Literary Vocabulary

## Literary Criticism and Advanced Stylistics: Word List and Examples Learn C2-level vocabulary for literary theory, criticism, and advanced textual analysis. ### Word List **exegesis** (critical interpretation/explanation of a text), **hermeneutics**, **deconstruction** (a critical approach examining contradictions in a text), **postmodernism**, **intertextuality** (the relationship between texts referencing one another), **canon** (the body of works considered most important in a field), **oeuvre** (an artist’s entire body of work), **motif**, **trope** (a recurring theme or device), **pastiche** (a work imitating another’s style, often respectfully), **parody**, **bathos** (an abrupt, unintentional shift from serious to trivial), **sublime** (awe-inspiring greatness/beauty), **gothic** (a genre featuring darkness, mystery, and horror), **romanticism**, **modernism**, **verisimilitude**, **pathos**, **catharsis**, **zeitgeist** (the defining spirit/mood of a particular period), **vernacular**, **lexicon** (the vocabulary of a language/field), **semiotics** (the study of signs and symbols), **signifier** (a word/symbol that represents meaning), **signified** (the concept a signifier represents), **metafiction** (fiction that self-consciously addresses its own fictionality), **unreliable narrator**, **epistolary** (a narrative told through letters/documents), **frame narrative** (a story containing another story within it), **in medias res** (starting a narrative in the middle of the action), **leitmotif** (a recurring musical/thematic phrase), **aphorism** (a concise, memorable statement of truth), **epigram** (a short, witty, often paradoxical statement), **allegorical**, **didactic** (intended to teach/instruct), **elegiac** (mournful, expressing sorrow), **panegyric** (a formal speech of praise), **polemic** (a strong written attack on an opinion/policy), **synecdoche** (a part representing the whole, or vice versa), **metonymy** (using an associated term to represent something). Examples: The novel’s use of metafiction constantly reminds readers they’re reading a constructed story. Her writing captures the zeitgeist of the early 2000s perfectly. The critic’s exegesis revealed layers of meaning previously overlooked. «The crown» is a classic example of metonymy for the monarchy. Remember: «synecdoche» (a part represents the whole — «wheels» for «car») and «metonymy» (an associated term stands in — «the crown» for «the monarchy») are closely related but technically distinct figures of speech.