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Literature Review
Literature Terms
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| tragic hero | (blank) |
| hamartia | tragic flaw |
| hubris | excessive pride that adversely influences protagonist's judgment |
| catharsis | cleansing, purgation |
| sestina | song of sixes |
| epigram | short, abrupt, sometimes cynical and always to the point |
| doggerel | Unskilled, rhyming poetry that becomes distroted to fit the rhymes |
| limericks | five lines. Rhyme scheme: aabba |
| aubade | a song or piece of music played or sung at dawn |
| blank verse | unrhymed poetry |
| ballads | story in song revolving around love, hate, lust, murder |
| lyric | story told with the poet playing upon a lyre |
| elegy | poem of someone's death |
| ode | similar to elegy, but longer |
| closed form | lines counted and shape determined |
| open form | no set limit on lines, rhyme scheme, meter |
| sonnet | 14 line poem |
| Shakespearean Sonnet | quatrains (ababa cdcdcd efef) and a couplet (gg) |
| metonymy | something closely related, which takes on a larger meaning |
| onomatopoeia | words capture sounds |
| paradox | situation or feeling that appears to be contridictory but turns out to be true or make sense |
| Pun | play on words for humous or sarcastic effect |
| synecdoche | part of an object is used to represent the entire thing |
| conceits | elaborate comparisons between unlikely objects |
| caesura | pause marked by punctuation |
| alliteration | repetition of consonants at the beginning of words that are next to each other, or close by |
| apostrophe | direct address of someone or something that is not present to the reader |
| assonance | repetition of vowel sounds |
| iambic pentameter | line of poetry with 10 syllables of rising and falling stresses |
| iambic foot | one unstressed syllable, |