A posteriori

JUSTIFICATION, THEOLOGICAL: TBA

JUSTIFICATION, TYPOGRAPHIC: In printing and typing, the placement of letters and spacing so that the end or beginning of each line is perfectly aligned with one or more margins on that page. A "left-justified margin" (like on this webpage) has the text on the left-hand side aligned perfectly with the left margin and a "ragged right" on the right-hand margin, where a varying amount of blank space finishes each line. A "right-justified margin" is the opposite. It has the text on the right-hand-side aligned perfectly with the right margin and a "ragged left" on the left-hand-side where a varying amount of blank space appears before each line. A "perfectly or fully justified text" has both the left- and right- hand edges of the text perfectly aligned with the margins. This arrangement becomes possible only by slightly altering the spacing betwen every word and every letter in the line or by making minute adjustments in the font size from line to line.

A. C. Baugh suggests that one factor (among many) leading to so much variety in Renaissance spelling was the nature of the printing press. Because early printers liked to perfectly align their pages, they would take advantage of various spellings, double-letters, and optional letters to adjust each line's length.

NB: Students using MLA format should remember that MLA format requires your papers to be written with a left-justified margin--not a fully justified margin on both sides. You can adjust this in Microsoft Word's settings. Your teacher will be annoyed if you use fully justified text, because this will alter the spacing between words in every single line and this makes it much harder to determine correct spacing in your typography.

JUVENALIAN SATIRE: See discussion under satire.

JUVENILE: Publishers use the term juvenile or children's literature to designate books suitable for children, though Joseph Shipley reminds us these are "not necessarily childish books" (345). Typically the main character is either a child or a character with which a child can identify, the themes are aimed at children (and often didactic in nature), and the vocabulary or sentence structure is simple enough for young readers to grasp readily. Samples include Rudyard Kipling's Kim, Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer, L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables, and R. L. Stevenson's Robinson Crusoe.

JUVENILIA (Latin: "things from youth"): Not to be confused with Juvenalian satire or juvenile literature, above, juvenilia refers to works a famous author or poet wrote while still a child or teenager. These works are typically marked by immaturity in thought and subject-matter as well as a lack of fully developed style, but they serve as interesting contrasts with the adult writings of that creator or illustrations of the writer's development. Examples include Lord Byron's Hours of Idleness (written at perhaps age eighteen or nineteen), Alexander Pope's Pastorals (written at age sixteen), and Dryden's "Upon the Death of Lord Hastings" (written at age eighteen).

JUXTAPOSITION: The arrangement of two or more ideas, characters, actions, settings, phrases, or words side-by-side or in similar narrative moments for the purpose of comparison, contrast, rhetorical effect, suspense, or character development. See also antithesis, bathos, foil, mirror passage, and mirror scene.

KAIDAN: Traditional Japanese ghost stories, especially folktales from the Edo period.

KANJI: A set of Japanese ideographs. The Japanese derived them from the older Chinese ideographs.

KATHARSIS: An alternative spelling of catharsis (see above).

KECHUMARAN: A family of non-Indo-European languages spoken in the Andes of South America.

KENNING: A form of compounding in Old English, Old Norse, and Germanic poetry. In this poetic device, the poet creates a new compound word or phrase to describe an object or activity. Specifically, this compound uses mixed imagery (catachresis) to describe the properties of the object in indirect, imaginative, or enigmatic ways. The resulting word is somewhat like a riddle since the reader must stop and think for a minute to determine what the object is. Kennings may involve conjoining two types of dissimilar imagery, extended metaphors, or mixed metaphors. Kennings were particularly common in Old English literature and Viking poetry. The most famous example is hron-rade or hwal-rade ("whale-road") as a poetic reference to the sea. Other examples include "Thor-Weapon" as a reference to a smith's hammer, "battle-flame" as a reference to the way light shines on swords, "gore-bed" for a battlefield filled with motionless bodies, and "word-hoard" for a man's eloquence. In Njal's Saga we find Old Norse kennings like shield-tester for warrior, or prayer-smithy for a man's heart, or head-anvil for the skull. In Beowulf, we also find Anglo-Saxon banhus ("bone-house") for body, goldwine gumena ("gold-friend of men") for generous prince, beadoleoma ("flashing light") for sword, and beaga gifa ("ring-giver") for a lord.

Kennings are less common in Modern English than in earlier centuries, but some common modern examples include "beer-goggles" (to describe the way one's judgment of appearances becomes hazy while intoxicated) and "surfing the web" (which mixes the imagery of skillful motion through large amounts of liquid, amorphous material with the imagery of an interconnected net linked by strands or cables), "rug-rats" (to describe children), "tramp-stamps" (to describe trashy tattoos), or "bible-thumpers" (to describe loud preachers or intolerant Christians). See also compounding and neologism.

KENTISH: The Old English dialect spoken in Kent.

KHOISAN: A family of non-Indo-European languages spoken in the southwestern regions of Africa.

KIGO: A traditional "season-word" in Japanese haiku. The kigo must appear within a haiku's text or be strongly implied by imagery. These words place the haiku within a specific month or season, establishing an atmosphere for the poem while maintaining brevity. Japanese books of poetry are usually divided according to season, with the five Japanese seasons being Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, and New Year's added as the fifth season to Europe's traditional four. The kigo can be an actual reference to the name of the season or a month, or it can be a traditional connotative word: cicadas, fireflies, flies, frogs, and mosquitoes are common kigo for summer haiku, as are billowing clouds, summer storms, burning sunshine, fans, midday naps, parasols, and planters' songs. Fall kigo include references to the moon, falling leaves, scarecrows, the call of crickets, chrysanthemums, and allusions to the cold weather, lengthening nights, graveside visits, charcoal kilns, medicinal roots, gourds, persimmons, apples, and vines. Winter kigo include imagery of snow, bowl-beating rituals or begging, allusions to failing strength, charcoal fires, banked fires, socks drying, the old calendar, mochi (festive rice-cakes) and mochi sellers. Spring kigo include cherry blossoms, and so on. The following haiku by Bashó illustrates the kigo: