Mrs. Carthel's Lit terms for study and TAKS review
Quiz yourself by thinking what should be in
each of the black spaces below before clicking
on it to display the answer.
Help!
|
|
||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
allegory | narrative in which characters often stand for abstract concepts and are often used to teach a lesson
🗑
|
||||
alliteration | repetition of initial consonant sounds in a sentence or series of sentences, such as: The silly sly snake slithered slowly.
🗑
|
||||
allusion | reference to historical or literary person, place, or thing with
which the reader is assumed to be familiar, such as the Bible, Shakespeare, Aristotle, etc.
🗑
|
||||
ambiguity | a word or expression that has more than one meaning and leaves uncertainty as to the intended significance of the statement
🗑
|
||||
anachronism | an object or event out of its normal time, ie. a telephone mentioned in a Civil War novel
🗑
|
||||
analogy | point by point comparison of two things in order to more clearly define the lesser known of the two
🗑
|
||||
antagonist | force (person or thing) against which the protagonist (main character) is pitted
🗑
|
||||
antithesis | involves a direct contrast of structurally parallel word groupings, generally for the purpose of contrast, ie. sink or swim; high and low
🗑
|
||||
aphorism | brief statement that expresses a basic truth about life or a
moral concise statement of a principle given in pointed words, such as “No pain, no gain” or “To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.” Abraham Lincoln
🗑
|
||||
archetypes | ideal model or pattern from which all things of the same type are copied, ie. love story based on family or social conflicts like
Romeo and Juliet, father-son competition/conflicts found in Hamlet
🗑
|
||||
aside | remarks made by a character directly to the audience in a drama
🗑
|
||||
assonance | repetition of vowel sound within a word or lines, like Mississippi, make the grade, advantage, add the backpack
🗑
|
||||
autobiography | story of a person’s life written by that person (auto means self)
🗑
|
||||
ballad | narrative (story) poem originally meant to be sung; song that tells a story
🗑
|
||||
biography | story of a person’s life written by someone else
🗑
|
||||
blank verse | unrhymed poetry, usually written in iambic pentameter (five accented meters), such as Shakespeare’s works
🗑
|
||||
character | people or animals who participate in the action of a literary work
🗑
|
||||
climax | turning point of action in a literary work that brings about changes in all characters and brings about the greatest emotional response
🗑
|
||||
colloquialism | an expression used in informal conversation but accepted universally in formal speech or writing, usually associated with particular regions of the country, and not necessarily the lower levels of slang
🗑
|
||||
conflict | struggle between opposing forces which creates the plot in dramatic and narrative literature
🗑
|
||||
consonance | the repetition in two or more words of final consonants in stressed syllables
🗑
|
||||
contrast | writing device that in which one element has been put into opposition with each other
🗑
|
||||
denouement | unraveling of the plot in which conflicts used to build the plot are resolved and question are answered
🗑
|
||||
denotation | specific, exact meaning of a word without emotional coloration or association; dictionary meaning
🗑
|
||||
connotation | implied or suggested meaning of a word, outside of its literal meaning
🗑
|
||||
description | a portrait in words of a person, place, or object
🗑
|
||||
details | the facts given by the author or speaker as support for the tone and attitude of the story
🗑
|
||||
dialect | a particular variety of language spoken in one place by a distinct group of people and written phonetically, such Brooklyn’s
Bronx dialect, or a Louisiana's Cajun dialect
🗑
|
||||
dialogue | written conversation between two or more characters
🗑
|
||||
