Line one consists of a single noun. Line two

DIMETER: A line containing only two metrical feet. See meter and foot.

DIMIDIATION: The heraldic practice of combining two animals in a coat-of-arms into a single composite creature.

DIMINUTIVE: Any affix meaning "small." It can suggest cuteness or an emotional attachment. An example is the word piglet, where the diminutive alters the normal word pig.

DING-DONG THEORY: The linguistic theory that language began as instinctive responses to stimuli (Algeo 316).

DIONYSIA: The Athenian religious festivals celebrating Dionysus in March-April. Dionysus (Roman Bacchus) was the god of intoxication, celebration, powerful emotion, and loss of self-control. At his festival, priests would sacrifice goats on the theater stage, and then actors would perform tragic plays in honor of the god, interspersed with brief comedies. (The word tragedy itself may originate in the Greek tragos--a goat song, or possibly in a pun on "billygoat singers.") See tragedy, Lenaia.

DIPODY: In classical prosody, dipody describes the combination of two feet into another single metrical unit. Often used interchangeably with the more general term syzygy, this dipody involves the substitution of two normal feet, usually iambs or trochees, under a more powerful beat, so that a "galloping" or "rolling" rhythm results. See iamb, meter, rhythm, and trochee. Dipody is common in children's rhymes, nursery rhymes, and ballads. J. A. Cuddon lists two examples in his Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory that are too lengthy to reproduce here, but serve to illustrate the effect well.

DIPHTHONG (from Greek dipthongus): A complex speech sound in which a speaker begins to articulate one vowel and moves to another vowel or semi-vowel sound by switching the position of tongue and lips. For example, in the common name Roy, the oy makes a diphthong in that the vowel positions shift from one noise to another. The term diphthong should not be confused with digraph (see above). Diphthongs are phonetic (dealing with the sounds of spoken words), and digraphs are graphemic (dealing with the act of recording words on the page as symbols or letters).

DIPTHONGIZATION: The change of a normal vowel into a diphthong.

DIRGE: See discussion of elegy, below.

DISCOVERY SPACE: According to Stephen Greenblatt, this is "A central opening or alcove concealed behind a curtain in the center of the frons scenae. The curtain could be drawn aside to "discover" tableaux such as Portia's caskets, the body of Polonius, or the statue of Hermione. Shakespeare appears to have used this stage device only sparingly" (1139).

DISPLACEMENT: This term in linguistics refers to the ability of language to indicate or signify things not physically present.

DISSIMILATION: A linguistic development in which two sounds become less alike. Algeo (317) offers the example of diphtheria, in which the initial /f/ sound in has through dissimilation become .

DISTYCH: The technical term for a two-line group in which a pair of metrical lines of different lengths together compose or express a complete idea (Wheeler 38). In Greek elegies, these distichs are usually rhymed and composed with one line in dactylic hexameter followed by a line in dactylic pentameter. In Hebrew poetry such as the Psalms or Proverbs, the lines are typically unrhymed but contain elements of parallelism such as synonymou repetitions, antithesis, anaphora, or epistrophe (Wheeler 37-38).

DITHYRAMB: An ancient Athenian poetic form sung during the Dionysia (see above). The first tragedies may have originated from the dithyrambs. See tragedy.

DOG LATIN: Unidiomatic or crude pidgin Latin intermixed with local tongues. An example of dog latin appears in scene eight of Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, when Robin the servant tries to invoke spirits: "Sanctobulorum Periphrasticon--nay, I'll tickle you, vinter--look to the goblet, Rafe--Polypragmos Belseborams framanto pacostiphos tostis Mephastophilis" (23-26). Cf. macaronic text.

DOLCE STIL NUOVO (Italian, "sweet new style"): Dante uses this term to describe the style of lyric poetry he sought to create in the Purgatorio. He and other Italian poets like Guinicelli and Cavalcanti using this style are called stilnuovisti poets. The most important feature of this style is an attitude toward women and earthly love derived from troubadour poetry. This attitude depicts women as the ultimate form of God's beauty, and women are held to inspire a spiritual love in their male admirers that will ultimately lead them to Divine Love. This attempt to reconcile or combine sacred and sexual love contrasts starkly with monastic literature treating women as an evil temptation to good men.

DONATISM: The term donatism is an eponym taken from a bishop in North Africa named Donatus. During the patristic period, Donatus was upset by the readiness of the mainstream church to welcome back into its fold clergy who had temporarily renounced their faith in fear of Roman persecution. Donatus believed that such individuals were not fit to be priests, and that church rituals led by such individuals were worthless. This developed into the heresy of "donatism" in the medieval period. Donatists argued that baptisms, marriages, confessions, funerals, communion services, and other church rituals were invalid if the priest performing the ceremony was in a state of sin. Thus, the entire ministry of these lapsed clergy was considered invalid by these donatists. Accordingly, donatists declared that anyone "married" by a sinning priest was actually fornicating, and anyone who confessed and received absolution from evil clergy never actually received forgiveness of sins. Such people would need to have the rituals performed again by a priest in a state of grace.

In contrast, the orthodox Catholic belief (as set down by Saint Augustine) declared that priests were necessary instruments of the Holy Spirit, but it was the Holy Spirit itself that supplied a binding spiritual efficacy to church rituals. Accordingly, any rituals such as confession, marriage, or baptism received by a devout worshipper in an ordained church were still valid regardless of whether the priest performing the rites was himself in a state of grace. In Chaucer's "Pardoner's Tale," one of the issues raised by the Pardoner is the question of whether or not the Pardoner's indulgences have any spiritual efficacy, even though the Pardoner is a self-confessed cheat and trickster. Ironically, the Pardoner takes an orthodox position, declaring a "ful vicious man" can still tell a moral tale, and he argues that those who buy his fake relics still benefit spiritually even if the relics are fakes.

DONNÉE (French, "given"): The assumptions upon which a writer constructs a work of literature. Some common examples include the assumption that young love is fickle, that society is bleak or dangerous for survivors of warfare, that guilt is inescapable, that following one's heart (or head) leads to happiness (or heartbreak), and so on. Contrast with cliché and theme.

