Absurdist Theatre (or Theatre of the Absurd) Works of the mid-twentieth century apparently dramatizing the idea that human life is absurd and lacks meaning. Influenced by existentialism, such works, i [..]

A verse line consisting of 12 syllables. Common in French dramatic and narrative poetry since the 16th century.

A form of symbolism involving concrete persons, objects, and/or actions meant to represent ideas, concepts, or processes of a more abstract, intangible or spiritual sort. An allegory seeks to create a [..]

A novel involving the moral, spiritual, intellectual, and/or emotional education of a young hero or heroine. The reader is generally expected to identify with the main character and thus also undergo [..]

A literary genre involving the use of morbid, cruel, violent, gory, grotesque and tragic situations for comic purposes -- such works allow audiences to face difficult realities in a somewhat light-hea [..]

Group of thinkers, artists, and writers, many of whom lived in the residential district of London known as Bloomsbury, near the British Museum; the group began meeting in 1907and became a powerful for [..]

Each one of the sections or chapters in a poetic epic like Dante's Divine Comedy. The word "canto" literally means "song"

Style, attitudes, and ideas in art and literature inspired by, and including, the culture of classical antiquity (primarily ancient Greece and Rome). The values of classicism are harmony, proportion, [..]

The idea that sin = punishment; divine retribution in Dante's Divine Comedy; it literally means the "counter-step" and is a notion similar to Karma, Moira, Namtar, and Fate; wha [..]

Two lines of verse which rhyme with each other. Cuneiform