Terms : Hide Images
| 181542145 | Abstract | this writing style is typically complex, discusses intangible qualities like good and evil, and seldom uses examples to support its points | |
| 181542146 | Academic | as an adjective writing style, this word means dry and theoretical writing. When a piece of writing seems to be sucking all the life out of its subject with analysis... | |
| 181542147 | Accent | in poetry, this refers to the stressed portion of a word. | |
| 181542148 | Aesthetic, Aesthetics | this can be used as an adjective meaning "appealing to the senses". As a noun, it is a coherent sense of taste. | |
| 181542149 | Allegory | This is a story in which every aspect of the story has a symbolic meaning outside the tale itself. | |
| 181542150 | Alliteration | the repetition of initial consonant sounds | |
| 181542151 | Allusion | a reference to another work or famous figure | |
| 181542152 | Anachronism | this word is derived from Greek, meaning "misplaced in time". | |
| 181542153 | Anecdote | This is a short narrative | |
| 181542154 | Analogy | a comparison, involving yow or more symbolic parts, employed to clarify an action or a relationship. | |
| 181542155 | Anthromorphism | This occurs in literature when inanimate objects are given human characteristics. This is often confused with personification. But personification requires that the non-human quality or thing take on a human shape. | |
| 181542156 | Anticlimax | This occurs when an action produces far smaller results than obe had been led to expect, frequently comedic. | |
| 181542157 | Antihero | a protagonist (main character) who is markedly unheroic, morally weak, cowardly, dishonest, or any number of unsavory qualities | |
| 181542158 | Aphorism | A short usually witty saying, such as, "A classic? That's a book that people praise and don't read." | |
| 181542159 | Apostrophe | A figure of speech wherein the speaker speaks directly to something nonhuman or to someone or something that simply cannot reply; a dead person, for instance. | |
| 181542160 | Archaism | The use of deliberately old-fashioned language. Authors sometimes use these to create a feeling of antiquity. | |
| 181542161 | Archetype | A symbol, usually an image, which recurs often enough in literature to be recognizable as an element of one's literary experience as a whole. | |
| 181542162 | Aside | A speech (usually just a short comment) made by an actor to the audience, as though momentarily stepping outside of the action on stage | |
| 181542163 | Assonance | the repeated use of vowle sounds, as in, "Old king Cole was a merry old soul." | |
| 181542164 | Atmosphere | The emotional tone or background that surrounds a scene | |
| 181542165 | Ballad | a long, narrative poem, usually in very regular meter and rhyme. A ballad typically has a naive, folksy quality, a characteristic that distinguishes it from epic poetry. | |
| 181547212 | Bathos, Pathos | when the writing of a scene evokes feelings of dignified pity and sympathy, or when writing strains for grandeur it can't support and tries to jerk tears from every little hiccup | |
| 181547213 | Black humor | this is the use of disturbing themes in comedy. | |
| 181547214 | Blank verse | a poem written in unrhymed iambic pentameter | |
| 181547215 | Bombast | pretentious, exaggeratedly-learned language | |
| 181547216 | Burlesque | a broad parody that takes a style or form, such as a tragic drama, and exaggerates it into ridiculousness | |
| 181547217 | Cacophony | in poetry, the use of harsh, awkward sounds | |
| 181547218 | Cadence | the beat or rhythm of poetry in a general sense | |
| 181547219 | Caesura | a pause within a line of poetry which may or may not affect the metrical count. (//) | |
| 181547220 | Cante | the name for a section division in a long work of poetry | |
| 181547221 | Caricature | a portrait (verbal or otherwise) that exaggerates a facet of personality | |
| 181547222 | Catharsis | This is a term drawn from Aristotle's writings on tragedy. This refers to the "cleansing" of emotion an audience member experiences, having lived (vicariously) through the experiences presented on stage. | |
| 181547223 | Chorus | In Greek drama, this is the group of citizens who stand outside the main action on stage and comment on it. (Can I call them the peanut gallery?) | |
| 188940279 | Classic | This word can mean typical, an accepted masterpiece, or it can refer to the arts of ancient Greece and Rome, and the qualities of those arts. | |
| 188940280 | Coinage (neologism) | This is a new word, invented on the spot. The technical term for this is neologism. | |
| 188940281 | Colloquialism | This is a word or phrase used in everyday conversational English that isn't a part of accepted "school-book" English | |
| 188940282 | Conceit | controlling image. In poetry, this doesn't mean stuck-up. It refers to a startling or unusual metaphor, or to a metaphor developed and expanded upon over several lines | |
| 188940283 | Connotation | This refers to everything the word suggests or implies | |
| 188940284 | Consonance | the repetition of consonant sounds within words. A flock of sick, black-checkered, ducks | |
| 188940285 | Couplet | A pair of lines that end in a rhyme | |
| 188940286 | Decorum | In order to observe this, a character's speech must be styled according to his or her social station and in accordance with the occasion. | |
| 188940287 | Denouement | This is a part of drama which follows the climax and leads to the resolution, sometimes synonymous with resolution | |
| 188940288 | Diction | The author's choice of words | |
| 188940289 | Dirge | This is a song for the dead | |
