Students’ Questions about Literature Page 21

A biography is important to art and literature because it can provide context and insight into an artist’s or author’s life and work.

He married Guinevere, who was the daughter of King Leodegrance.

Sirens were dangerous creatures that lived on an island and lured sailors to their death with their song.

An apostrophe is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is addressed as if it were a person or thing. It can be used to express strong emotions.

Mercury is the Roman name for the Greek god Hermes. He is the messenger of the gods and the patron of commerce and thieves.

In Norse mythology, Ragnarok is a series of events, including a great battle, that results in the death of a number of major gods and the destruction of the world.

A metaphor is a figure of speech that uses one thing to refer to another thing. It is an imaginative way of describing a concept.

The structure of an Italian sonnet is typically an octave (8 lines) followed by a sestet (6 lines), for a total of 14 rhyming lines.

In satire, writers use humor, irony, and exaggeration to point out the flaws in individuals, organizations, or society. By doing so, they hope to bring about change.

The American dream is the belief that anyone, regardless of where they were born or what class they come from, can succeed in America if they work hard enough.