Dictionary of Literature in English

Neil King, Sarah King

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781579583811
• eBook ISBN: 9781135979379
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism

This dictionary is a guide to the key authors, concepts, and terms used in the study of literature written in English. Each entry begins with a straightforward definition, and is followed by explanation and examples. Each writer is defined by type, significant preoccupation and/or style, and a selection of notable works. There are a number of entries on writers in a foreign language who have had a major influence on literature in English. One of the most important uses of this book is as a cross-referencing tool. Italicized cross-referenced entries form an interrelated web, presenting a unified overall picture of particular areas of interest.

S

Sackville, Thomas (1536–1608)

English playwright and poet. His best-known work is the tragedy GORBODUC (1562), which he wrote with Norton and which some claim to be the first English tragedy. In some respects the plot foreshadows Shakespeare's KING LEAR.

Sackville-West, Vita (1892–1962)

English poet., novelist, and biographer. A close friend of Woolf, she favored topics such as travel, gardening, history, and literary topics. Notable works include THE LAND (1926), THE EDWARDIANS (1930), ALL PASSION SPENT (1931), COLLECTED POEMS (1933).

saga

a medieval Norse narrative, originally oral but often later written down, about kings and other heroes. Sagas have had some influence on later writings, for example Longfellow's SAGA OF KING OLAF (1863). More generally a saga has come to mean a long and detailed story.

saga novel

a long novel, sometimes one of a series, usually concerning a family, e.g. Galsworthy's FORSYTE novels, See roman-fleuve.

Salinger, J.D. (b.1919)

American novelist and short, story writer. He is best known for THE CATCHER IN THE RYE (1951), whose narrator, the teenaged social outcast Holden Caulfleld, has seemed to speak directly to successive generations of young readers. Salinger has a good ear for the freewheeling conversational style of his characters. Other notable works include FRANNY AND ZOOEY (1961).

Sandburg, Carl (1878–1967)

American poet, children's writer, and biographer. He is one of America's most beloved authors, whose popular children's stories and highly regarded biographies (especially of Lincoln) are today more critically respected than his accessible, but occasionally sentimental, poetry. His best-known poem is "Chicago" (1914), a free-verse celebration of the city and its people in the manner of Whitman. Notable works include CHICAGO POEMS (1916), THE PEOPLE, YES (1936), ABRAHAM LINCOLN (1926-39), HARVEST POEMS (I960), and the children's collection ROOTABAGA STORIES (1922).

Sapphic ode

a very complicated metrical poetic form named after the ancient Greek poetess Sappho (7th century BC). Various English poets such as Sidney, Gawper, Southey, Tennyson, Swinburne, Pound experimented with it.

Saro-Wiwa, Ken (1941–95)

Nigerian novelist, playwright, poet, and journalist, who was outspoken in his opposition to the Nigerian military regime. Before his execution in 1995 for alleged involvement in the murders of four Ogoni chiefs, his work explored modern Nigerian culture, often using strong satire. Notable works include SONGS IN A TIME OF WAR (1985), SOZABOY (1985), PRISONERS OF JEBS (1988), ADAKU (1989).

Sassoon, Siegfried (1886–1967)

English poet, playwright, and autobiographer. Best known for his antiwar poetry, he highlights the true horrors of war by using an unpatriotic, ironic tone. His later writings are more spiritual and autobiographical. Notable works include A SOLDIER'S DECLARATION (1917), MEMOIRS OF A Fox-HUNTING MAN (1928), MEMOIRS OF AN INFANTRY OFFICER (1930), VIGILS (1935, revised edition), SIEGFRIED'S JOURNEY (1945), See war literature.

Satanic school

is a term invented by Southey in his harsh attack on the life and morals of Byron, Percy Shelley, and possibly Keats, in the preface to A VISION OF JUDGEMENT.

satire,

in literature or other arts, aims to make a moral point by mocking follies and vices., often through sometimes biting humor. Its comedy is not intended for mere entertainment, but for a purpose. The beginnings of satire may be traced to ancient Roman writers. Among others Chaucer, Shakespeare, Jonson, and Donne all employed satire, but the great age of English literary satire is generally considered to be the late 17th and 18th centuries, notably in the writings of Dryden, Pope, and Jonathan Swift. Later satirists include Byron, Peacock, Shaw, Huxley, Orwell, and Waugh. See burlesque, irony.

satirical comedy

is a form of comedy whose aim is to highlight the follies and vices of society. Sometimes the characters are grotesque rather than gently amusing, as in Jonsoris THE ALCHEMIST and VOLPONE. Later examples of the genre. include Sheridan's THE SCHOOL fOR SCANDAL, Bennett's FORTY YEARS ON, Stoppard's JUMPERS, Hare's TEETH 'N' SMILES, Mamet's AMERICAN BUFFALO and GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS, Churchill's SERIOUS MONEY.

scansion

is the process of closely examining the stress pattern within each foot of each line of verse, and the overall rhythm and movement of the poem which is thereby created. See meter.

scene

the subdivision of an act, containing an episode normally separated in time sequence, and sometimes place, from the episode that follows. In Elizabethan drama a scene is normally deemed to have ended at a point when all the characters leave the stage, but act and scene divisions in editions of Shakespeare, and his contemporaries have been supplied by later editors. Some modern plays consist of a continuous series of episodes with no breaks in the time sequence or scenery.

Schreiner, Olive (1855–1920)

South African novelist who broke conventions through her pioneering feminist writing, influencing such writers as Brittain. Her evocative descriptions of the African landscape are haunting, but the sermonizing tone of much of her writing can be alienating for the modern reader. Notable works include THE STORY OF AN AFRICAN FARM (1883), DREAMS (1890), AN ENGLISH-SOUTH AFRICAN'S VIEW OF THE SITUATION (1899), WOMAN AND LABOUR (1911), FROM MAN TO MAN (1926).

science fiction

is a type of fantasy literatim, usually in the form of a short story or novel. which creates an alternative society based on the imagined technology of the future (and sometimes the past) and frequently involves such elements as space travel, alien beings, and supernatural forces. Science fiction stretches the imagination by rooting the fantastic in reality. Mary Shelley s FRANKENSTEIN is sometimes described as the key work in the development of the genre, with later writers including Wells, Huxley, Orwell, Burgess, Wyndham, Isaac Asimov (1920-92), Ray Bradbury (b.1920), Arthur C. Clarke (b.1917), Brian Aldiss (b.1925), and Frank Herbert (1920-86). The...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• A
• B
• C
• D
• E
• F
• G
• H
• I
• J
• K
• L
• M
• N
• O
• P
• Q
• R
• S
• T
• U
• V
• W
• YZ