Terms : Hide Images
| 215006261 | Allegory | story/poem in which characters/settings/events stand for other people or events or for abstract ideas or qualities. example: animal farm, lord of the flies. | |
| 215006262 | Alliteration | repetition of the same or similar consonant sounds in words that are close together. | |
| 215006263 | allusion | indirect reference to someone or something that is known from history, literature, religion, politics, sports, science or another branch of culture. | |
| 215006264 | ambiguity | deliberately suggesting two or more different and sometimes conflicting meanings in a work. an event or situation that may be interpreted in more than one way- this is done on purpose by the other, when it is not done on purpose it is vagueness. | |
| 215006265 | analogy | comparison made between two things to show how they are alike | |
| 215006266 | anaphora | repetition of a word, phrase, or clause at the beginning of two or more sentences in a row. deliberate form of repetition and helps make the writer's point more coherent. | |
| 215006267 | anastrophe | inversion of the usual, normal, or logical order of the parts of a sentence. purpose is rhythm or emphasis or euphony. fancy word for inversion. | |
| 215006268 | anecdote | brief story told to illustrate a point or serve as an example of something. often shows character of an individual. | |
| 215006269 | antagonist | opponent who struggles against the protagonist | |
| 215006270 | antimetabole | repetition of words in successive clauses in reverse grammatical order. "one should eat to live, not live to eat" called chiasmus in poetry. | |
| 215006271 | antithesis | balancing words, phrases, or ideas that are strongly contrasted, often by means of grammatical structure. | |
| 215006272 | antihero | central character who lacks all the qualities traditionally associated with heroes | |
| 215006273 | anthropomorphism | attributing human characteristics to an animal or inanimate object (personification) | |
| 215006274 | aphorism | brief, cleverly worded statement that makes a wise observation about life, or of a principle or accepted general truth. also called maxim, epigram. | |
| 215006275 | apostrophe | calling out to an imaginary, dead, or absent person, or to a place of thing, or a personified abstract idea. not the same as invocation which is when a person calls out to a god/goddess for inspiration. | |
| 215006276 | apposition | placing an immediately succeeding order of two or more coordinate elements, the latter of which is an explanation, qualification, or modification of the first. | |
| 215006277 | assonance | the repetition of similar vowel sounds followed by different consonant sounds especially in words that are together. | |
| 215006278 | asyndeton | commas used without conjunction to separate a series of words... instead of x,y, and z the writer uses x,y,z | |
| 215006279 | balance | constructing a sentence so that both halves are about the same length and importance. sentences can be unbalanced to serve a special effect as well. | |
| 215006280 | caesura | a break or beat written into a line of poetry | |
| 215006281 | characterization | process by which the writer reveals the personality of a character | |
| 215006282 | static character | one who does not change much in the course of a story | |
| 215006283 | dynamic character | one who changes in some important way as a result of the story's action | |
| 215006284 | flat character | has only one or two personality traits. one dimensional, like cardboard. can be summed up in one phrase. | |
| 215006285 | round character | has more dimensions to their personalities, they are as complex as real people. | |
| 215006286 | chiasmus | in poetry, a type of rhetorical balance in which the second part is syntactically balanced against the first but with the parts reversed. "flowers are lovely, love is flowerlike." called antimetabole in prose | |
| 215006287 | cliche | a word or phrase, often a figure of speech, that has become lifeless because of overuse. | |
| 215006288 | colloquialism | a word or phrase in everyday use and informal writing but is inappropriate for formal situations. "gonna" | |
| 215006289 | comedy | a story that ends with a happy resolution of the conflicts faced by the main character or characters | |
| 215006290 | conceit | an elaborate metaphor that compares two things that are startlingly different. often an extended metaphor. | |
| 215006291 | connotation | the associations and emotional overtones that have become attached to a word or phrase, in addition to its strict dictionary definition. | |
| 215006292 | couplet | two consecutive rhyming lines of poetry | |
| 215006293 | dialect | a way of speaking that is characteristic of a certain geographical area | |
| 215006294 | diction | a speaker/writer's choice of words | |
| 215006295 | didactic | form of fiction or nonfiction that teaches a specific lesson or moral or provides a model of correct behavior or thinking. | |
| 215006296 | elegy | poem of mourning, usually about someone who has died. | |
| 215006297 | epic | a long narrative poem, written in heightened language, which recounts the deeds of a heroic character who embodies the values of a particular society. | |
| 215006298 | epigraph | a quotation or aphorism at the beginning of a literary work suggestive of the theme. | |
| 215006299 | epithet | an adjective or adjective phrase applied to a person or thing that is frequently used to emphasize a characteristic quality. "Father of our country" | |
| 215006300 | essay | short piece of nonfiction prose in which the writer discusses some aspect of a subject | |
| 215006301 | fable | a very short story told in prose or poetry that teaches a practical lesson about how to succeed in life. | |
| 215006302 | farce | type of comedy in which ridiculous and often stereotyped characters are involved in silly, far-fetched conversations. | |
| 215006303 | figurative language | words which are inaccurate if interpreting literally, but are used to describe. | |