DOSBARTH GWYNEDD: Also known as the Venodotian Code or the "four and twenty measures," the Dosbarth Gwynedd are an ancient and complex set of metrical rules for Welsh poetry associated with the Gwynedd region (north Wales) in contrast with the newer Dosbarth Morgannwg, a newer tradition (15th century) associated with the region of Glamorganshire. In general, the Dosbarth Gwynedd are considered the standard or "authentic" verse tradition, even though most modern Welsh poets tend to ignore this incredibly complex tradition and concentrate on smaller, simpler forms like the cywydd and the englyn.

DOSBARTH MORGANNWG: See discussion under Dosbarth Gwynedd.

DOUBLE DACTYL: A comic verse written with two quatrains, with each line written in dactylic dimeter. The second line may be a name, and the sixth or seventh line may be a single word. J. A. Cuddon's poem, "Nicholas Williamson," illustrates the technique:

Higgledy-piggledy
Nicholas Williamson
Sat in the bathtub and
Scratched at his nose.
Seldom was schoolboy so
Anthropocentrically
Gifted with flexible
Bendable toes.

DOUBLE ENTENDRE (French, "double meaning"): The deliberate use of ambiguity in a phrase or image--especially involving sexual or humorous meanings.

DOUBLE NEGATIVE: Two (or more) negatives used for emphasis, e.g., "I don't want no candy" as opposed to "I don't want any candy." Prescriptivist grammarians recommend avoiding double negatives in formal writing, but historians note this rule is of fairly recent manufacture in English history. Double negatives were perfectly acceptable in English up until the Enlightenment. For instance, the medieval author Chaucer routinely uses two to four double negatives in his descriptions--such as the Knight in The Canterbury Tales: "He nevere yet no vileynye ne sayde / In al his lyf unto no maner wight" (GP 70-71).

DOUBLE PLOT: When an author uses two related plots within a single narrative. See futher discussion under subplot and plot.

DOUBLE RHYME: A rhyme that involves two syllables rather than one. For instance, rhyming lend/send is a single rhyme, in which each word consists of a single syllable. However, the words lending/sending constitute a double rhyme because two rhyming syllables are used. In English, most double rhymes create a feminine ending. Contrast with triple rhyme and feminine ending (under meter).

DOUBLE SUPERLATIVE: Double use of the superlative degree--such as the word foremost, which uses both the superlative sufix -m and -est (Algeo 317).

DOUBLET: In linguistics, a pair of words that derive from the same etymon, but since they were adapted at different times or by different routes, take on two different meanings. For instance, the Modern English words chief and chef both come from the same French word, originally meaning roughly "guy in charge." Chief was adopted, however, in a time when Norman French was associated with military power, and thus the word had contexts of "leader of a war band." The same word was adopted centuries later, however, in a time when Parisian French was associated with culture and culinary arts. Now, chef came to mean in English, "leader of a kitchen." Thus, the same word adopted twice can come to gain two different meanings.

DOUBLING: Greenblatt describes this process as, "The common [Renaissance] practice of having one actor play multiple roles, so that a play with a large cast of characters might be performed by a relatively small company" (1139).

DRACULA'S LAW: A helpful mnemonic phrase, "blood is good food" useful for remembering sound shifts in the vowel o from Middle English to Modern English. Originally, between 1200-1400, the letter often indicated a long Middle English /o:/ but it rapidly developed into /u/, as in food, roof, and room, and root. However, in the 1400s, in some words, the vowel shortened and unrounded to the sound in blood and flood. In still other words, the letter retained the long vowel /o:/ until about 1700, but the vowel was then shortened without being unrounded, giving us the sound found in good, foot, and book. Thus, the standard pronunciation is as follows:

• 
  blood (c.1400-1500)
  
• 
  good (c. 1700 et passim)
  
• 
  food (c. 1200-1400)
  

DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE: A poem in which a poetic speaker addresses either the reader or an internal listener at length. It is similar to the soliloquy in theater, in that both a dramatic monologue and a soliloquy often involve the revelation of the innermost thoughts and feelings of the speaker. Two famous examples are Browning's "My Last Duchess" and "Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister." Cf. interior monologue and monologue.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE (Latin: "people of the play"): A list of the complete cast, i.e., the various characters that will appear in the play. This list usually appears before the text of the main play begins in printed copies of the text. In late periods of drama, the dramatis personae often included a brief description of the character's personality or appearance. In the First Folio, such lists appeared at the end of some Shakespearean plays, but not at the end of all of them.

DRAVIDIAN: Once, the aboriginal tongue of all India, but now spoken primarily in only the southern regions of that subcontinent.

DREAM VISION (Visio): A genre of poetry popular in the Middle Ages. By convention, a fictionalized version of the writer goes to sleep in a pleasant, natural springtime setting (May mornings being particularly popular). He has a dream that he relates to the reader. During the dream, he often encounters a mentor or spirit guide who takes him on a journey in which he encounters various historical or fictional figures engaged in allegorical activities. Through his interactions, the dreamer learns valuable spiritual, political, or intellectual truths and is transformed by the experience. One of the earliest literary works to influence the genre is Macrobius's (c. 400 CE) commentary on the Somnium Scipionis. Medieval examples from the continent include the Roman de la Rose (13th century), and Dante's Divine Comedy. Medieval examples from the British Isles include the Welsh Dream of Rhonabwy and English works such as Piers Plowman, Pearl, and Chaucer's The Book of the Duchess, The House of Fame, and the Prologue to the Legend of Good Women. More recent versions include Bunyan's prose narrative called The Pilgrim's Progress, Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake, and L. Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz.

• 
  wit ("we two ")
  
• 
  unc ("us two ")
  
• 
  uncer or ("the two of ours, ours both")
  
• 
  git ("the two of you" i.e., "ye two")
  
• 
  inc ("you both")
  
• 
  incer ("yours both")
  

DUMB SHOWS: These mimed scenes before a play or before each act in a play summarized or foreshadowed the coming events of the plot. These shows were common in early Renaissance drama, but Greenblatt notes that they already seemed old-fashioned in Shakespeare's time. Still, writers employed them up until the 1640s (Greenblatt 1139).

