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metonymy

metonymy: “A figure of speech that substitutes the name of a related object, person, or idea for the subject at hand. Crown is often substituted for monarchy…should not be confused with synecdoche, a substitution of a part of something for the whole or the whole for a part.” – NTC’s Dictionary of Literary Terms (1991)

This literary device is often used in poetry as a kind of metaphor that can provide context for the poem’s topic and the poet’s subjective view of the topic, yet reverberate as something more universal. In Mary Kinzie’s A Poet’s Guide to Poetry, she asserts that, “no matter what ideas fed the works, mental and emotional content must depend on objective counters and local embodiments to some degree. Without material embodiment, no spirit can come through the pattern.” Metonymy satisfies those conditions so frequently that many of us poets do it automatically or subconsciously if you want to go that far. For example, I used “flesh” to represent sin or shame in Blind With My Flesh – Judicium as a reference to how flesh is perceived in Abrahamic beliefs.

To my fellow poets and writers, have you looked back at your own work and noticed you do this too?

More Literary Terms

What is a moral criticism?

What is gothic?

What is allegory?

You Belong To Yourself (3 of Cups reversed energy) -[Mystic Meditations]

Do you ever catch yourself trying to gain the approval of others? I consider that to be a bad habit of mine. There’s nothing I need to prove and trying to make people understand where I’m coming from can be such a drag. I feel like I’m surrounded by people who don’t try to get […]

by Authentikei
bird sitting on stone cross of grave on sunny day

Autumn Post Challenge – Day 9 – I don’t have children… – [Just Me]

Prompt via The Life of Dee: Autumnal crafts for toddlers – give us ideas on what our little ones could make this season. I don’t have children. I’m not crafty. I wasn’t even allowed to do autumn crafts because when you’re raised by Christian parents, they think everything is a gateway to Satan. So I […]

by Authentikei
photo of a full moon

Moondays Should Be Mindful – [Just Me]

It’s so important to have just one day completely stress free, but that’s not easy…like ever. Considering that many of us have been “grinding” so to speak either in the workforce or in school most of our lives, we can’t just say, “I’m relaxing now,” and boom! You’re chill AF. That’s not life. That’s not […]

by Authentikei

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Modernism: “The term applied to a certain group of tendencies in literature and the arts since the late 19th century, including breaking away from established rules and traditional values, experimenting radically with form and style–sometimes even denying the need for form–and focusing on the subjective, often alienated, consciousness of the individual.” – NTC’s Dictionary of Literary Terms (1991)

You know… I think I’m going to invest in a more updated dictionary of literary terms because this one doesn’t have “postmodernism” in it and that makes me sad.

My Take On Modernism In Literature

First, I just want to let you know that we wouldn’t have had Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats (1980) with T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats (1939). Just thought that was a cool fun fact. Even posted it on Instagram.

Anyway, modernism was an age I didn’t pay much attention to in college because I was more in love with the romantics. Studying it now, holy crap did I miss a lot. As someone who loves psychoanalytic literary critique, I would’ve had a blast deconstructing James Joyce (my birthday twin, by the way), Virginia Woolf (this lady, omg), Franz Kafka, and Eliot. I remember reading Kafka’s Metamorphosis (1915) and vaguely recall discussing perception and trying to process an unstable identity with my fellow peers. Reviewing the existential turmoil and radical thought in modernism now kind of reminded me of some films from the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. My mother and I enjoy watching Hitchcock’s works, especially Vertigo (1958). There was also Whatever Happened To Baby Jane (1962) and honestly, take your pick of any Joan Crawford movie. Of course, I can’t neglect The Twilight Zone (1958). Modernism certainly had an impact on media that I personally feel, led more to a spiral of one’s personal voids than ground themselves with what is relative to them, like postmodernism sort of does (even though postmodernism is quite paradoxical, the acknowledgement of subjective/multifaceted views can help someone ground themselves a bit, I would say).

I read brief biographies on Kafka, Joyce, Woolf, and Eliot, some of the few who are seen as the pioneers of modernism. Woolf, Kafka, and Joyce had very apparent struggles that somehow polished, or perhaps unraveled, their art according to The Broadview Anthology of British Literature (2007) that I have. Like I said, I didn’t pay much attention to these guys in undergrad, but I’ll be reading their work now. I want to spiral with them and see for myself how postmodernists look back on their work and are proud of themselves for not letting their dreams and nightmares ruin them (but they’re not perfect either, tbh. I would write about postmodernism, but that’s not what the post is about… If you are interested in the comparison of modernism and postmodernism, I found this article to be pretty neat).

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