Literary concepts

thumb|La Crítica, a 1906 self-portrait by Julio Ruelas where criticism is depicted as a creature atop his head.

thumb|upright=0.80|Dante Gabriel Rossetti, How They Met Themselves, watercolour, 1864

The concept of an archetype ( ) appears in areas relating to behavior, historical psychology, philosophy and literary analysis.

Intertextuality is the shaping of a text's meaning by another text, either through deliberate compositional strategies such as quotation, allusion, calque, plagiarism, translation, pastiche or parody, or by interconnections between similar or related works perceived by an audience or reader of the text. These references are sometimes made deliberately and depend on a reader's prior knowledge and understanding of the referent, but the effect of intertextuality is not always intentional and is sometimes inadvertent. Often associated with strategies employed by writers working in imaginative regi

Metafiction is a form of fiction that emphasizes its own narrative structure in a way that inherently reminds the audience that they are reading or viewing a fictional work. Metafiction is self-conscious about language, literary form, and storytelling, and works of metafiction directly or indirectly draw attention to their status as artifacts. Metafiction is frequently used as a form of parody or a tool to undermine literary conventions and explore the relationship between literature and reality, life and art.

myth that purports to describe the origin of some feature of the natural or social world

literary term; any recurring element that has symbolic significance in a story

In linguistics, deixis () is the use of words or phrases to refer to a particular time (e.g. then), place (e.g. here), or person (e.g. you) relative to the context of the utterance. Deixis exists in all known natural languages and is closely related to anaphora, with a sometimes unclear distinction between the two. In linguistic anthropology, deixis is seen as the same as, or a subclass of, indexicality.

narrative that opens mid-plot, or 'in the middle of things'

Narration is the use of a written or spoken commentary to convey a story to an audience. Narration is conveyed by a narrator: a specific person, or unspecified literary voice, developed by the creator of the story to deliver information to the audience, particularly about the plot: the series of events. Narration is a required element of all written stories (novels, short stories, poems, memoirs, etc.), presenting the story in its entirety. It is optional in most other storytelling formats, such as films, plays, television shows and video games, in which the story can be conveyed through other

central topic, subject, or message within a narrative

alt=|thumb|upright=1.2|Engraving by Jusepe de Ribera depicting the melancholic and world-weary figure of a poet '''''' (; literally "world-pain") is a literary concept describing the feeling experienced by an individual who believes that reality can never satisfy the expectations of the mind, resulting in "a mood of weariness or sadness about life arising from the acute awareness of evil and suffering".

standard literary and psychological concept applied especially to Gothic literature and film

emphasis on form over content or meaning in the arts, literature, or philosophy

In any communication, in any medium or format, "subtext" is the underlying or implicit meaning that, while not explicitly stated, is understood by an audience.

Latin poem by Horace, written ca. 19 BCE, about the art of writing poetry and drama

terms representing a dichotomy/dialectic between rationality and emotion

theory and research that allows for multiple, non-hierarchical entry and exit points in data representation and interpretation

show or demonstration of respect or dedication to someone or something

stock character; an individual, perhaps talented and capable, who does not fit into social norms

text editing process involving the combining and altering of source texts into a single document

Didacticism is a philosophy that emphasises instructional and informative qualities in literature, art, and design. In art, design, architecture, and landscape, didacticism is a conceptual approach that is driven by the urgent need to explain.

In critical theory, abjection is the state of being cast off and separated from norms and rules, especially on the scale of society and morality. The term has been explored in post-structuralism as that which inherently disturbs conventional identity and cultural concepts. Julia Kristeva explored an influential and formative overview of the concept in her 1980 work Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, where she describes subjective horror (abjection) as the feeling when an individual experiences or is confronted by the sheer experience of what Kristeva calls one's typically repressed "corp

Description is any type of communication that aims to make vivid a place, object, person, group, or other physical entity. It is one of four rhetorical modes (also known as modes of discourse), along with exposition, argumentation, and narration.

simultaneity of points of view and voices within a particular narrative plane

literary technique based on rearranging text

'''' is a French term coined by Jacques Derrida. Roughly speaking, the method of différance'' is a way to analyze how signs (words, symbols, metaphors, etc) come to have meanings. It suggests that meaning is not inherent in a sign but arises from its relationships with other signs, a continual process of contrasting with what comes before and later. That is, a sign acquires meaning by being different from other signs. The meaning of a sign changes over time, as new signs keep appearing and old signs keep disappearing. It is central to Derrida's concept of deconstruction, a critical outlook con

use of a single metaphor or analogy at length

thumb|upright=1.5|The Fight Between Carnival and Lent, by [[Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1559)]] The Carnivalesque is a literary mode that subverts and liberates the assumptions of the dominant style or atmosphere through humor and chaos. It originated as "carnival" in Mikhail Bakhtin's ''Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics and was further developed in Rabelais and His World. For Bakhtin, "carnival" (the totality of popular festivities, rituals and other carnival forms) is deeply rooted in the human psyche on both the collective and individual levels. Though historically complex and varied, it has o

Ability to perceive and recognize truths beyond the reach

Dialogic refers to the use of conversation or shared dialogue to explore the meaning of something. (This is as opposed to monologic which refers to one entity with all the information simply giving it to others without exploration and clarification of meaning through discussion.) The word "dialogic" relates to or is characterized by dialogue and its use. A dialogic is communication presented in the form of dialogue. Dialogic processes refer to implied meaning in words uttered by a speaker and interpreted by a listener. Dialogic works carry on a continual dialogue that includes interaction with

Transtextuality was defined by Gérard Genette as the "textual transcendence of the text", that is "everything that brings it [the text] into relation (manifest or hidden) with other texts". Genette distinguished five types of transtextual relationships, namely:

a thought object that does not have an equal in the real world

collective name for eight types of nayikas or heroines as classified by Bharata in his Sanskrit treatise on performing arts - Natya Shastra.

In semiotics, a parergon (paˈrərˌgän; plural: parerga) is a supplementary issue or embellishment. The term's usage has broadened to mean anything that is additional to the main body of a creative work.

literary element; expresses the writer's attitude toward the subject matter

literary term; the physical movement of the characters

Concept in the philosophy of literature

An excursus (from Latin excurrere, 'to run out of') is a short episode or anecdote in a work of literature. Often excursuses have nothing to do with the matter being discussed by the work, and are used to lighten the atmosphere in a tragic story, a similar function to that of satyr plays in Greek theatre. Sometimes they are used to provide backstory to the matter being discussed at hand, as in Pseudo-Apollodorus' Bibliotheke. In the Middle Ages, the excursus is a favourite rhetorical device to allow the narrator to comment or to suspend the action for reflection. Furthermore, an excursus is of

voice/person narrating the poem

literary device; anomalous juxtaposition of incongruous ideas for the sake of striking exposition or unexpected insight

emotional and intellectual state that arises when appreciating nature, works of art and philosophy

Interdiscourse is the implicit or explicit relations that a discourse has to other discourses. Interdiscursivity is the aspect of a discourse that relates it to other discourses. Norman Fairclough prefers the concept "orders of discourse". Interdiscursivity is often mostly an analytic concept, e.g. in Foucault and Fairclough. Interdiscursivity has close affinity to recontextualisation because interdiscourse often implies that elements are imported from another discourse.

Spoudaiogeloion () denotes the mixture of serious and comical elements stylistically. The word comes from the Greek σπουδαῖον spoudaion, "serious", and γελοῖον geloion, "comical".

element of narrative structure in literature

literary method, mood, or manner not tied exclusively to a particular form or genre

type of text