| Word |
Meaning |
| Allegory | Narrative form in which characters and actions have meanings outside themselves; characters are usually personifications of abstract qualities. |
| Allusion | Figure of speech that makes a brief and casual reference to a historical or literary figure, event, or object to create a resonance in the reader or to apply symbolic meaning. |
| Ambiguity | Use of language in which multiple meanings are possible. |
| Anachronism | Use of historically inaccurate details in a text. |
| Analogy | Comparison of two things that are alike in some respects. Metaphors and similies are two types. |
| Analysis | The process in writing wherein one examines what the writer has done to create the effects she or he has gotten in a piece of writing. |
| Appeals to... : | Rhetorical arguements in which the speaker appeals to authority, emotion, or logic. |
| Assonance | Repition of identical or similiar vowel sounds, usually in successive or proximate words. |
| Catharsis | Purification or cleansing of the spirit of the viewer or reader through the emotions of pity and terror as a witness to tragedy. |
| Cliche | A commonplace expression that reveals the writers lack of imagination to use fresher, more vivid language. |
| Climactic | The arrangement of words, phrases, or clauses in order of increasing importance. |
| Colloquial/Colloquialism | Ordinary language, vernacular. |
| Consonance | The repetition of two or more consanants with a change in intervening vowels. |
| Deductive | The reasoning process by which a conclusion is drawn from a set of premises and contains no more facts than these premises. |
| Deus Ex Machina | As in Greek theater, use of an artifical device or contrived solution to solve a difficult situation, usually introduced suddenly and unexpectedly. |
| Devices | A particular word pattern or combination of words used in a literary work to evoke a desired effect or arouse a desired reaction in a reader. |
| Ellipsis | Deleberate omission of a word or words which are implied by the context. Also name of (...). |
| Epigraph | Quote set at the beginning of a literary work or at itds divisions to set a tone or suggest a theme. |
| Epitaph | A pice of writing in praise of a deceased person. |
| Ethos | Appeal to moral elements of right and wrong, ethics. |
| Expletive | A single word or short phrase intended to emphasize surrounding words. |
| Explication | Interpretation or analysis of facts. |
| Genre | The major catogory in which a literary work fits. Include prose, poetry, and drama. |
| Homily | A serious talk, speech, or lecture involving moral or spiritual advice, a 'sermon'. |
| Hyperbole | Overstatement characterized by exaggerated language. |
| Inductive | Conclusion or type of reasoning whereby observation or information about a part of a class is applied to the class as a whole. |
| Inference | The process of arriving at a conclusion from a hint, implication, or suggestion. |
| Juxtaposition | Placing of two items side by side to create a certain effect, reveal an attitude, or accomplish some other purpose. |
| Logical Fallacies | Errors in reasoning that occur in arguements. |
| Logos | Use or appeal to reason to determine a characters actions or persuade to an argument. |
| Metaphor | Implicit comparison or identifaction of one thing with another unlike itself without the use of a verbal signal such as like or as. |
| Nostalgia | Desire to return in thought or fact to a former time. |
| Oxymoron | A figure of speech that combines two apparently contradictory elements, as in 'jumbo shrimp'. |
| Paradox | A statement that seems contradictory, but is actually true. |
| Paraphrase | Putting someone else's ideas into your own words. |
| Parenthesis | Inversion of some verbal unit in a position that interrupts the normal syntactical flow of the sentences. ( ) symbols. |
| Parallelism | Recurrent syntactical similiarity where several parts of a sentence or several sentences are expressed alike to show that the ideas in parts or sentences equal in importance. |
| Parody | A satirical imitation of a work of art for purpose of ridiculing its style or subject. |
| Pathos | The use of or appeal to emotional or sentimental elements to describe a character's actions or persuade to an argument. |
| Persona | The voice or figure of the author who tells and structures the story and who may or may not share the values of the actual author. |
| Personification | Treating nonhuman objects as if they were a person by giving it human qualities. |
| Perspective | A character's view of a situation or events in a story. |
| Propaganda | Information or rumor deliberately spread to help or harm a person, group, or institution. |
| Realism | Literary practice of attempting to describe life and nature without idealization and with attention to detail. |
| Reflective | A piece of writing that gives considered thought to something. |
| Repetition | Repeating or repeated action. |
| Retrospection | Looking back on things past. |
| Rhetoric | The art of using language effectively to serve the writer's purpose, orignially referred to speech-making. It now encompases composition, and is divided into exposition, narration, description, and arguementation. |
| Rhetorical device | Particular use of word patterns and styles to clarify, make associations, and focues the writing in a piece of literature. |
| Rhetorical question | Asking a question for the purpose of eliciting an answer but not for the purpose of asserting or denying something obliquely. A question not meant to be answered verbally. |
| Sarcasm | A sharp caustic remark. A form of verbal irony that is harshly critical. |
| Satire | Humorous, witty criticism of people's foolish, thoughtless, or evil behaviour. |
| Speaker | The person- not necessarily the author- who is the voice of the poem or story. |
| Symbolism | A person, place, thing, event, or pattern in a literary work that designates itself and at the same time figuratively represents something else. |
| Syntax | The way words are put together to form phrases, cluases, and sentences. |
| Tone | The attitude a literary work takes towards its subject and theme. Reflects author's attitude. |
| Transition | Writer's ability to move the reader smoothly along the course of ideas. |
| Understatement | Deliberate expression of an idea or event as less important that it actually is or was. |
| Wit | In modern usage, intellectualy amusing language that surprises or delights. |
| Eulogy | A speech or writing in praise of a person or thing; an oration in honor of a deceased person. |
| Euphemism | Subsitituion of a milder or less direct expression for one that is harsh or blunt. |
