The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms - Ross Murfin 2018
Absence
Abstract
Absurd, the (absurd, literature or theater of the)
Accent
Acrostic
Act
Action
Aesthetic distance (distance, psychic[al] distance, dramatic illusion)
Aestheticism (Aesthetic Movement)
Aesthetics
Affective fallacy
Affective stylistics
Age of Johnson (in English literature)
Agrarians
Alexandrine
Allegory
Alliteration
Allusion
Ambiguity
Amplification
Anachronism
Anachrony
Anacrusis
Anagnorisis
Analepsis
Anapest
Anaphora
Anecdote
Antagonist
Anticlimax
Antihero
Antimasque
Antinovel
Antistrophe
Antithesis
Antithetical criticism
Antonomasia
Anxiety of influence
Aphorism (sententia)
Apocalypse, apocalyptic literature
Apollonian
Aporia
Aposiopesis
Apostrophe
Appropriation
Arcadia
Archaism
Archetypal criticism
Archetype
Argument
Arsis
Aside
Assonance
Asyndeton
Atmosphere
Aubade
Augustan Age (in English literature)
Author
Authorial intention
Autobiography
Ballad
Ballade
Ballad stanza (ballad meter)
Bard
Baroque
Bathos
Beast fable
Beat writers, Beat Generation
Beginning rhyme (head rhyme, initial rhyme)
Bildungsroman
Binary oppositions
Biography
Black humor (black comedy)
Blank verse
Blog
Blues
Bombast
Bucolic (poetry)
Burlesque
Cacophony
Caesura (cesura)
Canon
Canto
Caricature
Carnival
Caroline Age (in English literature)
Carpe diem
Catachresis
Catalexis (truncation)
Catastrophe
Catharsis (katharsis)
Cavalier poets
Celtic Revival (Celtic Renaissance, Irish Literary Renaissance, Irish Revival)
Center
Character, the character, characterization
Chiasmus
Chicago school (neo-Aristotelianism)
Chorus
Chronicle play
Class (and literary studies)
Classic, classical
Classicism
Cliche
Climax
Closed couplet
Close reading (explication)
Closet drama
Closure
Codes
Collective unconscious
Colonial Period (in American literature)
Comedy
Comedy of humors (comedy of humours)
Comedy of manners
Comic relief
Commedia dell’arte
Common meter (common measure)
Commonwealth Age (in English literature)
Conceit
Confessional poetry
Conflict
Connotation
Consonance
Constructionism
Contextual criticism
Convention
Couplet
Courtly love
Crisis
Cultural criticism, cultural studies
Cultural materialism
Cyberfiction
Dactyl
Dadaism
Dead metaphor (frozen metaphor)
Decadence
Deconstruction
Decorum
Deictic(s)
Demotic
Denotation
Dénouement
Descriptive linguistics
Detective fiction
Deus ex machina
Diachronic
Dialect
Dialectic
Dialogic criticism
Dialogue
Diction
Didactic
Différance
Digital humanities, the
Dimeter
Dionysian
Dirge
Disability studies
Discourse
Discourse analysis
Dissemination
Dissociation of sensibility
Dissonance
Dithyramb
Doggerel
Domesticity
Domestic tragedy
Double rhyme
Drama
Dramatic monologue
Dramatis personae
Dream vision (dream allegory)
Dystopia
Early modern
Early National Period (in American literature)
Early Tudor Age (in English literature)
Eclogue
Ecocriticism
Edwardian Age (in English literature)
Ekphrasis (ecphrasis)
Elegy
Elision
Elizabethan Age (in English literature)
Empathy
Encomium
End rhyme
End-stopped line
English sonnet (Shakespearean sonnet)
Enjambement (enjambment)
Enlightenment
Envoy (envoi)
Epic
Epic simile (Homeric simile)
Epideictic
Epigram
Epigraph
Epilogue
Epiphany
Episodic structure
Epistémé (discursive formation)
Epistle
Epistolary novel
Epitaph
Epithalamium (epithalamion)
Epithet
Epode
Erziehungsroman
Eschatology
Essay
Euphony
Euphuism
