World Literature Reviewer PDF

A. Sumerian, Egyptian, and Hebrew both are strong and a match for Literature (3,000 B.C. - 100 B.C.) each other. -​ Later Enkidu becomes a faithful 1. Gilgamesh frien...

A. Sumerian, Egyptian, and Hebrew both are strong and a match for Literature (3,000 B.C. - 100 B.C.) each other. -​ Later Enkidu becomes a faithful 1. Gilgamesh friend of Gilgamesh. Together they -​ The epic poem Gilgamesh is the first set off to destroy Hunnbaba, the great heroic narrative of world giant who guards the cedar forest. literature. -​ Both of them also kill the bull Ishtar -​ The version discovered in the city of sends to punish Gilgamesh for Nineveh amid the ruins of the great rejecting her advances. library of Assurbanipal (the last -​ Enkidu is destined to die for helping king of the Assyrian empire) - what to kill the bull and Humbaba. When modern scholars call the Standard he dies, Gilgamesh is so grief Version - circulated widely stricken that he embarks on a quest throughout the ancient Middle East not for glory but for everlasting life. for a millennium or more. -​ The death of Enkidu reveals to Gilgamesh the hollowness of mortal About the Epic: fame, and this leads him to -​ The epic narrates the legendary undertake a solitary journey in deeds of Gilgamesh, the king of search of immortality. He travels far Uruk, but it begins with a prologue and wide in search of the plant of that emphasizes not his adventures immortality. When he finally gets it, but wisdom he acquired and the he loses it to a snake which ate it monuments he constructed at the while Gilgamesh sleeps. end of his epic journey. -​ It also tells us that Gilgamesh was 2. Ancient Egyptian Poetry endowed by his divine creators with -​ The literature of ancient Egypt has extraordinary strength, courage, and survived only in scattered fragments, beauty. and because of the difficulty of the -​ He is more god than man (2/3 god Egyptian language and writing and 1/3 human). system (a complex system of -​ Gilgamesh is the epitome of a bad stylized pictographs called ruler: arrogant, oppressive, and hieroglyphics), it is far less well brutal. known than either the art or the -​ The people of Uruk complain of his architecture. oppression to the Sumerian gods, -​ The ancient Egyptians possessed a and the gods’ response is to create poetry that was rich and varied in its Enkidu as a foil to Gilgamesh. The subjects and its forms. goddess Aruru created Enkidu to -​ The largest and earliest group of contend with Gilgamesh and absorb poems comes from the pyramids his energies. that were constructed in the period -​ Gilgamesh and Enkidu fight of the Old Kingdom (ca. 2575-2130 savagely and for a long time, but no B.C.). one emerges as the winner because -​ One type of poetry that emerged in the New Kingdom is the pastoral  poem which deals with the pleasure the Apostles, which is an account of of simple rural life or that treats the Paul's missionary journeys to the longings and desires of simple cities of Greece and Asia Minor. people.The word pastoral comes -​ The Gospel of John draws on from the Latin word for shepherd - different sources and also has pastor-bat pastoral poetry is not greater theological density than the merely about shepherds other three. 3. The Bible: The Old Testament. B. Persian and Arabic Literature (c.a. -​ The religious attitudes of the A.D. 600 - A.D. 1400) Hebrews appear in the story that they told of the creation of the world Arabic Literature and humankind. -​ For centuries, poets from all over -​ The most important example of Arabia had gathered to recite odes Hebrew literature is the Jewish (qasidas) praising their own tribe or Bible (called by Christians the Old making fun of others. Testament in contrast to the New -​ The Thousand and One Nights Testament). (also known as The Arabian Nights) -​ The word Bible came from the Greek is by far the most famous. This word biblia, meaning a collection of collection of stories puts together writings. tales into one long narrative. One of -​ Despite the diversity of the Bible, it is the simplest and oldest tales in The unified by a few constant themes. Thousand and one Nights is “The Among these are power, goodness, Fisherman and the Jinnee.” and mercy of one God; the covenant, or solemn agreement, into Persian Literature which God enters with the Hebrew -​ The form of literature for which people; the tendency of humans to Persia is best known is poetry. commit sins; and the forgiveness -​ In the 9th and 10th centuries, they win from God. several poets attempted to write epic -​ The Bible has also been of major poems describing Persian history. importance for Muslims and -​ The most famous of these poems is Christians. The Shah-nama, or Epic of Kings by -​ One famous translation of the Bible Firdawsi. This epic is still considered was the English version done by a a national treasure in Iran. committee of scholars for