Terms : Hide Images
| 10450417451 | Allegory | A narrative with highly symbolic characters that usually illustrates a moral or ethical value; most of Aesop's fables are allegories | 0 | |
| 10450417452 | Alliteration | repetition of beginning consonant sound in several nearby words; she sells sea shells by the seashore | 1 | |
| 10450417453 | Allusion | a reference to a literary work or cultural or historical fact outside the immediate framework of the text; Huck alludes to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in his introduction and several works of Shakespeare later in the novel. | 2 | |
| 10450417454 | Anaphora | repetition of a phrase at the beginning of several nearby sentences or lines; MLK's "I have a dream" speech | 3 | |
| 10450417455 | Anachronism | the placing of an event or person or thing outside of its historical context; Shakespeare dressing Cleopatra in 16th-century Elizabethan clothesw | 4 | |
| 10450417456 | Antagonist | the character or force creating the conflict; Iago in Othello, Jack or man's primal self in Lord of the Flies | 5 | |
| 10450417457 | Analogy | a relationship based on similarities between two concepts or ideas; Just as we cannot have a rainbow without the rain, so, too, can we not have riches and success without hard work or sacrifice | 6 | |
| 10450417458 | Anecdote | a brief, poignant narrative, usually in the context of a larger speech or composition; Mr. Tawney often shares anecdotes about his own education and personal life to help his students understand concepts. | 7 | |
| 10450417459 | Antithesis | the exact opposite of something; good/evil, black/white, etc. | 8 | |
| 10450417460 | Apostrophe | a direct and explicit address to a person who is not present or an abstract or inanimate entity; "Oh, God, why hast thou forsaken me?!" | 9 | |
| 10450417461 | Aphorism | the pithy statement of a serious maxim, opinion, or general truth, generally becomes a cliché because it gets overused | 10 | |
| 10450417462 | Apocryphal | incorrectly attributed to an author or source; there are eleven religious texts that are not actually part of the Bible. One apocryphal story is that Abner Doubleday invented baseball, but it's more likely true that he never actually even saw or played the game. | 11 | |
| 10450417463 | Archetype | -a very typical example of a person or thing; The Notebook is an archetypal chick flick, Marilyn Monroe was an archetypal sex symbol from the 1950s. | 12 | |
| 10450417464 | Assonance | repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds in several nearby words; Aunt Annie's alligator ate a crate of weighty dates today | 13 | |
| 10450417465 | Aside | dialogue delivered either to the audience or another character that another character on stage is unaware of | 14 | |
| 10450417466 | Asyndeton | the absence or omission of a conjunction between the parts of a sentence; I like hot dogs, hamburgers, pizza. | 15 | |
| 10450417467 | Bildungsroman | a novel about the moral development of a young protagonist; The Catcher in the Rye, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn | 16 | |
| 10450417468 | Biography | the history of a particular person's life; includes memoir and autobiography | 17 | |
| 10450417469 | Blank Verse | lines of unrhymed iambic pentameter | 18 | |
| 10450417470 | Caesura | a dramatic pause in the rhythm of a sentence or line of poetry; ellipses, dashes, and semicolons usually create this effect | 19 | |
| 10450417471 | Caricature | a gross exaggeration, usually for comedic effect, of a person's physical appearance or other personal characteristics | 20 | |
| 10450417472 | Catharsis | a cleansing, therapeutic outpouring of emotion; I felt strangely calm and relaxed after I pounded my fist into my pillow for 10 minutes straight. | 21 | |
| 10450417473 | Characterization | the techniques an author uses to make a character known to his/her audience; physical description, dialogue, action, thoughts, others' opinions | 22 | |
| 10450417474 | Chiasmus | a sequence of two phrases or clauses parallel in syntax that reverse the order of corresponding words; "ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country" | 23 | |
| 10450417475 | Cliché | a trite and overused expression that has lost its original meaning; that's the way the cookie crumbles, don't cry over spilled milk, etc. | 24 | |
| 10450417476 | Climax | the point of greatest tension when the protagonist tries to definitively solve the conflict | 25 | |
| 10450417477 | Conflict | person v. person (Batman fights the Joker), self (protagonist in A Beautiful Mind struggles w/ schizophrenia), society (Jewish protagonist in School Ties tries to fit in with a mostly WASPY student body), nature (A Perfect Storm) | 26 | |
