Dictionary of Literary Words: Vocabulary Building (English Word Power)

WHAT ARE “LITERARY WORDS”? – ‘Literary words’ are associated with literature. ‘Literary words’ are typical of a work of literature and imaginative writing. ‘Literary words’ are used with a particular meaning, in narrative, drama, poetry and other writing in a literary manner. This book has been divided into three sections: Section 01: Common Literary Words, Section 02: Figurative Use of the Words, Section 03: Glossary of Literary Terms — IMPORTANT NOTES- NOTE — A: ELEVATED WORDS – Use of an ‘Elevated’ Word in Place of a ‘Simple’ Word- ‘Elevated language’ is widely used in literature. Elevated Word — a word that is used to show a high intellectual level Simple Word — a word that is used to keep the conversation simple in daily life — Example 1: ‘Behold’ [elevated word] — ‘See’ [simple word]; Meaning of ‘behold’ and ‘see’: to become aware of something by using your eyes — Example 2: ‘Blithe’ [elevated word] — ‘Happy’ [simple word]; Meaning of ‘blithe’ and ‘happy’: showing or feeling pleasure ****** NOTE — B: FIGURATIVE USE OF THE WORDS -Many words and phrases are used in a different (literary) way from their usual (literal) meanings to produce a special effect. [I have put these words together in Section-2 (figurative use of the words) of this book.] — Example-1: ache: In a general sense — to feel a continuous pain – His leg ached because of injury. ache: In a literary sense — to be very sad – His false accusations made our heartache. [= made us sad] — Example-2: Flash: In a general sense — to shine brightly for a few moments – The camera flashed once. Flash: In a literary sense — to suddenly show a strong emotion – Their eyes flashed with horror. ****** NOTE — C: ‘LITERARY TERMS’ – There are many words that are used to describe a particular form of writing in a literary work, or used in the analysis, discussion, classification, and criticism of a literary work. [I have defined these terms in Section-3 (glossary of literary terms) of this book.] Examples: catharsis — the process of releasing strong feelings through artistic activities; diction — the choice and use of words to create a specific effect in a literary work;;epithet — a word or expression used to attribute special quality to somebody/something; genre — a particular category, style or type to which a literary work belongs; holograph — handwritten piece of writing by its author; idyll — a poem that describes a peaceful and happy scene; juvenilia — a literary work produced by an artist, in his/her youth; melodrama — a literary work that is full of exciting and exaggerated events or emotions; opera — a dramatic work where a majority of the words are sung to music; panegyric — a speech or written composition that praises somebody/something; prosody — the patterns of rhythms and sounds in poetry; quatrain — a verse of a poem that has four lines; refrain — a line or number of lines of a song or poem that is repeated after each verse; scene — one of the small sections within an act (a major division) of a play; semantic — relating to the meaning of words and sentences; trilogy — a set of three books, plays, movies, etc. on the same characters or subject — figure of speech — an expression in which a word or phrase represents one thing in terms of something dissimilar (non-literal) to create a particular effect in somebody’s mind, or in which an emphasis is produced by patterns of sound. [Some common figures of speech are as follows — alliteration, anaphora, antistrophe. apostrophe, assonance, consonance, hyperbole, irony, litotes, metaphor, metonymy, periphrasis, personification, simile, synecdoche]