Literary Terms - Exam

1. Objective Correlative (T.S. Eliot)

In short: Objective Correlative is a technique for expressing emotion clearly without just stating it.

Coined by T.S. Eliot in his 1919 essay Hamlet and His Problems, this concept is all about how an author evokes a specific emotion in the reader without just stating it.

Eliot argued that you can’t just write “she was sad” and expect the reader to feel it. Instead, you need to construct a recipe of specific objects, situations, and events that automatically trigger that exact feeling.

The Formula:

A particular emotion=A set of objects + a situation + a chain of events

The Goal: Artistic precision. It’s a calculated tool to ensure the reader feels exactly what the author intended.
Famous Example: In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Lady Macbeth’s obsessive, repetitive hand-washing sleepwalk sequence is the “objective correlative” for her overwhelming, inescapable guilt. The physical act and the basin of water make her internal torment concrete.
Modern Parallel: In cinema, this is the classic rule of “Show, Don’t Tell.“ Think of a movie character staring at a single, unread text message in a dark, empty room to convey intense loneliness.

2. Negative Capability (John Keats)

In short: Negative Capability is a mindset for enduring (hold on) mystery and doubt.

Coined by the Romantic poet John Keats in an 1817 letter to his brothers, this concept describes a writer’s ability to exist amidst doubts, uncertainties, and mysteries without frantically reaching for facts or reason.

Keats believed that the greatest writers can look into the dark, confusing, and contradictory parts of the human experience and just swim in them, rather than trying to force a neat, logical conclusion or moral lesson.

The Goal: Artistic openness. It’s the willingness to let things remain unresolved, mysterious, and complex.
Famous Example: Keats considered William Shakespeare the prime example of this. Shakespeare could write a deeply complex villain like Iago or a deeply flawed hero like Hamlet without stepping into the play to judge them, explain them away, or tie the ending up in a neat moral bow.
Modern Parallel: Being totally comfortable with an open-ended, ambiguous movie ending (like the spinning top at the end of Inception) instead of needing a definitive answer.

Here are highly focused, exam-oriented revision notes for some key literary terms, movements, and theories.

🎨 1. Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB)

Origin: Founded in 1848 by a group of young English painters and poets, including:
i. Dante Gabriel Rossetti
ii. William Michael Rossetti
iii. John Everett Millais
iv. William Holman Hunt
Core Philosophy: They rejected the academic rules of art popular since Raphael (hence “Pre-Raphaelite”). They wanted to return to the rich detail, intense colors, and complex compositions of early Italian and Flemish art.
Key Literary Characteristics:
- Sensory Decadence: Extremely detailed, sensuous, and pictorial imagery (words paint a picture).
- Medievalism: Strong focus on medieval themes, folklore, Arthurian legends, and mysticism.
- Art for Art’s Sake: Precursor to the Aesthetic Movement; prioritizing beauty over moral messaging.
Major Literary Figures: D.G. Rossetti, Christina Rossetti (Goblin Market), William Morris, and Algernon Charles Swinburne.

🌀 2. Postmodernism

Time Period: Mid-to-late 20th Century (post-WWII, roughly peaking from the 1960s to the 1990s).
Core Philosophy: A radical departure from Modernism. While Modernists viewed a fractured world with grief and sought to find order through art, Postmodernists celebrate chaos, fragmentation, and meaninglessness through play and irony.
Key Features:
- Skepticism of “Grand Narratives”: Jean-François Lyotard famously defined it as “incredulity toward metanarratives” (rejection of absolute truths, universal science, or religious frameworks).
- Pastiche & Parody: Mixing different genres, styles, and high/low culture.
- Metafiction: Fiction that openly talks about its own fictional nature.
- Unreliable Narrators: Highlighting that objective truth is impossible to capture.
Major Thinkers & Writers: Jean-François Lyotard, Jean Baudrillard (Simulacra and Simulation), Thomas Pynchon, Italo Calvino, and Salman Rushdie.

🧗 3. Existentialism

Origin: Rooted in the 19th-century works of Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche, but popularized as a distinct movement in mid-20th-century France post-WWII.
Core Premise: “Existence precedes essence.” Humans are born first (we exist), and we must actively construct our own character, values, and purpose (our essence) through our choices.
Key Concepts:
- The Absurd: The conflict between the human tendency to seek inherent meaning and the silent, cold, meaningless universe.
- Angst/Anxiety: The terrifying realization of absolute personal freedom and the heavy burden of responsibility for one’s actions.
- Bad Faith (Jean-Paul Sartre): When individuals adopt false values or pretend they do not have choices to escape anxiety.
Key Literary & Philosophical Figures: Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus (The Myth of Sisyphus, The Stranger), and Simone de Beauvoir.