| 10450417478 | Connotation | the understood meaning of a word or phrase; "he's cool" doesn't mean that his body temperature is 63 degrees. | 27 | |
| 10450417479 | Consonance | the repetition of consonant sounds in several nearby words: Did David dare to defy Old Donald? | 28 | |
| 10450417480 | Couplet | - a pair of rhymed lines | 29 | |
| 10450417481 | Dactylic | - a unit a meter with one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables | 30 | |
| 10450417482 | Dactylic Hexameter | a specific meter with six dactyls per line; Homer used this meter in The Odyssey | 31 | |
| 10450417483 | Denotation | the literal, "dictionary" meaning of a word or phrase: "I'm going to kill you" is an actual threat on one's life | 32 | |
| 10450417484 | deus ex machina | roughly translates as "God out of the machine," this phrase indicates a plot device that saves a character from a seemingly impossible situation; Hermes saving Odysseus on Circe's island | 33 | |
| 10450417485 | Dialogue | —characters speaking | 34 | |
| 10450417486 | Dialect | A specialized form of speech that differs with respect to accent, jargon and syntax, usually determined by race, ethnicity, geography or socioeconomic class; Chinese has several major dialects, while American English has ebonics (also referred to as AAVE), Spanglish, Southern English, etc. | 35 | |
| 10450417487 | Diction | an author's choice of words; saying "fat" instead of "big" or "obese | 36 | |
| 10450417488 | Didactic Literature | writing that intentionally strives to instruct along a line of moral, religious, or philosophical thinking. | 37 | |
| 10450417489 | Dramatic Irony | when the audience knows something one or more characters do not; the killer sneaking up behind the victim in Scream | 38 | |
| 10450417490 | Elegy | a poem written in honor of a recently deceased person. | 39 | |
| 10450417491 | Empathy | an emotional connection with another person based on shared experience; I know just how you feel b/c my dog died last year, too. | 40 | |
| 10450417492 | End Ryme | rhyme that occur at the end of different lines in a poem | 41 | |
| 10450417493 | Enjambment | the elimination of the end-stop between two or more lines of poetry | 42 | |
| 10450417494 | en medias res | roughly translated as "in the middle of things," it describes a narrative or anecdote that ignores exposition and begins in the middle of an action; Othello begins in the middle of an argument between Iago and Roderigo | 43 | |
| 10450417495 | Epigraph | a quotation at the beginning of a work, usually intended to establish a thematic or stylistic framework | 44 | |
| 10450417496 | Epiphany | a sudden, dramatic realization about a significant aspect of one's life; Saul on the road to Damascus saw the Angel of the Lord | 45 | |
| 10450417497 | Epic | a long narrative poem on a great and serious subject told in an elevated style focused on a single heroic or quasi-diving figure; The Odyssey | 46 | |
| 10450417498 | Euphemism | "sugar-coating," talking about an unpleasant thing in softer, pleasant terms; Mr. Tawney is folically challenged, grandma passed away | 47 | |
| 10450417499 | Exposition | background information | 48 | |
| 10450417500 | Existentialism | philosophy that believes that all meaning must derive from the subject, as opposed to external sources; Jean-Paul Sartre was a great 20th century French existentialist | 49 | |
| 10450417501 | Falling action | the moments after the climax when the tension decreases and the plot moves toward its Resolution | 50 | |
| 10450417502 | Figurative language | the idea behind the words; metaphors, symbols, and similes are used to convey figurative meaning | 51 | |
| 10450417503 | Flashback | a sudden, distinct memory to a point that comes before the plotline of a narrative | 52 | |
| 10450417504 | Flat character | an unrealistic, unchanging character who does not grow or learn; the mustache-twirling villain, the dumb blonde | 53 | |
| 10450417505 | Foil | A secondary character who is similar to a more major character in several ways, but is very different in one major way, usually in order to highlight some thematic statement. Bernard is Biff's foil in Death of a Salesman, there to show that hard work and humility are really the cornerstones of success. | 54 | |
| 10450417506 | Free Verse | poetry w/ controlled rhythmic patterns but lacking a traditional pattern, usually characterized by an absence of rhyme and irregular line lengths | 55 | |
| 10450417507 | Genre | category of a work of art; some literary genre are fiction, poetry, biography, memoir, historical fiction, sci-fi, romance, etc. | 56 | |
