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Literary Terms
Feinsilver Lit Terms to know
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| 1st person narrator | "i" point of view |
| 2nd person narrator | "you" point of view |
| 3rd person narrator | Limited POV using he or she |
| Abstract | thought feeling or idea |
| Act | major division of a play |
| Alliteration | Repetition of initial consonant sounds |
| Allusion | reference in a literary work to myth bible or historical point |
| anachronism | out of the appropriate time |
| antagonist | character in conflict w protagonist bad guy |
| antonym | word means opposite |
| aside | remark not intended for others on stage |
| assonance | repetition of vowel sounds in poetry or prose |
| connotation | emotional content of words |
| concrete | perceived by one or more of the five senses |
| denotation | literal meaning of words |
| diction | author's choice of words |
| foil | character who provides contrast to other characters often the protagonist |
| paradox | an apparent contradiction with the truth-parting is such sweet sorrow |
| mood | reader's response to a work of literature |
| genre | a division of literature |
| Narrative Nonfiction | is information based on fact that is presented in a format which tells a story. |
| Essays | are a short literary composition that reflects the author’s outlook or point. A short literary composition on a particular theme or subject, usually in prose and generally analytic, speculative, or interpretative. |
| Biography | is a written account of another person’s life. |
| Autobiography | gives the history of a person’s life, written or told by that person. Often written in Narrative form of their person’s life. |
| Speech/Sermon | is the faculty or power of speaking; oral communication; ability to express one’s thoughts and emotions by speech, sounds, and gesture. Generally delivered in the form of an address or discourse. |
| stereotype | fixed image placed upon a group |
| tone | author's attitude towards his or her works |
| theme | universal life lesson |
| thesis | statement put forth by a writer to be proved |
| allegory | story in which persons places and things have symbolic meanings |
| ambiguity | events of situations that can be interpreted in more than one way |
| analogy | comparison between to unlike things or a complex thing with a simpler thing |
| anapest | 3 syllable metrical foot consisting of two un accented syllables and followed by an accented one...like a ghost/from the tomb |
| antithesis | concept that directly opposes to a present idea |
| aphorism | (fortune cookie) terse statement that expresses a general truth or moral principle |
| apostrophe | figurative language in which an absent person or abstract concept is directly addressed |
| archetype | image story pattern or character type typically recognized across cultures |
| burlesque | ridicules people, actions, or literary works, by mimicry and exaggeration |
| cacophony | writers use a series of harsh or disagreeable sounds in close succession |
| caesura | a pause usually near the middle in a line of poetry; strong line break |
| catharsis | emotional cleansing or feeling of relief, often coming after tragedy |
| chiasmus | purposefully inverting a second phase which would otherwise be in parallel form |
| cliche | an expression or phrase that is so overused it becomes trite and meaningless |
| colloquial | relating to slang or regional dialect used in everyday conversation |
| conceit | extended metaphor/analogy (poetic) |
| dialect | variety of language spoken in one place by a distinct group of people |
| editorial omniscience | writer goes into the minds of characters and inserts his/her comments and opinions about the actions or thinking of characters |
| epithet | word or phrase used in place of a person's name and characteristic of that person. |
| euphemism | use of pleasant words to avoid harsh or uncomfortable ideas |
| Extended metaphor | comparison that is developed at great length |
| hamartia | great error or flaw which reverses the fortunes of the hero of a tragedy |
| implied metaphor | indirect metaphor where the comparison is suggested but not directly stated |
| limited omniscience | non-participating narrator sees everything through the eyes of a single or selective amount of characters |
| metonymy | figurative language where one word is substituted for another that is associated with it. |
| modernism | literary period of time after WWI marked by experimentation and the idea that knowledge is not absolute; characterized by isolation and fragmentation |
| Naturalism | writing that shows bleak world rigidly controlled by heredity and environment. |
| neo-classicism | writing that shows the influence of the Greek and Roman writers |
| Objective POV | writer that tells a story w/out judgment or looking into characters minds |
| parallelism | repetition of the same grammatical structure in a sentence or series of sentences |
| parody | mocking imitation of a known person literary work or event |
| plain style | speech or writing that is simple direct and unambiguous; used by puritans |
| Post modernism | thinking after WWII that veered from the idea of objective truth, rejects the use of sharp classifications of people/ideas holds realities to be plural and relative |
| Rationalism | thinking of the 18th century which emphasized ideas based on logical reasoning rather than the senses, sentiment or traditional authority |
| Repetition | repeating a word or phrase for emphasis |
| Rhetorical Question | question w an obvious answer and there is no response expected |
| Romanticism | writing that emphasizes nature, intuition, imagination, and extraordinary people in unusual experiences |
| Sarcasm | use of language to ridicule or hurt…using praise to mock |
| Satire | using irony, sarcasm or wit or hyperbole to expose a human weakness or to change a situation w people or society for the better |
| Stream of Consciousness | POV w crowded random interior thoughts…the mind |
| style | distinctive manner of expression (words sentence structure phrases) |
| synecdoche | figure of speech in which a part stands for the whole (usually body part) "I'll keep an eye out for you" "helping hands" |
| syntax | way in which words are ordered and connected |
| Transcendentalism | Literary and Philosophical movement of the 19th century that believed some knowledge transcends the physical and is knowledge through intuition |
| Litote (understatement) | creating emphasis by saying less than is actually or literally true |
| Vernacular | native speech or language of a place |
| Vignette | brief incident or scene or short verbal description |
Created by:
hrbarry21
Popular English Vocabulary sets