Lit Terms #2: Remix

Circumlocution - noun an indirect way of expressing something

Classicism - noun a movement in literature and art during the 17th and 18th centuries in Europe that favored rationality and restraint and strict forms

Cliché - a phrase or situation overused within society

Climax - noun the decisive moment in a novel or play; the highest point of anything conceived of as growing or developing or unfolding

Colloquialism - noun  characteristic of spoken or written communication that seeks to imitate informal speech

Comedy - noun light and humorous drama with a happy ending; a comic incident or series of incidents

Conflict - noun an open clash between two opposing groups (or individuals); struggle or problem in a story causing tension

Connotation - noun an idea that is implied or suggested

Contrast - noun the act of distinguishing by comparing differences; the opposition or dissimilarity of things that are compared; verb put in opposition to show or emphasize differences

Denotation - noun the most direct or specific meaning of a word or expression

Denouement - noun the final resolution of the main complication of a literary or dramatic work; the outcome of a complex sequence of events

Dialect - noun the usage or vocabulary that is characteristic of a specific group of people

Dialectics - formal debates usually over the nature of truth

Dichotomy - noun split or break between two opposing things

Diction - noun the manner in which something is expressed in words; the articulation of speech regarded from the point of view of its intelligibility to the audience

Didactic - adj. instructive (especially excessively)

Dogmatic - adj. rigid in beliefs and principles

Elegy - noun a mournful poem; a lament for the dead

Epic - adj. constituting or having to do with or suggestive of a literary epic; noun a long narrative poem telling of a hero's deeds

Epigram - noun a witty aphorism

Great Expectations - lecture notes

• embodies typical childhood fantasies
• Pip counts on fantasies to happen (expects them)
• Pip - protagonist
• orphan; feels unwanted as a result
• reacts more intelligently and more sensitively than others might feel his age
• aware of being taken advantage of
• questions himself
• vulnerable; needs father figure
• wants someone to identify with; is looking for someone to embody
• Magwitch - “boogeyman” or “stranger”
• embodiment of a stranger; first encounter is at the graveyard (he is an escape convict)
• wickedness driven by the need to eat; “animal”
• threat of abandonment
• represents what Pip might become
• Miss Havisham - “sham” → fraud; double personality
• symbolizes: horrible decay and promise
• decadence of her home → memorialized by failed wedding (she was left at the altar by her fiancee)
• has kept everything in her house the way it was left during her failed wedding day
• decay represents lost
• wedding dress/wedding represents promise, family, future
• “Beggar your neighbor” - game Pip and Estella play
• Estella - adopted by Miss Havisham
• used as a revenge ploy; to scorn men
• “cold heart” to men, but Pip still becomes smitten
• echoes Cinderella
• Pip doesn’t describe Havisham and Estella as truthful to who they really are
• Father figure (two opposite sides of the pole): Joe and Jagger
• both similar - have power they hold, but don’t use
• Joe has strength - big guy, blacksmith, powerful (doesn’t ever use his strength to others)
• Jagger has knowledge - he has knowledge (blackmail); doesn’t tell
• “J” (both their names start with letter “j”) which is interchangeable with “I”
• Joe = all around nice guy; married Mrs. Joe (even though it wasn’t very economically safe) with Pip as a baggage
• took in Pip as an orphan
• even without monetary allowance, he is still happy with his life (which Pip sees as success because Joe is happy)
• Jagger = does everything for money

Great Expectations - awkward doodle(s)

a rough two minute sketch of a younger Pip, envisioned by yours truly

 (I am obviously not an artist, so bare with me here)