Literary Terms Archives - Literary Ocean

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This term ‘Magic realism’, which has a long and quite distinctive history in Latin American criticism, was first used in a broader post-colonial context in the foundational essay by Jacques…

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Michel Foucault’s Concept of Heterotopia and Its Six Principles

Michel Foucault in his 1967 lecture ‘Des espaces autres’ (Of other spaces) proposed the concept of ‘heterotopia’ to describe spaces such as that of the cinema and the cemetery, which…

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Tautology: Defintition, meaning and Examples

Definition The term ‘tautology’ comes from Greek ‘tauto’, meaning the same’, and ‘logia’ means ‘way of speaking’. It means etymologically ‘to make the same statement as already made’. In fact,…

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Walter Benjamin’s Concept of Constellation: Meaning and Analysis

Walter Benjamin famously proposed the concept of ‘constellation’ in the ‘Epistemo-Critical Prologue’ to Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels (1928), translated as The Origin of German Tragic Drama (1977), that ideas are to objects as constellations…

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Inoperative Community by Jean-Luc Nancy: Definition and Theory

The French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy proposed the theory of ‘inoperative community’, or ‘communauté désoeuvrée’, which rejects the idea that community can be created through work. By inoperative (‘désoeuvrée’), Nancy does…

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Paragone: Definition, Features and Examples in Literature

Paragone is an Italian word that means ‘comparison’. It is a contention between the arts, usually spoken by representative practitioners, to determine supremacy. The most typical paragone pits poetry and painting…

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Lyric Poetry: Definition, Characteristics and Examples

Definition The lyric is the commonest kind of poetry of self-expression. Man has always liked to pour out his intensely felt feelings and emotions, and hence the lyric is among…

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Time Play: Definition, Meaning, Techniques and Examples in Drama

Time play is a loose category for a form of drama that in some way exploits or manipulates chronological sequence by various dramatic means. The most common techniques include the…

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Psychobabble: Definition, Meaning and Examples

The term ‘Psychobabble’ was coined by R. D. Rosen in Psychobabble: Fast Talk and Quick Cure in the Era of Feeling (1977) – a critique of DIY ego-psychology – and…

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Narratology: Definition, Concepts and Famous Theorists

Narratology is the study of the structure, function, and effect of narrative. This concept was initiated by Russian Formalism and developed into a highly specialized sub-discipline by structuralism. In particular,…

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BySupriya Maity