Hello everyone. Welcome back to #theorythursday.

Today I am going to talk about what an epigraph is.

Let’s dive in.

What is an epigraph?

Have you ever opened a book to find a phrase or a quote at the beginning of the story?

Most people have probably read many epigraphs without realising that there is a term for that quote that was at the beginning of a book.

That quote at the start of the book wasn’t just a quote, it was an epigraph.

An epigraph is a quote, phrase, or sometimes even a paragraph, found at the beginning of a book, article, or document.

Why do authors include epigraphs?

An epigraph can set the tone for what the text is about. Usually an epigraph can help establish the theme and tone of a text, and sometimes the epigraph can even help to contextualise the work.

Why is this important?

I personally love when a text has an epigraph, particularly if the author has used a quote at the beginning of their work because in my opinion, this gives readers some insights into the author. When we see that an author has chosen to quote someone, this tells me that this quote has resonated with the author somehow, enough that they chose to use it in their own work. There is something about seeing who someone chooses to quote that can tell us a lot about them, it tells us what kind of writers that the author admires, and it can also give hints about what the style of the work might be like, or whose style of writing the author enjoys.

I think that knowing the term epigraph simply expands one’s knowledge of literary terms.

If you are ever at a pub quiz, and one of the questions asks, “What is the quote at the beginning of a novel called?”, now you know the answer. You’d be amazed by what might come up in a pub quiz, the last time I participated in one, the theme was horror and my knowledge of gothic literature certainly got us a few points.

One of my favourite epigraphs can be found in Neil Gaiman’s Coraline.

Gaiman begins his novel with a quote from G.K. Chesterton.

Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.

G.K. Chesterton.

This has been Theory Thursday. I hope you enjoyed it.

If you were writing a novel, what would your epigraph be? I’d love to know.

Kate xo.

Hello everyone. Welcome to another #theorythursday discussion.

Last week I talked about acrostics. Check that out if you haven’t already. Today I am going to talk about another aspect of grammar. I am going to talk about word order and why it is important.

Let’s dive in.

What does word order mean?

Word order refers to the way words are traditionally arranged in a sentence.

The most common or standard word order that one will come across in English is Subject, Verb, Object.

You can break this down into letters so that it is easier to remember – S-V-O.

I am going to create a few examples.

The man (subject) parked (verb) his new car (object) in his driveway.

The girl (subject) ran (verb) the race (object) and won.

The subject is what the sentence is about, which is why the subject tends to come first in the word order. The verb usually follows because a verb is a doing word and so it makes sense for the verb to follow the subject because that tells us what the subject is doing.

Here is another example.

The dog (subject) digs (verb) holes (object) in the garden.

Why is word order important?

Word order is important because word order is what leads to a sentence making sense.

You can say “The dog eats dinner at seven”, because grammatically that makes sense. You cannot say “Eats the dog at seven dinner”, because in this order, these words are messy, they don’t make much sense although you can still find meaning in those words.

When the word order is correct, the sentence will make much more sense and it will be easier to read. It will be cleaner. It will be easier for a reader to follow.

It may seem obvious or insignificant or even a little boring, but word order is one of things we naturally learn and sometimes we don’t know there is a name for it. When we learn to speak and when we are in school, we are taught to compose sentences and then when we get older, we do this naturally and we might not even realise that word order is in fact an aspect of grammar, and an important one too. If the word order is changed, then an entire sentence’s meaning can be changed and it is important to be able to recognise this as a reader.

This has been Theory Thursday. Happy Friday Eve.

Kate xo.

Hello everyone. Welcome back to #theorythursday.

I bought myself The Complete Illustrated Works of Lewis Carroll a few weeks ago. It is a beautiful book and I’m so happy to have it on my classics shelf. 

The illustrations were done by John Tenniel and I would argue that his illustrations are just as iconic as Carroll’s writing. 

I have a framed drawing of Alice sitting at the Hatter’s tea party and I would suggest that this image is one of the book’s most recognised images, alongside the image of Alice standing before the Cheshire Cat as he peers down at her from his tree. 

The book features Carroll’s stories, verses, comic writing, puzzles and acrostics. I have really enjoyed reading the acrostic poems in this book so I have decided that today I would talk about acrostic verse. Let’s dive in. 

What is an acrostic poem? 

An acrostic poem is a poem in which the first letter of each line spells out a word. 

The first letter of each line might spell out a name, a message, a word, or sometimes even the alphabet. 

Here’s an example of an acrostic poem in which the first letter of each line spells a word. 

(Brief disclaimer – I am making up this example myself, and I will not claim to be a poet, however I like to create my own examples when I am explaining things.)

