10 terms
Hermeneutics
Hermeneutics is the theory and art of interpreting texts and, in a broader philosophical sense, the doctrine of understanding as a mode of human being. Arising as a method for interpreting Scripture and ancient authors, hermeneutics became a general theory of interpretation through Friedrich Schleiermacher and Wilhelm Dilthey. Martin Heidegger gave it an ontological dimension, and Hans-Georg Gadamer, in 'Truth and Method' (1960), reconceived the concept of the 'hermeneutic circle' (understanding the whole through the part and the parts through the whole), the 'fusion of horizons' of text and reader, and the role of tradition. Paul Ricoeur joined hermeneutics with phenomenology and psychoanalysis. In literary studies, hermeneutics grounds the principles of interpreting a work, emphasizing the dialogic nature of understanding and the historicity of every reading.
Hero (Literary)
A hero (literary) is the central personage of a work, an acting figure endowed with significance in the development of the plot and the expression of the author's conception. In a broad sense, 'hero' is a synonym for the main personage regardless of moral qualities; in a narrower, evaluative sense, it is the bearer of a positive principle, a model of courage, nobility, and self-sacrifice (a heroic character). Historically, the type of the hero changed: the epic bohatyr and tragic hero of antiquity, the medieval knight, the 'natural man' of the Enlightenment, the Romantic rebel, the 'superfluous man' and 'little person' of realism, the reflecting intellectual and the antihero of modernism. The type of the hero reflects the ideals of an era. Heroic characters of Ukrainian literature are Zakhar Berkut of Ivan Franko and the nameless captive fighter in the poetry of Taras Shevchenko; the tragic 'lost strength' is embodied by Chipka of Panas Myrny.
Hexameter
The hexameter is a six-foot dactylic measure of ancient metrics, the principal verse of heroic epic. In its classical quantitative form the hexameter consisted of six feet, where each dactyl could be replaced by a spondee and the last foot was truncated. It is precisely in hexameter that Homer's "Iliad" and "Odyssey" and Virgil's "Aeneid" are written. In accentual languages the ancient hexameter is reproduced imitatively — mainly by dactylic hexameter with permitted trochaic substitutions. The hexameter has an expansive, solemn, epically smooth movement, and is therefore used in translations of ancient classics and in stylisations of high epic. Ukrainian classical translators expended considerable effort to render the hexameter in their native language.
Historical Novel
The historical novel is a variety of the novel whose action is set in the past and built upon real historical events and figures combined with artistic invention. In its modern form the genre was established by the Scot Walter Scott (Ivanhoe, Waverley) at the beginning of the nineteenth century, showing how the private fate of an invented hero interweaves with great history. The historical novel demands documentary authenticity of background together with the artistic conviction of its characters. In Ukrainian literature its heights are Panteleimon Kulish's The Black Council (the first Ukrainian historical novel, set in the era of the Ruin), the historical novels of Zinaida Tulub (Man-Hunters), Pavlo Zahrebelny (Marvel, Roxolana, I, Bohdan), and Lina Kostenko's Marusia Churai (a historical novel in verse).
Historical Song
The historical song is a lyric-epic genre that reflects concrete historical events and figures through the eyes of the people. Unlike the duma, the historical song has a strophic structure, syllabically even verse, and a distinct melody closer to an ordinary song. Thematically it embraces the struggle with the Turks and Tatars, Cossack campaigns, the Khmelnytsky era, the haidamaka movement, and the Ruin. Famous examples are 'Oh Moroz, Morozenko,' 'The Sun Rises Beyond Siberia' (about Karmaliuk; composed by Tymko Padura), and 'The Song of Baida.' Historical songs preserve the names of real figures: Baida Vyshnevetsky, Bohdan Khmelnytsky, Ivan Sirko, Ustym Karmaliuk. A classic collection of historical songs was compiled by Volodymyr Antonovych and Mykhailo Drahomanov (1874–1875). The genre was a powerful source of national historical consciousness.
Historical Tradition (Perekaz)
A perekaz is an oral folk narrative about historical events, persons, or places that claims to be true and is passed from generation to generation. Unlike a legend, the perekaz lacks pronounced fantasy and tends toward the documentary, though over time it accrues conjecture. There are toponymic traditions (about the origin of place-names), historical ones (about the Khmelnytsky era, the haidamaka movement, the Ruin), and traditions about historical figures (Baida Vyshnevetsky, Bohdan Khmelnytsky, Ustym Karmaliuk). The perekaz is an important source of folk historical memory. Substantial collections were compiled by Mykhailo Drahomanov (a collection of folk traditions and tales, 1876) and Volodymyr Hnatiuk. Folk traditions about the Cossacks became the ground for the historical prose of Panteleimon Kulish and Mykhailo Starytsky.
Historicism
A historicism is an obsolete word that has fallen out of active use together with the disappearance of the reality it denoted — an object, phenomenon, office or custom of past ages: "chain mail," "a peasant coat," "a village head," "a tithe," "serfdom." Unlike archaisms, historicisms have no modern synonyms, because the concepts themselves have receded into the past, and so they are the only names of the corresponding historical realia. In literature, especially in the historical novel and tale, historicisms reproduce the authentic colouring of the depicted age, lend the narrative verisimilitude and immerse the reader in the atmosphere of the past. Historicisms are an important source for the study of the material and spiritual culture of a people, a subject of historical lexicology, cultural linguistics and the stylistics of historical prose.
Homonyms
Homonyms are words identical in sound and/or spelling but entirely different in meaning, between which there is no semantic link (e.g. Ukrainian kosa: 'braid', 'scythe', 'spit of land'). Unlike a polysemous word, whose meanings are linked by a common semantic core, homonyms are different words that have coincided by chance in form. Full homonyms, homophones (identical sound, different spelling), homographs (identical spelling, different pronunciation) and homoforms are distinguished. In literature homonymy is the basis of puns, witticisms, language play, paradoxical juxtapositions and a means of creating a comic effect. Homonymy is studied by lexicology; it must be clearly distinguished from polysemy, with which it borders but from which it fundamentally differs by the absence of a semantic link.
Hymn
The hymn is a solemn lyric poem of a programmatic, laudatory character that glorifies the homeland, freedom, lofty ideals, a deity, or a community, and is often intended for collective performance. The genre descends from ancient religious chants (the Homeric hymns, the biblical psalms) and later took on secular, patriotic content. The hymn is distinguished by elevated diction, an appellative intonation, and a clear strophic structure. In Ukrainian literature a programmatic hymn is Ivan Franko's Hymn (The Eternal Revolutionary), set to music by Mykola Lysenko. The function of the national anthem is fulfilled by Ukraine Has Not Yet Perished, on words by Pavlo Chubynsky and music by Mykhailo Verbytsky. Hymnic intonations also sound in the early poetry of Pavlo Tychyna (the collection Sunny Clarinets).
Hyperbole
Hyperbole is a trope of artistic exaggeration of the size, force, quantity or significance of an object or phenomenon for the sake of intensifying the impression and emotional expressiveness ("rivers of blood," "to wait a hundred years," "a sea of tears"). Hyperbole makes no claim to literal veracity: its aim is to strike the imagination, to emphasise an exceptional degree of a feature, to lend the image scale or pathos. It is widely represented in folklore (the epic hero), in satire, where it serves as a means of exposure, and in Romantic lyric with its gravitation toward extremely strong feelings. The opposite trope is litotes — artistic understatement. Hyperbole may combine with metaphor and simile, forming complex hyperbolic images in poetic and prose speech.