| 10450417508 | Hubris | excessive pride; Odysseus talking trash to the Cyclops after he escaped | 57 | |
| 10450417509 | Hyperbole | extreme exaggeration; I've told you a million times to clean your room | 58 | |
| 10450417510 | Iambic Pentameter | 5 pairs of alternately stressed and unstressed syllables on a line of poetry. Shakespeare's sonnets use this meter, as do most of the high-ranking characters in his plays. | 59 | |
| 10450417511 | Idyllic | Synonymous with "Pastoral": presents an idealized view of the natural world; Willy's memory of the two elm trees in his backyard | 60 | |
| 10450417512 | Imagery | the effect of writing on the senses and/or the effect of the author's use of metaphorical and symbolic language | 61 | |
| 10450417513 | Internal Rhyme | a line that occurs within a single line in a poem; "The fat cat lounged on the rug" | 62 | |
| 10450417514 | Jazz Age | around the 1920's in America, characterized by greater social freedom and excess, generally in reaction to WWI; The Great Gatsby is set in the Jazz Age | 63 | |
| 10450417515 | Juxtaposition | the close contrast of two very distinct images; butterfly on a skull, rose growing out of manure pile | 64 | |
| 10450417516 | Literal meaning | the exact meaning of a word or phrase, same as Denotation | 65 | |
| 10450417517 | Litotes | a figure of speech that uses an understated negative description to make an affirmative statement; I'm not feeling bad, He's not a rocket scientist | 66 | |
| 10450417518 | Malapropism | an unintentional misuse of a word that sounds like another, different word that makes the speaker sound foolish; Be careful because this hotel room is invested in cockroaches | 67 | |
| 10450417519 | Metaphor | a FIGURATIVE comparison not using like or as; Mr. Tawney's a tool, she's a fox, he's a house | 68 | |
| 10450417520 | Metonymy | an object closely related to an entity comes to stand for that entity; The Vatican for the Catholic Church, the White House for the American presidency | 69 | |
| 10450417521 | Modernism | artistic school of thought that developed in the early 1900's, characterized by a general disregard for the audience and a heightened sense of allusion and complexity; Fitzgerald, Joyce, and Eliot were writers of the Modern Era | 70 | |
| 10450417522 | Mood | The prevailing emotional aspect of a scene or work; Twain creates a somber mood with his use of dark images and long sentences. | 71 | |
| 10450417523 | Motif | a recurring phrase or image in a work or series of works; Holden at crossroads, Homer Simpson saying "Doh!", Tim O'Brien using circular imagery | 72 | |
| 10450417524 | Narrator | the voice of a narrative, not necessarily the protagonist | 73 | |
| 10450417525 | Onomatopoeia | a word is the sound it makes; zip, buzz | 74 | |
| 10450417526 | Oxymoron | a modifier seems to contradict its subject; jumbo shrimp | 75 | |
| 10450417527 | Parable | A brief story that is plausible and realistic, intended to illustrate a moral truth. The parable of the Good Samaritan teaches lessons about generosity and compassion. | 76 | |
| 10450417528 | Paradox | a logical but self-contradicting situation; cruel to be kind, going back in time and killing your father before he ever met your mother | 77 | |
| 10450417529 | Parallelism | writing that uses grammatically or stylistically similar structures to create an effect; I like to ski, to jog, and to swim. (skiing, jogging, swimming) | 78 | |
| 10450417530 | Parody | Imitating the predominant characteristics of a person or work and applying it in an inappropriate situation for comic effect; most sketches on Saturday Night Live | 79 | |
| 10450417531 | Pastoral | synonymous with "Idyllic": presents an idealized view of the natural world. Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn." | 80 | |
| 10450417532 | Pathetic fallacy | the false belief that the natural environment changes in response to the subject's emotional state; the sun is shining because my beloved agreed to go out with me | 81 | |
| 10450417533 | Pathos | a compassionate emotional response elicited by a work; sympathy/empathy/pity | 82 | |
| 10450417534 | Personification | giving human characteristics to a non-human object; the sun's rays embraced the land | 83 | |
| 10450417535 | Pity | feeling bad for a person from a morally superior standpoint; what a rich businessman might feel for a homeless person | 84 | |
| 10450417536 | Platonic Ideal | the notion that the true essence of something exists only in the realm of the mind; Gatsby's notion of Daisy was distorted by his idealization of her over their five-year absence | 85 | |
| 10450417537 | Plot | the events of a narrative; intro. of conflict, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution | 86 | |
