Terms : Hide Images
| 3001211348 | Plot | the sequence of incidents or events of which a story is composed. | 0 | |
| 3001220771 | Protagonist | the central character in a story. | 1 | |
| 3001225126 | Antagonist | any force in a story that is in conflict with the protagonist. An antagonist may be another person, an aspect of the physical or social environment, or a destructive element in the protagonist's own nature. | 2 | |
| 3001230874 | Conflict | a clash of actions, desires, ideas, or goals in the plot of a story or drama. Conflict may exist between the main character and some other person or persons; between the main character and some external force - physical nature, society, or "fate"; or between the main character and some destructive element in his or her own nature. . | 3 | |
| 3001239350 | Diction | word choice. Applies to any specific words that are important to the meaning and effect of a passage. [Usually refers to individual words, rather than groups of words.] | 4 | |
| 3001242930 | Syntax | the structure of a sentence; the arrangement of words within a sentence. [Usually refers to groups of words, such as phrases and clauses, and the way they are ordered in a sentence.] | 5 | |
| 3001245584 | Pastoral (Dr. Hake) | in its general sense, a literary archetype referring to simple country life and rustic people (Latin pastor = "shepherd"); pastoral literature emphasizes the simplicity, serenity, innocence, and charm of rural, family life. Often contrasted with heroic (below). | 6 | |
| 3001248765 | Heroic (Dr. Hake) | a literary archetype referring to warfare, quests, and dangers; heroic literature emphasizes the glory of battle or adventure, manly deeds, and virtues such as courage, strength, and sacrifice. Often contrasted with pastoral (above) | 7 | |
| 3140157839 | Climax | the turning point or high point in a plot. | 8 | |
| 3140163047 | Tragedy | a type of drama, opposed to comedy, which depicts the causally related events that lead to the downfall and suffering of the protagonist, a person of unusual moral or intellectual stature or outstanding abilities. | 9 | |
| 3140170256 | Chorus | a group of actors speaking or chanting in unison, often while going through the steps of an elaborate formalized dance; a characteristic device of Greek drama for conveying communal or group emotion. | 10 | |
| 3522492019 | Dramatic irony | an incongruity or discrepancy between what a character says or thinks and what the reader knows to be true (or between what a character perceives and what the author intends the reader to perceive). | 11 | |
| 3522501560 | Irony of situation | a situation in which there is an incongruity between appearance and reality, or between expectation and fulfillment, or between the actual situation and what would seem appropriate. | 12 | |
| 3522535617 | Setting | the context in time and place in which the action of a story occurs. | 13 | |
| 3522538383 | Allegory | a narrative or description having a second meaning beneath the surface one. | 14 | |
| 3522544647 | Terza rima | An interlocking rime scheme with the pattern aba bcb cdc, etc. | 15 | |
| 3522556314 | Contrapasso | literally "counter-suffering"; a principle of situational irony, in which a punishment's nature corresponds exactly to the nature of the crime, either resembling it or contrasting with it. | 16 | |
| 3522560191 | Allusion | a reference, explicit or implicit, to something in previous literature or history. | 17 | |
| 3522569603 | Point of view | the angle of vision from which a story is told. In literary contexts, usually used as a specific technical term to indicate one of the following: Omniscient point of view, limited point of view, limited omniscient point of view, objective (or dramatic) point of view, and first person point of view. | 18 | |
| 3522583764 | Omniscient point of view | the author tells the story, using the third person, knowing all and free to tell us anything, including what the characters are thinking or feeling and why they act as they do. | 19 | |
| 3522588602 | Limited omniscient point of view | the author tells the story, using the third person, but is limited to a complete knowledge of one character in the story and tells us only what that one character thinks, feels, sees, or hears. | 20 | |
| 3522592317 | Objective (or dramatic) point of view | the author tells the story, using the third person, but is limited to reporting what the characters say or do; the author does not interpret their behavior or tell us their private thoughts or feelings. | 21 | |
| 3522598123 | First person point of view | the story is told by one of its characters, using the first person | 22 | |
| 3522633706 | Comedy | a type of drama, opposed to tragedy, having usually a happy ending, and emphasizing human limitation rather than human greatness. | 23 | |
| 3522642556 | Romantic comedy | A type of comedy whose likable and sensible main characters are placed in difficulties from which they are rescued at the end of the play, either attaining their ends or having their good fortunes restored. | 24 | |
| 3522645086 | Scornful comedy | A type of comedy whose main purpose is to expose and ridicule human folly, vanity, or hypocrisy. | 25 | |