DUPLE METER: Poetry consisting of two syllables to a metrical foot, and one foot to each line. It is a rare form. One example noted in J. A. Cuddon's Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms comes from Herrick's "Upon His Departure Hence":

Thus I
Passe by,

DYFALU: A Welsh term for a form of fanciful conceit in which a string of sequential metaphors compares an object to a number of diverse things--often using compound words in a manner similar to the Anglo-Saxon or Old Norse kenning. The 14th century Welsh poet Dafydd ap Gwilym is particularly known for this poetic technique. Cf. cataloging.

DYING RHYME: Another term for feminine metrical endings. See discussion under meter.

DYNAMIC CHARACTER: Also called a round character, a dynamic character is one whose personality changes or evolves over the course of a narrative or appears to have the capacity for such change. The round character contrasts with the flat character, a character who serves a specific or minor literary function in a text, and who may be a stock character or simplified stereotype. Typically, a short story has one round character and several flat ones. However, in longer novels and plays, there may be many round characters. The terms flat and round were first coined by the novelist E. M. Forster in his study, Aspects of the Novel. See flat character, character, characterization, round character, and stock character.

DYSTOPIA (from Greek, dys topos, "bad place"): The opposite of a utopia, a dystopia is an imaginary society in fictional writing that represents, as M. H. Abrams puts it, "a very unpleasant imaginary world in which ominous tendencies of our present social, political, and technological order are projected in some disastrous future culmination" (Glossary 218). For instance, while a utopia presents readers with a place where all the citizens are happy and ruled by a virtuous, efficient, rational government, a dystopia presents readers with a world where all citizens are universally unhappy, manipulated, and repressed by a sinister, sadistic totalitarian state. This government exists at best to further its own power and at worst seeks actively to destroy its own citizens' creativity, health, and happiness. Examples of fictional dystopias include Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, George Orwell's 1984, Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, and Ursula Le Guin's The Dispossessed.

E TEXT, THE (Also called the E Document or the Elohist Text): In biblical scholarship, the editorial abbreviation for the Elohist Text (see below or or click here for more detailed discussion.)

EARLY MODERN ENGLISH: Modern English covers the time-frame from about 1450 or so up to the present day. However, linguists sometimes subdivide Modern English into "Early Modern" (c. 1450-1800) and "Late Modern" (c. 1800 to the present).

EASE OF ARTICULATION: The linguistic concern for how certain sound changes in words might be motivated by how easy or hard the word is to pronounce.

EAST GERMANIC: A sub-branch of the Germanic language family. Gothic was an East Germanic language.

EASTER UPRISING: On Easter Monday in 1916, about 1,200 Irish revolutionaries armed with only rifles engaged in an aborted rebellion against English domination of their country. They attempted to capture the fourteen most prominent buildings in Dublin (including most famously the General Post Office). The British responded by using heavy cannon to flatten the buildings in rebel hands. The rebels attempted a final stand near (ironically) King's Street, but they were wiped out with significant loss of life among Irish civilians and noncombatants who attempted to hide from the fighting. Secret military courts tried and executed rebel leaders--some apparently tied up to chairs and shot in spite of being previously wounded. The Easter Uprising was significant because it lead to anti-British sentiment in Ireland. It built up a greater sense of Irish national identity apart from English control, and it rekindled the failing republican movement. Several prominent Irish poets and authors wrote works based on or inspired by this incident, including W. B. Yeats' "Easter 1916." The violence and bloodshed probably also influenced Yeats' "The Second Coming" in a more abstract sense.

ECHOIC WORDS: Another term for onomatopoeia, i.e., when the actual sound of the word resembles its referent--like fizz or hiss. See onomatopoeia under tropes.

ECLIPSIS (Greek "leaving out," cf. Modern English eclipse): A type of enallage in which an author or poet omits essential grammatical elements to create a poetic or artful effect. One example might be the following: "This sentence no verb!" In this example, the necessary verb has vanishes, but the intentional effect is to highlight its omission. This term is not to be confused with ellipsis, below.

ECLIPSIS MUTATION: See discussion under mutation.

ECLOGUE (Greek "selection"): A short poem or short section of a longer poem in the form of a dialogue or soliloquy--especially one with pastoral elements. The term was first applied to Virgil's pastoral poems, but the term covers Renaissance imitators as well. Examples include Spenser's The Shepheard's Calendar (1579). After the 1700s, the term increasingly came to mean any poem having the structural form of the earlier eclogues--even works that were not pastoral. Examples of these eclogues include Swift's A Town Eclogue, Frost's Build Soil, or W. H. Auden's The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue. The term should not be confused with epilogue, below.

ECPHRASIS (plural, ecphrases): A passage of literature or poetry in which the writer disrupts the narrative and writes a lengthy passage describing, representing, or "translating" another type of art such as a painting, a piece of architecture or sculpture, or music. This ecphrasis is the "translation" of one type of non-verbal art into words. See discussion under mimesis.

ÉCRITURE: In deconstruction, writing as a social institution and as a group of inter-related texts. This results in textuality--a term for the idea that no single literary work can be studied as an autonomous object, but that each text is part of of a larger, culturally endorsed collection of texts, conventions, codes, and meanings.

EIRON: In Greek comedy, the eiron was a stock male character known for his ironic understatement. This character deliberately pretended to be less clever than he actually was, yet his superior verbal skills and cunning allowed him to win out over braggarts and bullies. In many ways, the techniques of the eiron mirror those of Socratic irony used in philosophical debate.

EJACULATION, VERBAL: A sudden verbal outburst or interjection expressing a strong emotion, surprise, dismay, disbelief, or pain--such as teehee, ha-ha, tush, faugh, yuck, ho-ho, and ouch.