| 10450417538 | Point of view | first person (I), second (You), third (He/She/It), omniscient (He/She/It thought) | 87 | |
| 10450417539 | Portmanteau | the practice of joining two different words to create a new word; "smog" derives froma combination "smoke" and "fog" | 88 | |
| 10450417540 | Postmodernism | the beginning of this era is generally defined by the Second World War and characterized by a sense of despair brought on by humankind's ability to annihilate itself | 89 | |
| 10450417541 | Prose | any piece of non-poetic writing | 90 | |
| 10450417542 | Protagonist | the character trying to solve the conflict; Batman, Holden, Huck Finn | 91 | |
| 10450417543 | Puritanism | extreme branch of Protestantism that in the 16th century sought to "purify" the church by eliminating every hint of Catholicism; the Pilgrims in MA | 92 | |
| 10450417544 | Pyrrhic Victory | the winning of a conflict at such a great cost that the victor would have been better off losing, or not engaging in conflict at all; manipulating your parents into allowing you to do something yet leaving your relationship w/ them greatly strained | 93 | |
| 10450417545 | Realism | An artistic school of thought that seeks to present the world as it really is; Twain's Huck Finn was an attempt to present realistic characters and conflicts | 94 | |
| 10450417546 | Renaissance | cultural movement in Europe in 1300s-1600s marked by resurgence in classical education and art; da Vinci, Michelangelo, Shakespeare | 95 | |
| 10450417547 | Rhetoric | — the art of persuasive language | 96 | |
| 10450417548 | Ethos | an "ethical" appeal that depends on the audience's perception of & feelings about the speaker/writer | 97 | |
| 10450417549 | Extrinsic | relates to the character, expertise, education, experience of the author Ex: When LeBron James talks about basketball, we listen. If he talks about baseball, we might not trust him as much, but he's still a professional athlete. | 98 | |
| 10450417550 | Intrinsic | relates to how the author/speaker expresses him/herself; if LeBron misspeaks and stutters, we don't trust him as much. If Mr. Tawney speaks eloquently about basketball with strong visual aids and compelling statistics, you might listen to him. | 99 | |
| 10450417551 | Pathos | a "pathetic" appeal to an audience's sense of identity, self-interest, emotion. Ex: love, pity, fear, anger; "My fellow Americans," "Friends, Romans, countrymen" | 100 | |
| 10450417552 | Logos | a "logical" appeal that makes a reasonable claim and offers support Ex: cause or consequence, analogy, testimony & authority, definition, syllogism | 101 | |
| 10450417553 | Rhetorical question | a question that is meant not to elicit a response but to make a statement; How many times have I told you to clean your room? | 102 | |
| 10450417554 | Rising action | complication of conflict, increasing tension | 103 | |
| 10450417555 | Romantic Period | the era from 1790-1850 characterized by art and literature that presented unrealistic situations and highly idealized subjects and characters; most of Cooper's stories or works by Walter Scott | 104 | |
| 10450417556 | Round character | — a realistic character who grows and changes throughout a narrative | 105 | |
| 10450417557 | Sarcasm/ Verbal Irony | saying something you obviously don't mean; "Nice hair, Mr. Tawney." | 106 | |
| 10450417558 | Satire | The literary art of diminishing a subject by making it seem ridiculous; Twain's "Ode to Stephen Dowling Bots," or the fake news on The Daily Show; Parody is a more obvious, extreme version of Satire | 107 | |
| 10450417559 | Setting | time and place of the events of the narrative | 108 | |
| 10450417560 | Simile | a FIGURATIVE comparison using like or as; as big as a house, crazy like a fox | 109 | |
| 10450417561 | Situational Irony | a logical but surprising turn of events, usually poignant or funny; Lady Gaga's daughter grows up to be an evangelical Christian minister who dresses conservatively and preaches homo-phobic doctrine | 110 | |
| 10450417562 | Soliloquy | an extended speech delivered to the audience that reveals the character's inner thoughts and usually develops a central theme; Hamlet's "To be or not to be" soliloquy is perhaps the most famous of all. | 111 | |
| 10450417563 | Sonnet | A highly structured 14-line poem with a regular meter and rhyme scheme. Common types are English (Shakespearean), Italian (Petrarchan), and Spenserian. | 112 | |
| 10450417564 | Syllogism | a claim using deductive logic involving a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion; Most Republicans favor deregulation. Donald Trump is Republican. Therefore, Trump will pursue a policy of deregulation if he's elected. | 113 | |
