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Week 1 and 2
English
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Abstract | Thought of apart from concrete realities, specific objects, or actual instances; not applied or practical. |
| Absolute Statement | A statement to which it is claimed that nobody can object. |
| Absurd (as in the Theater of the Absurd) | A form of drama that emphasizes the absurdity of human existence by employing disjointed, repetitions, and meaningless dialogue, purposeless and confusing situations, and plots that lack realistic or logical development. |
| Abstruse | Difficult to comprehend. |
| Accolade | A mark of acknowledgement. |
| Accost | To approach and speak too often in a challenging or aggressive way. |
| Acquistive | Strongly desirous of and possessing. |
| Acrostic | A poem or other writing in an alphabetic script, in which the first letter, syllable or word of each line, paragraph or other recurring feature in the text spells out another message. |
| Ad hominem | Appealing to feelings or prejudices rather than intellect, marked by or being an attack on an opponent’s … |
| Adage | A saying often in metaphorical form that embodies a common observation. |
| Adversary | One that contends with, opposes, or resists (synonyms; enemy, foe, opponent, rival) |
| Aestheticism | Devotion to and pursuit of the beautiful; sensitivity to artistic beauty and refined taste’, the doctrine that beauty is the basic principle from which all other principles, especially moral ones, are derived. |
| Affective fallacy | Is a term from literary criticism used to refer to the supposed error of judging or evaluating a text on the basis of its emotional effects on the basis of its emotional effects on a reader (how it makes the reader feel emotionally) |
| Agrarian | Relating to agricultural or rural matters; Intended to further agricultural interests |
| Allegory | A figurative mode of representation conveying a meaning other than the literal (many people have suggested that “The Lord of the Rings” is an allegory of the world wars) |
| Alliteration | The repetition of the first consonant sound in a phrase (Peter Piper picked a peck…) |
| Allusion | A figure of speech that makes a reference or representation of; or to a wellknown person, place, event, literary work, of art. (It seems like it has rained for 40 days and 40 nights) |
| Ambiguity | Is the property of being ambiguous; where a word, term, notation, sign, symbol, phrase, sentence or any form used for communication, is called ambiguous if it can be interpreted in more than one way. |
| Amplification(rhetorical) | A statement or narrative that is expanded upon for rhetorical purposes; refers to the act and the means of extending thoughts or statements to increase rhetorical effect, to add importance, or to make the most of a thought of circumstance |
| Anachronism | Is anything that is temporarily incongruous in the time period it has been placed in that appears in a content in which it seems sufficiently out of place as to be peculiar,incomprehensible,or impossible. (Use of electricity in a painting of the 1400s) |
| Anachrony | Is a discrepancy between chronological order of events and the order in which they are related in the past (flash back) |
| Analepsis | flashing back to an earlier point in the story |
| Anagnorisis | the point in the plot especially of a tragedy at which the protagonist recognizes his or her or some other character’s true identity or discovers the true nature of his or her own situation; originally meant to recognize in Greek context. |
| Anaphora | is emphasizing words by repeating them at the beginning of neighboring clauses. |
| Anecdote | a usually short narrative of an interesting, amusing, ironic or biographical incident |
| Antagonist | is a character or group of characters who represent the opposition against which the protagonist(s) must contend; in the classical style of story where in the action consists of a hero fighting a villan, the two can be regarded as protagonist |
| Antihero | is a protagonist whose character and goals are antithetical to classical heroism |
| Antimasque | comic or grotesque dance presented before or between the acts of a certain dramatic composition known as masque |
| Antinovel | A fictional work characterized by the absence of traditional elements of the novel, such as coherent plot structure; consistent point of view, and realistic character portrayal. |
| Antistrophe | Repetition of the same word or phrase at the end of successive clauses |
| Antithesis | The rhetorical contrast of ideas by means of parallel arrangements of words clauses or sentences (Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more) |
| Antithetical Criticism | criticism that is in direct and unequivocal opposition. |
| Antonomasia | substitution of any phrase for a proper name. |
| Aphorism | denotes an original thought, spoken or written in a concise and easily memorable form. |
| Apocalypse | a term that refers to the disclosure of something hidden from the majority of humankind to certain privileged persons. |
| Apollonian | characterized by clarity, harmony, and restraint. |
| Aporia | a figure of speech in which the speaker expresses real or simulated doubt or perplexity. |
| Aposiopesis | a sudden breaking off of a thought in the middle of a sentence, as though the speaker were unwilling or unable to continue |
| Archetype | is an original model of a person, object, or concept from which similar instances are derived, copied, patterned or emulated (example: child) |
| Archetypical Criticism | is a type of critical theory that interprets a tent by focusing on recurring myths and archetypes (from the Greek arche or beginning, and typos or imprint) in the narrative, symbols, images, and character types in a literary work. |
| Articulate | divided into syllables or words meaningfully arranged |
| Assonance | is repetition of vowel sounds to create internal rhyming within phrases or sentences |
| Asyndeton | is a stylistic scheme in which conjunctions are deliberately omitted from series of related clauses. Examples are veni, vedi, vici. its English translation "I came, I saw, I conquered." can have effect of speed up rhythm to make memorable |
| Attitude | a mental position with regard to a fact or state; a feeling or emotion toward a fact or state |
| Aubade | a song or instrumental composition concerning, accompanying, or evoking daybreak. There is an aubade embedded in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet |
| Audience | a group of listeners or spectators |
| Avant-garde | means “advance guard”; represents a pushing of the boundaries of what is accepted as the norm or the status quo, primarily in the cultural realm |
| Avid | characterized by enthusiasm and vigorous pursuit |
| Balance | the juxtaposition in writing of syntactically parallel constructions containing similar or contrasting ideas |
| Balanced Sentence | in grammar, a sentence with two clauses or phrases of fairly equal in length and strength for clarity (example: The novel concentrates on character; the film intensifies the violence.) |
| Banal | lacking originality, freshness, or novelty; dull or stale as because of overuse |
| Baroque | of, characteristic of, or like a style of art and architecture characterized by much ornamentation and curved rather than straight lines; Popular from the late 16th century to the early 18th century. |
| Bathos | an abrupt, unintended transition in style from the exalted to the commonplace, producing a ludicrous effect; unintended humor caused by an incongruous combination of high and low |
| Belabor | to attack verbally; to explain or insist on excessively (belabor the obvious) |
| Blank Verse | Poetry that is written in unrhymed iambic pentameter; often resembles the rhythms of ordinary speech; William Shakespeare wrote most of his plays in blank verse. |
| Brackish | somewhat salty (brackish water); not appealing the to taste; repulsive |
| Bildungsroman | is a novelistic genre that arose during the German Enlightenment, in which the author presents the psychological, moral, and social shaping of the personality of a (usually young) protagonist; a coming-of-age kind of novel; |
| Black Humor | in literature, drama, and film, grotesque or morbid humor used to express the absurdity, insensitivity, paradox, and cruelty of the modern world (Example: A Modest Proposal by John Swift) |
| Bombast | talk or writing that sounds grand or important but has little meaning; pompous language |
| Burlesque | a literary or dramatic work that seeks to ridicule by means of grotesque exaggeration or comic imitation; a story, play, or essay, that treats a serious subject ridiculously, or is simply a trivial story. |
| Cacophony | harsh or discordant sound |
Created by:
Morgan94
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