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A Dictionary of Literary Devices

A Dictionary of Literary Devices: Gradus, A-Z

Translated and adapted by Albert W. Halsall
Copyright Date: 1991
Published by: University of Toronto Press
https://doi.org/10.3138/9781442670303
Pages: 545
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3138/9781442670303
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  • Book Info
    A Dictionary of Literary Devices
    Book Description:

    Skilfully translated into English, and adapted for an English-language audience with illustrations taken from an astonishing range of contemporary texts, literary and popular, drawn from literature, radio, television, and the theatre, "Gradus" will be a constant source of information and delight.

    eISBN: 978-1-4426-7030-3
    Subjects: Language & Literature

Table of Contents

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  1. Front Matter
    (pp. i-vi)
  2. Table of Contents
    (pp. vii-viii)
  3. Translator’s Preface
    (pp. ix-xiv)
  4. Extracts from the Original Introduction
    (pp. xv-xx)

    The following pages contain an alphabetical listing of traditional literary figures, defined on the basis of a sampling of modern texts ... Due consideration of their overall system ... has led me to propose some new definitions and also some novel concepts.

    ...

    [Gradusaims to encourage the personal involvement that readers achieve with literary texts by increasing their understanding of rhetorical forms, and by helping them to produce their own readings.] Having learned to recognize the interplay of literary forms, readers will perhaps be no longer satisfied either to remain passively subject to the text’s impregnating influence, or to...

  5. GRADUS: A-Z
    (pp. 1-478)

    A graphic reduction (as in ’etc.’ for ’et cetera’). See Marouzeau.

    Exx: Engl. (English), F. (French), Amer. (America[n]), Can. (Canada)

    Ex: The narrator of Dickens’sMystery of Edwin Droodremarks (in ch. 11) on the ’mysterious inscription: P.J.T. 1747’ over the door of Mr Grewgious’s chambers, and then proposes throughout the ensuing narrative a number of possible explanations: ’It might mean Perhaps John Thomas ... Pretty Jolly Too ... Possibly Jabbered Thus,’ etc.

    Ex: ’My identity as a poor F[rench] C[anadian] condemned me, as a result of two centuries of [linguistic] delirium, to speak badly, without taking any pleasure in...

  6. Bibliography
    (pp. 479-500)
  7. Index
    (pp. 501-545)