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| 13890000501 | alliteration | repetition of accented consonant sounds at he beginning of words that are close to each other, usually to create and effect, rhythm, or emphasis. ex: Big, bad, barking dog. The noisy gnat knit nine sweater | 0 | |
| 13890038975 | allusion | a reference in literature or art to previous literature, history, myhtology, pop culture/current events, or the Bible ex: It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles And see the great Achilles, whom we knew | 1 | |
| 13890069162 | ambiguity | quality of being intentionally unclear. Events or situations that are ambiguous can be interpreted in more than one way. This device is especially beneficial in poetry, as it tends to grace the work with the richness and depth of multiple meanings ex: Thou still unravished bride of quietness Does "still mean that she is dead, that she never was alive, that the vase still exists, or that she is still virginal? | 2 | |
| 13890112403 | anachronism | an element in a story that is out of its time frame; sometimes used to create a humorous or jarring effect. Beware: this can also occur because of careless or poor research on the author's part. ex: In Julius Caesar, Shakespeare mentions caps, which the Romans did not wear: Or imagine shakespeare's Romeo riding to Mantua in a porsche | 3 | |
| 13890158930 | analogy | clarifies or explains an unfamiliar concept or object, or one that cannot be put into words, by comparing it with one which is familiar. BY explaining the abstract in terms of the concrete, an analogy may force the reader to think more critically about a concept. Analogies tend to appear more often in prose than poetry. They enliven writing by making it more interesting, entertaining, and understandable. Similies and metaphors are two specific types of analogies. ex: Knowledge always desires increase: it is like fire, which must be kindled by some external agent. | 4 | |
| 13890222029 | analysis | the process of examining the components of literary work. | 5 | |
| 13890228686 | anapest | the poetic foot (measure) that follows the pattern unaccented, unaccented, accented. The poet is usually trying to convey a rollicking, moving rhythm with this pattern. a metrical foot consisting of two short or unstressed syllables followed by one long or stressed syllable. marked in bold | 6 | |
| 13890279237 | anecdote | a short and often personal story used to emphasize a point, to develop character or theme, or to inject humor. | 7 | |
| 13890297506 | antagonist | a character who functions as a resisting force to the goals of the protagonist | 8 | |
| 13890310677 | antecedent | the word or phrase to which a pronoun refers. It often precedes a pronoun in prose ex: Oh that this too, too solid flesh would melt, thaw and resolve itself into a dew. Flesh is the antecedent; itself is the pronoun that refers to it | 9 | |
| 13890346580 | anticlimax | an often disappointing , sudden end to an intense situation | 10 | |
| 13890357663 | antihero | a protagonist who carries the action of the literary piece but does not embody the classic characteristics of courage, strength, and nobility | 11 | |
| 13890374242 | antithesis | a concept that is directly opposed to a previously presented idea | 12 | |
| 13890384656 | aphorism | a terse statement that expresses a general truth or moral principle; sometimes considered folk proverb. ex: "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" "early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise" | 13 | |
| 13890422412 | Apostrophe | a rhetorical (not expecting an answer) figure of direct address to a person, object, or abstract entity when a speaker breaks off from addressing one party and instead addresses a third party. ex; Juliet's famous line "O, Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?" is an apostrophe. ... In the same play, Juliet can also be heard addressing to a dagger, i.e. "O, happy dagger | 14 | |
| 13890626843 | apotheosis | elevating someone to the level of a god ex: many people revere Martin Luther King. Helen of Troy considered the apotheosis of beauty | 15 | |
| 13890663544 | archetype | a character, situation, or symbol that is familiar to people from all cultures because it it occurs frequently in literature, myth, religion, or folklore ex: Character: the archetypal gunslinger, having been forced to kill more than once, rides off to the sunset, leaving behind a town full of amazed and awestruck citizens Situation: just when it looks like the battle will be won by the enemy, reinforcements arrive symbol: the dove of peace | 16 | |
| 13890741643 | aside | a short speech or remark made by an actor to the audience rather than to the other characters, who do not hear him or her. | 17 | |
| 13890759066 | assonance | the repeated use of a vowel sound. ex: how now brown cow. twice five miles in a mazy motion | 18 | |
| 13890769542 | attitude | the authors feelings toward the topic he or she is writing about. attitude, often used interchangeably with "tone" is usually revealed through word choice | 19 | |
| 13890789741 | aubade | a poem or song about lovers who must leave one another in the early hours of the morning | 20 | |
