Entertainment / Literature Glossary

Purple Patch: A section of purple prose or writing that is too ornate or florid for the surrounding plain material, which in turn looks too tranquil or dull by the incongruity of the startling purple patc . . . View Full Definition

Purple Prose: Writing that seems overdone or which makes excessive use of imagery, figures of speech, poetic diction, and polysyllabication. These artifices become so overblown that they accidentally beco . . . View Full Definition

Pyrrhic: In classical Greek or Latin poetry, this foot consists of two unaccented syllables--the opposite of a spondee. At best, a pyrrhic foot is an unusual aberration in English verse, and most pro . . . View Full Definition

Q-Text: The term for a hypothetical ur-text or source manuscript that served as the source for the synoptic gospels (i.e., Matthew, Mark, and Luke), but which did not influence John. The abbreviatio . . . View Full Definition

Quadrivium: The study of arithmetic, astronomy, geometry, and music, which formed the basis of a master's degree in medieval education, as opposed to the trivium, the study of grammar, logic, and rhetor . . . View Full Definition

Qualitative Change: In linguistics, an alteration in the perceived quality of a sound or the basic nature of a sound. Contrast with quantitative change, below.

Qualitative Meter: Meter that relies on patterns of heavily stress syllables and lightly stressed meters. In English, most poems are qualitative in nature. This contrasts with quantitative meter (below), which . . . View Full Definition

Quantitative Change: In linguistics, an alteration in the length of a sound--particularly vowel sounds. Contrast with qualitative change.

Quantitative Meter: Meter that relies not on the alternation of heavily stressed or lightly stressed syllables, but rather on the alternation of 'long syllables' and 'short syllables' (i.e., syllables categoriz . . . View Full Definition

Quarto: A term from early bookmaking. When a single, large sheet is folded once to create two leaves (four pages counting the front and back), and then bound together, the resulting text is called a . . . View Full Definition

Quatrain: Also sometimes used interchangeably with 'stave,' a quatrain is a stanza of four lines, often rhyming in an ABAB pattern. Three quatrains form the main body of a Shakespearean or English son . . . View Full Definition

Quem Quaeritis: This Latin expression comes from the Vulgate New Testament when the angel addresses the women coming to visit Christ's empty tomb. The angel guarding the sepulchre asks, 'Whom do you seek?' . . . View Full Definition

Quire: A collection of individual leaves sewn together, usually containing between four and twelve leaves per quire. This 'gathering' or 'booklet' of individual pages would then be sewn into the la . . . View Full Definition

R-Less Speech: Any dialect in which [r] is pronounced only before a vowel. Examples include Bostonian accents in America and 'RP' (Received Pronunciation) among upper class British speakers.

Radical Innocence: The Romantics valued innocence as something pure, wholesome, fulfilling, natural, and individualistic. They saw it as antithetical to the corrupting influence of civilized conformity and the . . . View Full Definition

Raisonneur: A character in continental literature whose purpose is similar to that of a chorus in Greek drama, i.e., this choric figure remains at a distance from the main action and provides a reasoned . . . View Full Definition

Rash Boon: A motif in folklore and in Celtic and Arthurian literature in which an individual too hastily promises to fulfill another character's request without hearing exactly what that request is. Fo . . . View Full Definition

Räuberroman: The German term for a picaresque novel. (German, 'Robber-novel')

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