King -​ The Shah-nama is presented as a James (1611). history of Persia from the beginning of the world until the conquest of 4. The Bible: The New Testament. Iran by the Arabs. The most -​ The collection known to Christians important hero is the warrior as the New Testament was formed Rustam. by combining the four gospels of -​ Another Persian poet is Omar Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John with Khayyam, who is also a another book by Luke, The Acts of mathematician and a scientist. He is  probably the best known Islamic -​ Sakuntala by Kalidasa is the most poet in the West. beloved of Indian plays. Rooted in -​ A collection of poetry called the values of India’s classical Rubaiyat is attributed to him. His civilization, and at the same time poems are written in a literary form articulating a profoundly human known as the rubai. vision, the play about lovers parted -​ This form takes its name from the and reunited transcends cultural Arabic word for ‘four,’ because each particularities. poem consists of four lines, the first, second, and fourth of which rhyme D. Chinese Literature (1000 B.C. - A.D. with one another. 1890) -​ The Chinese tradition begins with C. Indian Literature (c. 1,400 B.C. - C.A.D. lyric poetry. 500) -​ The Classic of Poetry (also known -​ Ancient Indians had no literary as the Book of Song is a collection genres like the novel or the short of 305 songs representing the story. Except for poetry and drama, heritage of the Chou people. most Sanskrit texts imitated the -​ The earliest in the collection are Rig-veda in attempting to convey believed to date from around 1000 general and timeless truths. B.C. and the latest from around 600 -​ Hinduism, an Indian religion, claims B.C., at which time it seems to have the Vedas as the source of all truth reached something like its present and the basis of its religious beliefs. form. The earliest and most influential of -​ The Tao Te Ching is widely these sacred texts are the Rig-veda. regarded to be the most influential -​ Compiled around 1400 B.C., the Taoist text. The title means “The Rig-veda is a collection of 1,028 Classic of the Way and Its Power or hymns composed by different Virtue.” It is a foundational scripture authors at different times. It also of central importance in Taoism contains poems like the “Creation purportedly written by Laozi. Hymn” which speculates about the -​ The earliest text of the Tao Te Ching origin and nature of the universe. that has been excavated (written on -​ The Mahabharata is the world’s bamboo tablets) dates back to the longest epic. late 4th century B.C. -​ The Panchatantra (The Five Books -​ It has been used as a ritual text or The Five Strategies) attributed to throughout the history of religious Visnusarman, is the best known Taoism. collection of folktales and animal fables in Indian literature. It aimed to E. Japanese Literature (500 B.C. - A.D. teach the young princes of India in 1890) the ancient times about political -​ Poetry is one of the oldest and most matters and interpersonal popular means of expression and relationships in general. communication in Japanese culture. -​ The first anthology of Japanese century by a Buddhist priest named poetry is the Manyoshu, or the Kenko. “Book of Ten Thousand Leaves.” Drama: -​ The poems of The Manyoshu were -​ The No, the classical theater of recorded using Chinese characters Japan, is the world’s extant in three different ways: for meaning, professional theater. It is also among for sound when read in Chinese, and the world’s gravest and most for sound when read in Japanese. stylized. -​ Choka is a poem that consists of -​ The word no may be translated as alternate lines of five and seven “talent,” “skill,” or “accomplishment.” syllables with an additional Performed on an austere, seven-syllable line at the end. Unlike undecorated stage of polished other Japanese verse forms, there is cypress. no limit to the number of lines in a -​ The small cast of actors, all males, choka. wearing masks is accompanied by a -​ Another Japanese poetic form is the chorus, and because the stage is tanka which consists of five tines of bare with no trappings of five, seven, five, seven, seven representational theater, the actor’s syllables. This poetic form shows the own talent or accomplishment (that Japanese preference for simplicity, is, his no) became paramount. suggestion, and irregularity. The -​ Two other forms of drama emerged most common subjects of a tanka later: the Joruri (now called are love and nature. Bunraku) and Kabuki. -​ Still another Japanese poetic form is -​ Joruri is staged using puppets. the haiku, which consists of three -​ Kabuki involves lively, melodramatic lines of five, seven, and five acting and is staged using elaborate syllables. and colorful costumes and sets. -​ The first works of Japanese prose: the Kojiki, or “Record of Ancient F. Greek Literature and Roman