Bibliography, from the Ancient Greek words biblion (meaning “book”) and graphía (meaning “writing”), is the academic study of books as physical and cultural objects. This field is also called bibliology, which comes from the Greek word logía (meaning “study of”). English author John Carter explains that the word “bibliography” has two meanings.
A beta reader is someone who reads a book or story before it is published. They give the author comments about how a typical reader would see the work. These comments help the writer improve parts of the story that still need work, such as the plot, how fast the story moves, and whether events happen in the right order.
A bestiary is a book that describes different animals. It began in the ancient world and became widely used during the Middle Ages. These books often had pictures and explained the natural history of animals, as well as rocks.
Belles-lettres is a type of writing that originally meant beautiful or elegant writing. Today, it refers specifically to literary works that are not classified as fiction, poetry, or drama. Sometimes, the term is used in a negative way to describe writing that focuses more on the beauty of language than on its usefulness.
Beast poetry is a group of poems written in Latin during the 8th to 11th centuries. These poems are based on an old tradition of stories where animals act like humans, similar to those by Aesop. They helped create the popular Reynard literature that developed in the 12th century.
An animal tale or beast fable is usually a short story or poem where animals can speak. These stories may also show other human-like traits, such as living in a society similar to humans. This is a traditional type of storytelling that teaches a lesson.
In literature and the arts, bathos (UK: /ˈbɛθɒs/ BAY-thoss; Ancient Greek: βάθος, meaning “depth”) is a technique where a grand or formal style is used to describe simple, silly, or unimportant topics. This can also happen when a serious tone suddenly shifts to something trivial, creating humor. Today, bathos can occur by mistake (due to poor artistic skill) or on purpose as a tool to make people laugh.
In Celtic cultures, a bard was a person who kept stories alive by telling them, writing songs, composing music, and recording history and family backgrounds. They worked for a patron, such as a king or leader, to honor the patron’s ancestors and praise their achievements. As the tradition of bards declined in recent times, the word “bard” came to mean a general term for someone who plays music or writes, especially famous people.
In poetry, a ballad stanza is a type of four-line stanza called a quatrain, commonly found in folk ballads. This stanza has four lines. The first and third lines follow a rhythm with four beats, while the second and fourth lines follow a rhythm with three beats.
A ballad is a type of poem that often tells a story and is sometimes set to music. Ballads were especially common in the popular songs and poems of England, Ireland, and Scotland from the late Middle Ages up to the 19th century. They were also used in many parts of Europe and later in Australia, North Africa, North America, and South America.