terms for Analyzing and Interpreting Literature CLEP test from the REA book
Help!
|
|
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Accentual Meter | Stressed rhythmic structure of poetic lines
🗑
|
||||
| Agon | In greek, meaning to "struggle"; found in protagonist and antagonist; in comedy, a formal debate
🗑
|
||||
| Alexandrine | A twelve-syllable line written in iambic hexameter
🗑
|
||||
| Allegorical | A narrative that is an extended metaphor; the elements of the narrative carry significance on a literal and figurative level
🗑
|
||||
| Alliteration | Repetition of initial consonants in consecutive words or in words close to each other
🗑
|
||||
| Allusion | In a literary work, a reference to a person, place, or thing from another literary work or from history
🗑
|
||||
| Anapest | Metrical foot used in poetry consisting of two short syllables followed by a long syllable
🗑
|
||||
| antagonist | The one who struggles against or contends with the protagonist; the antagonist may either be an individual or an obstacle or challenge, such as fear or death
🗑
|
||||
| apostrophe | direct address to someone or something that is not present, such as an imaginary person or an abstract quality; often introduced by the explanation, "O".
🗑
|
||||
| Argumentative | Describes writing-usually an essay-that establishes a position and supports it with evidence
🗑
|
||||
| Assonance | Repetition of vowel sound; more common in verse than prose
🗑
|
||||
| Aubade | A morning love song; opposite of a serenade; literally, a song to a sleeping woman; also refers to a song-evoking daybreak
🗑
|
||||
| Ballad | a narrative folk song or a narrative set to music
🗑
|
||||
| Ballad Stanza | Four-line stanza (quatrain) consisting of alternating four- and three- stress lines; usually second and fourth lines rhyme (abcb)
🗑
|
||||
| Bathos | abrupt change in style going from exalted to mundane, producing a ludicrous effect
🗑
|
||||
| Blank Verse | Unrhymed iambic pentameter
🗑
|
||||
| Caesura, Cesura | A complete pause in a line of poetry
🗑
|
||||
| Catastrophe | Final resolution in a poem or narrative that unravels the plot and concludes the work; misfortune experienced by tragic hero
🗑
|
||||
| Catharsis | From Greek, meaning "cleansing" or "purging"; in tragedy a moment for purging or relieving the emotions for the audience
🗑
|
||||
| Climax | Turning point in a story; the point where the main character experiences a change, and the action stops building and begins falling
🗑
|
||||
| Closed form | Poetry conformed to pre-specified requirements of rhyme, meter, line length, and number of lines; two examples are haiku and sonnet
🗑
|
||||
| Complication | Element introduced into the plot to alter its course
🗑
|
||||
| conceits | extended metaphor governing and entire passage or poem
🗑
|
||||
| conclusion | final division of a discourse or literary work that brings the work to a close' fifth part or plot structure
🗑
|
||||
| connotation | emotional association that accompanies a certain word or phrase; often described as positive or negative depending on the emotional connection
🗑
|
||||
| consonance | repetition of a consonant sound in short succession
🗑
|
||||
| conventional | following accepted standards; a well-understood interpretation; like stock
🗑
|
||||
| couplet | two consecutive lines in poetry, usually with the same meter and often rhyming
🗑
|
||||
| crisis | turning point in a story; culmination of the events of the plot
🗑
|
||||
| Dactyl | A foot in meter in poetry; in greek or latin verse, it is a long syllable followed by two short syllables; in english verse, it is a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables
🗑
|
||||
| denotation | literal meaning, found in the dictionary
🗑
|
||||
| denouement | the conclusion of a story; includes the events between the falling action and the last scene of a narrative or drama
🗑
|
||||
| diction | word choice
🗑
|
||||
| dimeter | a line containing only two metrical feet
🗑
|
||||
| doggerel | derogatory term for verse with little literary value
🗑
|
||||
| Dramatic monologue | speech delivered by a single character who addresses the reader or an internal listener and reveals his or her innermost thoughts and feelings
🗑
|
||||
| Dynamic | A character whose personality changes over the course of a narrative or who has the ability of such change
🗑
|
||||
| elegy | a sorrowful, melancholic poem, such as a funeral song or a lament for the dead
🗑
|
||||
| enacted | performed by an actor or actors
🗑
|
||||
| end rhyme | repetition of similar sounds in two or more words, found in the final syllables of the lines of poetry
