to my fellow travelers

this f-word post is the first since the exciting conclusion of word idol and the crowning of its champion, fourings. but fear not, fellow metallica fans. just as we can all count on ulrich and hetfield to crank out an eternal barrage of face-melting power ballads, so too can we count on ol’ raynor ganan to golden shower us with words that start with the letter f.

this week’s dictionary is one that i keep close to my heart, literally (literally literally) as it is one of only 12 reference books that is forever plugged-in to the bespoke book seat which rests on my desk, a mere 71.12 centimeters from my ticker¹. here are some select f-words from the penguin dictionary of literary terms and literary theory:

• fabulation: a term used to describe the anti-novel. fabulation involves allegory, verbal acrobatics and surrealistic effects.
• facetiae: a bookseller’s term for humorous or obscene books.
• faction: a portmanteau word which denotes fiction which is based on and combined with fact.
• fazetie: a german term for a clever, witty, well-phrased anecdote which may or may not be bawdy and/or erotic.
• federal theatre project: an enterprise inaugurated in the USA in 1935 to provide employment for people in the theatre and to offer more entertainment during the Depression.
• fellow travelers: a phrase used by Trotsky to describe soviet authors who accepted the 1917 Revolution without necessarily accepting Bolshevik ideology, who maintained that literature should not be subject to political tenets or coercion.
• festschrift: a symposium compiled in honour of a distinguished scholar or writer; an ‘homage volume.’
• ficción: a genre invented by the Argentine poet and critic Jorge Luis Borges. A ficción is a story-essay which glosses human dreams and illusions. It is ironical in tone and also didactic.
• ficcelle: Henry James’s term for the confidante character whose role within the novel is the elicit information, which is conveyed to the reader without narratorial intervention.
• flyting: a cursing match in verse²; especially between two poets who hurl abuse at each other.
• four levels of meaning: Dante explains the four levels as: (a) the literal or historical meaning; (b) the moral meaning; (c) the allegorical meaning; and (d) the anagogical.
• fustian: formerly a coarse cloth made of cotton and flax; now a thick, twilled cotton cloth. In the 16th C. it was used to describe inflated, turgid language.

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1. and if i had situs inversus, it would only be 63.5 centimeters away.
2. watch your back, bro-dog. i am still gunning for you.