Fustian Pact: Showing Off... with High-Falutin' Literary Terms You Can Pinch! · 4:48pm Sep 7th, 2021
Blog Number 149: "Pretentious Time!" Edition
It's been ages since I studied Literature with a capital L, and I have to admit to... philistine tendencies. Still, while I'm not exactly "well-read" when it comes to examples as such, on the theoretical side of things? Much more enthusiastic!
Fanfiction is just another form of literature with a lower-case l, and I feel it deserves to be recognized as such. Therefore, I see plenty of scope for pinching high-falutin' literary ideas if they're shiny enough and applying them to our domain. Besides, it's a handy resource. You never know what might strike you! 
Well, I got a book all about that: the Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms (Third Edition)! Slightly foxed, and often parroted. 
It describes hundreds and hundreds of concepts, not in comprehensive detail per se (that'd be beyond the scope of what's effectively a niche dictionary), but just so's you get the gist and are left wanting more.
Here, take a look! These are just free samples of the conceptual feast in store, dealing with the definition, history, and application of some really interesting... well, literary terms, naturally, hence the title:
Festschrift (plural -iften)
A volume of essays written by the disciples of an eminent scholar or writer, to whom it is presented as a tribute on a special occasion such as a birthday or retirement. The custom and the term ("celebration-writing") originated in German universities in the 19th century.
ut pictura poesis
[uut pik-too-ra poh-ees-is]A phrase used by the Roman poet Horace in his Ars Poetica (c.20 bce), meaning "as painting is, so is poetry". The phrase has come to stand for the principle of similarity between the two arts, an idea shared by many writers and artists of different periods and found in common metaphors of literary "depiction" or "portrayal". It held an important place in aesthetic debates of the late *Renaissance and in the theories of *neoclassicism, but was subjected to an important *critique by the German dramatist and critic G. E. Lessing in his essay Laokoon (1766). The relationship between the two "sister arts" is usually said to lie in their imitation of nature (see mimesis).
seme
An elementary unit of meaning, usually a defining feature or characteristic of something. A basic description of a person as, e.g., "white, male, grey-haired, clean-shaven" is a listing of semes. Some *structuralist studies of fiction have analysed fictional characters in terms of the presence or absence of given semes. Adjective: semic.
thriller
A kind of popular novel in which a protagonist endangered by a criminal or otherwise sinister conspiracy is followed through heroic adventures made up of flight, pursuit, capture, and escape. Although the genre has always been relatively loosely defined, it may still be distinguished from the *detective story in that its interest in criminal activity concentrates on imminent dangers and evasive actions rather than on retrospective analysis or investigation, its atmosphere being more anxious and frenetic than that of detective fiction. The first significant novel of this kind was William Godwin's Things as They Are, or the Adventures of Caleb Williams (1794, better known simply as Caleb Williams), in which the hero is pursued by his former employer's agents after discovering an unnamed secret. ...
... A major subgenre is the spy thriller, practised by Buchan and others, further popularized by Ian Fleming in his James Bond novels (1953-63), and later raised to significant literary distinction by John Le Carre in The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (1963) and other works. The *noir thriller is less clearly differentiated, but commonly leads the reader into identification with a criminal, as in several novels by Patricia Highsmith. For a fuller account, consult Jerry Palmer, Thrillers (1978).
in medias res
[in med-i-ahs rayss]The Latin phrase meaning "into the middle of things", applied to the common technique of storytelling by which the *narrator begins the story at some exciting point in the middle of the action, thereby gaining the reader's interest before explaining preceding events by *analepses ("flashbacks") at some later stage. It was conventional to begin *epic poems in medias res, as Milton does in Paradise Lost. The technique is also common in plays and in prose fiction: for example, Katherine Mansfield's short story "A Dill Pickle" (1920) begins in medias res with the sentence "And then, after six years, she saw him again." See also anachrony.
antiphrasis
[an-tif-ra-sis]A *figure of speech in which a single word is used in a sense directly opposite to its usual meaning, as in the naming of a giant as "Tiny" or of an enemy as "friend"; the briefest form of *irony. Adjective: antiphrastic.
nonsense verse
A kind of humorous poetry that amuses by deliberately using strange non-existent words and illogical ideas. Its masters in English are Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll, followed by G. K. Chesterton and Ogden Nash. Classics of the genre are Lear's "The Owl and the Pussy-Cat" (1871) and his *limericks, along with the songs in Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass (1871), including "The Walrus and the Carpenter" and the celebrated "Jabberwocky". See also doggerel, jingle, light verse.