Literature Matters,” and Nihon Shoki, or “Chronicles of Japan,” focused on Greek Literature Japanese history. -​ Greek literature begins with two -​ Before Lady Murasaki Shikibu’s Tale masterpieces, the Iliad and the of qGenji appeared, there was The Odysseywhich are attributed to the Tale of the Wez rewritten by an poet Homer, about whom nothing is unknown author during the 13th known except his name. century. -​ Revered as statements of cultural -​ Another important work of prose identity, the Iliad and the Odyssey produced during the age of center on heroes who embody the feudalism is Essays in Idleness, a values of ancient Greek culture. loosely organized collection of -​ The Iliad recounts only part of a long insights, reflections, and series of events in the Trojan War, observations, written during the 14th which was fought, according to the legend, because of a quarrel among  the gods and the resulting betrayal and Roman tradition to make a new, among mortals. All the action in the original, and fundamentally Roman Iliad is, more or less directly, the work. consequence of Achilles’ anger at -​ Conflict is a struggle between being dishonored. opposing forces. -​ The Odyssey is concerned with the -​ Another Roman writer is Catullus peace that followed the war and in who is known for his lyric poems. A particular with the return of the key element of Catullus’ literary heroes who survived to their own expression is his ability to make the kingdoms. Its subject is the long emotions real in his lyric poems. drawn-out return of Odysseus to Ithaca. The Odyssey offers a more G. The Middle Ages (A.D. 450 - 1,300) positive meditation on the nature of civilization and of the structure of 1. The Song of Roland (Chanson de political daily life as the Greeks Roland). experienced it. It does so by -​ The Song of Roland is an example showing what a community has to of a chanson de geste, or song of lose by the absence of those deeds. This epic treats one of the structures and to gain by their greatest themes of medieval heroic affirmation. literature: the deeds surrounding -​ Greek drama reached its peak in the Charlemagne and his court. 5th century Athens. Themes such as 2. The Nibelungenlied war, incest, and murder were treated -​ one of the great works of German seriously. literature. -​ One of the great Greek tragedians, -​ This epic of murder and revenge aside from Aeschylus and Euripides, highlights the relationship between is Sophocles. He wrote the trilogy of Kriemhild and Siegfried. It is an epic Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, which is a tragedy in two parts: the and Antigone. first describes the life and death of -​ Oedipus Rex is famous for its Siegfried and the second features dramatic irony, which is the the story of the vengeful Kriemhild. contradiction between what the character thinks and what the 3. The Divine Comedy by Dante. audience knows to be true. -​ This epic is a poetic journey of a man struggling to reconcile himself Roman Literature to a bitter political exile through the -​ Romans as well as Greeks triumph of love. It takes the reader to venerated the Homeric epics, the a journey that symbolically begins in most ancient texts of Greek a despairing world not yet redeemed literature. by Christ’s Crucifixion and ends with the poet’s return as a man, renewed note: Virgil is the Roman Homer in hope, having beheld the beatific -​ The Aeneid recombines and vision of divine grace. transforms the major works of Greek H. The Renaissance (1300 - 1650) Sancho Panza, the knight and the squire, ride from one ludicrous 1. The Canterbury Tales adventure to another in pursuit of the -​ is a collection of stories written in knight’s dreams of glory. The central Middle English by Geoffrey concern of the novel is the Chaucer at the end of the 14th relationship between reality and century. fantasy. -​ Chaucer uses the tales and descriptions of the characters to 5. William Shakespeare paint an ironic and critical portrait of -​ He wrote sonnets, comedies, English society at the time, and tragedies, and historical plays. particularly of the Church. -​ His major work in the second half of his career included a series of 2. Francesco Petrarca or Petrarch tragedies from Julius Caesar to -​ was the greatest Italian poet of the Coriolanus. 14th century. -​ In the final phase of his career, he -​ His poems contain a lot of produced four plays which are now oxymoron, a phrase that joins two called romances, works that blend logically contradictory terms like the happy ending of a comedy with ‘pleasant pain’ or ‘cruel kindness.’ elements of tragedy. -​ He also uses allegory, or extended metaphor. I. The Age of Rationalism (1650-1800) 3. The Decameron by Boccaccio -​ The age was a time of progress and -​ It is a 14th century medieval allegory betterment in human affairs. told as a frame story encompassing -​ Literature profited from rationalism, 100 short prose tales or novelle which left its mark on poets, (singular: novella) by ten young essayists, playwrights, and people, three men and seven journalists. women, who are fleeing from plague-ridden Florence to a villa in 1. Francis Bacon the countryside for two weeks. -​ was an English essayist, -​ The word decameron means ‘ten philosopher, and statesman. His days.’ collections of essays are written in -​ Rather than telling the stories clear English, and contain menoable directly, Boccaccio creates a fictional maxims on such subjects as background or frame for the book. friendship, studies, truth, and One famous story from this book is adverse ‘The Tale of the Falcon.’ 2. Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift 4. The Adventures of Don Quixote by -​ Swift was a mastercraftsman of irony Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra and satire. -​ is one famous work from the Renaissance. Don Quixote and  -​ His other works are A Modest flowers and animals as well as his Proposal, A Tale of the Tub, and The fellowmen. Battle of the Books. -​ Many of his poems show an -​ Irony is the general name given to appreciation of nature that marks literary techniques that involve him as a romanticist. suprising, interesting, or amusing contradictions. 2. The short stories of Guy de -​ Satire is writing that ridicules or Maupassant holds in contempt the faults of -​ show a realistic depiction of life, its individuals or of groups. underlying pessimism, inescapable irony, surprise ending. His more J. Romanticism, Realism, and Naturalism popular works are The Necklace, A (1800 - 1890) Piece of String, The Jewels, and Madame Sauvage. -​ Romanticism was a literary movement that emerged in the late 3. Henrik Ibsen 1700’s out of the revolutionary spirit -​ a Norwegian writer, was the creator fueled by the uprisings in America of the modern, realistic prose drama. and Frans. The Romantics tended to He was also one of the first writers be inspired by their imagination, to make drama a vehicle for social inner feelings and emotions. comment. -​ Realism and Naturalism emerged -​ He wrote the following dramas: A during the middle of the 19th DoH’s House,Ghosts, An Enemy of century. the People. -​ Realism sought to depict life as faithfully and accurately as possible. 4. Leo Tolstoy The Realists confronted many of the -​ was regarded as the greatest 19th harsh realities of the 19th century century Russian writer. world, often presenting pessimistic -​ He is remembered most for his visions of the world. novels War and Peace and Anna -​ Naturalism grew out of Realism. The Kareninaand for his short stories Naturalists frequently depicted like God Sees the Truth but Waits; characters whose lives were shaped Where Loveis, There God is Also, by forces of nature or society they and How Much Land Does a Man could not understand and control. Need? which probed human nature The naturalists believed that a and its strengths and weaknesses. person’s fate is determined by heredity, chance, and the 5. Edgar Allan Poe environment. -​ is noted not only for being the greatest American short story writer, 1. William Blake but also for having first standardized -​ His poems have a charming the short story as a literary type. simplicity that reveals his childlike -​ His subjects were weird, often imagination. He was a lover of supernatural, with no bearing  whatever on life as it is normally and It is So (If You Think So). His lived. short stories include A Breath of Air, -​ The Raven, The Bells, and Annabel The Jar, and Warwhich particularly Lee are some of his popular poems. reflected his views on human nature -​ His popular short stories are The and the emotional effects of war on Cask of Amontillado, The Masque of people. the Red Death, Tell-Tale Heart, The Purloined Letter, and The Pit and the 2. Rabindranath Tagore Pendulum. -​ showed a deep awareness of the poverty and other hardships faced K. The Modern World (1890 - 1945) by so many of his people. -​ He was also a vocal supporter of -​ The time that ushered in the coming human and personal freedom. He of modernism saw many changes was best known for his collection of and developments: technological poems called the Gitanjali or Song revolution (the airplane, the Offerings. automobile, the radio and the television, electricity, movies, new 3. Robert Frost medical remedies), scientific -​ is ranked as one of the best modern breakthroughs (Mendel's work on American poets. heredity, Marie and Pierre Curie’s -​ His popular poems are Mending breakthroughs concerning Wall, The Road not Taken, Fire and radioactivity, Einstein’s theories), Ice,Birches, and Stopping by Woods World War I, the rise of Nazism, on a Snowy Evening. His collection attack on Pearl Harbor, the of poems include North of Boston, A Holocaust. Boy's Will, and A Further Range. -​ Many writers turned away from the dominant literary forms and 4. Ernest Hemingway approaches of the past and began -​ his writings emphasize the experimenting with new themes and disillusionment of American techniques. expatriates among whom he lived in -​ The modernist writers tried to Paris during the postwar period. capture in their works the essence of -​ He was part of the so-called 'lost modem life in both the form and generation’ of writers who became content of their works. preoccupied with the macabre, suffering, death, and loss of values. 