Literary Lexicon - "E" Trivia Quiz

Answer: elegy

An elegy is a poem of mourning, usually written after a death or in response to a serious loss. Rather than simply saying that someone has died, an elegy often moves through grief, memory, reflection, and sometimes consolation. Many elegies begin with sorrow but gradually search for meaning, acceptance, or a way to honor what has been lost. Some remain unresolved, which can make the grief feel even more honest.

Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" is a major example. Instead of mourning one famous person, Gray reflects on the ordinary villagers buried in a rural churchyard. The poem imagines the lives they might have led and treats their quiet deaths as part of the same human fate shared by both the powerful and the unknown.

Answer: exposition

Exposition gives readers the background they need before the main conflict makes sense. It may introduce the setting, the characters, earlier events, family relationships, or the basic situation at the start of a story. Although exposition often appears near the beginning, stronger writers do not simply dump facts into the opening pages. They work the information into narration, dialogue, action, or memory so that the story keeps moving.

In "The Great Gatsby," F. Scott Fitzgerald uses Nick Carraway's narration for exposition. Nick explains his Midwestern background, his move to New York, and his connection to Tom and Daisy Buchanan. He also introduces West Egg and East Egg, two wealthy Long Island communities whose differences help shape the novel's social tensions.

Answer: enjambment

Enjambment happens when a sentence or phrase continues from one line of poetry into the next without a strong pause or end punctuation. The line break interrupts the grammar, so readers have to move forward to complete the thought. This can speed up the poem, create suspense, or place extra pressure on a word at the end or beginning of a line.

Gwendolyn Brooks uses enjambment sharply in "We Real Cool." Several lines end with the word "We," as in "We real cool. We / Left school. We / Lurk late. We / Strike straight." The repeated break after "We" gives the poem a clipped rhythm and emphasizes the speakers as a group. At the same time, the short, broken lines make their defiance feel unstable and brief.

Answer: encomium

An encomium is a formal work of praise. It may honor a person, achievement, event, place, or idea, often in elevated language. The form has roots in ancient Greek public speaking, where speakers praised heroes, rulers, cities, or virtues before an audience. In literature, an encomium can appear as a poem, speech, essay, or tribute that presents its subject as admirable and worthy of remembrance.

John Milton's sonnet "On Shakespeare" works as an encomium because it praises Shakespeare's genius and lasting reputation. Milton argues that Shakespeare does not need a stone monument because his readers already carry his memory. Their wonder becomes the real memorial.

Answer: etymology

Etymology is the study of where words come from and how their meanings, spellings, and forms have changed over time. A word may begin in Old English, Latin, Greek, French, Arabic, Sanskrit, or another language, then shift as people borrow it, shorten it, mishear it, or use it in new contexts. Etymology can reveal older meanings that are no longer obvious in everyday speech.

For example, the word "salary" comes from Latin "salarium," a payment connected with salt or with money given to Roman soldiers for salt. The modern word no longer makes most people think of salt, but its history shows how language preserves traces of older economies and customs.

Answer: ethos

In rhetoric, ethos is the appeal to credibility, character, or trust. A speaker builds ethos by showing knowledge, fairness, honesty, experience, or moral seriousness. Aristotle treated ethos as one of the three major modes of persuasion, along with logos, the appeal to reason, and pathos, the appeal to emotion. Audiences are more likely to accept an argument when they believe the speaker is informed and trustworthy.

Martin Luther King Jr. builds ethos in "Letter from Birmingham Jail" by explaining why he is in Birmingham and by presenting himself as both a minister and a leader in the nonviolent civil rights movement. When he writes, "I am in Birmingham because injustice is here," he connects his presence to moral duty rather than personal ambition.

Answer: epistolary

An epistolary work tells its story through letters, diary entries, emails, documents, or other written records. This structure can make the story feel private and immediate because readers see events through the characters' own words. It can also make the truth harder to pin down, since each writer may exaggerate, hide details, misunderstand events, or present a biased version of what happened.

Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" uses an epistolary frame. The novel opens with letters from Captain Walton, who writes to his sister while traveling in the Arctic. Inside that frame, Victor Frankenstein tells his own story, and later the creature gives his account as well. These nested voices let the reader compare different versions concerning the novel's themes: ambition, guilt, loneliness, and revenge.

Answer: eponym

An eponym is a person's name, real or fictional, that becomes attached to something else. The name might be used for a place, invention, discovery, disease, movement, object, or idea. Some eponyms stay close to their original source, while others become so common that people forget the person behind the word.

"Orwellian" is a literary eponym based on George Orwell, especially his novel "1984." The word describes conditions associated with surveillance, propaganda, censorship, political manipulation, and official lies. When people call a policy or situation "Orwellian," they are not just naming Orwell; they are invoking the kind of oppressive world his fiction warned against.

Answer: epilogue

An epilogue is a closing section that comes after the main action of a literary work. It may show what happens to the characters later, explain the consequences of the plot, or give the audience a final reflection on the story's meaning. Some epilogues provide neat closure, while others leave readers with a new question or a darker sense of what the ending has cost.

In "Romeo and Juliet," the final speech by the Prince functions like an epilogue. After Romeo and Juliet die, he reflects on the destruction caused by the feud between the Montagues and Capulets. His words turn the lovers' deaths into a public lesson about the damage caused by inherited conflict.

Answer: euphemism

A euphemism replaces language that sounds too blunt, harsh, embarrassing, or offensive with something softer or more socially acceptable. People use euphemisms for uncomfortable topics, some of those including death, illness, money, bodily functions, war, etc. Sometimes they are kind, as when "passed away" softens "died." At other times, they can be evasive or manipulative.

George Orwell's "Animal Farm" shows the darker use of euphemism. The phrase "readjustment of rations" means that the animals will receive less food, but the wording makes the reduction sound technical and reasonable. In that case, polite language does not make the situation kinder; it helps those in power hide the truth.