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Superglossary - Literature Category: General > Literature Date & country: 11/12/2013, USA Words: 1716

Typological Criticism
A type of literary analysis of medieval or patristic texts in which critics read characters, objects

Typology
A mode of biblical interpretation introduced by Saint Paul and developed by Patristic writers as a m

Tyronian Nota
While modern English authors use an ampersand (&) as an abbreviation for the word and, medieval writ

Tzu
A Chinese genre of poetry invented during the t'ang period. It was akin to a song libretto with a to

Ubi Sunt Motif
A literary motif dealing with the transience of life. The name comes from a longer Latin phrase, 'Ub

Ultimate Source
In linguistics, the earliest known or most ancient etymon for a particular word, as opposed to a dir

Umlaut
(1) Jacob Grimm's term for the process of assimilating a vowel to another sound in the following syl

Underworld
The land of the dead--often depicted as beneath the surface of the earth in a variety of religious l

Uninflected Genitive
A genitive that has no case ending to signal its function. A number of such uninflected genitives ap

Uninflected Plural
A plural word identical to its singular form. For instance, 'I saw one deer yesterday, but last week

Unit Set
A series of lowered or raised platforms on stage, often connected by various stairs and exits, which

Unity
The sense that all the elements in a piece of writing fit together to create a harmonious effect.

Universal Symbol
Another term for an archetype.

Universals
Qualities of literature that appeal to readers in a wide variety of cultures and across a wide varie

Unreleased Stop
In linguistics, a stop sound without explosion (i.e., a puff of air) in the place where articulated

Unreliable Narrator
An imaginary storyteller or character who describes what he witnesses accurately, but misinterpets t

Unreliable Narrator
An unreliable narrator is a storyteller who 'misses the point' of the events or things he describes

Unrounding
The process of changing from a rounded vowel to a spread vowel. For instance, in the vowel u, Chauce

Unstressed
Lightly stressed as opposed to heavily stressed--i.e., a syllable that has little prominence when sp

Ur-Text
A hypothetical 'best' version of a lost literary text based on correlating later manuscripts and exa

Ural-Altaic
A hypothetical language family thought to include Uralic and Altaic.

Uralic
A non-Indo-European language family including Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic.

Usage
The choice among grammatical, syntactic, or semantic options when the idea that one or the other opt

Uta
Another term for the Japanese genre of poetry also called a waka or tanka. See discussion under tank

Uto-Aztecan
A non-Indo-European language family found in Central America and the western sections of North Ameri

Utopia
An imaginary place or government in which political and social perfection has been reached in the ma

Utopian Literature
The term utopia comes from a Greek pun. In Greek, eu + topos (good' + 'place') and ou + topos (no' +

Valorization
In literary criticism, the privileging of one key aspect of a literary text or one particular proces

Variable Syllable
A syllable which can be either long or short, stressed or unstressed, depending upon context.

Variorum
A variorum edition is any published version of an author's work that contains notes and comments by

Vegetationsd
A deity or spirit in mythology or in animism that represents (or is directly equivalent to) the vita

Vehicle
A means of conveyance or transport. In literature, vehicle extends to mean the method by which an au

Velar
In linguistics, any velar sound involves the soft palate or velum--especially when the tongue touche

Vellum
The skin of a young calf used as a writing surface--the medieval equivalent of 'paper.' A technical

Verb
A word that 'does' the subject's action in a sentence or shows a state of being or equation. For ins

Verbal Ejaculation
A sudden verbal outburst or interjection expressing a strong emotion, surprise, dismay, disbelief, o

Verbal Noun
A noun that comes from a verb. For instance, peregrination comes from the verb peregrinate, and the

Vercelli Manuscript
An important manuscript of Old English religious poems and sermons--probably written in the late ten

Verisimilitude
The sense that what one reads is 'real,' or at least realistic and believable. For instance, the rea

Vernacular
The everyday or common language of a geographic area or the native language of commoners in a countr

Verners Law
In linguistics, a codicil or addition to Grimm's Law that helps explain some exceptions to Grimm's L

Vers
Not to be confused with verse, below, a vers is a song in Old Provencal almost indistinguishable fro

Vers De Soci
Light verse that compliments another or touches on the manners and morals of its time-period. The ve

Verse
There are three general meanings for verse (1) a line of metrical writing, (2) a stanza, or (3) any

Verse Paragraph
A division of poetry indicated normally by adding an extra line-space above and below the section to

Versification
Literally, the making of verse, the term is often used as another name for prosody. This refers to t

Victorian Period
The period of British literature in the late nineteenth century. The date of the period is often giv

Vignette
A short composition showing considerable skill, especially such a composition designed with little o

Viking
Technically, in its most exclusive sense, a viking is a pirate, any individual that goes i-viking (p

Villanelle
A genre of poetry consisting of nineteen lines--five tercets and a concluding quatrain. The form req

Vinery
Another term for filigree work in medieval manuscripts. Scott defines this type of decoration in the

Vinework
Another term for filigree work in medieval manuscripts. Scott describes this common type of decorati

Virelay
An old French term for a short poem consisting of (A) short lines using two rhymes and (B) two openi

Virgule
(1) In poetry, a forward-slash mark ( / ) used in scansion to mark the boundaries of poetic lines (i

Visio
The Latin name for the medieval genre of the dream vision. See dream vision.