1. Luigi Pirandello -​ He wrote about peoples’ struggles to -​ was both a dramatist and short story maintain a sense of dignity while writer. His works dealt with the living in a seemingly hostile and difficulties of achieving identity and confusing world. questioned the distinction between -​ His works include novels such as appearance and reality. Farewell to Arms, The Sun Also -​ He is famous for his plays Six Rises,For Whom the Bells Toll, The Characters In Search of an Author  Old Man and the Sea, and A L. The Contemporary World (1946 - to Moveable Feast. present) -​ He also wrote numerous short stories like Hills Like 1. William Faulkner WhiteElephants, The Killers, A -​ wrote from the background of his Clean, Well Lighted Place, Cat in the native Mississippi where he lived Rain, and In Another Country. most of his life. -​ He is generally regarded as the most 5. Anton Chekhov (Russian) innovative American novelist of his -​ is considered one of the greatest time. writers of the short story. -​ He experimented with narrative -​ He gave a poignant illumination to chronology, explored multiple points such human experiences as of view, and delved deeply into the loneliness, grief, hunger, and misery. minds of his characters. -​ Among his famous works are the -​ His more notable novels are The plays The fear and The Cherry Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, Orchard, and one of his most and Sanctuary. His short story, A famous short stories is The Lady Rose for Emily, is one of his with the Dog which depicts what at unforgettable works. first seems a casual liaison between a married man and a married 2. Gabriel Garcia Marquez woman. Neither expects anything -​ a Colombian writer, is one of the lasting from the encounter, but they most innovative writers of the time. find themselves drawn back to each -​ His style combines realistic other, risking the security of their storytelling with elements of folklore family lives. and fantasy. This style enabled him to depict the realities of Colombia. 6. James Joyce He wrote many novels and short -​ was an Irish author of the 20th stories. Among his novels, the most century. famous is One Hundred Years of -​ He is best known for his novels Solitude. Ulysses (1922) and Finnegan’s -​ His short stories include The Wake (1939), as well as the short Handsomest Drowned Man in the story collection Dubliners (1914) and World, A Very Old Man the semi-autobiographical novel A withEnormous Wings, and Big Portrait o f the Artist as a Young Man Mama’s Funeral. (1916). Some of his popular short stories are Eveline, Araby, and 3. The Chilean poet Pablo Neruda Boarding House. -​ drew the inspiration for some of his best poems from objects that others hardly notice. -​ Much of Neruda’s later work expresses political sentiments. In 1971 he received the Nobel Prize for  Literature. One of his famous poems alongside her professional teaching is The United Fruit Co. and research duties. 4. Wole Soyinka Literary Terms /Concepts -​ is a Nigerian novelist, poet, and playwright. 1. Allegory - a story or a tale with two or -​ Some consider him Africa’s most more levels of meaning - a literal level and distinguished playwright, when he one or more symbolic levels. The events, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in setting, and characters in allegories are 1936, the first African to be so symbols for ideas and qualities. honored. -​ He is known for the following works: 2. Alliteration - is the repetition of consonant Telephone Conversation (a poem), sounds at the beginning of words or Ake: The Years o fChildhood (a accented syllables. memoir), and The Interpreters (a novel). 3. Allusion - a reference to a well-known person, place, event, literary work, or work 5. The Indonesian writer Pramoedya of art. Ananta Toer -​ wrote novels, short stories, essays, 4. Anaphora - a sound device that repeats a and histories of his homeland and word or words at the beginning of two or his people. His works span the more successive clauses or verses. colonial period, Indonesia’s struggle for independence, the Japanese 5. Anecdote - a brief story about an occupation during WWII, as well as interesting, amusing, or strange event. post-colonial authoritarian regimes of Sukarno and Suharto. 