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Literary Term[s]
Arnett Literary Terms 9th Grade
| Word | Definition |
|---|---|
| abstract | not attatched to anything specific or concrete |
| active voice | verb that is an action (as opposed to passive voice). Example: Jane sweeps the floor. |
| ad hominem | an argument attacking an individual's character rather than the issue |
| aesthetic | relating to beauty or to branch of philosophy concerned with art, beauty and taste |
| allegory | a narritive in which literal meaning corresponds directly with symbolic meaning. Example: Animal Farm is an allegory for the Russian Revolution (Napoleon = Stalin, Animal Farm = Russia, etc.) |
| allusion | a reference within a literary work to a historical or literary person, place or event |
| anachronism | the misplacement of a person, occurence, custom or idea in time. Example: in Julius Caesar, a character mentions a watch. Watches did not exist in ancient Rome. (they existed in the time of the author, Shakespeare) |
| anadiplosis | repitition of a word at the end of a phrase, sentence, etc. when then begins the next phrase, clause, sentence, etc. Example: I ran to the store. The store had plenty of oranges for me. |
| analogy | a comparison between two things that are otherwise unlike. Often analogies draw a comparison between something abstract and something more concrete or easier to visualize. Example: Trying to get a confession out of the subject was like pulling teeth. |
| anaphora | repitition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive phrases and sentences. |
| antagonist | the person or obstacle that gets in the way of the protagonist's accomplishment of his/her goal |
| anecdote | a brief narration of an event or person. Example: Aunt Joan loves to tell ancedotes about her childhood. |
| antecendent | What noun the pronoun is replacing. Example: "I love reading. It makes me happy." The antecendent of "it" is "reading". |
| antihero/antiheroine | a protagonist who is not a good person |
| antimetabole | reversing the order of repeated words or phrases Example: "All work and no play is as harmful to mental health as all play and no work". |
| antithesis | parallelism with contradictory ideas. Example: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" |
| aporia | expression of doubt (often feigned) by which a speaker appears uncertain as to what he should think, say, do. |
| aposiopesis | a sudden breaking off of speach, usually due to excitement (either positive or negative) |
| apostrophe | directly addressing either a dead person or an inanimate object |
| appeals | methods authors use to gain a favor in rhetoric, or to establish tone Pathos/emotional: audience's feelings and sympathies Logos/logical: audience's brain/logical side Ethos/ethical: attmpt. to sway rdr. by making a good impression of his/her character |
| archetype | a theme, motif, symbol or stock character that holds a familiar place in culture's conciousness Example: knight in shining armor, villan, the sidekick, the garden of eden |
| assonance | repitition of similar vowel sounds in nearby words |
| asyndeton | the omission or conjunctions in a series. Example: On my desk are pens, books, papers, exams. The omission of the conjuntion emphasizes quality. |
| bathos | a sudden change from extreme lighthearted to extreme sentiment. |
| bildungsroman | a novel about the education or physiological growth of the protagonist |
| caricature | the author's exaggeration or distortion of certain traits or characteristics of an individual. Charles Dickens' characters are often caricatures. |
| cacophony | an arrangement of harsh-sounding words; kill, crack, create, danger, cupcake |
Created by:
creamsoda17022
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