🗑
|
||||
| enjambment | a line having no end punctuation so that the meaning continues uninterrupted to the next line
🗑
|
||||
| epic | a long narrative poem written in elevated language and style about the exploits of a hero or heroine
🗑
|
||||
| Epigram | an inscription on a building or tomb or a short verse that appears at the beginning of a longer work (novel, chapter, or poem) to set the mood or reveal theme
🗑
|
||||
| exposition | the author's explanation of background information about characters and setting at the beginning of the plot; writing with ta primary purpose of informing, clarifying, or explaining
🗑
|
||||
| expository | writing or discourse with the primary purpose of informing, clarifying, or explaining; background information shared by the author
🗑
|
||||
| expressionism | subjective depiction of the real world through imagination, the abstract, and symbols
🗑
|
||||
| falling action | moment following the climax where the conflict between the protagonist and the antagonist is resolved
🗑
|
||||
| farce | comedy that entertains the audience through absurdity, improbabilities, exaggeration, and verbal humor
🗑
|
||||
| feminine rhyme | two or more syllables match in the rhyming words; the final syllable or syllables are unstressed
🗑
|
||||
| fiction | imaginary narrative; the information or events are created by the author
🗑
|
||||
| figurative | deviation from usual meaning of a word or group of words resulting in a special effect or meaning
🗑
|
||||
| figurative image | picture painted by the writer, usually a poet
🗑
|
||||
| fixed form | any one of three fourteenth- and fifteenth-century french poetic forms: the ballad, the virelai, and rondeau
🗑
|
||||
| Foil | A character who highlights through contrast opposite characteristics in another character
🗑
|
||||
| Foot | basic unit of meter consisting of set number of stressed and unstressed syllables
🗑
|
||||
| form | Pattern or design of a poem;two kinds = open form and closed form
🗑
|
||||
| Free verse | poetry using natural rhythms of words and phrases instead of required metrical feet
🗑
|
||||
| hamartia | a tragic flaw within a character; in greek, means to "miss the mark"
🗑
|
||||
| heptameter | line with seven metrical feet
🗑
|
||||
| heroic couplet | two successive lines of iambic pentameter with the second lines usually ending with a stop
🗑
|
||||
| hexameter | line with six metrical feet
🗑
|
||||
| high comedy | comedy carried out by characters that are true to life, realistic
🗑
|
||||
| the How | authors style incorporating choices in diction, syntax, point of view, description, narration, and dialoge
🗑
|
||||
| hubris | excessive pride adversely affecting the protagonist's judgement; most common tragic flaw
🗑
|
||||
| hyperbole | exaggeration or overstatement
🗑
|
||||
| iambic foot | an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable
🗑
|
||||
| Iambic pentameter | line of five feet, each with an unstressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable
🗑
|
||||
| iambic rhythm | rising and falling rhythm in poetry from alternating stressed and unstressed syllables
🗑
|
||||
| image | word pictures painted by the author
🗑
|
||||
| imagine | to visualize the pictures evoked by the writer through the senses
🗑
|
||||
| imagism | term coined by Ezra Pound for free imagery, open to many interpretations
🗑
|
||||
| impressionism | subjective or personal literary style that relies on associations; style adapted to writing from nineteenth century school of painters, including Monet and Renoir
🗑
|
||||
| Internal rhyme | a word rhyming at the end of the line with a word in the middle of the line
🗑
|
||||
| introduction | first stage in plot in which the author establishes the situation and shares background information
🗑
|
||||
| invective | writing that attacks a person or idea through emotional language
🗑
|
||||
| inversion | doing or saying the opposite or unexpected; used in irony
🗑
|
||||
| irony | discrepancy between what is said or done and what is meant
🗑
|
||||
| Limerick | a five-line humorous or non-sensical poem in which the first two lines are anapestic trimeter, the next two are anapestic dimete, and the last line is trimeter; rhyme sceme is aabba
🗑
|
||||
| literal | the meaning of a word or phrase according to the dictionary; denotative
🗑
|
||||
| literacy ballad | four rhyming lines, abcb, with lines 1 and 3 having eight syllables and lines 2 and 4 having six
🗑
|
||||
| low comedy | humor with absurdities, horseplay, and exaggerations, depicting an unrefined life.
