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Basic terms needed to write about literature

Quiz yourself by thinking what should be in each of the black spaces below before clicking on it to display the answer.
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Term
Definition
Allegory   show
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show A character who functions as a resisting force to the goals of the protagonist.  
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Anticlimax   show
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Antihero   show
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show A novel in which an adolescent protagonist comes to adulthood by a process of experience and disillusionment. (Coming of age novel)  
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show Broad satire; taking tragic drama and exaggerating it into ridiculousness.  
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Contrast   show
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Conventions   show
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show A Latin term meaning "god out of a machine." By extension, the term refers to any artificial device or coincidence used to bring about a resolution.  
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Didactic   show
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show Eureka! A sudden flash of insight. A startling discovery and/or appearance; a dramatic realization.  
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Genre   show
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Essay   show
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Myth   show
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show In its broadest sense, any extended fictional prose narrative focusing on a few primary characters but often involving scores of secondary characters.  
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Parable   show
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show A work that makes fun of another work by imitating some aspect of the writer’s style.  
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Romance   show
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show The use of humor to ridicule and expose the shortcomings and failures of society, individuals, and institutions, often in the hope that change and reform are possible.  
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Short Story   show
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show An outrageously exaggerated, humorous story that is obviously unbelievable.  
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show A scene that interrupts the normal chronological sequence of events in a story to depict something that happened at an earlier time.  
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Foil   show
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show The result of inserting one or more small stories within the body of a larger story that encompasses the smaller ones.  
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Inclusio   show
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In medias res   show
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show A trope in which the meaning ostensibly expressed “differs sharply from” what the speaker really means.  
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show A plot device in which events turn out contrary to expectation yet are perversely appropriate.  
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Dramatic Irony   show
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Cosmic Irony   show
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Juxtaposition   show
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Metamorphosis   show
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show A recurring image, word, phrase, action, idea, object, or situation used throughout a work (or in several works by one author), unifying the work by tying the current situation to previous ones, or new ideas to the theme.  
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Paradox   show
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Pathetic Fallacy   show
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Persona   show
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Prose   show
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Protagonist   show
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Stream of Consciousness   show
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show A concrete object, scene, or action which has deeper significance because it is associated with something else, often an important idea or theme in the work.  
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Natural Symbol   show
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show Symbols that have been invested with meaning by a group.  
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Literary Symbol   show
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show The central or dominating idea in a literary work; the abstract concept made concrete in persons, actions, or images.  
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Verisimilitude   show
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Created by: erunion
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