EKSTASOS (Greek, "ecstasy"): In Greek thinking, ekstasos is a non-rational state of mind that people achieve by "losing themselves" in an experience--becoming so engrossed in a sensation or a moment that one forgets about one's ego, one's life, and all other considerations beyond that emotion or feeling. That ekstasos can be provided by wild dancing, profound mourning and weeping, alcoholic intoxication, sexual pleasure, or religious enthrallment. This mental state contrasted with logos (rationality and logic). Ekstasos was a dangerous condition due to that irrationality, but it was a necessary and holy one for the ancient Greeks--a transcendental experience that took the initiate beyond the normal bounds of behavior and his or her mortal limitations for a short time. Unlike the English word "ecstasy," which implies pleasure, the Greeks thought of ekstasos as coming from any sufficiently strong emotion whether positive or negative. Grief and pain could be gateways to it as easily as pleasure. A worshipper of Aphrodite in the Acrocorinth would undergo ekstasos in the arms of a temple prostitute, but a theater-goer would experience ekstasos while watching a tragic play and feeling pity and fear through catharsis, and the worshippers of Dionysus/Bacchus would experience ekstasos while dancing drunkenly, or a Maenad priestess while tearing an animal apart in a frenzy. While most English translations think of Dionysus or Bacchus as being a god of "revelry," the Greek term ekstasos indicates a far different and more complex phenomenon to describe his domain.

ELECT, THE: John Calvin's Puritan doctrines emphasized God's prescience and omnipotence and de-emphasized human free will. Accordingly, for Calvin, the vast majority of humanity is fated for damnation because of their total depravity and original sin, and only a small percentage of humanity has been pre-selected for salvation in Christ. God has predestined this small sliver of the faithful, called "the elect," to turn to Puritanism and repent of their sins. They are predestined to be materially prosperous and successful in this life, and fated to enter heaven in the next. The idea of the Elect plays a significant part in literary works like The Scarlet Letter and in Puritan sermons.

ELEGY: In classical Greco-Roman literature, "elegy" refers to any poem written in elegiac meter (alternating hexameter and pentameter lines). More broadly, elegy came to mean any poem dealing with the subject-matter common to the early Greco-Roman elegies--complaints about love, sustained formal lamentation, or somber meditations. Typically, elegies are marked by several conventions of genre:

(1) The elegy, much like the classical epic, typically begins with an invocation of the muse, and then continues with allusions to classical mythology.

(2) The poem usually contains a poetic speaker who uses the first person.

(3) The speaker raises questions about justice, fate, or providence.

(4) The poet digresses about the conditions of his own time or his own situation.

(5) The digression allows the speaker to move beyond his original emotion or thinking to a higher level of understanding.

(6) The conclusion of the poem provides consolation or insight into the speaker's situation. In Christian elegies, the lyric reversal often moves from despair and grief to joy when the speaker realizes that death or misfortune is but a temporary barrier separating one from the bliss of eternity.

(7) The poem tends to be longer than a lyric but not as long as an epic.

(8) The poem is not plot-driven.

In the case of pastoral elegies in the 1600s, 1700s, and early 1800s, there are several other common conventions:

(1) The speaker mourns the death of a close friend; the friend is eulogized in the highest possible terms, but represented as if he were a shepherd.

(2) The mourner charges with negligence the nymphs or guardians of the shepherd who failed to preserve him from death.

(3) Appropriate mourners appear to lament the shepherd's death.

(4) Post-Renaissance poets often include an elaborate passage in which flowers appear to deck the hearse or grave, with various flowers having symbolic meaning appropriate to the scene.

Famous elegies include Milton's "Lycidas," Shelley's "Adonais," and Arnold's "Thyrsis." Closely related to the pastoral elegy, the dirge or threnody is shorter than the elegy and often represented as a text meant to be sung aloud. The term monody refers to any dirge or elegy presented as the utterance of a single speaker. Various Anglo-Saxon poems such as "The Wife's Lament" and "The Wanderer" are also considered elegies, though the term might not be perfectly applicable since the influence of the Greek elegy was never pervasive in Anglo-Saxon literature, making it unlikely the anonymous authors were familiar with the genre per se.

ELISION (verb form, elide): (1) In poetry, when the poet takes a word that ends in a vowel, and a following word that begins with a vowel, and blurs them together to create a single syllable, the result is an elision. Contrast with synaeresis, syncope, and acephalous lines. To download a PDF handout that discussing elision and other techniques in conjunction with meter, click here. (2) In linguistics, elision refers more generally to the omission of any sound in speech and writing, such as the word Hallowe'en (from "All Hallows Evening") or in contractions like shan't (from "shall not").

ELIZABETHAN: Occurring in the time of Queen Elizabeth I's reign, from 1558-1603. Shakespeare wrote his early works during the Elizabethan period. This term is often juxtaposed with the Jacobean Period, the time following Elizabeth's reign when King James I ruled, from 1603 to 1625.

ELLESMERE MANUSCRIPT: Usually referred to as "the Ellesmere," this book is one of the most important surviving fifteenth-century manuscripts of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. The beautiful Ellesmere manuscript contains the best illumination and a set of portraits of each pilgrim. It is currently housed in the Huntington Library at San Marino, California. Cf. Hengwrt Manuscript.

ELLIPSIS (plural, ellipses): (1) In its oldest sense as a rhetorical device, ellipsis refers to the artful omission of a word implied by a previous clause. For instance, an author might write, "The American soldiers killed eight civilians, and the French eight." The writer of the sentence has left out the word soldiers after French, and the word civilians after eight. However, both words are implied by the previous clause, so a reader has no trouble following the author's thought. See schemes. An ellipsis is similar to an eclipsis, but differs in that an eclipsis has a word or words missing that may not be implied by a previous clause. (2) In its more modern sense, ellipsis refers to a punctuation mark indicated by three periods to indicate material missing from a quotation . . . like so. This mark is common in MLA format for indicating partial quotations.

ELOHIST TEXT, THE (Also called the E Document or the Elohist Text): Not to be confused with "electronic" or digital texts, the term E Text comes from biblical scholarship of the Torah. Based on the date of its language, elements of anthropomorphism, and certain folkloric qualities, most biblical scholars think the section from Genesis 2:4-3:3 comes from an older textual tradition than the material found in Genesis 1:1-2:3. Scholars think the section from Genesis 2:4 onward was once part of a separate textual tradition known as the "E Text" or the Elohist Text because the writer in this tradition uses Elohim as the plural name of God (singular El) and because it is written in a dialect probably associated with the Northern kingdom of Israel around Ephraim. Paleography and linguistics would date this section to about 799-700 BCE in the northern kingdom of Israel. Contrast with the P Text and the J Text, or click here for more detailed discussion. If students are reading a study Bible like the Anchor Bible series, the editors helpfully mark in the margins which sections come from the E Text, the J Text, or the P Text.

