Terms : Hide Images
| 84264794 | poetry | writing that formulates a concentrated, compressed, imaginative awareness of experience in language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through its meaning, sound, and rhythm | |
| 84264795 | prose | writing that is distinguished from poetry by its greater irregularity, variety of rhythm, and closer correspondence to the patterns of everyday speech. Prose refers to both fiction and nonfiction | |
| 84264796 | drama | writing in verse (poetry) or prose intended to portray life or character or to tell a story involving conflicts through action and dialogue; typically designed for theatrical performance | |
| 84264797 | plot | the plan or sequence of events in a novel, short story, play, or poem | |
| 84264798 | theme | the central idea or message of a work; the insight it offers into life. the theme is the sum total of all the elements of a selection working together to convey the author's interpretation of life. usually theme is unstated in fictional works, but in nonfiction, the theme may be directly stated, especially in expository or argumentative writing | |
| 84264799 | conflict | the clash of people, ideas, principles that moves the story toward a climax | |
| 84264800 | denoument | the final resolution of the strands of plot complications or problems | |
| 84264801 | atmosphere | the emotional quality created by the entirety of a literary work, established partly by the setting and partly by the author's choice of details that are described. Frequently atmosphere foreshadows events and creates a mood | |
| 84264802 | mood | the state of mind or feeling represented in the story | |
| 84264803 | characterization | refers to the author's creation of individuals and personalities. characterization may be "flat" where the characters are only types representing ideas. Or, characters may be realistic, fully developed individuals whose background, personality traits, and motives are all important. the way an author develops his characters can tell a great deal about his thematic purpose | |
| 84264804 | flashback | an interruption in a narrative sequence to present earlier action | |
| 84264805 | foreshadowing | a preliminary hint of a later development | |
| 84264806 | irony | a contrast between what is stated explicitly and what is really meant. in general, there are three major types of irony | |
| 84264807 | verbal irony | the words literally state the opposite of the writer's (or speaker's) true meaning | |
| 84264808 | situational irony | events turn out the opposite of what is expected | |
| 84264809 | dramatic irony | facts or events are unknown to a character in the story but known to the reader, audience, or other characters in the work | |
| 84264810 | symbol | something which stands for something other than itself. usually a symbol is something concrete such as an object, action, character, or scene that represents something more abstract | |
| 84264811 | setting | the physical and psychological environment in which action takes place. writers include in setting the historical period, year, season and details of geographical location and physical arrangements;the social, moral, religious, and economic environments which influence the characters and events | |
| 84264812 | tone | the author's attitude toward his material, the audience, or both. tone is easier to determine in spoken language than in written language. considering how a work would sound if it were read aloud may help in identifying the tone | |
| 84264813 | imagery | the recreating of an experience through language that arouses the senses - taste, touch, smell, sight, and hearing | |
| 84264814 | point of view | in literature, the perspective from which a story is told. the story will vary greatly depending on from whose 'eyes' the events are being viewed. there are two general divisions of point of view (first person and third person) and many subdivisions within those | |
| 84264815 | first person subjective | a characters tells his own story using the pronoun 'i'. the story includes all the emotional, psychological, and perceptual filters of the narrator | |
| 84264816 | first person observer | a character tells someone else's story as he observed it. the narrative has the quality of more detached reporting. | |
| 84264817 | third person objective | the author relates the events using the third person pronouns, 'he', 'she', or 'it'. the author presents the story from the outside by reporting events but not thoughts and feelings of the characters. | |
| 84264818 | third person omniscient | the narrator, with godlike knowledge, presents the thoughts and actions of any or all the characters. this all-knowing narrator can reveal what each character feels and thinks at any given moment | |
| 84264819 | third person limited omniscient | the narrator presents the thoughts and feelings of only one character, presenting only the actions of all the remaining characters | |
| 84264820 | stream-of-consciousness | an attempt on the part of the author to reproduce the unembellished and uninterrupted flow of thoughts in the human mind with its feelings, judgements, associations, and memories | |
| 84264821 | allusion | a direct or indirect reference to something the author presumes is commonly known, such as a person, place, event, myth, literary work, or work of art. allusions may be historical, literary, religious, mythical, or topical | |