6. Antagonist - a character or force in -​ Two of his best known works are conflict with a main character, or The Furtive (a novel) about how protagonist. Not all stories contain Indonesians lived and suffered antagonists. during the Japanese occupation, and the short story Inem is about the 7. Aphorism - a general truth or observation traditions of Indonesia about life, usually stated concisely and pointedly. Often witty and wise, aphorisms 6. Siew Yue Killingiey appear in many kinds of works. -​ was a Malaysian poet, dramatist, teacher, and linguist. 8. Apostrophe - a figure of speech in which -​ A Question of Dowry and a speaker directly addresses an absent Everything’s Arranged published in person, or a personified quality, object, or Twenty Two Malaysian Stories idea. (1968) brought her immediate recognition and probably urged her 9. Aside - in a play, it is a speech delivered to cultivate a literary career by an actor in such a way that other characters on stage are presumed not to 21. Essay - a short non-fiction work about a hear it. particular subject. 10. Assonance - the repetition of vowel 22. Fiction - prose writing that tells about sounds in conjunction with dissimilar imaginary characters and events. consonant sounds. 23. Figurative language - writing or speech 11. Ballad - a songlike poem that tells a not meant to be taken literally. story, often dealing with adventure and romance. 24. Figure of Speech - an expression or a word used imaginatively rather than literally. 12. Blank verse - poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. An iamb is a 25. Flashback - a section of a literary work foot consisting of one weak stress followed that interrupts the chronological by one strong stress. presentation of events to relate an event from an earlier time. 13. Caesura - a pause or a break in the middle of a line of poetry. 26. Foil - a character who provides a contrast to another character. 14. Climax - the highest point of interest or suspense in a literary work. 27. Foreshadowing - the use of clues that suggest events that have yet to occur. 15. Conceit - an unusual or surprising comparison between two different things 28. Free verse - poetry that lacks a regular rhythmical pattern or meter. 16. Connotation - an association that a word calls to mind in addition to the dictionary 29. Hyperbole - a deliberate exaggeration or meaning of the word. overstatement. 17. Consonance - the repetition of 30. Image - a word or phrase that appeals consonant sounds at the ends of words or to one or more of the five senses. accented syllables. 31. Imagery - the descriptive: or figurative 18. Denotation - the objective meaning of a language used in literature to create word word, independent of other associations that pictures for the reader. These pictures are the word brings to mind. created by details of sight, sound, taste, touch, smell,'or movement. 19. Dialogue - a conversation between characters. 32. Irony - a contrast between what is stated and what is meant, or between what is 20. Elegy - a solemn and formal lyric poem expected to happen and what actually about death, often one that mourns the happens. passing of some particular person. 33. Litotes - a figure of speech that makes a 43. Personification - a figure of speech that deliberate understatement to affirm gives human traits to inanimate objects or by negating its opposite. ideas. 34. Local color - the use of characters and 44. Satire - writing that ridicules or criticizes details unique to a particular place or individuals, ideas, institutions, social geographic area. conventions, or other works of art or literature. 35. Lyric poem - a melodic poem that expresses the observations and feelings 45. Simile - a figure of speech that makes a of a single speaker. direct comparison between two subjects using like or as. 36. Metaphor - a figure of speech in which one thing is spoken of as though it were 46. Sonnet - a lyric poem composed of 14 something else. It expresses an indirect or iambic pentameter lines focusing on a implied comparison of two things which are single theme. not evidently comparable. 47. Symbol - anything that stands for or 37. Metonymy - a figure of speech that represents something else. entails using a word that closely relates to a person or thing. 48. Synecdoche - a figure of speech in which a part of something is used to stand 38. Mixed metaphor - when two metaphors for the whole thing, (e.g. No roving foot shall are jumbled together. crush thee here.) 39. Onomatopoeia - the use of words that 49. Theme - a central message or insight imitate sounds, e.g. buzz, hiss, murmur, into life revealed by a literary work. hum. 50. Tone - the writer’s attitude toward his or 40. Oxymoron - a figure of speech that her subject, characters, or audience. combines two opposing or contradictory ideas, (e.g. freezing fire, cruel kindness) 41. Paradox - a statement that seems to be contradictory but actually presents a truth. 42. Parody - a humorous imitation of a literary work, one that exaggerates or distorts the characteristic features of the original.