Glossary
Glossary
A glossary of literary terms — from metaphor to free verse.
Literature01Versification
Rhythm, metre, rhyme and the stanza.
44 termsOpen
Literature02Tropes & Figures
Metaphor, metonymy and rhetorical figures.
43 termsOpen
Literature03Stylistics
Language, register and stylistic devices.
52 termsOpen
Literature04Genres & Forms
Novel, novella, sonnet — genres and folk forms.
91 termsOpen
Literature05Movements
Baroque, romanticism, modernism, avant-garde.
38 termsOpen
Literature06Composition
Plot, fabula, conflict and structure.
50 termsOpen
Literature07Character & Image
Hero, character, lyric subject, archetype.
30 termsOpen
Literature08Theory & Criticism
Literary theory, criticism and book culture.
68 termsOpen
Genres & Forms
← All dimensions
Adventure Novel
The adventure novel is a variety of the novel whose plot is built on a series of unusual, sharp, and often dangerous events — travels, adve…
Ballad
The ballad is a short lyric-epic work with a tense, dramatic plot of fantastic, historical, or heroic content, in which the narrative outli…
Bildungsroman
The Bildungsroman (German for 'novel of formation') is a generic variety of the novel that traces the spiritual, psychological, and moral d…
Buvalshchyna (Memorate)
The buvalshchyna (memorate) is a genre of folk non-fairytale prose — a short oral narrative about a supposedly real event that the narrator…
Bylyna
The bylyna is a genre of Old Rus' heroic epic — an epic song about the bohatyrs (heroic warriors) and their exploits, formed in the era of…
Chronicle
The chronicle (litopys) is a historical-narrative genre of early writing — a year-by-year exposition of historical events in which the docu…
Chronicle Novel
The chronicle novel is a generic variety of the novel in which events are set out in their chronological sequence, mostly on the model of a…
Chumak Song
The chumak song is a thematic group of Ukrainian folk lyric linked to the life of the chumaks — traders who hauled salt and fish by ox-cart…
Comedy
Comedy is a dramatic genre in which reality is depicted in a laughable, exposing light: through satire, humor, and irony it ridicules human…
Contamination
Contamination in folklore is the combining, within one work, of elements (motifs, episodes, images, formulas) from two or more different wo…
Cossack Song
The Cossack song is a thematic stratum of Ukrainian folk song that arose in the era of the Zaporozhian Sich and the Cossack wars (16th–18th…
Detective Fiction
Detective fiction is a prose genre whose plot is built on the solving of a mysterious crime (most often a murder) through logical analysis,…
Diary
The diary is a documentary-artistic genre, a form of keeping dated first-person records of events, thoughts, and experiences made directly…
Drama (literary kind)
Drama as a literary kind consists of works intended for stage embodiment, in which reality appears through the action and speech of charact…
Dramatic Poem
The dramatic poem is a synthetic genre on the border of drama and the lyric-epic: a short dramatic work in verse with a sharp ideational co…
Duma
The duma is a genre of Ukrainian heroic epic — a lyric-epic song of the Cossack era, performed by kobzars and lirnyks to the accompaniment…
Dystopia
Dystopia is a genre of prose (more rarely dramatic or poetic) literature that depicts an imaginary future society built on seemingly perfec…
Elegy
The elegy is a lyric poem of a meditative, reflective character, imbued with a mood of sorrow, of contemplation upon the transience of life…
Epic (literary kind)
The epic is one of the three literary kinds (alongside the lyric and the drama), depicting events as something objective and external to th…
Epic Novel
The epic novel is the largest and most complex variety of the novel, combining the scale of a people's national-historical destiny with a d…
Epigram
The epigram is a short, witty poem of satirical or jesting content, directed against a particular person, phenomenon, or vice, which ends w…
Epistolary Novel
The epistolary novel is a novel built as a correspondence between characters (or as a diary, or a collection of documents), in which there…
Essay
The essay is a short prose work of free composition that expresses the author's individual impressions, reflections, and reasoning on a par…
Fable
The fable is a short allegorical work of didactic content, mostly in verse, in which the characters are animals, plants, or objects embodyi…
Fairy Tale
The fairy tale is an epic genre of oral folk creativity and literature, a narrative of invented, fantastic events in which magical forces a…
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fantastic literature that creates a coherent invented world in which magic, mythological creatures, and supernatural…
Farce
Farce is a comic dramatic genre of a light, entertaining character, built on external comedy, buffoonery, sharp situations, misunderstandin…
Feuilleton
The feuilleton is an artistic-publicistic genre — a short newspaper or magazine work of topical content, in which a current social problem…
Fixed Epithet
The fixed (permanent) epithet is a traditional descriptor, established in folk creativity, that invariably accompanies a certain word regar…
Folk Anecdote
The folk anecdote is a short oral humorous or satirical work with a witty, unexpected ending (a punch line, or pointe), which mocks human f…
Folk Ballad
The folk ballad is a lyric-epic song with a dramatically tense plot, centered on a tragic family or love event: betrayal, poisoning, death,…
Folk Drama
Folk drama is a kind of oral folk creativity that unites word, action, song, dance, costume, and play before an audience; a syncretic spect…
Folk Motif
A motif is the smallest indivisible content unit of a folklore (and literary) work — a stable plot element that recurs in different works:…
Folk Tale
The folk tale is a prose folklore genre oriented toward invention, built on established plots, images, and formulas.