| 10450417565 | Symbol | a concrete object that represents a larger, abstract idea; a cross for Christianity, the color black for death, a rose for love | 114 | |
| 10450417566 | Sympathy | a compassionate response based on intellectual understanding of another's plight; That must have been terrible | 115 | |
| 10450417567 | Synecdoche | —substituting a part for the whole; all hands on deck, 100 head of cattle | 116 | |
| 10450417568 | Syntax | —the arrangement of words in sentences and phrases; "Use the force and a Jedi you will become" is memorable for its unusual syntax | 117 | |
| 10450417569 | Theme | —the main idea of a work of literature | 118 | |
| 10450417570 | Trope | —any figurative device, including both metaphors and similes | 119 | |
| 10450417571 | Tragic Flaw (Hamartia) | —the characteristic that ultimately causes the downfall of a tragic hero; Macbeth's ambition, Othello's decisive, aggressive nature | 120 | |
| 10450417572 | Understatement | -drawing attention to a fact that is already obvious or noticeable, usually with humorous effect; Bill Gates is financially secure | 121 | |
| 10450417573 | Utopia | —the concept of a perfect society, set forth by St. Thomas More | 122 | |
| 10450417574 | Wanderlust | - the intense desire to travel; Huck feels this, Biff often feels it in the spring | 123 | |
| 10450417575 | Villanelle | - a 19-line poem with a specific rhyme scheme divided into five tersest and a quatrain | 124 | |
| 10450417576 | Sestina | - a 39-line poem with a rhyme scheme that uses the same six end rhymes in various sequences in six sextets and a terset | 125 | |
| 10450417577 | End stop | - a breath/pause that occurs at the end of a line, evoked either by a mark of punctuation or a natural break in the syntax of the poem | 126 | |
| 10450417578 | Line break | - the end of a line | 127 | |
| 10450417579 | Line | - the smallest unit of division in a poem; not the same as a sentence | 128 | |
| 10450417580 | Stanza | - a line or group of lines that is set apart from another line or group of lines; not the same as a paragraph | 129 | |
| 10450417581 | Found poem | - a poem that is created by pulling words, phrases and images out of non-poetic source material, such as speeches, newspaper articles, blogs, etc. | 130 | |
| 10450417582 | Speaker | - the voice of a poem; not the same as the poet or the narrator | 131 | |
| 10450417583 | Types of Stanzas: | Couplet (2 lines), terset (3), quatrain (4), cinquain (5), sextet (6), octave (8) | 132 | |
| 10450417584 | Internal Rhyme | - a rhyme that occurs on the same line of poetry: "The fat cat lay in the sun/its furry purring bothered me profusely" | 133 | |
| 10450417585 | End Rhyme | - rhymes that occur at the end of different lines of poetry: "The purring cat/Is quite fat./It lay in the sun/bothering no one. | 134 | |
| 10450417586 | Rhyme Scheme | - the pattern of rhymes in a poem; standard types include AABB and ABAB. | 135 | |
| 10450417587 | Rising Tricolon | - A pattern of three elements, usually culminating in the most significant or memorable. The items can be details in a list, sentence types, images, phrases in a sentence. | 136 | |
| 10450417588 | Apophasis | Actually referring to something while claiming not to talk about it; "We're not going to talk about Tawney's poor shooting in the third quarter," or T-Griff saying "I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin' . . ." | 137 | |
| 10450417589 | Sophrosyne | The belief that all things balanced is best; In The Odyssey Odysseus struck a balance of brawn, intelligence, and guile, and Greeks generally sought to find the perfect balance of being pleasant guests but not overstaying their welcome. | 138 | |
| 10450417590 | Eponymous | Giving its name to something | 139 | |
| 10450417591 | Polysyndeton | Inclusion of an extra unecessary conjunction to a sentance, : I love cake and ice cream and cats | 140 | |
| 10450417592 | Chiaroscuro | the treatment of light and shade in drawing, painting, and literature; Anthony Doerr's use of light and dark imagery throughout Memory Wall | 141 | |
| 10450417593 | Memoir | a historical account or biography written from personal knowledge or special sources; Richard Blanco's The Prince of Los Cocuyos is a memoir. | 142 | |
| 10450417594 | Periphrasis | using excessive language and surplus words to convey a meaning that could be expressed in fewer words; Instead of simply saying "I am unhappy with your behavior," one can say, "the manner in which you have conducted yourself in my presence of late has caused me to feel uncomfortable and has resulted in my feeling disgruntled and disappointed with you." | 143 |