| 188940290 | Dissonance | This refers to the grating of incompatible sounds | |
| 188940291 | Doggerel | Crude, simplistic verse, often in sing-song rhyme | |
| 188940292 | Elegy | A type of poem that meditates on death or mortality in a serious, thoughtful manner. | |
| 188940293 | Empathy | The imaginitive projection into another's feelings, a state of total identification with another's situation, condition, and thoughts. The action of understanding, being aware pf, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughs, and experience of another of either the past or present without expressly articulating these feelings | |
| 188940294 | Enjambment | The practice named by Rosnard in the 16th century of breaking the sense of a line by placing part of the phrase on the second line. | |
| 188940295 | Epic | In a broad sense, this is simply a very long narrative poem on a serious theme in a dignified style. | |
| 188940296 | Epitaph | Lines that commemorated the dead at their burial place | |
| 188940297 | Euphemism | A word or phrase that takes the place of a harsh, unpleasant, or impolite reality. | |
| 188940298 | Euphony | When sounds blend harmoniously | |
| 188940299 | Farce | Today we use this word to refer to extremely broad humor. Writers of earlier times used this as a far more neutral term, simply meaning a funny play | |
| 188940300 | Feminine rhyme | lines rhymed by their final two syllables | |
| 188940301 | Foil | a secondary character whose purpose is to highlight the characteristics of a main character, usually by contrast | |
| 188940302 | Foot | the basic rhythmic unit of a line of poetry. This is formed by a combination of two or three syllables, either stressed or unstressed | |
| 188940303 | Iamb | a light stress followed by a heavy stress (the winds) | |
| 188940304 | Trochee | A heavy stress followed by a light stress (flow-er) | |
| 188940305 | Spondee | two heavy stresses (When, in / dis-grace / with for- / tune and / men's eyes | |
| 188940306 | Pyrrhic | two unstressed syllables (Now sleep- / ing flocks / (on their) / soft fleec- / es lie | |
| 188940307 | Anapest | Two light stresses followed by a heavy ( by the dawn's / ear-ly light) | |
| 188940308 | Dactyl | A heavy stress followed by two light ones (grees as our / hope in it, / white as our / faith in it) | |
| 188940309 | Foreshadowing | An event or statement in a narrative that suggests a larger event that comes later | |
| 188940310 | Free verse | Poetry written without a regular rhyme scheme or metrical pattern | |
| 188940311 | Genre | a sub-category of literature | |
| 188940312 | Gothic, gothic novel | This is a form that first showed up in the middle of the eighteenth century, had a hey-day of popularity fpr about sixty years, and hasn't really gone away. The sensibility? Think mysterious castles perched high upon sheer cliffs. Paintings with sinister eyeballs that follow you around the room. Weird screams from the attic at night. You get the idea. | |
| 188940313 | Hubris | the excessive pride or ambition that leads to a character's downfall | |
| 188940314 | Hyperbole | exaggeration or deliberate overstatement | |
| 188940315 | In medias res | Latin for "in the midst of things" | |
| 188940316 | Interior monologue | This is a term for novles and poetry, not dramatic literature. It refers to writing that records the mental talking that goes on inside a character's head. It is related, but not identical to, the stream of consciousness. This tends to be coherent, as though the character were actually talking. Stream of consciousness is looser and much more given to fleeting mental impressions. | |
| 188940317 | Inversion | Switching the customary oreder of elements in a sentence or phrase. | |
| 189958496 | Irony | a statement that means opposite of what it seems to mean | |
| 189958497 | Lament | a poem of sadness or grief over the death if a loved one or over some other intense loss | |
| 189958498 | Lampoon | a satire | |
| 189958499 | Loose sentence | this is a sentence that is complete before its end "Jack loved Barbara despite her irritating snorting laugh, her complaining, and her terrible taste in shoes." | |
| 189958500 | Periodic sentence | this is a sentence that is not grammatically complete until it has reached its final phrase "Despite Barbara's irritation at Jack's peculiar habit of picking between his toes while watching MTV and his terrible haircut, she loved him." | |
| 189958501 | Lyric | A type of poetry that explores the poet's personal interpretation of and feelings about the world. When this word is used to describe a tone it refers to a sweet, emotional melodiousness. | |
| 189958502 | Masculine rhyme | A rhyme ending on the final stressed syllable | |
| 189958503 | Melodrama | a form of cheesy theater in which the hero is very, very good, the villain mean and rotten, and the heroine oh-so-pure. | |
| 189958504 | Metaphor | a comparison or analogy that states one thing IS another | |
| 189958505 | Simile | a comparison like a metaphor, but softens the fullout equation of things, often, but not always, with the use of "like" or "as" | |
| 189958506 | Meter | the measure of a poetic line, with lots of feet | |
| 189958507 | Ode | a poem in praise of something divine or expressing some noble idea | |
| 189958508 | Metonymy | This refers to the substitution of one thing for another closely identified thing, like "the White House" signifying the activities and policies of the president. | |
| 189958509 | Nemesis | the protagonist's arch enemy or supreme and persistent difficulty | |