Folk Variant
A variant is one of the equally valid forms in which a folklore work exists, differing from other forms in particular details of text, plot…
Folklorism
Folklorism is the conscious use of folklore (images, motifs, genres, poetics, rhythmics) in professional artistic creation.
Formulaic Opening (Zachyn)
The zachyn is the established beginning of a folklore work — a stable verbal formula that introduces the listener into the world of the nar…
Gothic Novel
The Gothic novel is a variety of the novel that arose in English literature of the second half of the eighteenth century and cultivated an…
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 w…
Historical Song
The historical song is a lyric-epic genre that reflects concrete historical events and figures through the eyes of the people.
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 gen…
Hymn
The hymn is a solemn lyric poem of a programmatic, laudatory character that glorifies the homeland, freedom, lofty ideals, a deity, or a co…
Idyll
The idyll is a short lyric-epic work depicting the carefree, harmonious life of a person in the lap of nature — mostly rural, pastoral life…
Incantation (Zamovliannia)
Zamovliannia are magical verbal formulas by which, in folk belief, one influenced nature, health, fate, or an enemy.
Kobzar
The kobzar was a Ukrainian folk singer-musician who performed dumas, historical songs, psalms, and satirical songs to the accompaniment of…
Koliadka
The koliadka is a ritual song of the Christmas cycle, performed by carolers who go house to house from Christmas Eve and Christmas (since 2…
Kolomyika
The kolomyika is a short Ukrainian folk ditty from the Prykarpattia region, built on a stanza of two fourteen-syllable lines (4+4+6).
Kupala Song
The Kupala song is a ritual song of the summer cycle, tied to the feast of Ivan Kupala (since 2024, on the night of June 23–24; July 7 by t…
Lament (Holosinnia)
Holosinnia is an improvisational funeral lament, one of the most archaic genres of ritual folklore, expressing grief for the deceased.
Legend
A legend is a folklore prose work of fantastic or religious-didactic content that narrator and listener treat as plausibly true, unlike a t…
Lirnyk
The lirnyk was a Ukrainian wandering folk singer who performed religious psalms, kanty, dumas, and historical and humorous songs to the acc…
Lullaby
The lullaby is a song by which a child is soothed to sleep; one of the most ancient and intimate genres of family lyric.