| 84264822 | convention | a conventional literary device; that is, a feature occurring repeatedly in literature (a traditional character type, plot pattern, thematic motif, etc.) | |
| 84264823 | personification | attributing human qualities to an inanimate object or idea | |
| 84264824 | allegory | using character and/or story elements symbolically to represent abstract ideas in addition to their literal meanings. allegorical meanings usually deal with moral truths or generalizations about human existence. the events in an allegory may be realistic or supernatural | |
| 84271862 | parable | similar to allegory but shorter; a parable is a simple story with events that can occur in the real world in which the author intends that the reader will relate the events of the story to some moral or spiritual truth | |
| 84271863 | fable | similar to allegory, but the simple, imaginative story is not realistic and may contain elements of magic or the supernatural. the author intends that reader will relate the imaginative events to moral or spiritual truths in the real world. | |
| 84271864 | archetype | a character type, symbol, or story that occurs frequently in literature and is expected to evoke the reader's recognition. according to the psychology of carl jung, there are basic human primitive archetypes that are timeless; they transcend cultures and historical periods | |
| 84271865 | stereotype | conventional, stock characters that appear over and over in stories so that their natures are apparent to the reader; stereotypes are more culture and time bound than archetypes (jock, nerd, hippie, computer wiz) | |
| 84271866 | persona | a fictional identity adopted by the author in a particular literary work. a fifty-year-old male poet, for example, may adopt the role and speech patterns of an old woman, a child, etc. | |
| 84271867 | genre | the major category into which a literary work fits. the basic divisions of literature are prose, poetry, and drama. within these broad boundaries exist many subdivisions that are often called genres themselves. for example, prose can be divided into fiction or nonfiction. poetry can be divided into lyric, narrative, epic, etc. drama can be divided into tragedy, comedy, melodrama, farce, etc. | |
| 84271868 | mode | an attribute or quality of a thing;a work of literature may be written in a particular stylistic mode, such as romanticism, realism, naturalism, fantasy, or satire | |
| 84271869 | protagonist | the most important character, usually the hero, of a story | |
| 84271870 | antagonist | a character in a story who, in some way, is trying to prevent the protagonist from doing something or achieving his goal; he 'antagonizes' the main character | |
| 84271871 | motivation | the reasons, conscious or unconscious, for a character's actions. most serious stories are concerned more with the why than the what of human behavior, but even simple action stories demand adequate motivation for character behavior to be believable | |
| 84271872 | dramatic situation | the circumstances of the speaker, especially in a poem | |
| 84271873 | apostrophe | a figure of speech in which an absent or dead person, or an abstract idea, or something inanimate or intangible is addressed directly in the work | |
| 84271874 | metonymy | from the greek meaning 'substitute name', metonymy is a figure of speech in which the name of one object is substituted for another closely associated with it | |
| 84271875 | onomatopoeia | the use of words whose sounds suggest their meanings | |
| 84271876 | paradox | an idea, image or statement that seems absurd or self-contradictory, but which turns out to have an acceptable and often profound meaning | |
| 84271877 | oxymoron | a figure of speech consisting generally of two apparently contradictory terms that express a paradox | |
| 84271878 | simile | an expressed comparison between two unlike objects, usually using 'like' or 'as' | |
| 84274162 | metaphor | an implied comparison in which two unlike objects are compared by identification or substitution. metaphor is used in a subtle sense to show the resemblance between a particular person, place, or event and a more universal idea | |
| 84274163 | catharsis | a cleansing of the spirit of a spectator at a tragedy through experiencing the emotions of pity and terror | |
| 84274164 | hubris | aristotle's term for the excessive pride of the tragic hero that leads him to ignore or overlook warnings of impending disaster or to break moral laws | |
| 84274165 | pathos | the element of literature which stimulates pity or sorrow | |
| 84274166 | carpe diem | 'seize the day'; a motif that refers to the view that life should be enjoyed to the fullest while one is able | |
| 84274167 | humanism | since 'the golden age of greece', humanism has been associated with an optimistic view of human potential. "man is the measure of all things." in common usage, it is an attitude that emphasizes human interests | |
| 84274168 | rhetoric | from the greek word for 'orator', this term describes the art of speaking or writing effectively; the principles of effective, eloquent, and persuasive argument | |
| 84274169 | thesis | in expository writing, the thesis is the sentence that directly expresses the author's opinion, purpose, meaning, or position. expository writing is usually judged by how accurately, effectively, and thoroughly a writer has proven his thesis | |
