Demotic

The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms - Ross Murfin 2018

Demotic

Demotic: From the Greek for “commoner,” a term originally used with reference to a simplified form of ancient Egyptian hieratic writing, itself a stylized but simplified form of hieroglyphic writing. As adapted to literary criticism by the twentieth-century Canadian archetypal critic Northrop Frye, the term refers to an unpretentious style of literature that employs the connotations, diction, rhythms, and syntax of everyday speech, in contrast to hieratic style, which uses devices and conventions associated with literariness to elevate language above the level of ordinary speech. Frye also used the term demotic to denote a populist linguistic phase, one of three linguistic phases through which he argued cultures cycle.