Mrs. Carthel's Lit terms for study and TAKS review
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| allegory | narrative in which characters often stand for abstract concepts and are often used to teach a lesson
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| alliteration | repetition of initial consonant sounds in a sentence or series of sentences, such as: The silly sly snake slithered slowly.
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| 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.
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| ambiguity | a word or expression that has more than one meaning and leaves uncertainty as to the intended significance of the statement
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| anachronism | an object or event out of its normal time, ie. a telephone mentioned in a Civil War novel
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| analogy | point by point comparison of two things in order to more clearly define the lesser known of the two
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| antagonist | force (person or thing) against which the protagonist (main character) is pitted
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| antithesis | involves a direct contrast of structurally parallel word groupings, generally for the purpose of contrast, ie. sink or swim; high and low
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| 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
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| 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
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| aside | remarks made by a character directly to the audience in a drama
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| assonance | repetition of vowel sound within a word or lines, like Mississippi, make the grade, advantage, add the backpack
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| autobiography | story of a person’s life written by that person (auto means self)
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| ballad | narrative (story) poem originally meant to be sung; song that tells a story
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| biography | story of a person’s life written by someone else
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| blank verse | unrhymed poetry, usually written in iambic pentameter (five accented meters), such as Shakespeare’s works
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| character | people or animals who participate in the action of a literary work
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| climax | turning point of action in a literary work that brings about changes in all characters and brings about the greatest emotional response
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| 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
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| conflict | struggle between opposing forces which creates the plot in dramatic and narrative literature
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| consonance | the repetition in two or more words of final consonants in stressed syllables
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| contrast | writing device that in which one element has been put into opposition with each other
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| denouement | unraveling of the plot in which conflicts used to build the plot are resolved and question are answered
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| denotation | specific, exact meaning of a word without emotional coloration or association; dictionary meaning
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| connotation | implied or suggested meaning of a word, outside of its literal meaning
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| description | a portrait in words of a person, place, or object
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| details | the facts given by the author or speaker as support for the tone and attitude of the story
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| 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
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| dialogue | written conversation between two or more characters
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| diction | word choice; why was that particular word chosen, for example, the difference between angry or furious, or tattered or torn
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| direct characterization | the author directly states a character’s traits
instead of implying them through the character’s reactions and behaviors
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| drama | literature in ply form
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| dramatic irony | a contradiction between what a character thinks and what the reader or audience knows to be true
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| 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
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| epigraph | motto or quotation that appears at the beginning of a literary work, usually showing the source for the title of the work
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| 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
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| 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
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| epitaph | speech or inscription on monument in memory of someone who has died, such as Shakespeare’s epitaph
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| 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”
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| essay | nonfiction composition that offers an opinion on a subject using support and elaboration to present the writer’s opinion most effectively
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| eulogy | public speech of tribute especially for one who has died(usually given at a funeral)
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| 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
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| exposition | detailed explanation that lays the groundwork for the
narrative and often provide pertinent background information necessary
to understand the actions that follow
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| 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
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| 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
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| facade | a false front or pretense
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| fiction | imaginative work of prose
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| figurative language | communicates ideas beyond the ordinary,
everyday meaning of words— impressions, ideas
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| first person narrator | a character in the story who is actually telling the story;the point of view that employs I
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| flashback | a conversation, scene, or incident that happened before the beginning of the story
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| folk tale | short story that exhibits fairy tale unreality and sometimes includes supernatural events
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| foreshadowing | hints of clues of things to come in a narrative
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| free verse | poetry written without any regular patterns of rhyme or meter
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| genre | kind or type of literature, such as fiction, nonfiction, poetry, short story, etc.
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| Gothic literature | fiction using strange, gloomy settings, and
mysterious, violent, often supernatural events to create suspense
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| hyperbole | figure of speech in which the truth is exaggerated for emphasis
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| iambic pentameter | line of verse with five metric feet or iambs,and in which two syllables, stresse and unstressed
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| imagery | Words and phrases which create vivid sensory experiences for the reader.
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| irony | contrasts between appearance and reality
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| juxtapose/juxtaposition | to put side by side for the sake of
comparison or contrast
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| literal language | uses words in their ordinary sense; the opposite of figurative language
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| litote | understatement; the opposite of hyperbole
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| metaphor | comparison of two unlike objects, without using like or as
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| meter | repetition of regular rhythmic units in a line of poetry
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| metonymy | a figure of speech in which the name of one object is substituted for that of another closely associated with it
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| monologue | speech by one character in a play, story, or poem
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| motif | a simple device that serves as a recurring feature in the work
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| motivation | a reason or explanation of a character’s thoughts, feelings,actions, or behavior
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| narrator | person telling the story from his or her own point of view
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| Naturalism or Realism | literature which portrays the world as it is
perceived by the writer without idealism
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| nonfiction | true story based on facts and real events
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| onomatopoeia | using words to imitate sounds, such as bang, pop, whir, hiss
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| oral literature | stories passed down from one generation to the next without being written down
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| oxymoron | statement of contradiction or using two contradictory terms
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| parable | short tale teaches a lesson or illustrates a moral truth
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| paradox | statement that seems contradictory, but is quite true
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| 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
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| parody | imitation of a serious work for the purpose of criticizing or making fun of the work
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| personification | human qualities are attributed to an object, animal, or idea
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| plot | planned series of interrelated actions and events used to tell a story
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| poetry | arrangement of lines in which forms and content fuse to suggest meanings beyond the literal meaning of the words
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| 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
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| protagonist | central character involved in the central conflict of the story
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| psalm | a song, most famous is collection of psalms from the Bible, which declare praise and devotion for God
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| pun | play on words
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| rhetorical question | question for which there is no answer is
expected
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| Romanticism | literary time period in which arts flourished
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| sarcasm | verbal irony in which literal meaning is the opposite of the actual meaning
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| satire | literary technique in which foolish ideas or customs are ridiculed for the purpose of improving society
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| science fiction | prose written presenting the possibility of past or future using scientific data and theories as well as the imagination of the
writer
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| setting | time and place for the action of a story
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| short story | a narrative that can be read at one sitting
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| simile | comparison between two unlike things using “like” or “as”
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| soliloquy | speech delivered by character on stage which allows the audience to know the character’s thoughts, ideas, feelings, and plans
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| sonnet | lyric poem consisting of fourteen line of rhymed iambic pentameter
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| speaker | the voice that talks to the reader
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| stanza | group of lines that form a unit of poetry or unit of a song
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| stream of consciousness | the technique of presenting the flow of
thoughts, responses, or sensations of one or more characters
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| synecdoche | a form of metaphor in which a part of something is used to stand for the whole thing
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| title | distinguishing name attached to any literary work
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| theme | main idea or message of a work of literature
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| tone | attitude a writer takes toward a subject
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| Transcendentalism | belief in Utopian society; the innate goodness of mankind
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| trite expression or cliche | any expression that has been overused and lost its clarity
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| vernacular | common, everyday language of the people so that it is spelled as it sounds when spoken
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| pun | a play on words; a joke exploiting the different possible meanings of a word
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