diction | word choice; why was that particular word chosen, for example, the difference between angry or furious, or tattered or torn
🗑
|
||||
direct characterization | the author directly states a character’s traits
instead of implying them through the character’s reactions and behaviors
🗑
|
||||
drama | literature in ply form
🗑
|
||||
dramatic irony | a contradiction between what a character thinks and what the reader or audience knows to be true
🗑
|
||||
elegy | a poem written in tribute to someone or something- usually
someone or something that has recently died, such as “To a Mouse” by Robert Burns, which later inspired John Steinbeck to entitled his novel, Of
Mice and Men
🗑
|
||||
epigraph | motto or quotation that appears at the beginning of a literary work, usually showing the source for the title of the work
🗑
|
||||
epiphany | sudden realization which prior to this time was not thought or understood; a moment when a concept or idea is suddenly understood, such as a student suddenly understanding a difficult concept, or realizing the point in a murder mystery where you suddenly
🗑
|
||||
epistle | formal composition generally addressed to one person or group, but meant for a wider audience, such as the epistle chapters in the
Bible written directly to a specific church, but meant for all followers of
Christ, or Martin Luther King’s Letter from Bi
🗑
|
||||
epitaph | speech or inscription on monument in memory of someone who has died, such as Shakespeare’s epitaph
🗑
|
||||
epithet | phrase used to identify a person or thing, ex. Superman’s is “the man of steel,” or George Washington’s “the father of our
country”
🗑
|
||||
essay | nonfiction composition that offers an opinion on a subject using support and elaboration to present the writer’s opinion most effectively
🗑
|
||||
eulogy | public speech of tribute especially for one who has died(usually given at a funeral)
🗑
|
||||
euphemism | a device where being indirect replaces directness in order to avoid unpleasantness, for example, a housekeeper might be described as a domestic engineer, or an unruly and undisciplined child might be described as spirited and lively
🗑
|
||||
exposition | detailed explanation that lays the groundwork for the
narrative and often provide pertinent background information necessary
to understand the actions that follow
🗑
|
||||
extended metaphor | two unlike things are compared in several ways and at some length, over several sentences, paragraphs, and even
thorough out an entire work
🗑
|
||||
fable | a brief tale used to illustrate a moral, such as the most famous fables written by Aesop, and many works, such as The Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens written to teach a moral lesson about greed
🗑
|
||||
facade | a false front or pretense
🗑
|
||||
fiction | imaginative work of prose
🗑
|
||||
figurative language | communicates ideas beyond the ordinary,
everyday meaning of words— impressions, ideas
🗑
|
||||
first person narrator | a character in the story who is actually telling the story;the point of view that employs I
🗑
|
||||
flashback | a conversation, scene, or incident that happened before the beginning of the story
🗑
|
||||
folk tale | short story that exhibits fairy tale unreality and sometimes includes supernatural events
🗑
|
||||
foreshadowing | hints of clues of things to come in a narrative
🗑
|
||||
free verse | poetry written without any regular patterns of rhyme or meter
🗑
|
||||
genre | kind or type of literature, such as fiction, nonfiction, poetry, short story, etc.
🗑
|
||||
Gothic literature | fiction using strange, gloomy settings, and
mysterious, violent, often supernatural events to create suspense
🗑
|
||||
hyperbole | figure of speech in which the truth is exaggerated for emphasis
🗑
|
||||
iambic pentameter | line of verse with five metric feet or iambs,and in which two syllables, stresse and unstressed
🗑
|
||||
imagery | Words and phrases which create vivid sensory experiences for the reader.
