Literary Topics: Love, Time, and Poetic Devices
Literary Topics
This document explores various literary topics and devices.
Love Post-Mortem
“Love beyond death.” Love persists even after death.
“Beatus Ille”
Happy is he. Praises of country life, away from the urban environment, which is considered detrimental. Its Castilian variant is the contempt of the court and the praise of the village.
“Carpe Diem”
Enjoy the day. Encourages youth to seize the moment due to the rapid passing of time.
Age of Gold
An irretrievable former time, considerably superior to the current (iron age).
“Tempus Fugit Irreparabile”
“Time passes irrevocably.” Evokes the transience of human life and the irrecoverable nature of time.
“Locus Amoenus”
“Pleasant place.” Refers to a pleasant or enjoyable space, the Elysium or Paradise.
“Quotidien Morimur”
“Die every day.” Life is a road to death; each moment is a step closer to the end.
“Ubi Sunt?”
“Where are they?” Asks about characters of the past whose glory is gone.
Types of Stanzas
- Couplet: Two lines, the same or different meter, that rhyme with each other.
- Tercet: Three lines of high art which often rhyme ABA, BCB.
- Quatrain: Four major art verses rhyming ABBA.
- Serventesio: Four major art verses rhyming ABAB.
- Redondilla: Four minor art verses rhyming abba.
- Quatrain: Four lines of rhyming abab minor art.
Types of Poems
- Sonnet: Fourteen lines of hendecasyllables grouped in two quatrains and two tercets, rhyming ABBA ABBA CDC DCD.
- Romance: Unlimited number of verses, usually octosyllables. Rhyme odd couples and not at all.
- Silva: Unlimited series in which they are combined, as desired by the poet, seven-syllable lines and heroic verse, rhyming consonant.
Expressive Resources
- Alliteration: Repeating the same sound in two or more words.
- Paronomasia: Words that sound similar and have different meanings.
- Epithet: A nonessential adjective that highlights an inherent quality of the noun.
- Anaphora and Epiphora: Repetition of one or more words at the beginning (anaphora) or end (epiphora) in successive periods.
- Polysyndeton: Repetition of conjunctions to emphasize the expression.
- Anadiplosis: The final word of a term is repeated at the beginning of the next period.
- Ellipsis: Removal from the sentence without altering its understanding.
- Asyndeton: Conjunctions are removed to give more agility.
- Antithesis: Opposition between two words or sentences with opposite meanings.
- Paradox: Use of phrases or expressions that are contradictory.
- Irony: There is to understand the opposite of what is said.
- Simile: Explicit comparison of one thing with another (A is like B).
- Metaphor: Identity between two realities: the actual term and the term evoked. It may be A is B, B is A, B for A, B of A, A, B. The term itself appears evoked (B) is called pure metaphor.
- Metonymy: Means a thing with the name of another, for their meanings contiguous. Between the real and the figurative term is of cause / effect, product / place of origin…
- Synecdoche: It means one thing to another with the name of maintaining a relationship of inclusion: the part for the whole, the genus for the species, the continent for the content…
- Onomatopoeia: Use of words that imitate the sound of what they mean.
- Rhetorical Question: A question not intended to express concerns or ask for feedback; expresses indirectly a statement or gives more force to this.
- Hyperbole: Exaggeration; is increased or decreased over that of the talk.
- Interrelated: A syntactic unit that does not end at the end of a line but is completed in the next.
- Hyperbaton: Reversal of the regular word order of a sentence.
Literary Text Characteristics
The text is a literary text because it uses expressive resources, recreates a world of fiction, and the role of the poetic message.
It’s a lyric because it offers a very subjective discourse, dominant and expressive poetic function, does not develop a story and is written in verse.
The narrative develops a story, sequence of actions, predominantly referential and the poetic function, is told by a narrator who belongs to the world of fiction and is presented in prose but also used the verse.
The drama develops a story told through words or longline action of the characters, predominantly appellate function and expressive form of communication is through dialogue and its transmission and reception are essentially collective.