Guide to Literary Terms Closure

Closure - the sense of completion or resolution at the end of a literary work or part of a work. In literary criticism, it is the reduction of a work’s meanings to a single and complete sense that excludes the claims of other interpretations.

The term came from Middle English, which took it from Middle French, and was originally from the Latin clausura, meaning “to close.”

An example of closure is the Finale in George Eliot’s Middle-march in which the author explains what happened to each of the characters in the novel.

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