Exegesis
Exemplum
Existentialism
Explication de texte
Expressionism
Expressive form, fallacy of expressive form
Eye rhyme
Fable (apologue)
Fabliau
Fairy tale
Falling action
Fancy
Fantasy fiction
Farce
Feminine ending (light ending)
Feminine rhyme
Feminist criticism
Fiction
Figurative language
Figure of speech
Fin de siècle
Flashback
Flash fiction
Flat and round characters
Foil
Folk drama
Folklore
Folk song
Folk tale
Foot
Foregrounding
Foreshadowing
Form
Formalism
Fourfold meaning (four levels of meaning / interpretation)
Fourteener
Frame story
Free indirect discourse
Free verse
Freytag’s Pyramid
Fugitives
Gap (blank)
Gay and lesbian criticism (sexualities criticism)
Gender
Gender criticism
Generative linguistics
Geneva School
Genre
Georgian Age (in English literature)
Golden age
Gothic, Gothic literature
Graphic novel
Graveyard School of Poetry
Grotesque
Gynocriticism
Haiku
Half rhyme
Hamartia
Harlem Renaissance
Hegemony
Heptameter (septenary)
Hermeneutics, hermeneutic circle
Hero/heroine
Heroic couplet
Heteroglossia
Hexameter
Hieratic
Historical novel
Historicism
History play
Homeric epithet
Horatian ode
Horatian satire
Hubris (hybris)
Hudibrastic verse
Humours
Hymn
Hyperbole
Hypertext
Hysteron proteron
Iamb
Icon
Iconography
Id
Ideology
Idyll
Illocutionary act
Image
Imagery
Imaginary order
Imagination
Imagism
Imitation
Implied author
Implied reader
Impressionism
Impressionistic criticism
Incremental repetition
Influence
In medias res
Intention
Intentional fallacy
Interior monologue
Interlude
Internal rhyme
Interpretive communities
Intersectionality
Intertextuality
Intrusive narrator
Invocation
Irony
Irregular ode (Cowleyan ode)
Italian sonnet (Petrarchan sonnet)
Jacobean Age (in English literature)
Jouissance
Judicial criticism
Jungian criticism
Juvenalian satire
Kenning
Künstlerroman
lai (lay)
Lampoon
Language poetry
Legend
Leitmotif
Leonine rhyme
Lexicography
Lexicon
Light verse
Limerick
Linguistics
Link (hyperlink)
Literariness
Literary criticism
Literature of sensibility
Litotes
Local color
Locution
Locutionary act
Logocentric, logocentrism
Long meter (long measure)
Loose sentence
Lost Generation
Lyric
Madrigal
Magic(al) realism
Malapropism
Manga
Marxism
Marxist criticism
Masculine ending
Masculine rhyme
Masque (mask)
Medieval
Medieval romance (chivalric romance)
Meiosis
Melodrama
Memoir
Menippean satire
Metafiction
Metaphor
Metaphysical conceit
Metaphysical poets
Meter (metre)
Metonymy
Metrical romance
Metrics
Middle English Period (in English literature)
Mimetic criticism
Miracle play
Mise-en-scène
Mock epic, mock heroic
Mode
Modernism
Modern Period (in English and American literature)
Monody
Monologue
Monometer
Montage
Mood
Morality play
Morpheme
Morphology
Motif
Motivation
Muckraker
Muses
Mystery
Mystery play
Mysticism
Myth
Myth(ic) criticism
Mythopoeia (mythopoesis)
Naive hero
Narration
Narrative
Narratology
Narrator
Naturalism
Naturalistic Period (in American literature)
Negative capability
Neoclassical Period (in English literature)
Neoclassicism
Neologism
Neoplatonism
New Criticism, the
New historicism, the
New novel
Nom de plume
Nonfiction
Nonfiction novel
Nonsense verse
Nouveau roman
Novel
Novella
Objective correlative
Objective criticism
Occasional verse
Octameter (octometer)
Octave (octet)
Ode
Oedipus complex
Old English Period (in English literature)
Omniscient point of view
Onomatopoeia
Oration, oratory
