Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Define: "black humour" "age of sensibility" "bathos" "burlesque" "cavalier poets" "cliche"

1. Black Humour: a genre that juxtaposes morbid or ghastly elements with comical ones that underscore the senselessnes or futility of life.Eg. the Porter scene in Macbeth.

2. Northrop Frye in 1955 in a paper which he read before the Modern Language Asociation defined the Age of Sensibility as,"the period of English Literature which covers roughly the second half of the 18th century. This period has the "Augustan Age" on one side of it and the "Romantic Movement on the other, and it is usually approached transitionally as a period of reaction against Pope and anticipation of Wordswortrh."

3. Bathos comes from the Greek  meaning "deep." In Literature it refers to an abrupt descent from the exalted to the banal either in style or content.

4. Burlesque refers to an imitation of a literary style that aims to ridicule by incongruity of style and subject. Eg. Pope's mock-epic "The Rape of the Lock."

5. Cavalier was the official term for the troops and the forces of the king. It referred to a courtly, well educated and a genteel man.  Cavalier poets were the poets who were associated with and were loyal to  King Charles I (1625-49). Prominent among them were Robert Herrick, Richard Lovelace, Sir John Suckling,  Edmund Waller and Thomas Carew.

6. Cliche is a french word meaning a phrase , expression or idea that has been overused  to the point of losing its novelty or force of expression. Eg. "It's raining cats and dogs."

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