What is a corrido? What is the difference between a tanka, a choka and a renga? What does it mean when you're doing the dozens? What is a Bildungsroman?

This dictionary of literary terms provides the student, scholar, librarian, or researcher with definitions, explanations, and models of the styles and forms of works of literature. Along with novel, tone, tragedy, and scansion are haiku, noh, griot, and other terms that derive from works long undervalued by the literary world. The examples come from a very broad field of authors--reflecting a spirit of inclusion of all people, races and literary traditions. The editors have elected to quote from literary examples that students are likely to have read and to which they most readily relate (for instance, Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings was preferred over a work such as Paradise Lost, which fewer students have read and understand). Included is a listing of poets laureate to the Library of Congress, literature winners of the Pulitzer and Nobel prizes, Booker McConnell Prize winners, a time line of world literature and an index.