Trickster: A character or figure common in
Native American and African literature
who uses his ingenuity to defeat enemies
and escape difficult situations. Tricksters
are most often animals, such as the spider,
hare, or coyote, although they may take the
form of humans as well.
Trimeter:SeeMeter
Triple Rhyme:SeeRhyme
Trochee:SeeFoot
U
Understatement:SeeIrony
Unities:Strict rules of dramatic structure, formu-
lated by Italian and French critics of the Ren-
aissance and based loosely on the principles
of drama discussed by Aristotle in hisPoetics.
Foremost among these rules were the three
unities of action, time, and place that com-
pelled a dramatist to: (1) construct a single
plot with a beginning, middle, and end that
details the causal relationships of action and
character; (2) restrict the action to the events
of a single day; and (3) limit the scene to a
single place or city. The unities were observed
faithfully by continental European writers
until the Romantic Age, but they were never
regularly observed in English drama. Modern
dramatists are typically more concerned with
a unity of impression or emotional effect than
with any of the classical unities.
Urban Realism:A branch of realist writing that
attempts to accurately reflect the often harsh
facts of modern urban existence.
Utopia:A fictional perfect place, such as ‘‘para-
dise’’ or ‘‘heaven.’’
Utopian:SeeUtopia
Utopianism:SeeUtopia
V
Verisimilitude: Literally, the appearance of
truth. In literary criticism, the term refers
to aspects of a work of literature that seem
true to the reader.
Vers de societe:SeeOccasional Verse
Vers libre:SeeFree Verse
Verse:A line of metered language, a line of a
poem, or any work written in verse.
Versification:The writing of verse. Versification
may also refer to the meter, rhyme, and
other mechanical components of a poem.
Victorian:Refers broadly to the reign of Queen
Victoria of England (1837-1901) and to any-
thing with qualities typical of that era. For
example, the qualities of smug narrowmind-
edness, bourgeois materialism, faith in social
progress, and priggish morality are often
considered Victorian. This stereotype is con-
tradicted by such dramatic intellectual devel-
opments as the theories of Charles Darwin,
Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud (which
stirred strong debates in England) and the
critical attitudes of serious Victorian writers
like Charles Dickens and George Eliot. In
literature, the Victorian Period was the
great age of the English novel, and the latter
part of the era saw the rise of movements
such as decadence and symbolism.
Victorian Age:SeeVictorian
Victorian Period:SeeVictorianW
Weltanschauung:A German term referring to a
person’s worldview or philosophy.
Weltschmerz:A German term meaning ‘‘world
pain.’’ It describes a sense of anguish about
the nature of existence, usually associated
with a melancholy, pessimistic attitude.Z
Zarzuela:A type of Spanish operetta.
Zeitgeist:A German term meaning ‘‘spirit of the
time.’’ It refers to the moral and intellectual
trends of a given era.Glossary of Literary Terms