🗑
|
||||
| Lyric | a poem sharing personal emotions; in classical poetry, accompanied by a lyre
🗑
|
||||
| Masculine Rhyme | a rhyme that matches just on syllable, often a stressed syllable at the end of the lines
🗑
|
||||
| metaphor | comparison of to unlike items
🗑
|
||||
| meter | basic rhythmic structure for lines in poetic verse
🗑
|
||||
| metonym | a figure of speech in which an idea or thing is referenced by a name closely associated with it; literally means "a change of name"
🗑
|
||||
| mimesis | in greek, "imitation"; mimetic theory from Aristotle held that successful imitation in art portrayed reality as closely as possible
🗑
|
||||
| Mock-Heroic | Satire or parody that mocks the classical stereotype of a hero or heroic literature, usually through exaggeration or absurdity
🗑
|
||||
| mode | a broad literary method not tied to one specific form or genre, such as satire or irony
🗑
|
||||
| monometer | a line of verse with one foot
🗑
|
||||
| motif | an object, concept, or structure repeated in a literary work, thereby giving symbolic significance in the story
🗑
|
||||
| Narrative | the events that tell the story
🗑
|
||||
| narrator | an individual who tells or speaks the story
🗑
|
||||
| naturalism | literary movement that depicts life as accurately as possible, illustrating transformation in society through environment and heredity
🗑
|
||||
| neo-classical | a style of prose and poetry from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, reviving a classical style from Greek and Roman cultures
🗑
|
||||
| Non-fiction | writing that delivers factual events and observations
🗑
|
||||
| novel | an extended fictional narrative written in prose that includes character, plot, and setting
🗑
|
||||
| Octameter | a line in poetry of eight metrical feet
🗑
|
||||
| octave | poetic verse of eight lines of iambic pentameter, usually with a rhyme scheme of abba abba
🗑
|
||||
| ode | lyrical verse or poem with a serious topic and tone
🗑
|
||||
| onomatopoeia | Use of a word that suggests or mimics its meaning through sound, such as roar or whistle
🗑
|
||||
| open form | poetry that does not follow a predetermined form; freedom in the form of a poem
🗑
|
||||
| oxymoron | a figure of speech where two words opposite in meaning are placed next to each other, such as "bittersweet"
🗑
|
||||
| Paradox | a statement that seems absurd or contradictory but is true
🗑
|
||||
| parody | a work that mocks an original work, character, or style through humorous imitation
🗑
|
||||
| personification | figure of speech that attributes human characteristics to inanimate objects or animals
🗑
|
||||
| phonic | pertaining to sound from speech
🗑
|
||||
| plot | the series of events that make up the story
🗑
|
||||
| point of view | the perspective or vantage point from which the author chooses to tell the story
🗑
|
||||
| prose | the most common form of written language following natural speech patterns and grammatical structure
🗑
|
||||
| protagonist | main character in a literary work; literally, one who struggles toward or for something
🗑
|
||||
| pun | a play on the meaning of a word or of similar sounding words for and intended effect; usually humorous
🗑
|
Review the information in the table. When you are ready to quiz yourself you can hide individual columns or the entire table. Then you can click on the empty cells to reveal the answer. Try to recall what will be displayed before clicking the empty cell.
To hide a column, click on the column name.
To hide the entire table, click on the "Hide All" button.
You may also shuffle the rows of the table by clicking on the "Shuffle" button.
Or sort by any of the columns using the down arrow next to any column heading.
If you know all the data on any row, you can temporarily remove it by tapping the trash can to the right of the row.
To hide a column, click on the column name.
To hide the entire table, click on the "Hide All" button.
You may also shuffle the rows of the table by clicking on the "Shuffle" button.
Or sort by any of the columns using the down arrow next to any column heading.
If you know all the data on any row, you can temporarily remove it by tapping the trash can to the right of the row.
Embed Code - If you would like this activity on your web page, copy the script below and paste it into your web page.
Normal Size Small Size show me how
Normal Size Small Size show me how
Created by:
MissMAK
Popular Literature sets