EMBLEM: Nathaniel Hawthorne's term for a private symbol. He also refers to private symbols as tokens. Examples include the blasted trees and brown-grass in "The Hollow of the Three Hills" or the walking stick carried by the old man and the pink ribbon belonging to Faith in "Young Goodman Brown."

ENALLAGE (Greek, "interchange"): Intentionally misusing grammar to characterize a speaker or to create a memorable phrase. Boxing manager Joe Jacobs, for instance, became immortal with the phrase, "We was robbed!" Or, the editors of Punch magazine might tell their British readers, "You pays your money, and you takes your chances." Similarly, in Shakespeare, we find "And hang more praise upon deceased I" (Sonnet 72). We also find the intentional misuse of subject-verb agreement when a Shakespearean character asks, "Is there not wars? Is there not employment?" (2nd Henry IV, I, ii). Cf. eclipsis. See schemes.

ENCLITIC: A linguistic formation in which a separate word, during the process contraction, becomes part of the word preceding it. Algeo offers the examle of 'll for will in the contraction I'll (317).

ENCLOSING METHOD: Another term for framing method.

ENCYCLICAL: An official statement by the papacy. Individual encyclicals lack titles in the modern sense, and they are normally refered to by their opening words (in Latin).

ENDLINK: See discussion under link.

END RHYME: Rhyme in which the last word at the end of each verse is the word that rhymes. This contrasts with internal rhyme, in which a word in the middle of each line of verse rhymes, or so-called head rhyme, in which the beginning consonant in a word alliterates with another beginning consonant in a different word.

END-STOPPED RHYME: In poetry, a line ending in a full pause, often indicated by appropriate punctuation such as a period or semicolon. This contrasts with enjambement or run-on lines, in which the grammatical sense of the sentence continues uninterrupted into the next line. Here is an example of end-stopped rhyme from Robert Browning's "Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister":

G-r-r-r--there go, my heart's abhorrence!

Water your damned flowerpots, do.

If hate killed men, Brother Lawrence,

God's blood, would not mine kill you!

What? your myrtle bush wants trimming?

Needs it leaden vase filled brimming?

Hell dry you up with its flames!

Readers will note that at the end of each line, the reader finds a punctuation mark that indicates a pause in speech or a break in grammatical structure. The sentence-structure has been deliberately designed to fall naturally with the end of each line. Contrast this technique with enjambement, below.

ENGLISH SONNET: Another term for a Shakespearean sonnet. See discussion under sonnet, or click here to download a PDF handout.

ENGLYN: A group of certain Welsh tercets and quatrains written in strict Welsh meters including monorhyme and cywydd, especially in poems that make use of cynghanedd. The simplest example of an englyn is the soldiers' englyn, a rhymed tercet in which each line has seven syllables.

ENJAMBEMENT (French, "straddling," in English also called "run-on line," pronounced on-zhahm-mah): A line having no pause or end punctuation but having uninterrupted grammatical meaning continuing into the next line. Here is an example from George S. Viereck's "The Haunted House":

I lay beside you; on your lips the while

You will note there is no punctuation or pause at the end of lines one, two, and three. Instead, the meaning continues uninterrupted into the next line. Contrast this technique with end-stopped rhymes, above.

ENLIGHTENMENT (also called the neoclassic movement): the philosophical and artistic movement growing out of the Renaissance and continuing until the nineteenth century. The Enlightenment was an optimistic belief that humanity could improve itself by applying logic and reason to all things. It rejected untested beliefs, superstition, and the "barbarism" of the earlier medieval period, and embraced the literary, architectural, and artistic forms of the Greco-Roman world. Enlightenment thinkers were enchanted by the perfection of geometry and mathematics, and by all things harmonious and balanced. The period's poetry, as typified by Alexander Pope, John Dryden, and others, attempted to create perfect, clockwork regularity in meter. Typically, these Enlightenment writers would use satire to ridicule what they felt were illogical errors in government, social custom, and religious belief.

For me, I have found one useful exercise to understand the difference between the Enlightenment and the Romantic aesthetic that followed. This exercise is examining the architecture of English and continental gardens in each period. In the Enlightenment, the garden would be kept neatly trimmed, with only useful or decorative plants allowed to grow, and every weed meticulously uprooted. The trees would be planted according to mathematical models for harmonious spacing, and the shrubbery would be pruned into geometric shapes such as spheres, cones, or pyramids. The preferred garden walls would involve Greco-Roman columns perfectly spaced from each other in clean white marble, smoothly burnished in straight edges and lines. If a stream or well were available, the architect might divert it down a carefully designed irrigation path, or pump it into the spray of a marble fountain. Such a setting was considered ideal for hosting civilized gatherings and leisurely strolls through the grounds. Such features were common in gardens from the 1660s up through the late 1790s. Nature was something to be shaped according to the dictates of human will and tamed according to the rules of human logic.

On the other hand, the later Romanticists might be horrified at the artificial design imposed upon nature. The ideal garden in the Romantic period might be planted in the ruins of an ancient cloister or churchyard. Wild ivy might be encouraged to grow along the picturesque, rough-hewn walls. Rather than ornamental shrubbery, fruit trees would be planted. The flowers might be loosely clustered according to type, but overgrown random patterns caused by the natural distribution of wind and rain were considered more aesthetically pleasing. Even better, rather than planting a garden, a Romanticist nature-lover would be encouraged to walk in the untamed wilderness, clambering up and down the uneven rocks and gullies of a natural stream. Many Romanticists who inherited Enlightenment gardens simply tore the structures down and allowed the grounds to run wild. Nature was considered something larger than humanity, and the passions it inspired in its untamed form were considered healthier (more "natural") than the faint-hearted passions originating in falsely imposed human design. Cf. aufklärung. To download a PDF handout that lists the major literary movements or periods in chronological order, click here. To download Kant's definition of Enlightenment, click here.

