CEDILLA: A diacritical mark

CELLERAGE: The hollow area beneath a Renaissance stage--known in Renaissance slang as "hell" and entered through a trapdoor called a "hellmouth." The voice of the ghost comes from this area in Hamlet, which has led to scholarly discussion concerning whether or not the ghost is really Hamlet's father or a demon in disguise.

CELTIC: A branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Celtic includes Welsh and Breton. Celtic languages are geographically linked to western Europe, and they come in two general flavors, goidelic (or Q-celtic) and brythonic (or P-celtic).

CELTIC REVIVAL: A literary movement involving increased interest in Welsh, Scottish, and Irish culture, myths, legends, and literature.. It began in the late 1700s and continues to this day. Thomas Gray's Pindaric ode The Bard (1757) and Ieuan Brydydd's publication of Some Specimens of the Poetry of the Ancient Welsh Bards (1764) mark its emergence, and Charlotte Guest's translation of The Mabinogion in 1839 marks its continued rise. Matthew Arnold's lectures on Celtic literature at Oxford helped promote the foundation of a Chair of Celtic at that school in 1877. The Celtic Revival influenced Thomas Love Peacock, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and W. B. Yeats, and probably lead to the creation of the Abbey Theatre. A continuing part of the Celtic Revival is the Irish Literary Renaissance, a surge of extraordinary Irish talent in the late nineteenth and twentieth century including Bram Stoker, James Joyce, William Butler Yeats, Samuel Beckett, George Bernard Shaw, and Seamus Heaney.

CENOTAPH: A carving on a tombstone or monument, often in the form of a verse poem, biblical passage, or literary allusion appearing after the deceased individual's name and date of birth/death. Often used synonymously with epitaph.

CENSORSHIP: The act of hiding, removing, altering or destroying copies of art or writing so that general public access to it is partially or completely limited. Contrast with bowdlerization. Click here to download a PDF handout discussing censorship in great detail. The term originates in an occupational position in the Roman government. After the fifth century BCE, Rome commissioned "censors." These censors at first were limited to conducting the census for tax estimations, but in latter times, their job was to impose moral standards for citizenship, including the removal of unsavory literature. See also the Censorship Ordinance of 1559 and the Profanity Act of 1606.

CENSORSHIP ORDINANCE OF 1559: This law under Queen Elizabeth required the political censorship of public plays and all printed materials in matters of religion and the government. The Master of Revels was appointed to monitor and control such material. All of Shakespeare's early works were written under this act. We can see signs of alteration in his early works to conform to the requirements of the censors. Contrast with the Profanity Act of 1606.

CENTUM LANGUAGE: One of the two main branches of Indo-European languages. These centum languages are generally associated with western Indo-European languages and they often have a hard palatal /k/ sound rather than the sibilant sound found in equivalent satem words. See discussion under Indo-European.

CHAIN OF BEING: An elaborate cosmological model of the universe common in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The Great Chain of Being was a permanently fixed hierarchy with the Judeo-Christian God at the top of the chain and inanimate objects like stones and mud at the bottom. Intermediate beings and objects, such as angels, humans, animals, and plants, were arrayed in descending order of intelligence, authority, and capability between these two extremes. The Chain of Being was seen as designed by God. The idea of the Chain of Being resonates in art, politics, literature, cosmology, theology, and philosophy throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance. It takes on particular complexity because different parts of the Chain were thought to correspond to each other. (See correspondences.) Click here for more information.

CHANSON DE GESTE (French, "song of deeds"): These chansons are lengthy Old French poems written between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries glorifying Carolingian noblemen and their feudal lords. The chansons de geste combine history and legend. They focus on religious aspects of chivalry rather than courtly love or the knightly quests so common in the chivalric romance. Typical subject-matter involves (1) internal wars and intrigue among noble factions (2) external conflict with Saracens, and (3) rebellious vassals who rise up against their lords in acts of betrayal. Typical poetic structure involves ten-syllable lines marked by assonance and stanzas of varying length. The chansons de geste are in many ways comparable to epics. Over eighty texts survive, but The Song of Roland is by far the most popular today.

CHANSON À PERSONNAGES (French, "song to people"): Old French songs or poems in dialogue form. Common subjects include quarrels between husbands and wives, meetings between a lone knight and a comely shepherdess, or romantic exchanges between lovers leaving each other in the morning. See aubade.

