English Literature

QUESTION: What do you mean by Trochee or The Trochaic Metre? ANSWER: The Trochaic Metre is a foot of verse. It consists of two syllables. The first syllable is stressed and the following is unstressed. This pattern is called Trochaic. Like the iambic metre its line may be of various lengths. Example: [1] Sing a / song of / six pence                      A pocket full of rye                      Four and twenty black birds,                      Baked in a pie.

QUESTION: What do you mean by Iambic Metre?  ANSWER: The Iambic metre is a foot of verse. It consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one. This pattern is called iambic. The number of iambic feet in an iambic line may vary from two to seven. Example: [1] The griz/zly Bear/ is huge/ and wild;                        He has devoured the infant child.                        The infant child is not aware                        It has been eaten by the bear. [ A. E. Housman; Infant                                     Innocence] ...

QUESTION: What do you mean by Blank Verse?  ANSWER:  Blank Verse is prosody. This term is limited to unrhymed iambic pentameter. This meter has been used in Shakespeare's plays, in Melton's Paradise Lost, and in all the best dramatic poetry. Example: [1] Come you spirits                        That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here                        And fill me from the crown to the toe top full                        Of direst cruelty [Macbeth: Shakespeare]                  [2] Why do I yield to that suggestion     ...

QUESTION: What is Heroic Couplet?   ANSWER : Heroic couplet is prosody. Here the lines rhyme together in pairs, and each line consists of five iambic feet. It was a favoured form of the 18th century. For example: [1] One science only will one genius feet;       So vast is art, so narrow human wit. [2] Not only bound to peculiar arts,      But oft in those confined to single parts.   [Pope: An Essay On criticism]   [3] All human things are subject to decay,        And when Fate summons, monarchs must obey   [Dryden: Shadwell]

QUESTION: What is Irony? ANSWER: Irony is a device by which a writer expresses a meaning contradictory to the stated or ostensible one. There are many techniques for achieving irony. Example: [1] When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept                         Ambition should be made of sterner stuff;                         Yet Brutus says he was ambition,                         And Brutus is an honourable man.                         [Shakespeare: Julius Caesar]                  [2] Hamlet: So long? ….. O heavens! die two            ...

QUESTION: What is Paradox?  ANSWER:  A paradox is a statement, though it appears self contradictory, contains the basis of truth that reconciles the seeming opposites. Examples:   [1] Great wits sometimes may gloriously offend,                           And rise to faults true critics dare not mend.                          [Pope: An Essay On Criticism]                     [2] One short sleep, we wake eternally                            And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.                           [John Donne]   ...

QUESTION:  What is Oxymoron? ANSWER:  Oxymoron is a figure of speech consisting generally of two apparently contradictory terms that express a startling paradox. Example: [1] Why then, O brawling love! O loving hate!                         O' anything of nothing first create                          O' heavy lightness! Serious vanity.                         [Shakespeare: Romeo And Juliet]                  [2] She loathed the bright dishonour of his love. [Blake]

QUESTION: What do you mean by Metonymy? ANSWER:   Metonymy is derived from a Greek word. Its meaning is 'a change of name'. In this figure of speech the name of some object or idea is substituted for another to which it has some relation. For example:     [1] He succeeded to the crown - The monarchy.                             [2] From the cradle to the grave - From childhood to death.                             [3] I never read Homer - The works of Homer.

QUESTION: What is Alliteration? ANSWER: Alliteration is one of the important figures of speech. It is the close repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of two or more words. For example:      [1] To sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock,                                   In a pestilential prison, with a life long lock.                                                   [W.S.Gilbert: The Mikado]                             [2] Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long         ...

QUESTION:What do you mean by  Pathetic Fallacy? ANSWER:  Pathetic Fallacy is a term originated by Ruskin in 1865. It is attribution of human characteristics to inanimate objects. Such an attribution falls short of a full personification. For example:     [1] the cruel, crawling foam.                             [2] Mute nature mourns her worshipper.                             [3] Angry cloud and cruel wind.

QUESTION: What is Personification? ANSWER: The Personification is a figure of speech in which inanimate objects or abstracts ideas are endowed with human qualities or action. For example:    [1] He is the favoured child of fortune.                            [2] Let not Ambition mock their useful toil                                 Their homely joys, and destiny obscure. [Gray: Elegy]

QUESTION: What do you mean by  Antithesis? ANSWER: Antithesis is the setting of one thing against another. In this rhetorical figure, contrast of ideas are sharply and vividly expressed within a balanced grammatical structure. For example: [1] Give me liberty, or give me death. [2] He can bribe, but he can't seduce; he can buy, but he can't gain;  He can lie, but he can't deceive. [3] A friend exaggerates a man's virtue, an enemy his crimes. [4] A bird in hand is worth two in the bush. [5] Worth makes the man, and want of it, the fellow; The rest is all but leather or prunella. [Pope: An Essay On Criticism]

QUESTION:What is Metaphor? ANSWER:  Metaphor is a figure of speech in which two unlike objects are compared by identification or by the substitute of one for the other. Example: [1] Our eldest son is the star of our family.                  [2] He is the vulture of the province.

QUESTION: What is Simile ? ANSWER: Simile is an expressed comparison between two unlike objects. For this purpose' like' or 'as' are used usually. Example: [1] O, my luve is like a red, red rose                        That's newly sprung in June. [Burns]                  [2] Errors like straws, upon the surface flow;                        He that would search for pearls must dive below. [Dryden]                  [3] True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,                      ...

QUESTION: What is Free Verse? ANSWER:  Free Verse is unrhymed verse with a traditional metrical form. It was employed by French poets to free themselves from the metrical regularity of the alexandrine. Seeking greater liberty in verse structure, English poets also used it. Example: [1] A child said what is the grass? Fetching it                        To me with full hands,                        How could I answer the child? I do not know                        What it is any more than he. [Whitman: Leaves of Grass]

QUESTION: What is Elegy? ANSWER: Elegy is an important form of poetry. It is a dignified poem mourning the death of an individual or of all men. Here the poet laments the death and loss of his near and dear. Examples: [1] Milton's Lycidas.                  [2] Gray's Elegy.                  [3] Shelley's Adonais.                  [4] Tennyson's In Memoriam.                  [5] Arnold's Thyrsis.                 [6] Whitman’s O Captain, My Captain.

Q: What is an Ode? ANS: Ode: Ode is an important form of poetry. It is a short poem written in a rapid and irregular meter, fit to be sung or recited. Such poems are of much higher order than ballads and may be either descriptive or narrative. For example:   [1] Dryden's Ode On Alexander's Feast.                           [2] Pope's Ode on St. Cecilia's Day.                           [3] Collins's Ode On Evening.                          [4] Keats's Ode To Nightingale.                        ...