| 215006304 | flashback | a scene that interrupts the normal chronological sequence of events in a story to depict something that happened at an earlier time. | |
| 215006305 | foil | character who acts in contract to another character | |
| 215006306 | foreshadowing | use of hints and clues to suggest what will happen later in a plot | |
| 215006307 | free verse | poetry that does not conform to a regular meter or rhyme scheme | |
| 215006308 | hyperbole | figure of speech that uses incredible exaggeration | |
| 215006309 | imagery | use of language to evoke a picture or concrete sensation of a person, thing, place or experience | |
| 215006310 | inversion | the reversal of the normal word order in a sentence or phrase | |
| 215006311 | irony | discrepancy between appearances and reality | |
| 215006312 | verbal irony | when someone says something but means something else | |
| 215006313 | situational irony | when there is a discrepancy between what is expected to happen and what really does happen | |
| 215006314 | dramatic irony | when a character things one thing is true but the audience/reader knows it isn't | |
| 215006315 | juxtaposition | poetic and rhetorical device in which normally unassociated ideas, words, or phrases are placed next to one another, creating an effect of surprise and wit. | |
| 215006316 | litotes | form of understatement in which the positive form is emphasized through the negation of a negative form. | |
| 215006317 | local color | term applied to fiction/poetry which tends to place special emphasis on a particular setting, including its customs., clothing, dialect and landscape | |
| 215006318 | lyric poem | poem that does not tell a story but expresses the personal feelings or thoughts of the speaker. | |
| 215006319 | metaphor | makes comparison of two unlike things without like or as | |
| 215006320 | extended metaphor | a metaphor that is extended or developed as far as the writer wants to take it | |
| 215006321 | dead metaphor | metaphor that has been used so often that the comparison is no longer vivid | |
| 215006322 | mixed metaphor | metaphor that has gotten out of control and mixes its terms so that they are visually or imaginatively incompatible. | |
| 215006323 | metonymy | a figure of speech in which a person, place or thing is referred to by something closely associated with it | |
| 215006324 | mood | an atmosphere created by a writers diction and the details selected | |
| 215006325 | motif | recurring image, word, phrase , action, idea, object, or situation used throughout a work, unifying the work by tying the current situation to previous ones. | |
| 215006326 | motivation | the reasons for a characters behavior. | |
| 215006327 | oxymoron | figure of speech that combines opposite or contradictory terms in a brief phrase "pretty ugly" "jumbo shrimp" | |
| 215006328 | parable | relatively short story that teaches a moral, or lesson about how to lead a good life. | |
| 215006329 | paradox | statement that appears self-contradictory, but that reveals a kind of truth. | |
| 215006330 | parallel structure | repetition of words or phrases that have similar grammatical structures | |
| 215006331 | parody | a work that makes fun of another work by imitating some aspect of the writer's style | |
| 215006332 | personification | a figure of speech in which an object or animal is given human feelings, thoughts, or attitudes | |
| 215006333 | plot | series of related events in a story or play, sometimes called the storyline | |
| 215006334 | point of view | vantage point from which the writer tells the story | |
| 215006335 | first person POV | one of the characters tells the story | |
| 215006336 | third person POV | unknown narrator tells the story | |
| 215006337 | omniscient POV | third person, all knowing narrator tells the story | |
| 215006338 | objective POV | narrator who is totally impersonal or objective tells the story with no comment on any characters or events | |
| 215006339 | polysyndeton | sentences that uses no commas to separate the items in a series X and Y and Z instead of x,y and z | |
| 215006340 | protagonist | central character in a story | |
| 215006341 | pun | play on words | |
| 215006342 | quatrain | poem consisting of four lines, or four lines of a poem that can be considered a unit | |
| 215006343 | refrain | a word, phrase, line, or group of lines that is repeated, for effect, several times in a poem | |
| 215006344 | rhythm | rise and fall of the voice produced by the alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables in a language | |
| 215006345 | rhetorical question | question asked for an effect, not actually requiring an answer | |
| 215006346 | romance | a story in which an idealized hero or heroine undertakes a quest and is successful | |
| 215006347 | satire | type of writing that ridicules the shortcomings of people or institutions in an attempt to bring about change | |
| 215006348 | simile | comparing two unlike things using like or as | |
| 215006349 | soliloquy | long speech made by a character in a play when no other characters are on stage | |
| 215006350 | stereotype | a fixed idea or conception of a character or an idea which does not allow for any individuality | |
| 215006351 | stream of consciousness | style of writing that portrays the inner workings of a character's mind | |
| 215006352 | style | distinctive way in which a writer uses language | |
| 215006353 | symbol | a person, place, or thing that has meaning in itself and also stands for something more than itself | |
| 215006354 | synedoche | figure of speech in which a part represents a whole "if you don't drive properly, you will lose your wheels" | |
| 215006355 | tone | attitude a writer takes toward the subject of a work, the characters in it, or the audience | |
| 215006356 | understatement | a statement that says less than what is meant | |
| 215006357 | unity | unified parts of the writing are related to one central idea or organizing principle. | |
| 215006358 | vernacular | language spoken by the people who live in a particular locality. | |
| 215006359 | syntax | refers to the sentence choice of the writer |
