking. Where do we see this?
  

“Federigo’s Falcon” 822

• 
  Why is the story ironic?
  
• 
  What conventions of Courtly Love are illustrated in the story?
  

Courtly love featured the following points:

• 
  the lover is afflicted with a consuming passion
  
• 
  the female love object is placed on a pedestal—she is portrayed as an ideal, like an angel
  
• 
  the male is excessively courteous, considerate, and heroic
  
• 
  the male has to prove his love, often through a trial or series of trials, such as killing a dragon or going on a crusade
  

Sonnets 90 and 130 on 851:

a. structure

b. rhyme scheme

c. tone

d. imagery

e. theme?

• 
  fourteen lines
  
• 
  two parts: an octave (8 lines) and a sestet (6 lines)
  
• 
  a distinctive rhyme scheme
  

Petrarchan: octet: abba abba

sestet: cdecde or cdcdcd or cdedce
You needn’t memorize the rhyme schemes for the exam.

“Fables” by Jean de la Fontaine (867)

• 
  What common theme do the two stories share?
  

From Les Mis 914:

Which of the ten conventions of Romanticism do we see in the excerpt?

From Ivan Ilyich 314 + Chapter 11, linked at the website: