Question | Answer |
Alliteration | Form of extended metaphor - objects, persons, and actions in a narrative are equated with meaning that lies outside the narrative itself. |
Assonance | Repetition of only the vowel sound. |
Connotation | An implied meaning of a word. (good night, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest (burial).) |
Denotation | The literal meaning of a word. (good night, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest (sleep).) |
Epic | A lengthy narrative poem usually about a serious subject, heroic deeds, or significant event. |
Epiphany | A sudden realization or comprehension. |
Genre | A type of literature classification system. Ex. Poe belongs to the Gothic Poetry Genre. |
Lyric | A song-like poem written to express feelings of emotion. |
Monologue | An extended or uninterrupted speech or poem by a single person. |
Motivation | A reason or set of reasons that lead a character to act. |
Motif | A recurring object, concept, or structure. |
Narrative | A collection of events that tells a story, placed in particular order and recounted through telling or writing. |
Onomatopoeia | A word that imitates the sound it represents. Ex. Splash, Wow, Pow, Bang. |
Persona | A social role or character. |
Setting | The time, place, physical details and circumstances of the literature. |
Subgenres | The subdivision of a genre. Ex. Literature can be subdivided into poetry, drama, etc... |
Novel | A popular form of fictional literature. |
Fiction | Not depicting true life events. |
Non-Fiction | Depicting true life events. |
Apprenticeship Novel | A biographical novel that concentrates on the author's youth and social and moral initiation into adulthood. |
Epic Novel | A lengthy novel following a heroic journey, or depicting a serious/subject or event. |
Epistolary Novel | A novel written as a series of documents. Ex. diary entries, letters, newspaper clippings... |
Picaresque novel | A popular subgenre of prose fiction, usually satirical depicting realistic events in humorous detail with a roguish hero. |
Novella | Written fictional prose longer than a novellette but shorter than a novel. |
Subplot | A secondary plot within the first plot. Usually involves supporting characters rather than the main characters. |
Exposition | The purpose of exposition in literature is to inform, explain, analyze, or define. |
Foreshadowing | The use of hints or clues to suggest what will happen later in the story. |
Conflict | A struggle found in fiction. Ex. man vs. man, man vs. nature, man vs. self, man vs. society. |
Rising Action | Actions building suspense to the climactic finish. |
Climax | The point of greatest intensity. |
Falling Action | Everything happening after the climax. |
Denouement | Resolution |
Protagonist | The main character of a story. |
Antagonist | A character or group of characters who oppose the protagonist. |
Hero | A character who demonstrates courage or the will for self-sacrifice. |
Antihero | A protagonist in the story who is anti-ethical. |
Foil | A character that highlights the qualities of the protagonist through contrast. |
Stock Character | A character based on culture types but usually more narrowly defined. |
Flat Character | A minor character who does not change or grow during the course of the story. |
Round Character | A major character who encounters conflict and is changed by it. |
First Person POV | Narrative mode. |
Third Person Objective POV | Tells a story without detailing any characters' thoughts, opinions, or feelings, but instead gives an objective point of view |
Third Person Limited POV | A method of storytelling where the narrator knows only the thoughts and feelings of one character and other characters are presented externally |
Third Person Omniscient | A narrative mode where the reader and author observe the action through every character equally. |
Verbal Irony | A difference between what a character says and how they are acting. |
Irony of Situation | A difference between what is expected to happen and what actually happens. |
Dramatic Irony | A situation where the audience is aware of something that at least one character does not know. |
Apostrophe | When an absent person, concept, or object is indirectly addressed. Ex. With how sad steps, O moon, thou climbest the skies. Busy old foo, unruly sun. |
Conceit | An extended metaphor with complex logic that governs an entire poem or passage. |
Hyperbole | Overstatement. |
Metaphor | A comparison of two unlike things using the verb "to be". |
Metonymy | Substituting one word for another closely associated with it. |
Paradox | Revealing a truth that first seems contradictory. |
Personification | Giving human qualities to animals or objects. |
Simile | Using like or as to compare two unlike things. |
Synecdoche | Using a part to represent the whole. |
Transferred Epithet | When the modifier or adjective is applied to the wrong word. Ex. restless night, happy morning (these adjectives refer to the person, not the time of day). |
Understatement | Understating the obvious. Ex. saying Is it warm enough for you? when the weather is extremely hot. |
Diction | The authors choice of words whether formal, informal, colloquial, or slang. |
Tone/Mood | The attitude a writer takes toward a character or subject. |
Symbolism | Using one thing to represent another. |
Theme | A general idea that the writer is trying to express. |
Imagery | Language that evokes one or all five senses (sight, taste, smell, sound, or touch). |
Allegory | A form of extended metaphor. Objects, persons, and actions in a narrative are equated with meanings that lie outside the narrative itself. |
Allusion | A brief reference to a person, event or place, real or ficticious, or to a work of art. |
Aside | Speech directed to the audience that other characters are not aware of. |
Convention | A device accepted as useful or necessary in a genre of literature. |
Dialogue | A conversation between characters. |
Deus Ex Machina | An improbable contrivance in a story. Ex. an artificial or improbably character or device that is suddenly introduced to solve the problem. |
Flashback | Action that shows what happened at an earlier time. |
Foreshadowing | Hints or clues that show what is going to happen. |
In Media Res | Technique that starts in the middle of the story rather than the beginning or end. |
Satire | Literary tone used to make fun of human vices or weaknesses. |
Soliloquy | A dramatic monologue that represents the characters unspoken feelings and thoughts. |
Sonnet | A lyric poem of fourteen lines. |
Artistic License | A term meaning distortion or complete ignorance of fact. |
Attribution | Expert acknowledgement of an artists work. |
Bias | A tendency of an author to prejudice the audience against one side or the other. |
Censorship | Suppression of speech or the removal of certain material that may be considered objectionable. |
Citation | Citing a source. |
Cite | To quote an authority. |
Copyright | The legal right of an individual for exclusive sale, production, and distribution of a work. |
Defamation | A statement that gives a negative image through false claims. |
Intellectual property | Legal concept referring to creations of the mind. |
Libel | A written/pictorial statement that gives a negative image through false claims. |
Plagiarism | Using the work of another without citation or consent. |
Propaganda | Information used to influence the opinion or behavior of the audience. |
Slander | A vocal statement that gives a negative image through false claims. |
Accentual-syllabic | An extension of accentual verse which fixes both the number of stresses and syllables within a line or stanza. |
Ballad | A poem set to music. |
Enjambment | The breaking of a syntactic unit at the end of a line or between two verses. Ex. I am not prone to weeping, as our sex Commonly are; the want of which vain dew |
Figurative language | Speech that contains images for effect, interest, and clarification. |
Foot | The basis of a meter in poetry. (monometer, dimeter, trimeter, tetrameter, etc...) |
Blank Verse | Poetry that is written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. Ex. Shakespeare |
Free Verse | Poetry composed of either rhymed or unrhymed lines that have no set fixed metrical pattern or expectation. |
Haiku | A Japanese poem composed of three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables. |
Limerick | A short sometimes bawdy, humorous poem of consisting of five anapaestic lines. |
Sonnet | Lyric poems that are 14 lines long falling into three coordinate quatrains and a concluding couplet. |
Epigram | A very short, satirical and witty poem usually written as a brief couplet or quatrain. |
Triolet | A poem or a stanza of eight lines that include two rhymes and two refrains. |
Villanelle | A villanelle is nineteen lines long, consisting of five tercets and one concluding quatrain. |
