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Literary Terms 1-100
| Literary Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| alliteration | repetition of initial consonants |
| allusion | reference to a well-known work |
| ambiguity | vagueness |
| antagonist | opposes the main character |
| archetype | literay sterotype |
| aside | character's thoughts out loud |
| assonance | repetition of vowel sounds |
| ballad | song-like poem; a type of lyric poem |
| blank verse | unrhymed iambic pentameter |
| characterization | the way an author reveals a character |
| direct characterization | the author tells you about the character |
| indirect characterization | you must infer the character traits |
| comedy | funny work |
| concrete poetry | poetry shaped like its theme |
| conflict | problems among characters |
| internal conflict | problems within a character |
| external cinflict | problems between characters |
| connotation | perceived meaning of a word |
| consonance | repetition of consonants at end |
| couplet | two rhymed lines of poetry |
| heroic couplet | two rhymed lines in Iambic Pentameter |
| denotation | literal meaning of a word |
| denouement | "order restored" |
| dialect | the sound of speech |
| diction | choice of words |
| drama | serious/staged work |
| epic | long narrative poem about a hero |
| epithet | nickname |
| essay | short work of non-fiction |
| euphemism | renaming something (more pleasant) |
| exposition | the beginning/introduction |
| fable | tale with a moral |
| fantasy | tale based on unrealistic elements |
| farce | comedy (belly laughs) |
| figurative language | language not to be taken literally |
| flashback | thinking back about an earlier event |
| foil | opposite characters |
| folk tale | tale particular to a culture |
| foreshadowing | a hint about something to come |
| free verse | no rhyme, no meter |
| genre | category of literature |
| haiku | 3 line Japanese poem (5,7,5) |
| hyperbole | exaggeration, oversatement |
| iambic pentameter | ten syllables per line (every other stressed) |
| image/imagery | mental picture |
| irony | real differs from supposed |
| dramatic irony | audience knows more than characters |
| situational irony | situation is different from supposed |
| verbal irony | not saying what you really mean |
| jargon | specialized language |
| metaphor | comparison with no like or as |
| meter | mesurable rhythm of a poem |
| monologue | speech by one character |
| mood | feeling a work creates in the reader |
| motif | element repeated throughout the work |
| myth | story created to explain a phenomenon |
| narrator/point of view | eyes through which a story is told |
| 1st | "I" point of view |
| 3rd | objective "fly on the wall" narrator |
| 3rd limited | limited to one persons thoughts |
| omniscient | all-seeing, all-knowing narrator |
| onomatopoeia | sound word, like "buzz" |
| oxymoron | opposite words put together for emphasis |
| paradox | contradiction |
| parallelism | same word order, same form |
| paraphrase | to put into your own words |
| parody | a funny version of something serious |
| personification | animating something inanimate |
| plot | chain of events in a story |
| poetry | literature written in verse |
| narrative poem | poem that tells a story |
| dramatic poem | poem in which the author is not the speaker |
| lyric poem | poem that has elements of a song |
| prose | not poetry; written in paragraphs |
| protagonist | the main character |
| pun | play on words |
| refrain | repeated stanze of poetry |
| repetition | repeated for emphasis |
| rhyme | words with same vowel sound |
| rhythm | beat (audible) of a work |
| satire | making fun for political change |
| Science Fiction | a story based on technology (future) |
| setting | time and place of a story |
| short story | brief work of fiction |
| simile | comparison using like or as |
| soliloquy | speech said alone on stage |
| sonnet | 14 line poem |
| stanza | the paragraph of poetry |
| stereotype | generalization about person/group |
| stream of consciousness | follows thoughts as they happen |
| structure | the form of a poem/story |
| symbol | something concrete that represents soemthing abstract |
| synesthesia | stimulating more than one sense |
| syntax | word order |
| theme | the meaning of a work |
| tone | author's attitude/choice of words |
| tragedy | ends unhappily/often in death |
| understatement | not giving emphasis to a subject |
| malapropism | using the wrong big word |
Created by:
smccall
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