🔨 4. Deconstruction

Origin: Developed by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in the late 1960s (notably in his work Of Grammatology, 1967).
Core Philosophy: A school of literary criticism that challenges the Structuralist idea that language is stable and has fixed meanings.
Key Principles:
- Instability of Language: Words do not have fixed, absolute definitions. Meaning is constantly deferred (différance).
- Dismantling(collapse) Binary Oppositions: Western thought relies on binaries (e.g., Speech/Writing, Good/Evil, Male/Female) where one is favored. Deconstruction seeks to show how these binaries collapse and rely on each other.
- The Text Contradicts Itself: A deconstructive reading exposes “aporia” (blind spots or contradictions) where a text’s underlying logic actively works against its stated message.
Key Phrase: “There is nothing outside the text“ (meaning we cannot step outside of language to find a pure, unmediated truth).

🔗 5. Intertextuality

Origin: Coined by French semiotician Julia Kristeva in 1966, heavily influenced by the Russian theorist Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of dialogism.
Core Philosophy: No text is completely original or exists in a vacuum. Every text is a mosaic of quotations, references, echoes, and influences from other existing texts.
Key Features:
- Plurality of Meaning: The meaning of a book is not created solely by the author, but at the intersection of the reader’s knowledge of other books.
- Forms of Intertextuality:
  - Allusion: Direct or indirect references (e.g., T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land referencing Dante, Shakespeare, and the Upanishads).
  - Pastiche: Imitating a precursor’s style as a tribute.
  - Parody: Imitating to mock or critique.
Core Takeaway: Instead of viewing a text as a single, static message, it is a dynamic network of connections to the wider literary world.

1. Very Important Works (Timeline Order)

Year	Title	Author	Significance / Key Focus
1848	The Germ	PRB (Ed. W.M. Rossetti)	The official literary journal of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
1862	Goblin Market and Other Poems	Christina Rossetti	Landmark Pre-Raphaelite poem filled with vivid, sensuous imagery.
1870	The House of Life	Dante Gabriel Rossetti	A signature Pre-Raphaelite sonnet sequence exploring love and loss.
1938	Nausea (La Nausée)	Jean-Paul Sartre	The foundational French existentialist novel.
1942	The Stranger / The Myth of Sisyphus	Albert Camus	Core literary and philosophical texts on Existentialism and the Absurd.
1967	Of Grammatology	Jacques Derrida	The primary text establishing Deconstruction and structural critique.
1969	Desire in Language	Julia Kristeva	Contains the pioneering essays establishing Intertextuality.
1979	The Postmodern Condition	Jean-François Lyotard	The text that defined Postmodernism for modern literary theory.
1981	Simulacra and Simulation	Jean Baudrillard	Major postmodern text tracking how signs replace reality (Hyperreality).
1988	A Poetics of Postmodernism	Linda Hutcheon	Defined Historiographic Metafiction (blending history and self-aware fiction).

2. Important Terms Coined By

Critical Term	Coined / Formulated By	Core Definition / Significance
Intertextuality	Julia Kristeva (1966)	A text is not isolated; it is a dynamic mosaic of structural references to other texts.
Deconstruction / Différance	Jacques Derrida (1967)	Explores the inherent instability and constant deferral of fixed meaning in language.
Incredulity toward Metanarratives	Jean-François Lyotard (1979)	Rejection of absolute, universal truths (science, religion, Marxism) in Postmodernism.
Historiographic Metafiction	Linda Hutcheon (1988)	Novels that dramatize history while openly questioning objective historical truth.
Indetermanence	Ihab Hassan	Blends indeterminacy and immanence to map the core traits of postmodern literature.
Simulacra / Hyperreality	Jean Baudrillard	A state where simulations or copies of reality fully replace the authentic real world.
Existence Precedes Essence	Jean-Paul Sartre	Humans exist first, and must construct their own purpose/identity through choice.
Fleshly School of Poetry	Robert Buchanan (1871)	An attack term used to slam the highly physical and sensuous poetry of the PRB.

3. Important Very Short Quotes

Quote	Author / Theorist	Literary Movement / Theory
“There is nothing outside the text.”	Jacques Derrida	Deconstruction / Post-Structuralism
“Existence precedes essence.”	Jean-Paul Sartre	Existentialism
“The text is a mosaic of quotations.”	Julia Kristeva	Intertextuality
“I define postmodern as incredulity toward metanarratives.”	Jean-François Lyotard	Postmodernism
“One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”	Albert Camus	Existentialism / The Absurd
“Man is condemned to be free.”	Jean-Paul Sartre	Existentialism
“Art for art’s sake.”	Théophile Gautier	Aestheticism / Pre-Raphaelites

practice questions with their options, correct answers, and conceptual breakdowns based on the literary terms.

Question 1 (Pre-Raphaelites)

Which of the following painters and poets was a founding member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848?

A) Matthew Arnold
B) Dante Gabriel Rossetti
C) Thomas Carlyle
D) Walter Pater

Correct Answer: B) Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Explanation: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, along with figures like John Everett Millais and William Holman Hunt, founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB) in 1848. They rebelled against the mechanical academic artistic styles influenced by Raphael and sought a return to intense colors and detailed medievalism.