Sestina | A highly structured poem consisting of six six-line stanzas followed by a tercet for a total of thirty-nine lines. |
Imagery | Words or phrasing that bring a picture to mind. |
Internal rhyme | A rhyme that occurs in a single line of verse. Ex. Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary. |
Lyric | Short poem that expresses personal feelings. May or may not be set to song. |
Iambic Pentameter | Specific rythym in poetry. Ex. Pent = 5 (da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM). |
Trochaic Meter | A front stressed two syllable meter. Ex. TELL me NOT in MOURNful NUMbers. |
Anapestic Meter | Meter with three syllable feet stress on the third syllable. (And the SOUND of a VOICE that is STILL) |
Dactylic Meter | Front stressed three syllable meter. Ex. THIS is the FORest priMEval. |
Narrative Poetry | Poetry that tells a story. |
Ode | A lyric poem that is serious and thoughtful in tone and has a very precise, formal structure. |
Rhyme Scheme | A pattern of rhyming lines in a poem or song. |
Exact Rhyme | Later part of the word is an exact rhyme to another word. Ex. sky high, green bean, etc... |
Slant Rhyme | Either the vowel or consonant sounds rhyme (also called a half rhyme). Ex. years yours, eye light. |
End Rhyme | A rhyme occuring in the last syllable of a line or stanza. |
Scansion | A way of marking the metrical patterns in a line of poetry based on the stress placed on the syllables. |
Syllabic Verse | A poetic form with a fixed number of syllables in a line or stanza regardless of the number of stresses. |
Petrarchan Sonnet | Italian sonnet refering to unatainable love. |
Shakespearean Sonnet | English sonnet that consists of 14 lines 10 syllables each. |
Couplet | A verse consisting of two lines. |
Tercet | A verse consisting of three lines. |
Quatrain | A verse consisting of four lines. |
Sestet | A verse consisting of eight lines followed by six lines. |
Octave | A verse consisting of eight lines. |
Stress | Indicates which syllable is emphasized. |
Symbol | Associating two things adding both literal and figurative meaning. |
Verse | A line of poetry |
Comedy | Funny or amusing, happy ending, less dignified characters, and not likely to use lofty language. |
Burlesque | A humorous and sometimes bawdy parody of the typical. |
Comedy of Manners | A satire of the manners and affectations of the social class. |
Commedia | Improv theater. |
Farce | A comedy written for the stage to entertain the audience with unlikely and extravagant situations, disguises, mistaken identity, etc... |
High Comedy | Comedy of a sophisticated and witty nature, often satirizing genteel society. |
Low Comedy | Slapstick, horseplay, or farce. |
Romantic Comedy | Light hearted, humorous plot line centered around romantic ideals. |
Slapstick | Throwing a pie in the face for example. |
Satire | human or individual vices, follies, abuses, or shortcomings are held up to censure by means of ridicule, derision, burlesque, irony, or other methods, ideally with the intent to bring about improvement. |
Tragedy | Form of art based on human suffering. |
Tragicomedy | Fictional works that blend tragedy and comedy. |
Melodrama | Drama in which music is used to increase emotional response. |
Amphitheatre | Open air venue (colloseum)(Classical) |
Orchestra | Instrumental ensemble usually set in front of the stage. (classical) |
Skene | A background building connected to the stage. (classical) |
Picture-frame Stage | Stage is focal point, audience in front with the rest of the stage hidden from sight. (midieval) |
Proscenium Arch | like a typical theater with audience raised in the front (midieval) |
Troubadours | A traveling troupe of performers (mideival) |
Villanelle | a poetic form with only two rhyme sounds (midieval) |
Commedia dell'arte | Renaissance improv theater |
Madrigal | Vocal composition unaccompanied by instruments (renaissance). |
Thrust Theater | theater that thrusts out into the audience (renaissance). |
Arena Theater | Theater in the round with audience on at least three sides. (modern) |
Theatre of the Absurd | Repeated meaningless actions to suggest life is without meaning. (modern) |
Augustan Age | Eighteenth century English literature. |
Peripeteia | Sudden reversal of circumstances or turning point in literature. |
Baroque Literature | Express new values through metaphor and allegory. |