CITY DIONYSIA: See discussion under dionysia.
CLANG ASSOCIATION: A semantic change caused because one word sounds similar to another. For instance, the word fruition in Middle English meant "enjoyment." In Modern English, its meaning has changed to "completion" because it sounds like the word fruit--hence the idea of ripeness, of growing to full size, as Algeo notes (314).
CLASSICAL: The term in Western culture is usually used in reference to the art, architecture, drama, philosophy, literature, and history surrounding the Greeks and Romans between 1000 BCE and 410 BCE. Works created during the Greco-Roman period are often called classics. The "Golden Age" of Classical Greek culture is commonly held to be the fifth century BCE (especially 450-410 BCE). The term can be applied more generally to any ancient and revered writing or artwork from a specific culture; thus we refer to "Classical Chinese," "Classical Hebrew," and "Classical Arabic" works. For extended discussion, click here. To download a PDF handout placing the periods of literary history in order, click here.
CLASSICAL HAIKU: Another term for the hokku, the predecessor of the modern haiku. See hokku and haiku.
CLASSICS: See discussion under classical, above.
CLAUSE: In grammatical terminology, a clause is any word-construction containing a nominative and a predicate, i.e., a subject "doing" a verb. The term clause contrasts with the term phrase. A phrase might contain nouns as appositives or objects, and it might contain verb-like words in the form of participles or gerunds, but it crucially lacks a subject "doing" a verb. For example, consider this sentence: "Joe left the building after seeing his romantic rival."
Clause: Joe left the building
Phrase: after seeing his romantic rival
If the clause could stand by itself as a complete sentence, it is known as an independent clause. If the clause cannot stand by itself as a complete sentence (typically because it begins with a subordinating conjunction), it is said to be a dependent clause. For expanded discussion and examples, click here. For a discusion of clauses according to functional type, click here ( TBA).
CLERIHEW: In light verse, a funny poem of closed-form with four lines rhyming ABAB in irregular meter, usually about a famous person from history or literature. Typically the historical person's name forms one of the rhymes. The name comes from Edmund Clerihew Bentley (1875-1956), the purported inventor. He supposedly had a habit of scribbling down such rhymes during dull lectures at school, including this one from his chemistry class:
Sir Humphrey Davy
Abominated gravy.
He lived in the odium
Of having discovered sodium.
CLICHÉ: A hackneyed or trite phrase that has become overused. Clichés are considered bad writing and bad literature. Click here to download a PDF handout for more information. Cliché rhymes are rhymes that are considered trite or predictable. Cliché rhymes in poetry include love and dove, moon and June, trees and breeze. Sometimes, to avoid cliché rhymes, poets will go to hyperbolic lengths, such as the trisyllabic rhymes in Lord Byron's Don Juan.
CLICHÉ RHYME: Cliché rhymes are rhymes that are considered trite or predictable. They include love and dove, moon and June, trees and breeze. Sometimes, to avoid cliché rhymes, poets will go to hyperbolic lengths, such as the trisyllabic rhymes in Lord Byron's Don Juan.
CLICK: A sound common in some non-Indo-European languages in Polynesia made by clucking the tongue or drawing in air with the tongue rather than expelling it from the lungs--such as the sound represented by the letter combination tsk-tsk. Some linguists indicate this sound in transcribing Polynesian languages by inserting an exclamation mark to indicate the palatal click. For instance, the !chung tribe has a palatal click as part of its name.
CLIFFHANGER: A melodramatic narrative (especially in films, magazines, or serially published novels) in which each section "ends" at a suspenseful or dramatic moment, ensuring that the audience will watch the next film or read the next installment to find out what happens. The term comes from the common 1930's film-endings in which the main characters are literally left hanging on the edge of a cliff until the story resumes. The term cliffhanger has more loosely been applied to any situation, event, or contest in which the outcome remains uncertain until the last moment possible.
CLIMAX,
LITERARY (From Greek word for "ladder"): The
moment in a play, novel, short story, or narrative poem at which
the crisis reaches its point of greatest intensity and is thereafter
resolved. It is also the peak of emotional response from a reader
or spectator and usually the turning point in the action. The
climax usually follows or overlaps with the crisis of
a story, though some critics use the two terms synonymously.
(Contrast with anticlimax,
crisis,
and denouement
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