CHARACTER: Any representation of an individual being presented in a dramatic or narrative work through extended dramatic or verbal representation. The reader can interpret characters as endowed with moral and dispositional qualities expressed in what they say (dialogue) and what they do (action). E. M. Forster describes characters as "flat" (i.e., built around a single idea or quality and unchanging over the course of the narrative) or "round" (complex in temperament and motivation; drawn with subtlety; capable of growth and change during the course of the narrative). The main character of a work of a fiction is typically called the protagonist; the character against whom the protagonist struggles or contends (if there is one), is the antagonist. If a single secondary character aids the protagonist throughout the narrative, that character is the deuteragonist (the hero's "side-kick"). A character of tertiary importance is a tritagonist. These terms originate in classical Greek drama, in which a tenor would be assigned the role of protagonist, a baritone the role of deuteragonist, and a bass would play the tritagonist. Compare flat characters with stock characters.

CHARACTERIZATION: An author or poet's use of description, dialogue, dialect, and action to create in the reader an emotional or intellectual reaction to a character or to make the character more vivid and realistic. Careful readers note each character's attitude and thoughts, actions and reaction, as well as any language that reveals geographic, social, or cultural background.

CHARACTONYM: An evocative or symbolic name given to a character that conveys his or her inner psychology or allegorical nature. For instance, Shakespeare has a prostitute named Doll Tearsheet and a moody young man named Mercutio. Steinbeck has the sweet-natured Candy in Of Mice and Men. Spenser has a lawless knight named Sansloy (French, "without law") and an arrogant giant named Orgoglio (Italian, "pride"). On a more physical level, Rabelais might name a giant Gargantua. These names are all charactonyms. Cf. eponym.

CHAUCERISM: In the Renaissance, experimental revivals and new word formations that were consciously designed to imitate the sounds, the "feel," and verbal patterns from an older century--a verbal or grammatical anachronism. Spenser uses many Chaucerisms in The Fairie Queene.

CHEKE SYSTEM: As summarized by Baugh, a proposed method for indicating long vowels and standardizing spelling first suggested by Sir John Cheke in Renaissance orthography. Cheke would double vowels to indicate a long sound. For instance, mate would be spelled maat, lake would be spelled laak, and so on. Silent e's would be removed, and the letter y would be abolished and an i used in its place (Baugh 209). It did not catch on.

CHIASM: A specific example of chiasmus, see below.

CHIASMUS (from Greek, "cross" or "x"): A literary scheme in which the author introduces words or concepts in a particular order, then later repeats those terms or similar ones in reversed or backwards order. It involves taking parallelism and deliberately turning it inside out, creating a "crisscross" pattern. For example, consider the chiasmus that follows: "By day the frolic, and the dance by night." If we draw the words as a chart, the words form an "x" (hence the word's Greek etymology, from chi meaning "x"):

The sequence is typically a b b a or a b c c b a. "I lead the life I love; I love the life I lead." "Naked I rose from the earth; to the grave I fall clothed." Biblical examples in the Greek can be found in Philippians 1:15-17 and Colossians 3:11, though the artistry is often lost in English translation. Chiasmus often overlaps with antimetabole.

CHICANO / CHICANA LITERATURE: Twentieth- and twenty-first-century writings and poetry by Mexican-American immigrants or their children--usually in English with short sections or phrases in Spanish. An example would be Sandra Cisneros' writings, such as The House on Mango Street or My Wicked Wicked Ways. Following the grammatical conventions for gender in Spanish, the adjective Chicano takes an -o suffix in reference to male authors and an -a suffix in reference to female authors. Cf. Latino Writing.

CHILDREN'S LITERATURE: See juvenile literature.

CHIMES: See discussion under cynghanedd.

CHIVALRIC ROMANCE: Another term for medieval romance. See also chivalry, below.

CHIVALRY: An idealized code of military and social behavior for the aristocracy in the late medieval period. The word "chivalry" comes from Old French cheval (horse), and chivalry literally means "horsemanship." Normally, only rich nobility could afford the expensive armor, weaponry, and warhorses necessary for mounted combat, so the act of becoming a knight was symbolically indicated by giving the knight silver spurs. The right to knighthood in the late medieval period was inherited through the father, but it could also be granted by the king or a lord as a reward for services.