Visionary
Visionary writing has the qualities of prophecy--perhaps it is apocalyptic in imagery, or it may be

Visual Imagery
Imagery that invokes colors, shapes, or things that can be seen. See discussion under imagery.

Vita
The word vita has two common meanings in English scholarship. First, for medievalists, a vita is a m

Vo Language
A language that tends to place the verb before the grammatical object in a sentence. Modern English

Vocabulary
The stock of available words in (1) a given language or (2) a given speaker of that language.

Vocalization
In linguistics, the change from a consonant sound to a vowel sound.

Vocative
In a synthetic or declined language, a grammatical case used to invoke or call to another person.

Vogue Word
A word that appears in fashionable use or in pop culture. Often these vogue words and vogue expressi

Volitive
A verb form that expresses a wish, command, or the speaker's will. In many languages, an identical v

Volkerwanderung
Folk-wandering)

Volta
Also called a turn, a volta is a sudden change in thought, direction, or emotion near the conclusion

Vulgar Latin
The uneducated Latin used in everyday speech in the Roman Empire, as opposed to the more refined Cla

Waka
A Japanese genre of poetry closely related to the tanka, consisting of alternate five- and seven-syl

Wanderjahr
A period in a character's life during which she is absent from her normal routine, engaged in though

Weak Declension
In linguistics, a Germanic/Teutonic noun or adjective that changes little from one declension to ano

Weak Ending
In poetry, another term for a feminine ending, in which the last syllable of a metrical line is unst

Weak Verb
In linguistics, a Germanic verb whose principle parts require the addition of a dental suffix--i.e.,

Wedge
A diacritical mark used in some Eastern European countries. It indicates a sound like the digraph Weight

Well-Made Play
A form of French theater developed in the 1800s. Eugène Scribe and Victorien Sardou popularized i

Weltanschauung
The philosophy of an individual, an artist, or a group of like-minded individuals, especially the ph

Weltansicht
(German, 'world-sight'):The general attitude toward life and reality an individual or character demo

Weltschmerz
According to Shipley's Dictionary of World Literature (623), Jean Paul (1763-1825) coined this Germa

Wergeld
An alternative spelling for wergild. See wergild, below.

Wergild
The legal system of many Germanic tribes, including the Anglo-Saxons. This tradition allowed an indi

West Germanic
A sub-branch of the Germanic family of languages including Dutch, English, and German, in contrast w

West Saxon
The Old English dialect spoken in Wessex.

Western
A literary and cinematic genre marked by numerous conventions. The usual setting is a short main str

Wheel-And-Bob
Another term for Bob-and-Wheel.

Whig
In Questions of English, Marshall notes the term Whig originally was an insulting nickname for Scott

Whorfs Hypothesis
A proposal that language affects how its speakers perceive and react to the world--and that the limi

Widow
In printing, a widow is a single short line ending a paragraph but separated from the earlier lines

Willing Suspension Of Disbelief
Temporarily and willingly setting aside our beliefs about reality in order to enjoy the make-believe

Winchester Manuscript
A handwritten book or manuscript by two scribes containing the text of Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur. L

Wish Fulfillment
In psychoanalytic criticism, wish fulfillment refers to something in literature that satisfies the c

Wit
In modern vernacular, the word wit refers to elements in a literary work designed to make the audien

Witchs Familiar
In the eyes of medieval and Renaissance churchmen, and in much of medieval and Renaissance literatur

Within
In the stage directions for Shakespeare's plays, a 'noise within' indicates offstage sound effects s

World English
English as used worldwide or internationally and the common features of this international English.

Wound-Rain
Also called blood-rain, this is a supernatural motif common in Old Norse sagas in which a rain of bl

Wrenched Accent
As Babette Deutsch phrases it, wrenched accent is 'The triumph of metrical stress over word accent w

Wynn
A letter shape used in writing Middle English.

Wyrd
Often translated as 'fate,' wyrd is an Anglo-Saxon term that embodies the concept of inevitability i

Xanaduism
Academic research that focuses on the sources behind imaginative works of literature and fantasy. Jo

Xenia
The Greek term for the Laws of Hospitality. The custom in classical Greece and other ancient culture

Xenophanic
This adjective refers to itinerant poets who make use of satire and witticism. The term comes from t