Summer is on its way. We will sit in the sun. 

Under the trees, in the shade, we will talk, laugh, drink, and smile. 

Nothing will ruin our days, we will be happy, wild, and stress free. Summer is on its way. 

The first letter of each line spells the word sun. 

There are different types of acrostic poems. 

Usually the first letter of each line is what spells out the message; however, the letters can be found anywhere in the poem so it becomes almost like reading a code. The letters will always be capitalised and sometimes they can be found at the end of a line or in different places in a line. 

Here’s another made up example. 

In summer, the air is sweet and people are Kinder. 

In summer, the Air is hot and as we walk the beach the breeze is filled with salt from the sea. 

In summer, we Talk all night because it does not matter how much or how little we sleep. 

In summer, everyonE smiles a little brighter and laughs a little louder. 

If you look at this example I made up, you’ll see that I’ve spelled my name as the letters I’ve chosen to highlight spell Kate. 

Why is it important to learn about acrostic verse? 

I think that an acrostic poem is a really fun poem to learn about. I always say that the more you know, the more you understand, and the more you understand, the more you enjoy something so I think that learning about acrostic verse simply widens one’s knowledge of literature and literary forms, but I also think that learning about acrostics is just fun. It is a creative form as you have to think carefully about how you’ll phrase certain things and where you will place your letters in order to spell out your chosen name, word, or message. I think it is really interesting to be able to read in the code that an acrostic verse creates as if you didn’t know why these seemingly random letters were capitalised then you could miss out. I think that knowing about acrostics and how they work can add to your enjoyment when it comes to reading the works of someone like Carroll because the writing is whimsical and nonsensical and this use of acrostic only adds to that. 

I hope you enjoyed today’s Theory Thursday discussion. I really enjoyed writing it. If you have any questions then please do let me know. 

Happy Friday Eve everyone. 

Kate xo.

Hello everyone. Welcome back to #theorythursday. I feel recharged after my break and I am so excited to keep moving onwards and upwards. I hope you all have a great month.

Today I am talking about the active voice in a text so let’s dive right in.

What is an active voice? What does this mean?

I have spoken before about verbs, nouns, adjectives, and how in a sentence there is usually a subject. When a sentence is written in the active voice, this means that the subject of that sentence will be performing an action.

I will now create an example.

“The dog chased the ball.”

“The waiter brought the drinks.”

Why is this important?

When an author chooses to use the active voice, it is usually so that it is clear to the reader who is taking action in the piece. Using active voice when writing is also a helpful tool because sentences tend to become shorter which makes them easier to follow.

I personally think that using active voice can give a character more agency. For example, if I were to write something like this – “The girl ran from her assailant as fast as she could, determined to escape unharmed.” – In this very short sentence, I have given a female character a lot of agency, she is running from someone, she is determined to get away, this demonstrates that she is very brave and if I were a reader, reading something like this in a text, I would hope that she does in fact get away.

This has been Theory Thursday. If anyone ever has any questions, please do let me know.

Happy Friday Eve.

Kate xo.

Hello everyone. Welcome back to Theory Thursday. I took an unplanned break last week as it had been an extremely busy day and I will never publish anything on Katelovesliterature.com that I am not 100% happy with. 

There is a #theatretrip post coming up soon as last week I went to see the incredible Les Misérables in the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre. 

Today I am talking about the concept of tense in English literature so let’s dive in. 

What does the term “tense” mean? 

In English grammar, the term “tense” refers to time. Texts will operate in categories of time, the past, the present, and in the future so the novel will take place in the past-tense, the present-tense, or the future-tense. 

Past, present, and future are the three main tenses. There are different categories within each tense, however that is a more complex topic for another day. 

The past-tense is used to describe things that happened before the present. The present-tense is used to describe things that are happening in the current moment, and the future-tense is used when talking about things that will happen in the future. 

I am going to make up some examples below. 

Examples of past-tense:

“I walked to the shop yesterday.” 

“Three years ago, we moved house.” 

“I lost my purse last week.”

Examples of present-tense:

“I am reading a very good book.”

“It is raining very heavily so I can’t go outside at the moment.”

“I am doing my homework while my dinner is in the oven.”

Examples of future-tense:

“I am going to sing in the talent show next week.”

“Tomorrow I am going to the library to study.”

“I will buy a new jacket when I go shopping next week.”

Why is it important to understand the concept of tense? 