EDIT: Ooh, four more for the heck of it! 
poeticism
[poh-et-is-izm]A word or phrase that survives only within a tradition of *poetic diction, usually an *archaism like of yore or a conventional *syncope such as o'er.
allegory
A story or visual image with a second distinct meaning partially hidden behind its literal or visible meaning. The principal technique of allegory is *personification, whereby abstract qualities are given human shape - as in public statues of Liberty or Justice. An allegory may be conceived as a *metaphor that is extended into a structured system. In written narrative, allegory involves a continuous parallel between two (or more) levels of meaning in a story, so that its persons and events correspond to their equivalents in a system of ideas or a chain of events external to the tale: each character and episode in John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress (1678), for example, embodies an idea within a pre-existing Puritan doctrine of salvation. Allegorical thinking permeated the Christian literature of the Middle Ages, flourishing in the *morality plays and in the *dream visions of Dante and Langland. Some later allegorists like Dryden and Orwell used allegory as a method of *satire; their hidden meanings are political rather than religious. ...
cacophony
[ka-ko-foni]Harshness or discordancy of sound; the opposite of *euphony. Usually the result of awkward *alliteration as in tongue-twisters, it is sometimes used by poets for deliberate effect, as in these lines from Robert Browning's "Caliban upon Setebos":
And squared and stuck there squares of soft white chalk,
And, with a fish-tooth, scratched a moon on each,
And set up endwise certain spikes of tree,
And crowned the whole with a sloth's skull a-top.Adjective: cacophonous or cacaphonic. See also dissonance
tanka
A traditional form of Japanese *lyric poem consisting of 31 syllables arranged in lines of 5, 7, 5, 7, and 7 syllables. It has had fewer Western imitators than the *haiku.
It's all right: I did something similar in a previous blog. That was for another book along similar lines: Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (which I still got, natch!). The blog post can be found here: An Idiosyncratic Adventure: Books of Trivia, Connections, and Unexpected Inspiration.
Remember, there are tons of trivia, concepts, terms, and classics from which we can draw all kinds of inspiration. Happy hunting grounds, or somewhere to visit occasionally: I just tossed some out there to give you an idea of things. Things we might even already be doing, even if we didn't know the long line of history and understanding that comes with them (my favourite in that regard is the concept of ut pictura poesis: after all, how often have you caught yourself using painting as a metaphor for writing?). Genres, rhetorical techniques, thoughts about language use itself, stock characters, historical movements and counter-movements and counter-counter-movements, loan words, phrases, poetic structures, debates on what writing is and could be... the list goes on.
And there's more where that came from! Lots, lots more!
That's all for now. Impossible Numbers, out.
Ooh, I may have to get myself a copy. Sometimes it's just nice to find out that yes, there is a word for that. Like with defenestration, which isn't (usually) a literary technique but is still a great word.
I keep forgetting how much more… painterly Twilight looks in that Bob Ross homage shot from “What About Discord?”! And the wings are so long and feathered, it feels like the more impressionistic, “realistic” style a lot of fandom art goes for. Always takes me aback just a little. Not that the DHX artists shouldn’t indulge that skill set on screen when they can!
Oh, the dictionary thing, right. I do find a lot of pleasure from discovering a term that applies to something one has been using. And there’s some cracking terms in here! I admit, I giggled from “thriller” being put it to intentionally contrast the more unusual terms surrounding it.
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They must have a more up-to-date version out by now. Mine's getting on in years.
Welcome to my world.
I am puzzled that there's no equivalent word for throwing someone out of a door. Best I could find was "dejanuation" on a wordsmith.org thread, and even that's a blatant neologism (from de- + janua, which I think is Latin for "door" in reference to Janus, God of Doorways).
Come on, let's make that a thing! "Defenestration" can't have all the logodaedaly fun!
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Think that's off, imagine if I'd used the "envious" version Discord paints a moment later. Twilight is not pretty in that version.
Personally, I quite like it, but then usually I only remember a brief glimpse in the episode itself, so it might just be me being grateful for the chance to appreciate it in a still image.
It's like Pratchett once put it: once something has a name, it has a shape.
In fact, I find it a good eye-opener to look up terms people often take for granted, and get an idea of the specific history behind it. That's one reason etymology is so fascinating to me: sometimes, normal words have abnormal pasts.
Having said that, I admit I looked up "thriller" because the genre is an available option on this site's list of genre tags, and I like to get a second (somewhat more official) opinion. It's good to touch ground from time to time.
Ooh, four more for the heck of it!
static.wikia.nocookie.net/mlp/images/a/a3/Igneous_%22may_providence_favor_thee_well%22_S5E20.png/revision/latest?cb=20151026164507
static.wikia.nocookie.net/mlp/images/2/2c/Main_ponies_activated_the_Elements_of_Harmony_S01E02.png/revision/latest?cb=20111205172131
static.wikia.nocookie.net/mlp/images/5/5c/Fluttershy_and_the_CMC_S01E17.png/revision/latest?cb=20111216141508
static.wikia.nocookie.net/mlp/images/3/3d/Rumble_pointing_at_Kettle_Corn%27s_cutie_mark_S7E21.png/revision/latest?cb=20171002023136
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Smart chap, I figured you picked thriller for those reasons. And I approve! Plenty to rediscover about things we think we know by looking at them afresh.
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When I was reading cacophony, my first thought for an appropriate image was “Yakity Sax”. Of course, your choice is much better, and you were right to banish that one from your mind (I can’t recall currently if you skipped that one, though if so, you were wise to do so).
And I enjoyed tanka if for no other reason then seeing a cute fully design I’d hadn’t sent enough before to commit to memory. So it was like a new design all over again!
Anyway, this was all great, fun stuff. All having a wonderful time with this, we are.
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Actually, I think I might put these in the main body of the blog post.
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I never touched it. When even the viewers who liked Season Eight didn't like this ep, it's a definite skip as far as I'm concerned.
Kettle Corn is one of those characters, like Petunia Paleo and Tender Taps, I wish had been in the show earlier, or at least more prominently. They really are adorable.
Glad you liked it!