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Works of this period often mirror the qualities of
works more generally associated with the label
“baroque” and sometimes feature elaborate con-
ceits.
Baroque Age:See Baroque
Baroque Period:See Baroque
Beat Generation:See Beat Movement
Beat Movement:A period featuring a group of
American poets and novelists of the 1950s and
1960s—including Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg,
Gregory Corso, William S. Burroughs, and
Lawrence Ferlinghetti—who rejected established
social and literary values. Using such techniques as
stream-of-consciousness writing and jazz-
influenced free verse and focusing on unusual or
abnormal states of mind—generated by religious
ecstasy or the use of drugs—the Beat writers aimed
to create works that were unconventional in both
form and subject matter.
Beat Poets:See Beat Movement
Beats, The:See Beat Movement
Belles-lettres:A French term meaning “fine let-
ters” or “beautiful writing.” It is often used as a
synonym for literature, typically referring to imag-
inative and artistic rather than scientific or expos-
itory writing. Current usage sometimes restricts the
meaning to light or humorous writing and appre-
ciative essays about literature.
Black Aesthetic Movement:A period of artistic
and literary development among African Ameri-
cans in the 1960s and early 1970s. This was the
first major African American artistic movement
since the Harlem Renaissance and was closely par-
alleled by the civil rights and black power move-
ments. The black aesthetic writers attempted to
produce works of art that would be meaningful to
the black masses. Key figures in black aesthetics
included one of its founders, poet and playwright
Amiri Baraka, formerly known as LeRoi Jones;
poet and essayist Haki R. Madhubuti, formerly Don
L. Lee; poet and playwright Sonia Sanchez; and
dramatist Ed Bullins.
Black Arts Movement:See Black Aesthetic Move-
ment
Black Comedy:See Black Humor
Black Humor:Writing that places grotesque ele-
ments side by side with humorous ones in an at-
tempt to shock the reader, forcing him or her to
laugh at the horrifying reality of a disordered world.
Black Mountain School:Black Mountain College
and three of its instructors—Robert Creeley, Robert
Duncan, and Charles Olson—were all influential in
projective verse. Today poets working in projec-
tive verse are referred to as members of the Black
Mountain school.
Blank Verse:Loosely, any unrhymed poetry, but
more generally, unrhymed iambic pentameter verse
(composed of lines of five two-syllable feet with
the first syllable accented, the second unaccented).
Blank verse has been used by poets since the Re-
naissance for its flexibility and its graceful, digni-
fied tone.
Bloomsbury Group:A group of English writers,
artists, and intellectuals who held informal artistic
and philosophical discussions in Bloomsbury, a
district of London, from around 1907 to the early
1930s. The Bloomsbury Group held no uniform
philosophical beliefs but did commonly express an
aversion to moral prudery and a desire for greater
social tolerance.
Bon Mot:A French term meaning “good word.” A
bon motis a witty remark or clever observation.
Breath Verse:See Projective Verse
Burlesque:Any literary work that uses exaggera-
tion to make its subject appear ridiculous, either by
treating a trivial subject with profound seriousness
or by treating a dignified subject frivolously. The
word “burlesque” may also be used as an adjective,
as in “burlesque show,” to mean “striptease act.”C
Cadence:The natural rhythm of language caused
by the alternation of accented and unaccented syl-
lables. Much modern poetry—notably free verse—
deliberately manipulates cadence to create complex
rhythmic effects.
Caesura:A pause in a line of poetry, usually oc-
curring near the middle. It typically corresponds to
a break in the natural rhythm or sense of the line
but is sometimes shifted to create special meanings
or rhythmic effects.
Canzone:A short Italian or Provencal lyric poem,
commonly about love and often set to music. The
canzonehas no set form but typically contains five
or six stanzas made up of seven to twenty lines of
eleven syllables each. A shorter, five- to ten-line
“envoy,” or concluding stanza, completes the
poem.
Carpe Diem: A Latin term meaning “seize the
day.” This is a traditional theme of poetry, espe-
cially lyrics. A carpe diempoem advises the reader
or the person it addresses to live for today and en-
joy the pleasures of the moment.Glossary of Literary Terms