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Literary Terms C1
English 10
Definition | Term |
---|---|
A brief reference to a person, place, thing, event or idea in history or literature. Cultural experience shared by reader and writer | allusion |
allows for 2 or more simultaneous interpretations of a word, phrase, action, or situation | ambiguity |
idea or expression that has become tired from overuse. Sign of a bad writer | cliché |
associations and implications that go beyond the litteral meaning of a word. positive or negative | connotation |
the dictionary meaning of a word | denotation |
explains figurative language. longer than the original work | explication |
smooths out figurative language. shorter or longer than the original work | paraphrase |
a fictional narrator | persona |
The voice used by the author to tell a story. May be almost identical to the poet | speaker |
The ordering of words into meaningful verbal patterns such as phrases, clauses and sentences. Poets manipulate it to place emphasis on certain words | syntax |
voice | |
The author's implicit attitude toward the reader or people, places, and events in a work as revealed by the elements of the author's style | tone |
The central meaning or dominant idea in a literary work. Unifying point around which the plot, characters, setting, point of view, symbols, and other elements of a work are organized. Not the subject | theme |
A writer's choice of words, phrases, sentence structures, and figurative language, which combine to help create meaning | diction |
Plain language of everyday use, and often includes idiomatic expressions, slang, contradictions, and many simple, common words | informal diction |
maintains correct language usage, but is not the most formal | middle diction |
Refers to the way poets sometimes employ an elevated diction that deviates significantly from the common speech and writing of their time, choosing words for their supposedly inherent poetic qualities | poetic diction |
special vocabulary of any professional world | jargon |
a set phrase constantly said that carries a political or social meaning | cant |
special vocabulary of the criminal world | argot |
designed to teach an ethical, moral, or religious lesson | didactic |
designed to show, entertain, or represent | mimetic |
a type of lyric poem in which a character (the speaker) adresses a distinct but silent audience imagined to be present in the poem in such a way as to reveal a dramatic situation and, often unintentionally, some aspect of their temperament or personality | dramatic monologue |
long narrative poem, told in a formal, elevated style, that focuses on a serious subject and chronicles heroic deeds and events important to a culture or nation | epic |
a type of brief poem that expresses the personal emotions and thoughts of a single speaker. 1st person, not necessarily the poet | lyric |
a poem that tells a story | narrative poem |
any poem with a rhyme every 2 lines | couplet |
in poetry, stanza refers to a grouping of lines, set off by a space, that usually has a set pattern of meter and rhyme | stanza |
a 3 line stanza, ABA BCB CDC DED | triplet |
3 lines that rhyme | triplet |
4 line stanza | quatrain |
5 line stanza | quintain |
6 line stanza | sestet |
8 line stanza | octave |