🗑
|
||||
irony | contrasts between appearance and reality
🗑
|
||||
juxtapose/juxtaposition | to put side by side for the sake of
comparison or contrast
🗑
|
||||
literal language | uses words in their ordinary sense; the opposite of figurative language
🗑
|
||||
litote | understatement; the opposite of hyperbole
🗑
|
||||
metaphor | comparison of two unlike objects, without using like or as
🗑
|
||||
meter | repetition of regular rhythmic units in a line of poetry
🗑
|
||||
metonymy | a figure of speech in which the name of one object is substituted for that of another closely associated with it
🗑
|
||||
monologue | speech by one character in a play, story, or poem
🗑
|
||||
motif | a simple device that serves as a recurring feature in the work
🗑
|
||||
motivation | a reason or explanation of a character’s thoughts, feelings,actions, or behavior
🗑
|
||||
narrator | person telling the story from his or her own point of view
🗑
|
||||
Naturalism or Realism | literature which portrays the world as it is
perceived by the writer without idealism
🗑
|
||||
nonfiction | true story based on facts and real events
🗑
|
||||
onomatopoeia | using words to imitate sounds, such as bang, pop, whir, hiss
🗑
|
||||
oral literature | stories passed down from one generation to the next without being written down
🗑
|
||||
oxymoron | statement of contradiction or using two contradictory terms
🗑
|
||||
parable | short tale teaches a lesson or illustrates a moral truth
🗑
|
||||
paradox | statement that seems contradictory, but is quite true
🗑
|
||||
parallelism | structural arrangement of parts of a sentence, sentences,
paragraphs, and larger units of composition by which one element is of equal importance and similarly developed
🗑
|
||||
parody | imitation of a serious work for the purpose of criticizing or making fun of the work
🗑
|
||||
personification | human qualities are attributed to an object, animal, or idea
🗑
|
||||
plot | planned series of interrelated actions and events used to tell a story
🗑
|
||||
poetry | arrangement of lines in which forms and content fuse to suggest meanings beyond the literal meaning of the words
🗑
|
||||
point of view | refers to the narrative method used in literary work in which first person, third person omniscient, and third person
limited are used
🗑
|
||||
protagonist | central character involved in the central conflict of the story
🗑
|
||||
psalm | a song, most famous is collection of psalms from the Bible, which declare praise and devotion for God
🗑
|
||||
pun | play on words
🗑
|
||||
rhetorical question | question for which there is no answer is
expected
🗑
|
||||
Romanticism | literary time period in which arts flourished
🗑
|
||||
sarcasm | verbal irony in which literal meaning is the opposite of the actual meaning
🗑
|
||||
satire | literary technique in which foolish ideas or customs are ridiculed for the purpose of improving society
🗑
|
||||
science fiction | prose written presenting the possibility of past or future using scientific data and theories as well as the imagination of the
writer
🗑
|
||||
setting | time and place for the action of a story
🗑
|
||||
short story | a narrative that can be read at one sitting
🗑
|
||||
simile | comparison between two unlike things using “like” or “as”
🗑
|
||||
soliloquy | speech delivered by character on stage which allows the audience to know the character’s thoughts, ideas, feelings, and plans
🗑
|
||||
sonnet | lyric poem consisting of fourteen line of rhymed iambic pentameter
🗑
|
||||
speaker | the voice that talks to the reader
🗑
|
||||
stanza | group of lines that form a unit of poetry or unit of a song
🗑
|
||||
stream of consciousness | the technique of presenting the flow of
thoughts, responses, or sensations of one or more characters
🗑
|
||||
synecdoche | a form of metaphor in which a part of something is used to stand for the whole thing
🗑
|
||||
title | distinguishing name attached to any literary work
🗑
|
||||
theme | main idea or message of a work of literature
🗑
|
||||
tone | attitude a writer takes toward a subject
🗑
|
||||
Transcendentalism | belief in Utopian society; the innate goodness of mankind
🗑
|
||||
trite expression or cliche | any expression that has been overused and lost its clarity
🗑
|
||||
vernacular | common, everyday language of the people so that it is spelled as it sounds when spoken
🗑
|
||||
pun | a play on words; a joke exploiting the different possible meanings of a word
🗑
|
Review the information in the table. When you are ready to quiz yourself you can hide individual columns or the entire table. Then you can click on the empty cells to reveal the answer. Try to recall what will be displayed before clicking the empty cell.
To hide a column, click on the column name.
To hide the entire table, click on the "Hide All" button.
You may also shuffle the rows of the table by clicking on the "Shuffle" button.
Or sort by any of the columns using the down arrow next to any column heading.
If you know all the data on any row, you can temporarily remove it by tapping the trash can to the right of the row.
To hide a column, click on the column name.
To hide the entire table, click on the "Hide All" button.
You may also shuffle the rows of the table by clicking on the "Shuffle" button.
Or sort by any of the columns using the down arrow next to any column heading.
If you know all the data on any row, you can temporarily remove it by tapping the trash can to the right of the row.
Embed Code - If you would like this activity on your web page, copy the script below and paste it into your web page.
Normal Size Small Size show me how
Normal Size Small Size show me how
Created by:
Mrs. Carthel
Popular Languages sets