Melodrama
A type of drama related to tragedy but featuring sensational incidents,
emphasizing plot at the expense of characterization, relying on cruder
conflicts (virtuous protagonist versus villainous antagonist), and having
a happy ending in which good triumphs over evil.
Metaphor
A comparison which imaginatively identifies one thing with another
dissimilar thing, and transfers or ascribes to the first thing (the
tenor or idea) some of the qualities of the second (the vehicle or image).
Unlike a simile or analogy, metaphor asserts that one thing is
another thing, not just that one is like another. Very frequently a
metaphor is invoked by the to be verb:
- "Affliction
then is ours; / We are the trees whom shaking fastens more."
-- George Herbert
- "Thus a
mind that is free from passion is a very citadel; man has no stronger
fortress in which to seek shelter and defy every assault. Failure
to perceive this is ignorance; but to perceive it, and still not to
seek its refuge, is misfortune indeed." -- Marcus Aurelius
- "The mind
is but a barren soil; a soil which is soon exhausted and will produce
no crop, or only one, unless it be continually fertilized and enriched
with foreign matter." -- Joshua Reynolds
Metaphysical
Poetry
The term metaphysical was applied to a style of 17th Century
poetry first by John Dryden and later by Dr. Samuel Johnson because
of the highly intellectual and often abstruse imagery involved. Chief
among the metaphysical poets are John Donne, George Herbert, Richard
Crashaw, Andrew Marvell, and Henry Vaughan.
Meter
The rhythmic pattern that emerges when words are arranged in such a
way that their stressed and unstressed syllables fall into a more or
less regular sequence; established by the regular or almost regular
recurrence of similar accent patterns (called feet). See feet
and versification.
Metonymy
Another form of metaphor, very similar to synecdoche (and, in fact,
some rhetoricians do not distinguish between the two), in which a closely
associated object is substituted for the object or idea in mind.
Examples:
- Alexander Pope,
The Dunciad
- Alexander Pope,
Rape of the Lock
Modernism
Usually considerd to begin with Worls War I in 1914, to be marked
by the sense of catastrophe and fin-de-siecle of that experience and
the flowering of talent and artistic experiemnt that came during the
boom of the twenties and fall away during the ordeal of the economic
depression. Modernism is marked radical new formal innovations and the
sense of dislocation and alientaion, the sense that centuries-old accepted
ways of understanding the world were disintegrating: standards of religion,
politics, family, gender, science, economic progress, increased urbanization
were all called into question.
Mood
The atmosphere or feeling created by a literary work, partly by a description
of the objects or by the style of the descriptions. A work may contain
a mood of horror, mystery, holiness, or childlike simplicity, to name
a few, depending on the author's treatment of the work.
Moral
A rule of conduct or maxim for living expressed or implied as the
"point" of a literary work.
Motivation
The incentives or goals that, in combination with the inherent
natures of characters, cause them to behave as they do. In poor fiction
actions may be unmotivated, insufficiently motivated, or implausibly
motivated.
Multicultural
novel
A novel written by a member of or about a cultural minority group,
giving insight into nonwestern or non-dominant cultural experiences
and values, either in the United States or abroad.
Examples:
- Chinua Achebe,
Things Fall Apart
- Amy Tan, The
Kitchen God's Wife
- Forrest Tucker,
The Education of Little Tree
- Margaret Craven,
I Heard the Owl Call My Name
- James Baldwin,
Go Tell It on the Mountain
- Chaim Potok,
The Chosen
- Isaac Bashevis
Singer, The Penitent
- Alice Walker,
The Color Purple
Mystery novel
A novel whose driving characteristic is the element of suspense or mystery.
Strange, unexplained events, vague threats or terrors, unknown forces
or antagonists, all may appear in a mystery novel. Gothic novels and
detective novels are often also mystery novels.
Mythology
In one sense, mythology is just a collection of myths. As scientific
research increased during the 19th and 20th centuries, this research
has also been called mythology. So the term mythology has come to denote
both the body of myths and the study of myths.
A myth is an unverifiable
story based on a religious belief. The characters of myths are gods
and goddesses, or the offspring of the mating of gods or godesses and
humans. Some myths detail the creation of the earth, while others may
be about love, adventure, trickery, or revenge. In all cases, it is
the gods and goddesses who control events, while humans may be aided
or victimized. It is said that the creation of myths were the method
by which ancient, superstitious humans attempted to account for natural
or historical phenomena.
Mythos
A Greek word, referring to the spoken word or speech. It also denotes
a tale, story or narrative, different from the historic tale which is
called logos and is regarded as verifiable. The narrated events which
form a mythic tale are not normally verifiable, their origin is nearly
always unknown, and yet they have a claim to truth, which the purely
fictitious narrative, for example a novel, lacks.
Classic Literature Definitions
and Resources.