| 189958510 | Objectivity | This treatment of subject matter is an impersonal or outside view of events | |
| 189958511 | Subjectivity | This treatment of subject matter uses interior or perosnal view of a single observer and is typically colored with that person's emotional responses. | |
| 189958512 | Onomatopoeia | BAM! | |
| 189958513 | Oxymoron | Smart blondes | |
| 189958514 | Parable | like a fable, or an allegory, its a story that instructs | |
| 189958515 | Paradox | A situation or statement that seems to contradict itself, but on closer inspection, does not. | |
| 189958516 | Parenthetical phrase | a phrase set off by commas that interrupts the flow of a sentence with some commentary or added detail | |
| 189958517 | Parody | the worj that results when a specfic work is exaggerated to ridiculousness | |
| 189958518 | Pastoral | A poem set in tranquil nature or even more specifically, one about shepherds | |
| 190401879 | Persona | the narrator in a non first-person novel. | |
| 190401880 | Personification | When an inanimate object takes on human shape | |
| 190401881 | Plaint | a poem or speech expressing sorrow | |
| 190401882 | Plot | the sequence of the main events in a narrative | |
| 190401883 | Conflict | the opposition of the main character with one or more opposing forces | |
| 190401884 | Polysyndeton | the repetion of conjunctions in a series of coordinate words, phrases, or clauses | |
| 190401885 | Protagonist | the main character | |
| 190401886 | Antagonist | the character or force(s) that opposes the protagonist | |
| 190401887 | Exposition | the narration that introduces the reader to the situation | |
| 190401888 | Rising action | the action during which the conflict emerges and builds | |
| 190401889 | Crisis | the moment when the reader understands that the conflict will be resolved; the turning point in the plot | |
| 190401890 | Falling action | the portion of the plot that includes the consequences of the crisis | |
| 190401891 | Denouement | unraveling; this event or sequence of events completes the resolution and closes the story | |
| 190401892 | Point of View | the perspective from which the action of the novel or narrative poem is presented, whether the action is presented by one character or from different vantage points over the course of the novel | |
| 190401893 | Omniscient narrator | third person narrator who sees, like God, into the each character's mind and understands all the action that is going on | |
| 190401894 | Limited omniscient narrator | third person narrator who generally reports only what one character (usually the main character) sees, and who only reports the thoughts of that one priveledged character | |
| 190401895 | Objective, or camera eye narrator | third person narrator who only reports on what would be visible to a camera. This narrator does not know what the character is thinking unless the character speaks it | |
| 190401896 | First person narrator | This is a narrator who is a character in the story and tells the tale from his or her point of view | |
| 190401897 | Unreliable narrator | when this first person narrator is crazy, a liar, very young, or for some reason not entirely credible | |
| 190401898 | Stream of consciousness technique | this method is like first person narration, but instead of the character telling the story, the author places the reader inside the main character's head and makes the reader privy to all the character's thoughts as they scroll through her consciousness | |
| 190401899 | Prelude | an introductory poem to a longer work or verse | |
| 190401900 | Quatrain | a four-line stanza | |
| 190401901 | Refrain | a line or set of lines repeated several times over the course of a poem | |
| 190401902 | Requiem | a song of prayer for the dead | |
| 190401903 | Rhapsody | an intensely passionate verse or section of verse, usually of love or praise | |
| 190401904 | Rhetorical question | a question that suggests an answer | |
| 190401905 | Satire | this style of writing exposes common character flaws to the cold light of humor | |
| 190401906 | Soliloquy | A speech spoken by a character alone onstage, meant to convey the impression that the audience is listening to the chracter's thoughts | |
| 190401907 | Stanza | a group of lines roughly analogous in fiction in verse to the paragraph's function in prose | |
| 190401908 | Stock characters | standard or clichéed charactertypes: the drunk, the miser, the foolish girl, etc. | |
| 190401909 | Suspension of disbelief | the demand made of a theater audience to accept the limitations of staging and supply the details with their imagination. Also, the acceptance on an audience's or reader's part of the incidents of plot in a play or story. If there are too many coincidences or improbable occurences, the viewer/reader can no loner suspend disbelief and subsequently loses interest | |
| 190401910 | Synecdoche | taking one thing out of another; a device in which a part stands for the whole, or a whole for the part, like the expression "All hands on board" to signify that a ship's crew should return to the ship | |
| 190401911 | Syntax | word order and sentence structure | |
| 190401912 | Thesis | the main position of an argument. The central contention that will be supported. | |
| 190401913 | Tragic flaw | in a tragedy, this is the weakness of character in an otherwise good (or even great) individual that ultimately leads to his demise | |
| 190401914 | Travesty | A grotesque parody | |
| 190401915 | Utopia | an idealized place | |
| 190401916 | Verisimilitude | this is achieved by a writer or storyteller when he presents striking details which lend an air of authenticity to a tale |