I think it is important to understand the concept of tense because tense tells readers when something happens in a narrative. The use of tense can connect the past to the present, or it can inform us about the future. Deciding which tense to write in is an important decision as it can impact how a story is told. Understanding tense means that you understand another literary technique and having a broad understanding of a wide range of techniques enhances our understanding and enjoyment of literature in general. 

This has been Theory Thursday. I hope you enjoyed it. Do you have a favourite tense? Do you prefer narratives that take place in the past vs.in the present for example? Let me know. 

Kate xo.

Hello everyone. Welcome to another #theorythursday. Last week I talked about the concept of suspending one’s disbelief because I was so inspired by seeing The Lion King in the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre. Check that out if you haven’t already. 

Today I am continuing on with my #backtobasics series. I’ve already talked about verbs and nouns, so be sure to read those discussions too if grammar is something that you want to brush up on. 

Today I am going to be talking about adjectives. So let’s dive in. 

What is an adjective? 

An adjective is a word that is used when an author wants to describe a noun. When I was talking about verbs, I said that the easiest way to explain what a verb is would be to say that a verb is a doing word. I would say that the easiest way to explain what an adjective is would be to say that an adjective is a describing word so in a sentence, the adjective would come before the noun. 

I’m going to make up an example. 

“The beautiful necklace sparkled in the case.” 

In this sentence, the necklace is the noun, because a noun is a person, place or a thing. A necklace is a thing, so the adjective in this sentence is the word “beautiful”, because this word is describing the necklace. 

Other examples of adjectives can be found in sentences such as: 

“The red door opened with a loud creak.” 

In this sentence, the word “red” is the adjective because this tells us that the door, the noun, is red. 

An adjective can also be used when an author is describing how many there are of something. 

An example of this can be found in a sentence such as “It looked like there were a thousand stars in the sky.”

In this sentence, the word “thousand” is the adjective because it is telling us how many stars there are, and stars are things, so the word “stars” is the noun. 

Why is it important to know what an adjective is? 

I say the same thing every time when I am talking about basic aspects of grammar such as nouns, verbs, and now adjectives too. It is important to understand these basics because they can be found so often in writing. When you are a student, it is important to know what these terms mean so that you can recognise nouns, verbs, and adjectives in passages of writing. I also think that refreshing one’s memory on certain terms can be really helpful in general, because when we learn the basics in school, it can often be assumed later that we remember everything perfectly, but sometimes that isn’t the case, which is why I’ve decided to break things down in a back to basics approach. 

This has been Theory Thursday. Happy Friday Eve.

Kate xo.

Hello everyone and welcome back to another #theorythursday. Last week I started a series that I am calling a #backtobasics series. I began by talking about verbs. Today I am continuing on with this #backtobasics series and I am going to talk about nouns.

Let’s dive into Theory Thursday.

What is a noun?

A noun is a word that is used when an author is referring to a person, a place, or a thing. This is the most straightforward explanation of what a noun is.

Let’s take a look at these two sentences that I am making up to use as an example, “The man walked into the house. He was carrying a heavy shopping bag.” The word “man” is a noun as this sentence is referring to a person. The word “house” is another noun as this is the place the man is going to, and the word “bag” is a noun as a shopping bag is a thing. The bag is the thing that the man is carrying.

A noun can also be a word that is used to refer to an idea and this can become slightly more complicated. The idea of justice, the idea of friendship, the idea of honesty etc., these are ideas that are described as being abstract nouns because these are things that cannot be physically held or seen. You can’t see love, you can’t hold love, you can’t physically touch love, but you feel it, and you can express it through actions and words, but love is a feeling, as is anger and fear etc.

Why is it important to understand what a noun is?

As I said in last week’s discussion when I was talking about verbs, I think it is always useful to have a refresher on what certain things mean. This #backtobasics series that I am exploring will be more useful if you are a student as it is simply covering basic ideas that can sometimes get forgotten over time. If you need to write an essay, or you are studying a lot, then it is important to understand what nouns are and what they mean, and so hopefully students may find these particular Theory Thursday discussions helpful.

I also think that sometimes explanations of what these terms mean can be more complicated than they need to be, which is why I explain everything in my own words and create my own examples so that anyone who is interested in literary theory can read about it in a way that I hope is accessible to everyone. You don’t need to have studied English Literature before in order to read my theory discussions which is sometimes the case. I start from scratch and I aim to explain everything in the most straightforward way possible because I believe that having an understanding of literary theory, even down to the basics, will enhance one’s reading experience.

This has been Theory Thursday. I hope you all enjoyed it. I hope you have a lovely weekend. If there is any aspect of literary theory that you find particularly confusing, then please do let me know because I may be able to help.

Kate xo.