| 3522655672 | Soliloquy | Soliloquy—a speech in which a character, alone on the stage, addresses himself or herself; a soliloquy is a "thinking out loud," a dramatic means of letting an audience know a character's thoughts and feelings. | 26 | |
| 3522664583 | Aside | a brief speech in which a character turns from the person being addressed to speak directly to the audience; a dramatic device for letting the audience know what a character is really thinking or feeling as opposed to what the character pretends to think or feel. | 27 | |
| 3522671139 | Dramatic exposition | the presentation through dialogue of information about events that occurred before the action of a play, or that occur offstage or between the staged actions; this may also refer to the presentation of information about individual characters' backgrounds or the general situation (political, historical, etc.) in which the action takes place. | 28 | |
| 3522679237 | Character | (1) Any of the persons involved in a story or play. (2) The distinguishing moral qualities and personal traits of a character. | 29 | |
| 3522684632 | Direct presentation of character | that method of characterization in which the author, by exposition or analysis, tells us directly what a character is like, or has someone else in the story do so. | 30 | |
| 3522691977 | Indirect presentation of character | that method of characterization in which the author shows us a character in action, compelling us to infer what the character is like from what is said or done by the character. | 31 | |
| 3522699343 | Figurative language | language employing figures of speech; language that cannot be taken literally or only literally. | 32 | |
| 3522703153 | Flat character | a character whose character is summed up in one or two traits. | 33 | |
| 3522715173 | Round character | a character whose character is complex and many sided. | 34 | |
| 3522723000 | Developing (or dynamic) character | a character who during the course of a story undergoes a permanent change in some aspect of character or outlook. | 35 | |
| 3522734912 | Static character | a character who is the same sort of person at the end of a story as at the beginning. | 36 | |
| 3522738265 | Artistic unity | that condition of a successful literary work whereby all its elements work together for the achievement of its central purpose. In an artistically unified work nothing is included that is irrelevant to the central purpose, nothing is omitted that is essential to it, and the parts are arranged in the most effective order for the achievement of that purpose. | 37 | |
| 4223083740 | Prose | non-metrical language; the opposite of verse. Gulliver's Travels is our first non-dramatic work to read in prose. | 38 | |
| 4223088868 | Fantasy | A kind of fiction that pictures creatures or events beyond the boundaries of known reality. | 39 | |
| 4223097089 | Overstatement (hyperbole) | a figure of speech in which exaggeration is used in the service of truth. | 40 | |
| 4223105252 | Sarcasm | bitter or cutting speech; speech intended by its speaker to give pain to the person addressed [or to the reader?] | 41 | |
| 4223109576 | Satire | a kind of literature that ridicules human folly or vice with the purpose of bringing about reform or of keeping others from falling into similar folly or vice. | 42 | |
| 4223113856 | Tone | the writer's or speaker's attitude toward the subject, the audience, or herself or himself; the emotional coloring, or emotional meaning, of a work. | 43 | |
| 4223124257 | Theme | the central idea of a literary work. | 44 | |
| 4223135773 | Chance | the occurrence of an event that has no apparent cause in antecedent events or in predisposition of character. | 45 | |
| 4223138388 | Mystery | an unusual set of circumstances for which the reader craves an explanation; used to create suspense. | 46 | |
| 4223143413 | Stock character | a stereotyped character: one whose nature is familiar to us from prototypes in previous literature. | 47 | |
| 4223148399 | Foil character | a minor character whose situation or actions parallel those of a major character, and thus by contrast sets off or illuminates the major character; most often the contrast is complimentary to the major character. | 48 | |
| 4223155147 | Surprise ending | a completely unexpected revelation or turn of a plot at the conclusion of a story or play. | 49 | |
| 4223158980 | Plot manipulation | a situation in which an author gives the plot a twist or turn unjustified by preceding action or by the characters involved. | 50 | |
| 4223162475 | Escape literature | literature written purely for entertainment, with little or no attempt to provide insights into the true nature of human life or behavior. | 51 | |
| 4223166680 | Interpretive literature | literature that provides valid insights into the nature of human life or behavior. | 52 | |
| 4223181399 | Drama of the Absurd | A type of drama, allied to comedy, radically nonrealistic in both content and presentation, that emphasizes the absurdity, emptiness, or meaninglessness of life. | 53 | |
| 4223188583 | Indeterminate ending | an ending in which the central problem or conflict is left unresolved. | 54 |