| 13890807275 | ballad | a folk song or poem passed down orally that tells a story which may be derived from an actual incident or from legend or folklore. Usually composed in four-line stanzas (quatrains) with the rhyme scheme abcb. Ballads often contain a refrain (repetition) | 21 | |
| 13890851424 | blank verse | unrhymed poetry of iambic pentameter (five feet of two syllables each- unstressed and stressed); favored technique of shakespeare ex: "when honour's at the stake. How stand I then, That have a father kill'd a mother stain'd" | 22 | |
| 13890945201 | cacophony | harsh, discordant sounds, unpleasant to the ear; the sound of nails scratching a blackboard is cacophonous. Cacophony is used by poets for effect. ex: "And squared and stuck there squares of soft white chalk, And with a fish-tooth, scratched a moon on each," Notice all the cacophonous sounds in these two lines: sq, st, ck, ft, t, k, sc, ch, | 23 | |
| 13891009309 | carpe diem | Latin for "seize the day" ; frequent in 16th- and 17th- century court poetry. Expresses the idea that you only go around once; refers to the modern saying that "life is not a dress rehearsal" " Gather ye rosebuds, while ye may, Old time is still a-flying; And this same flower that smiles today, tomorrow will be dying | 24 | |
| 13891070069 | catharsis | in his Poetics, Aristotle wrote that a tragedy should "arose pity and fear in such a way as to accomplish a catharsis of such emotions in the audience" The term refers to an emotional cleansing or feeling of relief. they are experiencing catharsis | 25 | |
| 13891138183 | chiasmus | the opposite of parallel construction; inverting the second of two phrases that would otherwise be in parallel form. parallel construction: "I like the idea: I don't like its execution." chiasmus: I like the idea; it's execution, i dont" | 26 | |
| 13891209097 | colloquial | of or relating to slang or regional dialect, used in familiar everyday conversation. In writing, an informal style that reflects the way people spoke in a distinct time and/or place ex: Mark Twain | 27 | |
| 13891281748 | comic relief | Humor that provides a release of tension and breaks up a more serous episode | 28 | |
| 13891293076 | conceits | a far-fetched comparison between two seemingly unlike things; an extended metaphor that gains appeal from its unusual or extraordinary comparison "Oh stay! three lives in one flea spare Where we almost, yea more than married are. his flea is you and I" the conceit is that he compares the flea to a marriage bed and a temple | 29 | |
| 13893532227 | connotation | All the meanings, associations, or emotions that a word suggests. House and home have the same denotation, or dictionary meaning- a place to live. But home connotes warmth and security; house does not. the more connotative a piece is, the less objective its interpretation becomes. some very connotative words are light, fire, mother, father, rose, water, home. | 30 | |
| 13893652028 | consonance | same consonant sound in words with different vowel sounds work, stack, ark, belong, among | 31 | |
| 13893675555 | conventional character | a character with traits that are expected or traditional. Heroes are expected to be strong, adventurous, and unafraid. Conventional female characters often yearn for a husband, or once married, stay at home and care for their children | 32 | |
| 13893711779 | couplet | two successive rhyming lines of the same number of syllables, with matching cadence ex: Hope springs eternal in the human beast/Man never is, but always to be blest" | 33 | |
| 13893770303 | dactyl | foot of poetry with three syllables, one stressed and two short or unstressed. Think of the Waltz rhythm "just for a handful of silver he left us | 34 | |
| 13893790505 | denotation | the dictionary or literal meaning of a word or phrase. Compare to connotation Thin's denotation is "not fat". Skinny and scrawny aslo refer to someone that is not fat, but they imply or connote "underfed" or "unattractively thin" | 35 | |
| 13893838585 | denounement | the outcome or clarfication at the end of a story or play; the winding down from climax to ending | 36 | |
| 13893857567 | deus ex machina | literally, when the gods intervene at a story's end to resolve a seemingly impossible conflict. refers to an unlikely or improbable coincidence; a cop-out ending sleeping beauty | 37 | |
| 13893893832 | diction | the deliberate choice of style of language for a desired effect or tone. Words chosen to achieve a particular effect that is formal, informal, or colloquial scarlet letter is formal while mark twain is highly informal | 38 | |
| 13893960008 | didactic | a didactic story, speech, essay or play is one in which the author's primary purpose is to instruct, teach or moralize. | 39 | |
| 13893985726 | distortion | an exaggeration or stretching of the truth to achieve a desired effect. ex: Gregor Samsa waking up as a large insect is a distortion of reality | 40 | |
| 13894033425 | enjambment | in poetry, running over of a sentence from one verse or stanza into the next without stopping at the end of the first. | 41 | |
| 13894084395 | epigram | a short clever poem with a witty turn of thought. "Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song, A medley of extemporanea; And love is a thing that can never go wrong; And I am Marie of Roumania | 42 | |
| 13894128001 | epigraph | a brief quotation found at the beginning of a literary work, reflective of theme. ejjj | 43 |