ENVIRONMENTAL WRITINGS: Writings focused on nature or man's relationship to nature, especially the transcendental essays and meditations of Thoreau and Emerson in the nineteenth century and the ecological writings of Barry Lopez, Edward Abbey, and Diane Ackerman in the twentieth century.

ENVOY: Also spelled, envoi, the word envoy refers to a postscript added to the end of a prose writing or a short verse stanza (often using different meter and rhyme) attached to the conclusion of a poem. An example appears at the end of Chaucer's "Clerk's Tale."

EPANADOS: Repeating a word in the middle of a clause in either the opening or the conclusion of the same sentence for artistic effect. Philip Sidney uses this technique in this line from Arcadia: "Hear you this soul-invading voice, and count it but a voice?"

EPANALEPSIS: Repeating a word from the beginning of a clause or phrase at the end of the same clause or phrase: "Year chases year." Or "Man's inhumanity to man." As Voltaire reminds us, "Common sense is not so common." As Shakespeare chillingly phrases it, "Blood will have blood." Under Biblical lextalionis one might demand "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life."

EPENTHESIS (also called infixation): Adding an extra syllable or letters in the middle of a word. Shakespeare might write, "A visitating spirit came last night" (instead of "visiting" spirit). This choice perhaps highlights the unnatural status of the visit, or perhaps shows the speaker is being pretentious or flustered in his diction. More prosaically, Ned Flanders from The Simpsons might say, "Gosh-diddly-darn-it, Homer" (instead of "gosh-darn-it, Homer"). Epenthesis has resulted in new words in English--such as the word thimble, which developed from the earlier word thimel.

EPIC: An epic in its most specific sense is a genre of classical poetry. It is a poem that is (a) a long narrative about a serious subject, (b) told in an elevated style of language, (c) focused on the exploits of a hero or demi-god who represents the cultural values of a race, nation, or religious group (d) in which the hero's success or failure will determine the fate of that people or nation. Usually, the epic has (e) a vast setting, and covers a wide geographic area, (f) it contains superhuman feats of strength or military prowess, and gods or supernatural beings frequently take part in the action. The poem begins with (g) the invocation of a muse to inspire the poet and, (h) the narrative starts in medias res (see above). (i) The epic contains long catalogs of heroes or important characters, focusing on highborn kings and great warriors rather than peasants and commoners.

J. A. Cuddon notes that the term primary epic refers to folk epics, i.e., versions of an epic narrative that were transmitted orally in pre-literate cultures; the term secondary epic refers to literary epics, i.e., versions that are actually written down rather than chanted or sung (284). Often, these secondary epics retain elements of oral-formulaic transmission, such as staggered intervals in which the poet summarizes earlier events, standardized epithets and phrases originally used by singers to fill out dactylic hexameters during extemporaneous performance, and so on.

The term epic applies most accurately to classical Greek texts like the Iliad and the Odyssey. However, some critics have applied the term more loosely. The Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf has also been called an epic of Anglo-Saxon culture, Milton's Paradise Lost has been seen as an epic of Christian culture, and Shakespeare's various History Plays have been collectively called an epic of Renaissance Britain. Other examples include Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered and the anonymous Epic of Gilgamesh, which is the oldest example known. Contrast with mock epic. See epic simile below. Click here to a download a PDF handout discussing the epic's conventional traits.

EPIC SIMILE: A formal and sustained simile (see under tropes). Like a regular simile, an epic simile makes a comparison between one object and another using "like" or "as." However, unlike a regular simile, which often appears in a single sentence, the epic simile appears in the genre of the epic and it may be developed at great length, often up to fifty or a hundred lines. Examples include Homer's comparison between Odysseus clinging to the rocks and an octopus with pebbles stuck in its tentacles, or Virgil's comparison between the city of Carthage and a bee-hive. For an example of a Homeric epic simile from The Odyssey, click here. See epic, above.

EPICENE PRONOUN: A gender-neutral pronoun for human beings. English does have gender-neutral pronouns for objects (it, its), but it does not have epicene pronouns for people--only masculine and feminine ones (he, him, his or she, her, her). Increasingly, common speech has been using the plural pronouns they, them, and their to fulfill this function, though this often grates on the ears of traditional grammarians when this plural pronoun is applied to a singular antecedent.

EPICUREANISM: The Greek philosophy of Epicurus, who espoused a life of gentle hedonism ameliorated by rational moderation. His idea of epicureanism was so refined as to almost be ascetic. For instance, he urged that pleasures should be best tasted one at a time, and strung out with slow relish. Gorging, over-indulgence, and excess defeated the point because it would lead to future miseries like indigestion, hangover, and exhaustion. Epicurus accordingly argued that the wise hedonist would balance immediate pleasure with long-term comfort. In common modern usage, however, the bit about "rational moderation" usually gets left out, reducing the philosophy to one of unadulterated pleasure-seeking. Epicurus also advocated avoiding public life or stressful work.

In late Roman times, aristocrats adopted and perverted the older Greek Epicurean doctrine. They focused on overindulgence. Food, wine, entertainment, and slave girls became the chief pleasures--and in the later days of the Roman Empire, social phenomena like the vomitorium and the orgy arose. See further discussion under Roman Stoicism. We can see an epicurean influence on Chaucer's "General Prologue," where the aging Franklin is described as a son of Epicurus.

EPIGRAM (from Greek epigramma "an inscription"): (1) An inscription in verse or prose on a building, tomb, or coin. (2) a short verse or motto appearing at the beginning of a longer poem or the title page of a novel, at the heading of a new section or paragraph of an essay or other literary work to establish mood or raise thematic concerns. The opening epigram to Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" is one such example. (3) A short, humorous poem, often written in couplets, that makes a satiric point. Coleridge once described this third type of epigram using an epigram himself: "A dwarfish whole, / Its body brevity, / and wit its soul."

