A posteriori

part 1, part 2, and part 3) and a "Second Tetralogy" (containing Richard II, Henry IV, part I., Henry IV, part 2, and Henry V.) In opera, Wagner's Ring of the Nibelungs serves as a tetralogy. Contrast with sequel and trilogy.

TETRAMETER: A line consisting of four metrical feet. See discussion under meter.

TERMINUS A QUO: The earliest possible date that a literary work could have been written, a potential starting point for dating a manuscript or text. Latin for "boundary from that point."

TERMINUS AD QUEM: The latest possible date that a literary work could have been written, a potential ending point for dating a manuscript or text. Latin for "boundary up to this point."

TEST ACT OF 1673: A law requiring all British officials holding public office to receive the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper in accordance with the rituals of the Established Church of England (the Anglican Church). This law was designed to exclude Catholics, Anabaptists, and Scottish Presbyterians from holding positions of importance. Swift favored the Test Act, and his political position brought about one of literature's unique satires. When more tolerant times came to England, it became politically desirable to reconcile with Scottish and Irish minorities. At that point, the English government proposed abolishing the Test Act. Swift responded by writing his satirical essay, "Abolishing Christianity in England," in which he equates the removal of the Test Act with an attempt to remove completely the last vestiges of Christianity in England.

TEXT: In literary criticism, formalist critics use the term text to refer to a single work of literary art (such as a specific poem, essay, short story). In formalist thinking, this text is an autonomous verbal object--i.e., it is self-enclosed and self-creating, and thus the critic need not necessarily explicate it using the biography of the author, or the historical background of its time-period, or other "extra-textual" details.

TEXTUAL CRITICISM: The collection, comparison, and collating of all textual variants in order to reconstruct or recreate a single authoritative text--especially one that reflects authorial intention.

TEXTUAL VARIANT: A version of a text that has differences in wording or structure compared with other texts, especially one with missing lines or extra lines added. In some cases, textual variants reflect the difference between an author's early version or rough draft of a work and a later version or polished final product. Variance in Shakespeare's plays might have come about in the difference between the foul papers (handwritten rough drafts) and the fair copy (the largely corrected versions sent to the printers). Variations in Chaucer's manuscripts of The Canterbury Tales might reflect an earlier, alternative scheme for structuring the work that Chaucer later abandoned in favor of a revised order for the various tales. Other textual variants in literary works are the product of error, scribal corruption, intentional censorship, or errata. See fair copy, errata, foul papers, scribal corruption, and Ur-text.

Finally, the author might deliberately make changes in later versions of a poem or story. For instance, Dr. Karen Karbiener notes significant textual variants appear in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. In the first edition of 1818, the teenage Shelley describes Elizabeth as having a strong resemblence to Shelley herself. Many of the novel's subplots had rather incestuous overtones, and the text focuses more on Victor Frankenstein's moral free will. Karbiener points out how Shelley alters or changes these elements in her 1831 edition from Colburn and Bentley's Standard Novels Series, when Shelley is an older and less radical author.