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Literary Terms Exam
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Allegory | a story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one |
| Satire | the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues |
| Conflict | a struggle between two opposing forces, typically between a protagonist and an antagonist. |
| Protagonist | the leading character or one of the major characters in a drama, movie, novel, or other fictional text. |
| Antagonist | a person who actively opposes or is hostile to someone or something; an adversary. |
| Coming of Age | the growth of a protagonist from youth to adulthood |
| Flat Character | relatively uncomplicated character that does not change throughout the course of a work |
| Round Character | complex character that undergoes development, sometimes sufficiently to surprise the reader |
| Static Character | one whose personality doesn't change throughout the events in the story's plot. |
| Dynamic Charcter | someone who undergoes an important, internal change because of the action in the plot |
| Description | A rhetorical strategy using sensory details to portray a person, place, or thing. |
| Dialogue | conversation between two or more people as a feature of a book, play, or movie |
| Theme | the subject of a talk, a piece of writing, a person's thoughts, or an exhibition; a TOPIC |
| Narrator | a person who narrates (tells) something, especially a character who recounts the events of a novel or narrative poem |
| Unreliable Narrator | a narrator, whether in literature, film, or theatre, whose credibility has been seriously compromised. |
| Point of View | 1st, 2nd, or 3rd person. the narrator's position in relation to the story being told |
| Figurative Language | language that contains or uses figures of speech, especially metaphors |
| Setting | the place or type of surroundings where something is positioned or where an event takes place. |
| Symbol | An object or action that means something more than its literal meaning |
| Tone | the general character or attitude of a place, piece of writing, situation, etc |
| Inference | a conclusion reached on the basis of evidence and reasoning |
| Foreshadowing | be a warning or indication of a future event |
| Flashback | a sudden, vivid memory of an event in the past |
| Plot | the main events of a play, novel, movie, or similar work, devised and presented by the writer as an interrelated sequence; storyline |
| Exposition | giving certain details about a character's past |
| Inciting Moment | the event or decision that begins a story's problem. |
| Rising Action | a series of related incidents builds toward the point of greatest interest:comes after exposition |
| Climax/Crisis | the most intense, exciting, or important point of something |
| Falling Action | the part of a literary plot that occurs after the climax has been reached and the conflict has been resolved |
| Moment of Final Suspense | the last thing in a story that is never completely resolved or answered |
| Denouement | the final part of a play, movie, or narrative in which the strands of the plot are drawn together and matters are explained or resolved. |
| Allusion | A brief reference to a real or fictional person, event, place, or work of art |
| Alliteration | the occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words |
| Diction | the choice and use of words and phrases in speech or writing |
| Metaphor | A figure of speech that makes a comparison between two things without using connection words, such as like or as |
| Simile | A figure of speech that makes a comparison between two thing using connection words, such as like or as |
| Personification | the attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something nonhuman, or the representation of an abstract quality in human form |
| Hyperbole | exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally |
| Imagery | visually descriptive or figurative language |
| Sound imagery | The use of certain words or phrases to describe a sound |
| Juxtaposition | the fact of two things being seen or placed close together with contrasting effect |
| Parallelism | ideas of equal worth with the same grammatical form (Veni, Vidi, Vici) |
| Synecdoche | a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa |
| Memoir | a historical account or biography written from personal knowledge or special sources |
| Irony | a figure of speech in which words are used in such a way that their intended meaning is different from the actual meaning of the words |
| Line | single row of words in a poem; a verse |
| Stanza | groups of lines together, seperated by spaces; conveys an idea |
| Couplet | a stanza; 2 lines |
| Triplet | a stanza; 3 lines |
| Quatrain | a stanza; 4 lines |
| Quintet | a stanza; 5 lines |
| Sestet | a stanza; 6 lines |
| Septet | a stanza; 7 lines |
| Octave | a stanza; 8 lines |
| Types of Stanzas | couplet, triplet, quatrain, quintet, sestet, septet, octave |
| Free Verse | line of words with no specific number of syllables; can be anything |
| Blank Verse | poetry without a rhyme scheme |
| Rhyme Scheme | rhyming or pattern of rhyme |
| Limerick | totally silly poem, 5 lines (there once was a boy named...) |
| Ballad | A story/narrative in poetic form, 12-16 |
| Haiku | Japanese poetry that reflects on nature and feelings, 3 lines (5-7-5) |
| Cinquain | does not rhyme, but has a special pattern that writers follow; 5 lines |
| Shape Poetry | a poem whose form actually takes that shape of the object it is describing |
| Assonance | the repetition of vowel sounds in a chunk of text |
| Consonance | the repetition of consonant sounds, but not vowels, in a chunk of text |
| Onomatopoeia | a word that sounds like what it means |
| Enjambment | occurs when one line ends without a pause or any punctuation and continues onto the next line |
| Meter | the measured arrangement of sound/beats in a poem |
| Rhythm | the recurrence of stressed and unstressed sounds in poetry |
Created by:
emma-sanders
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