EPILOGUE: A conclusion added to a literary work such as a novel, play, or long poem. It is the opposite of a prologue. Often, the epilogue refers to the moral of a fable. Sometimes, it is a speech made by one of the actors at the end of a play asking for the indulgence of the critics and the audience. Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream contains one of the most famous epilogues. Contrast with prologue. Do not confuse the term with eclogue.

EPIMYTHIUM: A summary of the moral of the fable appearing at the end of the main narrative. If it is found at the beginning of the narrative, it is called a promythium. Contrast with prologue and epilogue.

EPIPHANY: Christian thinkers used this term to signify a manifestation of God's presence in the world. It has since become in modern fiction and poetry the standard term for the sudden flare into revelation of an ordinary object or scene. In particular, the epiphany is a revelation of such power and insight that it alters the entire world-view of the thinker who experiences it. (In this sense, it is similar to what a scientist might call a "paradigm shift.") Shakespeare's Twelfth Night takes place on the Feast of the Epiphany, and the theme of revelation is prevalent in the work. James Joyce used the term epiphany to describe personal revelations such as that of Gabriel Conroy in the short story "The Dead" in Dubliners.

EPISODE: A scene involving the actors' dialogue and action rather than the chorus's singing, or sections of such scenes in a Classical Greek tragedy. Divisions separating the episodes were called stasima. During the stasima, the chorus sang. Note that Greek tragedies were performed without any breaks or intermissions.

EPISODIA: The Greek word for episode. See above.

EPISODIC: Occurring in a long string of short, individual scenes, stories, or sections, rather than focusing on the sustained development of a single plot. These episodes may be unrelated to each other directly, or they may be loosely connected together in terms of overall events. Picaresque narratives, medieval romances, and collections like 1001 Arabian Nights are often said to be episodic.

EPISTLE: (1) A poem addressed to a patron, friend, or family member, thus a kind of "letter" in verse. (2) An actual prose letter sent to another. (3) A distinct part or section of such a poem or letter.

EPISTOLARY: Taking the form of a letter, or actually consisting of a letter written to another. For instance, several books in the New Testament written by Saint Paul are epistolary--they were originally letters written to newly founded Christian churches. Sometimes, novelists will write an epistolary novel, in which the story is unveiled as a series of letters between the characters. Some examples include C. S. Lewis's Screwtape Letters, Richardson's Pamela (1740), Fanny Burney's Evelina, Rousseau's La Nouvelle Héloïse, Hannah W. Foster's The Coquette, and John Barth's Letters.

EPISTOLARY NOVEL: Any novel that takes the form of a series of letters--either written by one character or several characters. The form allows an author to dispense with an omniscient point of view, but still switch between the viewpoints of several characters during the narrative. See epistolary, above.

EPISTROPHE (Greek, "upon turning"): Repetition of a concluding word or word endings: "He's learning fast; are you earning fast?" When the epistrophe focuses on sounds rather than entire words, we normally call it rhyme. Epistrophe is an example of a rhetorical scheme.

EPITHALAMION (Greek, "at the Bridal Chamber," plural epithalamia): A wedding hymn sung in classical Greece outside the bride's room on her wedding night. Sappho is traditionally believed to have been the first poet to begin the tradition. Renaissance poets revived the custom, including Sir Philip Sidney, Spenser, Donne, Ben Jonson, Herrick, Crashaw, Dryden, and Marvell. The genre largely fell out of favor during the Enlightenment, but it enjoyed a brief respite during the Romantic period. The Latin equivalent is called an epithalamium.

EPITHALAMIUM: The Latin term for an epithalamion. See above.

EPITAPH: Not to be confused with epithet or epigram, an epitaph refers literally to an inscription carved on a gravestone, aka, cenotaph. In a more general sense, an epitaph is the final statement spoken by a character before his death. In many of Shakespeare's plays, it is common for the last words a character speaks to come true, especially if he utters a curse. Shakespeare's own epitaph in the chancel of Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon is rather famous: GOOD FREND FOR IESVS SAKE FORBEARE TO DIGG THE DVST ENCLOASED HEARE BLESTE BE Y MAN Y SPARES THES STONES AND CVRST BE HE Y MOVES MY BONES." The Norton Facsimile of the First Folio of Shakespeare provides the best available photo-facsimile of it. Other famous epitaphs include John Keats' grave inscription: "Here lies one whose name was writ in water." A long list of such literary epitaphs can be found here.

EPITHET: A short, poetic nickname--often in the form of an adjective or adjectival phrase--attached to the normal name. Frequently, this technique allows a poet to extend a line by a few syllables in a poetic manner that characterizes an individual or a setting within an epic poem. (1) The Homeric epithet in classical literature often includes compounds of two words such as, "fleet-footed Achilles," "Cow-eyed Hera," "Grey-eyed Athena," or "the wine-dark sea." In other cases, it appears as a phrase, such as "Odysseus the man-of-many-wiles," or whatnot. Click here for more examples. (2) The historical epithet is a descriptive phrase attached to a ruler's name. For instance, King Alfred the Great, Duke Lorenzo the Magnificent, Robert the Devil, Richard the Lionheart, and so on. (3) The generally descriptive epithet would appear in Old Norse and Germanic cultures to help distinguish individuals, thus giving us (in Njal's Saga) colorful names such as Hallbjorn Half-Troll, Ulf the Squinter, Hjorleif the Womanizer, and Ketil Flat-Nose. Do not confuse the epithet with the epitaph or epigram.

EPIZEUXIS (also called diacope): Uninterrupted repetition, or repetition with only one or two words between each repeated phrase. Typically, the purpose of epizeuxis is to show strong emotion. Peacham writes, "My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed." A character in a gothic novel might cry out, "Oh, horror, horror, horror!" Probably the most dramatic use of epizeuxis is found in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Bells," in which Poe writes,

To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells--
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells--

Epizeuxis is an example of a rhetorical scheme.

EPONYM: A word that is derived from the proper name of a person or place. For instance, the sandwich gained its name from its inventor, the fourth Earl of Sandwich. The word lynch comes from Captain William Lynch, who led bands of vigilantes to hang hoboes and bums residing near Pittsylvania County. The verb shanghai, meaning to kidnap or press into forced labor, comes from the practices of conscription common in the oriental city of Shanghai. The word stentorian comes from the loud-mouthed Stentor in Greek legend, and herculean comes from the muscle-bound Hercules, and so on.

