Tag - Curious Literary Terms

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14 Curious Literary Terms (Part 2)
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15 Curious Literary Terms

14 Curious Literary Terms (Part 2)

A while back I devoted a blog post to the subject of curious literary terms. This is the second and final instalment. The following literary terms are presented in alphabetical order.

Beast Fable — A narrative with speaking animals for characters. These didactic texts aim to teach us lessons about morality. George Orwell’s Animal Farm is one beast fable we are all familiar with.

Bowdlerise — A form of censorship that entails removing perceived indecent, immoral and/or pornographic words/passages from a narrative.

Eye Dialect — The use of unconventional spellings to signify conventional pronunciation. For example, ‘She shud of left by now’ in place of ‘She should have left by now.’

Oneiromancy — The belief that the future can be predicted by analysing dreams.

Onomatopoeia — Words that mimic sounds, e.g. a buzzing bee, or a crackling fire.

Ornamentalism —  An elaborate prose style in which the manner of narration is more important than its content. Vladimir Nabokov was an ardent devotee.

Pandect — A book purporting to contain all conceivable information on a given subject.

Portmanteau — A portmanteau combines two or more words to form a new word that expresses a single idea that is different from its component parts. Take brunch, a combination of two words, breakfast and lunch.

ProsopopoeiaA type of personification in which inanimate objects have the ability to speak.

Synecdoche — A device in which a part of a given thing represents the whole, or vice versa. If only I had some wheels (wheels are merely part of a car, but are representative of the whole).

Wanderjahr  A time in a character’s life when they diverge from their usual routine i.e. travelling, gap year etc.

Verbiage — Superfluous words in a sentence that detract from its impact.

Zeitgeist — The trends and fashions that represent the essence of a period in time.

Zoomorphic — Relating to a deity that is believed to take the form of an animal.

 

15 Curious Literary Terms

This week’s post is dedicated to curious literary terms that might be of interest to my fellow authors and readers. They are presented in alphabetical order.

Bibliognost a person who has a comprehensive knowledge of books and bibliography.

Bibliosmia a fetishism, which entails the compulsion to smell books, particularly old books.

Bibliotaph — people who hide their book collections. These obsessive types often fear their books being ‘borrowed’ by others and not returned.

Boghandler — Danish word for ‘bookseller’.

Book Stack

Bouquinist — a person who deals in old books of little value.

Fabliau — a humorous and course short story relayed in verse, usually entailing sexual intrigue and/or pranks. They are chiefly found in early French poetry.

Flyting — a contest consisting of the exchange of insults conducted in verse between two parties, usually poets.

Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia — the fear of long words.

Librocubicultarist — people who read in bed. This literary slang term is yet to be included in the dictionary, but it is surely only a matter of time.

Omnilegent — someone who has read extensively/is well acquainted with a great amount of literature.

Quill2

Rhapsodomancy — is the practice of predicting the future by picking a passage of poetry at random.

Scripturient — this outdated term refers to someone who has a strong urge to write.

Sesquipedalian — a person who is prone to using overly long words. (e.g. Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia).

Stichomancy — predicting the future from lines of verse chosen from random books.

Tsundoku — a Japanese word for the condition that is acquiring lots of books and then not getting round to reading them.

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