| 84274170 | antithesis | rhetorical device or technique in which strongly contrasting ideas are expressed within a balanced grammatical structure ('they promised freedom and provided slavery') | |
| 84274171 | romanticism | a literary or artistic reaction against the enlightenment with its emphasis on reason, order and balance. in romanticism the emphasis is on the individual, subjective, imaginative, emotional, exotic, mysterious, or transcendental | |
| 84274172 | realism | an attempt to present life as it really is, realism emphasizes truthfulness, including unpleasant, boring or trivial details of everyday life. the author rejects imaginative idealization in favor of close observation of outward appearances | |
| 84274173 | naturalism | sometimes described as an extreme form of realism, naturalism theorizes that art or literature should conform exactly to nature; using scientific knowledge, it emphasizes the impact of heredity and environment on human life and character development | |
| 84274174 | impressionism | an author attempts to capture characters, scenes, and moods as he observes them at a particular moment rather than as they really are in reality | |
| 84274175 | satire | the author targets human vices and follies or social institutions and concentions for reform or ridicule. satire can be recognized by many devices, such as irony, wit, caricature, hyperbole, understatement, and sarcasm. often humorous, good satire is thought provoking and insightful about the human condition | |
| 84276467 | parody | a satirical imitation of a well-known work for the purpose of ridiculing its style and subject | |
| 84276468 | travesty | a literary work that aims to arouse laughter by a ludicrous or grotesque imitation of a serious work | |
| 84276469 | melodrama | a literary account in which the incidents are sensational, the characters are exceptionally noble or evil, and the appeal to the emotions is extreme. in a melodrama, all usually ends well | |
| 84276470 | exposition | the purpose is to explain and analyze information by presenting an idea, relevant evidence, and appropriate discussion | |
| 84276471 | argumentation | the purpose is to prove the validity of an idea, or point of view, by presenting sound reasoning and discussion that thoroughly convince the reader. persuasive writing is a type of argumentation, having the additional aim of using some form of action | |
| 84276472 | description | the purpose is to recreate, invent, or visually present a person, place, event, or action so that the reader can picture what is being described. descriptive writing may be straightforward and objective or highly emotional and subjective | |
| 84276473 | narration | the purpose is to tell a story or narrate an event or series of events. this writing mode frequently uses the tools of descriptive writing | |
| 84276474 | framing device | the author uses the same device to begin and end the work | |
| 84276475 | motif | a recurring, salient thematic element, especially a dominant idea or central theme that serves as a unifying agent in the work | |
| 84276476 | parallelism | the arrangement of equally important ideas in similar grammatical construction; acts as an organizing force directing the reader's attention to elements the writer wishes to emphasize | |
| 84276477 | juxtaposition | putting two elements in literature side by side for comparison purposes | |
| 84276478 | microcosm | the world in miniature terms | |
| 84276479 | deus ex machina | as in greek theater, the use by the author of any artificial device or gimmick to solve a difficult plot situation | |
| 84276480 | anachronism | the use of an event, device, scene, or person that does not correspond with the time period portrayed in the work | |
| 84276481 | analogy | a comparison between two similar things. an analogy can explain something unfamiliar by associating it with something more familiar. analogy can also make writing more vivid or intellectually engaging. | |
| 84276482 | montage | a quick succesaion of images or pictures to express an idea; used primarily in films | |
| 84276483 | vignette | a short descriptive literary sketch | |
| 84276484 | diction | refers to the author's word choices, especially with regard to their correctness, clearness, or effectiveness | |
| 84276485 | syntax | refers to the way the author joins words into phrases, clauses, and sentences to create certain effects. diction refers to individual words, while syntax refers to groups of words | |
| 84276486 | denotation | the strict, literal, dictionary definition of a word, devoid of any emotion, attitude, or color | |
| 84276487 | connotation | the nonliteral, associative meaning of a word; the implied, suggested meaning. connotations may involve ideas, emotions, or attitudes | |
| 84276488 | ambiguity | the multiple meanings, either intentional or unintentional, of a word, phrase, or passage | |
| 84276489 | understatement | presents something as less significant than it is; the effect can be humorous or emphatic; the opposite of hyperbole | |
| 84276490 | verisimilitude | similar to truth; the quality of ultra-realism in a word | |
| 84276491 | wit | historically, wit meant quick understanding, including creativity and the ability to articulate an answer that demanded the same speed of understanding. in modern usage, wit means intellectually amusing language that surprises and delights |