Lyric (literary kind)
The lyric is a literary kind that renders reality through the direct expression of a person's feelings, experiences, and reflections; at it…
Lyrical Folk Song
The lyrical folk song is a non-ritual song that expresses a person's feelings, moods, and experiences apart from any connection to a specif…
Melodrama
Melodrama is a dramatic genre in which a sharp, tense plot with a stark opposition of good and evil, virtue and vice, is accompanied by emp…
Memoir
The memoir (recollections) is a documentary-artistic genre in which the author narrates real events of the past that he witnessed or took p…
Myth
Myth is the most ancient form of collective folk consciousness and a narrative genre that, in figurative form, explains the origin of the w…
Narrative Poem
The narrative poem (poema) is a large lyric-epic work in verse in which an extended plot is combined with the disclosure of the feelings an…
Novel
The novel is a large epic prose genre with a ramified plot, a broad cast of characters, and an extended fictional time that embraces the fa…
Novella
The povist (a mid-length tale, close to the novella) is an epic prose genre of medium length that occupies an intermediate place between th…
Ode
The ode is a solemn lyric poem that glorifies an eminent person, a significant event, a lofty idea, or a phenomenon, distinguished by an el…
Oral Folk Art
Oral folk art (folklore) is the collective, anonymous, orally transmitted artistic creation of a people, passed from generation to generati…
Pamphlet
The pamphlet is a sharp publicistic-satirical work of an exposing character, directed against a particular social-political system, ideolog…
Parable
The parable is a short didactic work of allegorical content in which a generalized moral-philosophical or religious truth is hidden behind…
Picaresque Novel
The picaresque novel is a generic variety of the novel that arose in sixteenth-century Spain and recounts the adventures of a resourceful r…
Prose Poem
The prose poem is a lyric genre of an intermediate, synthetic nature: in outward form it is a prose text, not divided into verse lines and…
Proverb
A proverb is a short, complete, rhythmically organized saying of folk wisdom with a didactic content, possessing both literal and figurativ…
Prymovka (Ritual Rhyme)
The prymovka (ritual rhyme) is a minor genre of oral folk creativity — a short, mostly rhymed and rhythmicized formula that accompanies a c…
Psychological Novel
The psychological novel is a variety of the novel in which the chief object of depiction becomes the hero's inner world: the motives of act…
Psychological Parallelism
Psychological parallelism is an artistic device characteristic of folk lyric, in which an image of nature is juxtaposed with a person's emo…
Recruit Song
The recruit (soldier) song is a thematic group of Ukrainian social-domestic lyric that arose after the introduction of conscription in impe…
Riddle
A riddle is a folklore genre — a concise allegorical description of an object or phenomenon that must be guessed from metaphorical hints: '…
Ritual Song
The ritual song is a general term for songs genetically linked to folk rites of the calendar and family cycles, accompanying ritual actions…
Saying (Prykazka)
A prykazka is a fixed figurative expression that, unlike a proverb, does not form a complete judgment but only aptly characterizes a phenom…
Science Fiction
Science fiction is a literary genre that builds its fictional world on scientific or technical hypotheses, depicting the possible consequen…
Shchedrivka
The shchedrivka is a ritual glorifying song performed on Shchedryi Vechir (31 December; 13 January for those who keep the Julian calendar).
Short Story
The novela (short story) is a small epic genre with a sharp, often unexpected plot, a compressed composition, and an expressive concluding…
Sketch
The narys (sketch) is an artistic-publicistic genre on the border of literature and journalism that gives a prompt, documentarily reliable…
Social-Psychological Novel
The social-psychological novel is a variety of the novel that combines a broad depiction of social life, social relations, and conflicts wi…
Tale
The opovidannia (tale) is a small epic prose genre depicting a particular incident or episode from the life of one or several characters; i…
Tall Tale (Nebylytsia)
The nebylytsia is a genre of humorous folklore — a short work built on deliberate nonsense, illogicality, and the violation of the laws of…
Tongue-Twister
The tongue-twister (skoromovka) is a genre of children's folklore — a short rhythmicized phrase or verse built on an accumulation of sound…
Tragedy
Tragedy is a dramatic genre based on an irreconcilable, insoluble conflict of an outstanding personality with circumstances, society, or fa…
Tragicomedy
Tragicomedy is a dramatic genre that combines features of tragedy and comedy: a serious, at times tragic conflict is revealed together with…
Usmishka
The usmishka ('little smile', a humorous sketch) is an original genre of Ukrainian humorous-satirical short prose, inaugurated by Ostap Vys…
Utopia
Utopia is a genre of imaginative literature that portrays the image of an ideal, perfectly ordered society built on principles of justice,…
Verse Epistle
The verse epistle (poslannia) is a lyric or lyric-publicistic work in the form of the poet's address to a particular person, a group of peo…
Verse Novel
The verse novel is a synthetic lyric-epic genre that combines the epic breadth of a novelistic plot with the lyric element of verse languag…
Vertep (Folk Puppet Drama)
The vertep is a Ukrainian folk puppet theater on Christmas themes that arose in the 17th–18th centuries among wandering clerics and student…
Vesnianka
The vesnianka (also hayivka or hahilka) is a ritual song of the spring cycle by which a community summoned spring, warmth, and the awakenin…
Wedding Song
The wedding song is a ritual song of the family cycle that accompanies every stage of the traditional Ukrainian wedding — matchmaking, betr…
