Tuesday, October 18, 2011

LitTerms

Cosmic Irony: Noun: the idea that fate, destiny, or a god controls and toys with human hopes and expectations; also, the belief that the universe is so large and man is so small that the universe is indifferent to the plight of man; also called irony of fate.

Example: In Romeo and Juliet, all they wanted was to be together. They desired each other so much that they didn’t want to live apart. However, being a part of two different families that were in a feud would not allow them to be together. Their human hopes were toyed with – and their so-thought fate to be together was controlled.

It’s important to know the use of cosmic irony because it’s used all the time. It’s a common thing to see in books and poems that people’s hopes and expectations are toyed with.


Denotation: Noun: the literal or primary meaning of a word, in contrast to the feelings or ideas that the word suggests.

Example: The words home, house, residence and dwelling all have the same denotation – where a person lives. 

It’s important to know what denotation is because it’s needed to know the difference between denotation and connotation. Like in the example above, the words home, house, residence and dwelling all have the same denotation, but the connotation of each word could be very different.

No comments:

Post a Comment