EQUIVOQUE: See discussion under pun.

EREMITE: A religious hermit. Eremites are stock character in vitae and in chivalric romances. See discussion under eremitic tradition, below.

EREMITIC TRADITION: An eremite is a hermit--one who deliberately lives alone seeking spiritual enlightenment in the desert, forest, or wilderness. The first five centuries of Christianity were marked by a number of eremitic (hermitic) traditions and cenobitical (monastic) traditions in which devout Christians attempted to remove themselves from what they saw as a corrupt, materialistic world in favor of spiritual contemplation either alone in the wilderness or together with like-minded folk within a monastery's walls. They often modeled themselves on Old Testament prophets or on the example of Christ spending forty days and nights in the wilderness facing Satan's temptations. Examples of eremites from The New Catholic Encyclopedia include John the Baptist, Saint Athanasius, Saint Basil, Saint John Chrysostom, Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, Saint Jerome (the translator of the Bible into Latin), Saint Nilus, Saint Isidore of Pelusium, Saint Epiphanius, Saint Mary Magdalene, and countless others.

The eremites became the basis for many early Christian legends. Many saints' lives (vitae) and hagiographical writings focus on the miracles and sufferings of these isolationist mystics. Saint Anthony, for instance, was famed for physically wrestling with demons in the Egyptian desert, as described in his vita by Saint Athanasius. Saint Kevin (Irish Coemghen) was renowned for a series of miracles (and his infamous "nettle-bathes," when he would roll naked in thorn bushes).

Likewise, in medieval Romance, one of the stock characters is the hermit. The knight-errant encounters him in the forest, and the hermit conventionally provides food, shelter, medical care, and spiritual advice for wounded knights in medieval literature. In later protestant works like Spenser's The Fairy Queen, the hermit might be an evil sorcerer (like Archimago) in disguise, however! This change in characterization reflects the difference in protestant attitudes and catholic attitudes towards eremites.

The figure of the hermit (often depicted as mad or magical) has almost become an archetype in literature and film. Witness the Star Wars character of Yoda in the Dagobah swamps, for instance. For extended discussion of hermits, see the entry for hermit in The New Catholic Encyclopedia.

EROTEMA (also called erotesis): Asking a rhetorical question to the reader, i.e., "What should honest citizens do?" Often the question is asked in order to get a definite answer from the reader--usually, "no," as J. A. Cuddon suggests. The erotema often implies an answer, but usually does not provide one explicitly. Examples include Laertes' rant about Ophelia's madness, when he asks, "Do you see this, O God?" (Hamlet 4.5). American politicians still make use of this technique in debate, as evidenced by Senator Edward Kennedy's arguments before the senate concerning the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968:

How can the poor feel they have a stake in a system which says that the rich may have due process but the poor may not? How can the uneducated have faith in a system which says that it will take advantage of them in every possible way? How can people have hope when we tell them that they have no recourse if they run afoul of the state justice system?

EROTOSIS: Another term for erotema. See erotema, above.

ERRATA (singular: erratum): Errors or mistakes in a printed text. See discussion under erratum, below.

ERRATUM (plural: errata): An error in a printed text that comes about from transposed letters, missing lines of text, or simple typesetting errors resulting from a printer or a printer's apprentice's mistake while assembling the text on the press. In Ben Franklin's Autobiography, he refers to the various mistakes in his own life charmingly as "errata," and he refers to his own life as a book written by God or the Deity.

ESCAPE LITERATURE: Not to be confused with escapist literature, escape literature (also called literature of escape) includes books and short stories about desperate protagonists escaping from confinement--especially from prisoner-of-war camps during the First and Second World Wars. These books and stories are usually designed to be suspenseful and focus on the psychological effects of imprisonment. Examples include H. G. Durnford's The Tunnellers of Holzminden and Eric Williams' The Wooden Horse. More generally, any narrative with a significant involvement in escaping from confinement might be called escape literature, including Stephen King's novella Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, or the first part of Alexander Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo.

ESCAPISM: The desire to retreat into imaginative entertainment rather than deal with the stress, tedium, and daily problems of the mundane world. See discussion under escapist literature.

ESCAPIST LITERATURE: Not to be confused with escape literature, escapist literature is designed primarily for imaginative entertainment rather than readings designed for provoking thought or addressing serious social issues. The term is derogatory in connotation, though one might argue such writing serves a psychological purpose by offering a relief from the stresses or tedium of mundane life. Arguably, the vast bulk of popular reading is escapist in nature. Sir Philip Sidney's Defence of Poesy famously describes the appeal of such escapist work: "He cometh unto you with a tale which holdeth children from play and old men from the chimney-corner." See also wish fulfillment.

ESCHATOLOGICAL NARRATIVE: Eschatalogy in Christian theology is the study of the end of things, including the end of the world, life-after-death, and the Last Judgment. An eschatalogical narrative refers to a story dealing with these matters, a story which explains what the ultimate ending or conclusion of something. The term should not be confused with scatological narratives. Contrast with etiological narrative, below.

ESCHATOLOGY: The branch of religious philosophy or theology focusing on the end of time, the afterlife, and the Last Judgment. See discussion under eschatological narrative.

ESTATES: See discussion under feudalism.

ESTATES SATIRE: A medieval genre common among French poets in which the speaker lists various occupations among the three estates of feudalism (nobles, peasants, and clergy) and depicts them in a manner that shows how short they fall from the ideal of that occupation. In the late medieval period, the genre expanded to discuss the failings of bourgeois individuals as well. The genre was not unknown in England. John Gower's Vox Clamantis and Confessio Amantis have passages similar to those in continental estates satire. Jill Mann suggests in her famous book, Chaucer and Medieval Estates Satire, that the General Prologue of The Canterbury Tales is itself an example of this genre. See also satire and three estates. The genre is also called medieval estates satire.

The letter eth represented the interdental fricative sound found in words like then, and it contrasts with the letter thorn, which represents the sound found in words like thin. In modern English, we use the digraph