Organic form
Orientalism
Other, the
Ottava rima
Overdetermined
Oxymoron
Palimpsest
Palindrome
Palinode
Pantomime
Parable
Paradox
Paralipsis
Parallelism
Parnassians
Parody
Pastiche
Pastoral
Pastoral elegy
Pathetic fallacy
Pathos
Patriarchal
Pentameter
Perfect rhyme
Performative
Periodicity
Periodic sentence
Periods in American literature
Periods in English literature
Periphrasis
Perlocutionary act
Persona
Personal criticism
Personification
Petrarchan conceit
Phallocentric
Phallus
Phenomenological criticism
Phenomenology
Philology
Phoneme
Phonology
Picaresque novel
Pindaric ode (regular ode)
Platonic criticism
Platonic love
Platonism
Play
Plot
Poetic diction
Poetic justice
Poetic license
Poetics
Poetry
Point of view
Polyphonic (polyvocalic)
Portmanteau word (blend)
Positivism
Postcolonial literature, postcolonial theory
Posthumanism, posthuman
Postmodernism
Postmodern Period (in English and American literature)
Poststructuralism
Practical criticism (applied criticism)
Pragmatic criticism
Prague Linguistic Circle
Pre-Raphaelitism
Presence and absence
Primitivism
Privilege
Prolepsis
Prologue
Propositional act
Proscenium
Prose
Prose poem
Prosody
Prosopopoeia
Protagonist
Psychoanalytic criticism
Psychological criticism
Pun (paronomasia)
Purple patch
Pyrrhic (dibrach)
Quatrain
Queer theory
Reader-response criticism
Real, the
Realism
Realistic novel
Realistic Period (in American literature)
Reception theory
Refrain
Renaissance
Renaissance Period (in English literature)
Representation
Resolution
Restoration Age (in English literature)
Revenge tragedy
Revolutionary Period (in American literature)
Rhetoric
Rhetorical criticism
Rhetorical figures (schemes)
Rhyme
Rhyme royal (rime royal)
Rhyme scheme
Rhythm
Rising action
Roman à clef
Romance
Romantic
Romanticism
Romantic Period (in American literature)
Romantic Period (in English literature)
Rondeau
Russian formalism
Sapphic
Sarcasm
Satire
Scansion
Scene
Science fiction
Semiology
Semiotics
Senecan tragedy
Sensibility
Sentimental comedy (drama of sensibility)
Sentimentalism
Sentimental novel
Sestet (sextet)
Sestina
Setting
Seven Cardinal Virtues
Seven Deadly Sins
Sexuality
Short meter (short measure)
Short story
Sibilance
Sign
Significance
Signifier
Simile
Site
Slave narrative
Socialist realism
Sociological novel
Soliloquy
Sonnet
Sonnet sequence (sonnet cycle)
Speech-act theory
Spenserian sonnet
Spenserian stanza
Spondee
Sprung rhythm
Stanza
Steampunk
Stichomythia
Stock character
Stock response
Story
Stream of consciousness
Stress
Strophe
Structuralism
Structuralist criticism
Structure
Sturm und Drang (Storm and Stress)
Style
Stylistics
Subjectivity
Sublime, the
Surrealism
Suspension of disbelief
Symbol
Symbolic order
Symbolism
Synaesthesia (synesthesia)
Synecdoche
Syntax
Tail-rhyme stanza
Tale
Tenor
Tension
Tercet
Terza rima
Tetrameter
Text
Textual criticism
Texture
Theme
Theoretical criticism
Theory
Thesis
Thick descriptions
Thing theory
Threnody
Tone
Tone color
Trace
Tragedy
Tragic flaw
Tragicomedy (tragi-comedy)
Transcendentalism
Transformational linguistics
Travesty
Trimeter
Triolet
Triplet
Trochee
Trope (figure of thought)
Troubadour
Ubi sunt
Unintrusive narrator
Unities
Unreliable narrator
Urban legend (urban myth)
Utopia
Utterance act
Vehicle
Verisimilitude
Vers
Verse
Versification
Victorian Period (in English literature)
Villanelle
Voice
Weak ending
Wit
Wrenched accent
Zeugma