Question 2 (Postmodernism)

Jean-François Lyotard famously defined Postmodernism as an “incredulity toward…”

A) Traditional poetic forms
B) Metanarratives (Grand Narratives)
C) Bourgeois morality
D) Scientific structuralism

Correct Answer: B) Metanarratives (Grand Narratives)

Explanation: In his seminal text The Postmodern Condition (1979), Lyotard defined postmodernism as a skepticism or “incredulity toward metanarratives.” Postmodernism rejects sweeping, universal explanations of truth, progress, or human liberation (like religion, Marxism, or absolute scientific objectivism) in favor of localized, plural truths.

Question 3 (Existentialism)

The foundational maxim of French Existentialism, formulated by Jean-Paul Sartre, is:

A) “I think, therefore I am.”
B) “God is dead.”
C) “Existence precedes essence.”
D) “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.”

Correct Answer: C) “Existence precedes essence.”

Explanation: Sartre argued that for human beings, “existence precedes essence.” Unlike a manufactured object (like a paperknife) which is designed with a specific purpose (essence) before it is made, humans exist first, find themselves in the world, and only then must construct their own identity, purpose, and values through personal choice.

Question 4 (Deconstruction)

Which influential theorist introduced the concept of “Deconstruction” and coined the term différance?

A) Jacques Derrida
B) Michel Foucault
C) Roland Barthes
D) Ferdinand de Saussure

Correct Answer: A) Jacques Derrida

Explanation: French philosopher Jacques Derrida introduced Deconstruction in the late 1960s. He coined différance—a deliberate misspelling in French that highlights how meaning is both deferred (postponed along a chain of signifiers) and differing (relational rather than absolute).

Question 5 (Intertextuality)

The term “Intertextuality,” which views every text as a “mosaic of quotations,” was coined in 1966 by:

A) Mikhail Bakhtin
B) Julia Kristeva
C) T.S. Eliot
D) Jacques Lacan

Correct Answer: B) Julia Kristeva

Explanation: French semiotician Julia Kristeva coined the term “Intertextuality” in 1966. Drawing heavily on Mikhail Bakhtin’s concepts of dialogism, she argued that no text is entirely original or isolated; rather, a text is always built out of, and references, other pre-existing texts.

Question 6 (Postmodernism/Metafiction)

When a novel intentionally steps outside the story to comment on its own writing process or structural mechanics, it is employing:

A) Pastiche
B) Objective Correlative
C) Metafiction
D) Stream of Consciousness

Correct Answer: C) Metafiction

Explanation: Metafiction is a key postmodern literary device. It is essentially “fiction about fiction.” By explicitly calling attention to the fact that the text is artificial and constructed, it disrupts the traditional realist illusion that the story is “real life.”

Question 7 (Pre-Raphaelites)

Which prominent Victorian poet wrote Goblin Market, a work heavily marked by the sensuous, pictorial imagery characteristic of the Pre-Raphaelite style?

A) Christina Rossetti
B) Elizabeth Barrett Browning
C) Charlotte Brontë
D) George Eliot

Correct Answer: A) Christina Rossetti

Explanation: Christina Rossetti was closely associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (her brother was D.G. Rossetti). Her famous poem Goblin Market (1862) is highly celebrated for its rich, vivid, sensuous imagery and allegorical depth, capturing the signature aesthetic of the movement.

Question 8 (Existentialism)

Albert Camus used which mythological figure to explain “The Absurd”—the human struggle to find meaning in a meaningless universe?

A) Prometheus
B) Sisyphus
C) Icarus
D) Oedipus

Correct Answer: B) Sisyphus

Explanation: In his essay The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus uses the Greek myth of a man condemned by the gods to roll a boulder up a hill for eternity, only for it to roll back down every time, as the ultimate metaphor for human life. Camus concludes that one must imagine Sisyphus happy, finding defiance and purpose in the struggle itself despite its lack of ultimate meaning.

Question 9 (Deconstruction)

Deconstruction asserts that Western philosophy relies on “binary oppositions” (e.g., Speech/Writing, Good/Evil). What does a deconstructive reading seek to do to these binaries?

A) Confirm that the first term is naturally superior.
B) Replace them with completely new scientific terms.
C) Show how they are unstable and dependent on one another.
D) Prove that language cannot express opposites.

Correct Answer: C) Show how they are unstable and dependent on one another.

Explanation: Derrida argued that Western thought is “logocentric” and privileges one side of a binary over the other (e.g., speech over writing). Deconstruction works to overturn and displace these pairs, revealing that the privileged term actually relies on its opposite to exist, ultimately causing the binary logic to collapse.

Question 10 (Intertextuality/Postmodernism)

What is the term used when a postmodern text mimics the style of a previous author or period, not out of mockery or parody, but as a neutral imitation or tribute?

A) Bricolage
B) Pastiche
C) Aporia
D) Simulacra

Correct Answer: B) Pastiche

Explanation: Pastiche is a core postmodern strategy. While parody imitates a style to poke fun at it or critique it, pastiche is a neutral form of mimicry. It borrows styles, genres, or tropes from past art movements to construct something new, serving as a stylistic collage or tribute.