The tenets of chivalry attempted to civilize the brutal activity of warfare. The chivalric ideals involve sparing non-combatants such as women, children, and helpless prisoners; the protection of the church; honesty in word and bravery in deeds; loyalty to one's liege; dignified behavior; and single-combat between noble opponents who had a quarrel. Other matters associated with chivalry include gentlemanly contests in arms supervised by witnesses and heralds, behaving according to the manners of polite society, courtly love, brotherhood in arms, and feudalism. See knight for additional information.

This code became of great popular interest to British readers in the 1800s, leading to a surge of historical novels, poems, and paintings dealing with medieval matters. Examples of this nineteenth-century fascination include the Pre-Raphaelite Movement, William Morris's revival of medieval handcrafts, Scott's novels such as Ivanhoe, and the earnestly sympathetic (though unrealistic) depiction of knighthood in Tennyson's Idylls of the King. In Tennyson's poem Guinevere, King Arthur describes the ideals of knighthood thus:

I made them lay their hands in mine and swear
To reverence the King, as if he were
Their conscience, and their conscience as their King
To break the heathen and uphold the Christ,
To ride abroad redressing human wrongs,
To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it,
To honor his own word as if his God's,
To lead sweet lives in purest chastity,
To love one maiden only, cleave to her,
And worship her by years of noble deeds,
Until they won her.

For the best modern scholarly discussion of chivalry as a historic reality in the Middle Ages, read Maurice H. Keen's Chivalry (Yale University Press, 1984).

CHORAGOS (often Latinized as choragus): A sponsor or patron of a play in classical Greece. Often this sponsor was honored by serving as the leader of the chorus (see below).

CHÒREE: Another term for trochee. See trochee.

CHORIC FIGURE: Any character in any type of narrative literature that serves the same purpose as a chorus in drama by remaining detached from the main action and commenting upon or explaining this action to the audience. See chorus, below.

CHORUS: (1) A group of singers who stand alongside or off stage from the principal performers in a dramatic or musical performance. (2) The song or refrain that this group of singers sings. In ancient Greece, the chorus was originally a group of male singers and dancers (choreuti) who participated in religious festivals and dramatic performances by singing commenting on the deeds of the characters and interpreting the significance of the events within the play. This group contrasts with the actors (Greek hypocrites). Shakespeare alters the traditional chorus by replacing the singers with a single figure--often allegorical in nature. For instance, "Time" comes on stage in The Winter's Tale to explain the passing years. Likewise, "Rumor" appears in Henry IV, Part Two to summarize the gossip about Prince Hal. See also choragos and choric figure, above.

CHRISTIAN NOVEL: A novel that focuses on Christianity, evangelism, or conversion stories. Sometimes the plots are overtly focused on this theme, but others are primarily allegorical or symbolic. Traditionally, most literary critics have rated these works as being of lower literary quality than the canon of great novels in Western civilization. Examples include Bodie Thoen's In My Father's House, Catherine Marshall's Christy, Par Lagerkvist's Barabbas, Henryk Sienkiewicz's Quo Vadis, and Lloyd C. Douglas's The Robe.

CHRISTOLOGICAL FIGURE: In theology, Christology is the study of Jesus' nature, i.e., whether Christ had both a human and divine nature, whether he had one sentient will alone or one human will and one divine will, whether he was theoretically capable of sin like humanity or perfectly righteous like the other persons in the trinity, whether he shared in the Father's omniscience or suffered from human afflictions like doubt or ignorance, whether he existed or not before his biological birth, whether he was equal in authority and power to the other persons in the trinity, and whether he actually had a physical body (the orthodox view) or was composed entirely of spirit (the Arian view).

In literary studies, the term christological has been commandeered to refer to (1) an object, person, or figure that represents Christ allegorically or symbolically, or (2) any similar object, person, or figure with qualities generally reminiscent of Christ. Examples of christological figures include the Old Man in Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, who after his struggle with the fish ends up bleeding from his palms and lying on the floor in a cruciform pattern; the lion Aslan in C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia, who allows himself like the lion of the tribe of Judah to be slain in order to redeem a traitorous child; and the unicorn in medieval bestiaries, which would lie down and place its phallic, ivory-horned meekly in a maiden's lap so that hunters might kill it--which medieval monks interpreted as an allegory of Christ allowing himself to enter the womb of the virgin Mary so that he might later be sacrificed. Zora Neale Hurston creates a christ-figure in Delia Jones, who in the short story "Sweat" suffers to support her ungrateful husband and "crawled over the earth in Gethsemane and up the rocks of Calvary many, many times . . ." and so on.

