Learn English – term for when a movie(or novel) makes reference to the books title

reference

As the title says, I am curious. Numerous movies and books make use of this, and I would like my curiosity satisfied. On a side note, this term will aid in my writing assignment, where we are discussing The Beggar Maid, which has the title directly spoken aloud to the main character…

Best Answer

TVTropes.org refers to this practice as Title Drop:

If a line of dialogue is the title of the episode, movie, or book, it obviously must have some great significance. If it sounds completely random, that just means the true meaning of the title has yet to be revealed. So when a character is heard using the title in dialogue, the audience sits up and takes notice, because the scriptwriter has just planted a neon sign that flashes THIS CONVERSATION IS IMPORTANT...

Often, the Title Drop will finally explain why the episode/book/etc is called that way to begin with. If this explanation comes by showing instead of by telling (i.e. it is not actually spoken aloud by any of the characters), then it's The Namesake.

A second variety of Title Drop occurs when the title of a work is used as the last line spoken. Here, it's not nearly as big and flashy and important as the first variety, but it still explains things to the audience a bit more. You can probably find these mainly in thriller works, where it makes you sit up and think (and adds a bit of drama to the ending). It's also common in plays that were written during the Victorian era.

Sometimes the title is selected because that line of dialogue is significant:

Title Drops aren't always deliberate or premeditated (i.e. the writer takes the title and inserts it for effect). Sometimes the creative process runs the other way, and a phrase from the body of the work will be picked out and used as the title (sometimes the title is the last thing to be nailed down).