french vocab - literary devices

address to a listener

making a list

amplification, building up a hyperbole

word order is inverted or mixed up

• subgenre; crest
• lists women’s features

paradox

2 opposites placed side by side

repetition

maxim

one part of an object represents the whole

comparison without the ‘like’

comparison

successive constructions which correspond with one another

rhetorical question

love death; tristan and yseult example

mythology

arthurian legend

charlemagne, roland

• renaissance tradition
• christine de pizan

• specific genre; from and for ordinary people
• originally in verse
• marks of orality in “listen”, “i will tell you”
• popularised and spread by troubadours/trouvers

exemplary stories, didactic function

• miracles
• tortures
• mortifications du corps
• resurrection
• mort/martyre
• refus de renier sa foi

• didactic function, serves the church and the ruling elite
• writings about saints

repetition or accumulation of terms/examples to underline and highlight the effect of what is written

comparison of two disparate terms/phenomena, uses a comparative term

repetition at the beginning of phrases

listing without conjunctions

listing with many conjunctions

omission of one or multiple elements which leaves a phrase incomplete but doesn’t inhibit understanding

elaboration of a detailed list

example for proving a case

replication; repetition of identical terms

• attribution of terms which appear to pertain to another group of words to another word/group of words
• e.g. Porte en d’autres climats ton insolent courroux… or Obtenir de Médée avec dextérité

understatement

oxymoron, contradictory terms brought together

parallelism in shape of a cross

• figure which uses the same word to pertain to various disparate terms
• e.g. Et nos préparaifs contre la Thessalie/Ont trop de quoi punir sa flamme et sa folie

• peripeteia
• reversal of fortunes in tragedy

• de temps
• d’espace
• d’action

• le grand siècle
• theatre of 3 dramatists: Corneille, Moliere, Racine

word rhymed ends with silent e

word rhymed ends with consonant

• do not depict death on stage
• vraisemblance - must be life like

poetry used to depict vivid fiction of action; style and language contribute to this

• e.g. Pollux
• protean character
• character who adapts his being to the purposes of the drama

depicts shock, surprise, emotional distress

• agnorisis - recognition
• realisation of hubris/pride
• also means ‘gratitude’; lack of recognition = lack of gratitude

• having the dead speek
• prosopoeia

vivid description

• story within a story
• letter
• Sancerre & Mme de Tournon

Princesse de Clèves - concern with characters’ inner thoughts and processes