British English · C1 · Unit 13
Literature
Literature
By the end you can
- Analyse a text's themes and style
- Discuss the choices an author made
- Understand a literary passage
Words and phrases
| British English | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| the narrator | the voice that tells the story | I'm not sure the narrator can be trusted. |
| a recurring theme | an idea that comes back again and again | Loss is a recurring theme in her novels. |
| open to interpretation | can be understood in different ways | The ending is open to interpretation. |
| ambiguous | with more than one possible meaning | I found the last chapter deliberately ambiguous. |
| symbolise | represent (a deeper idea; British spelling) | The sea seems to symbolise freedom. |
| the reader is left | the reader ends up | The reader is left wondering what really happened. |
| turn of phrase | a clever way of saying something | She has a wonderful turn of phrase. |
| the prose | the writing (not poetry) | The prose is sparse but beautiful. |
| a coming-of-age novel | a novel about growing up | It's a coming-of-age novel set in 1980s Belfast. |
| foreshadowing | hints about what will happen later | There's a lot of foreshadowing in the first chapter. |
| a stream of consciousness | writing that follows someone's thoughts as they come | Woolf writes in a stream of consciousness. |
| character arc | how a character changes during a story | Her character arc is very satisfying. |
Then talk it through
A literature seminar discussing the ending of a novel. In the app you have this conversation out loud or typed, with the unit's goals to tick off and corrections at the end.