and how do you define sublimity anyway?

[taimatsu]

I need a collective noun.

If I make a list which contains the items "the picturesque", "the romantic", "the sublime", "the grotesque" and so on, all referring to characteristics of literature, what can I call them other than 'characteristics'? They aren't all moods, I don't think they are themes... what *are* they?

Comments

[jojomojo.livejournal.com]

Aspects? I'm presuming genres wouldn't cut it.

[spencerpine.livejournal.com]

I think I define sublimity just by being myself.

G

[taimatsu]

Ah, Graham, I love your ego. The shade is so cool and refreshing after the glare of the sun.

[spencerpine.livejournal.com]

Am I the shade or the sun in this scenario?

G

[taimatsu]

I was referring to the shade of your monstrously enlarged ego, as it happens :)

[spencerpine.livejournal.com]

Ah! Got it. Bloody English students and their extended metaphors.

G

[taimatsu]

Bloody actors and their overweening self-importance. :)

[ixwin.livejournal.com]

modes? styles?

[ixwin.livejournal.com]

approaches?

[taimatsu]

I think modes is a good one :) Thank you!

[yvesilena.livejournal.com]

Aesthetics?

[the-alchemist.livejournal.com]

Just what I was going to say. This is how they are normally referred to, as I recall.

[strangederby2.livejournal.com]

I guess calling them tropes would be stretching the defination a bit.

[crocodilewings.livejournal.com]

Idiomatic adjectives?

[the-mendicant.livejournal.com]

Themes?

[tartful-dodger.livejournal.com]

Motifs, possibly? *not entirely sure*