CHRONICLE: A history or a record of events. It refers to any systematic account or narration of events that makes minimal attempt to interpret, question, or analyze that history. Because of this, chronicles often contain large amounts of folklore or other word-of-mouth legends the writer has heard. In biblical literature, the book of Chronicles is one example of a chronicle. Medieval chronicles include Joinville's account of the Crusades and Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain, a source for much Arthurian legend. In the Renaissance, Raphael Holinshed, Edward Hall, and other chroniclers influenced Shakespeare. Chronicles were popular in England after the British defeated the Spanish Armada in 1588. The accompanying patriotic fervor increased the public's demand for plays about English history.

CHRONOLOGY (Greek: "logic of time"): The order in which events happen, especially when emphasizing a cause-effect relationship in history or in a narrative.

CHTHONIC: Related to the dead, the grave, the underworld, or the fertility of the earth. In Greek mythology, the Greeks venerated three categories of spirits: (1) the Olympian gods, who were worshipped in public ceremonies--often outdoors on the east side of large columned temples in the agora, (2) ancestral heroes like Theseus and Hercules, who were often worshipped only in local shrines or at specific burial mounds, (3) chthonic spirits, which included (a) earth-gods and death-gods like Hades, Hecate, and Persephone; (b) lesser-known (and often nameless) spirits of the departed; (c) dark and bloody spirits of vengeance like the Furies and Nemesis, and (d) (especially in Minoan tradition) serpents, which were revered as intermediaries between the surface world of the living and the subterranean realm of the dead. This is why snakes were so prominent in the healing cults of Aesclepius. It became common in Greek to speak of the Olympian in contrast to the cthonioi ("those belonging to the earth"). See Burkert 199-203 for detailed discussion.

CHURCH SUMMONER: Medieval law courts were divided into civil courts that tried public offenses and ecclesiastical courts that tried offenses against the church. Summoners were minor church officials whose duties included summoning offenders to appear before the church and receive sentence. By the fourteenth century, the job became synonymous with extortion and corruption because many summoners would take bribes from the individuals summoned to court. Chaucer satirized a summoner in The Canterbury Tales.

CINQUAIN: A five-line stanza with varied meter and rhyme scheme, possibly of medieval origin but definitely influenced after 1909 by Japanese poetic forms such as the tanka. Most modern cinquains are now based on the form standardized by an American poet, Adelaide Crapsey (1878-1918), in which each unrhymed line has a fixed number of syllables--respectively two, four, six, eight, and two syllables in each line--for a rigid total of 22 syllables. Here is probably the most famous example of a cinquain from Crapsey's The Complete Poems;

TRIAD
These be

Perhaps under the influence of diamante poems, many modern elementary school teachers have begun adding an additional set of conventions to the cinquain in which each line has a specific structural requirement:

Line 1 - Consists of the two-syllable title or subject for the poem
Line 2 - Consists of two adjectives totaling four syllables describing the subject or title
Line 3 - Consists of three verbs totaling six syllables describing the subject's actions
Line 4 - Consists of four words totaling eight syllables giving the writer's opinion of the subject.
Line 5 - Consists of one two-syllable word, often a synonym for the subject.

These secondary conventions, however, are usually limited to children's poetic exercises, and the conventions are not generally followed by professional poets.

CIRCULAR STRUCTURE: A type of artistic structure in which a sense of completeness or closure does not originate in coming to a "conclusion" that breaks with the earlier story; instead, the sense of closure originates in the way the end of a piece returns to subject-matter, wording, or phrasing found at the beginning of the narrative, play, or poem. An example of circular structure might be "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty," which ends with an ellipsis identical to the opening sequence, indicating that the middle-aged protagonist is engaging in yet another escapist fantasy. Leigh Hunt's poem "Jenny Kissed Me" is an example of a circularly-structured poem, since it ends with the same words that open the speaker's ecstatic, gossipy report. Langdon Smith's poem "Evolution" is circular in its concluding repetition of the opening phrase, "When you were a tadpole, and I was a fish," but it is also thematically circular, in that it implies the cycle of reincarnated love will continue again and again in spite of death. In many ways, the smaller tales within a larger frame narrative act as part of a circular structure, because each small tale begins by breaking the reader away from the larger, encompassing narrative and concludes by returning the reader to that larger frame-narrative.