Terms : Hide Images
| 5538622221 | adage | A saying that becomes widely accepted as truth over time. Usually observances of life and behaviour that express a general truth. Ex: "A penny saved is a penny earned." | 0 | |
| 5538622222 | allegory | A story in which the narrative or characters carry an underlying symbolic, metaphorical or possibly ethical meaning. | 1 | |
| 5538622223 | alliteration | The repetition of one or more initial consonant in a group of words or lines of poetry or prose. Writers use this for ornament or for emphasis. | 2 | |
| 5538622224 | allusion | A reference to a person, place, or event meant to create an effect or enhance the meaning of an idea. | 3 | |
| 5538622225 | ambiguity | A vagueness of meaning; a conscious lack of clarity meant to evoke multiple meanings and interpretation. | 4 | |
| 5538622226 | anachronism | A person, scene, event, or other element in literature that fails to correspond with the time/era in which the work is set. | 5 | |
| 5538622227 | analogy | A comparison in which an idea or a thing is compared to something else that is quite different from it. It aims at explaining that idea or thing by comparing it to something that is familiar. | 6 | |
| 5538622228 | antagonist | A character or force in a work of literature that, by opposing the protagonist produces tension or conflict. | 7 | |
| 5538622229 | antithesis | A rhetorical device in which two opposite ideas are put together in a sentence to achieve a contrasting effect. | 8 | |
| 5538622230 | aphorism | A statement of truth or opinion expressed in a concise and witty manner. The term is often applied to philosophical, moral and literary principles. | 9 | |
| 5538622232 | apostrophe | A figure of speech where the writer or speaker detaches himself from his present reality and addresses an imaginary character in his speech. | 10 | |
| 5538622233 | archetype | A character, action or situation which represents or reflects a commonly held or universal pattern, such as human nature. | 11 | |
| 5538622234 | assonance | The repetition of two or more vowel sounds in a group of words or lines in poetry and prose. | 12 | |
| 5538622235 | ballad | A simple narrative verse that tells a story that is sung or recited; a long narrative poem, usually in very regular meter and rhyme, typically has a folksy quality | 13 | |
| 5538622236 | bard | A poet or a performer in olden times who told heroic stories to musical accompaniment. | 14 | |
| 5538622237 | Bildungsroman | A special kind of novel that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of its main character from his or her youth to adulthood. Generally, such a novel starts with a loss or a tragedy that disturbs the main character emotionally. He or she leaves on a journey to fill that vacuum. | 15 | |
| 5538622238 | blank verse | Poetry written in iambic pentameter, the primary meter used in English poetry and the works of Shakespeare and Milton; its lines generally do not rhyme. | 16 | |
| 5538622240 | cacophony | The use of words with sharp, harsh, hissing and unmelodious sounds, primarily those of consonants, to achieve the desired results. Ex: "I detest war because cause of war is always trivial." | 17 | |
| 5538622241 | caesura | It involves creating a fracture within a sentence, where the two separate parts are distinguishable from one another yet intrinsically linked; the purpose is to create a dramatic pause. Ex: "Mozart- oh, how your music makes me soar!" | 18 | |
| 5538622242 | canon | The works most widely read, studied, and considered most important in national literature or in a specific literary period. | 19 | |
| 5538622243 | caricature | A grotesque likeness of striking qualities in persons and things; a portrait that exaggerates a facet of personality. | 20 | |
| 5538622244 | catharsis | A cleansing of the spirit brought about by the pity and terror of a dramatic tragedy. | 21 | |
| 5538622245 | classicism | Deriving from the orderly qualities of ancient Greek and Roman culture; implies formality, objectivity, simplicity and restraint. | 22 | |
| 5538622247 | anticlimax | This occurs when an action produces far smaller results than one had been led to expect; it is frequently comic in effect. | 23 | |
| 5538622248 | anti-hero | A protagonist who is markedly un-heroic, morally weak, cowardly, dishonest, or any number of other unsavoury qualities; he is not just good or noble like a conventional hero. | 24 | |
| 5538622249 | 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. | 25 | |
| 5538622250 | atmosphere | The emotional tone or background that surrounds a scene. | 26 | |
| 5538622251 | black humor | The use of disturbing themes in comedy. Ex: two tramps comically debating over which should commit suicide first, and whether the branches of a tree will support their weight. | 27 | |
| 5538622252 | cadence | the beat or rhythm of poetry in a general sense | 28 | |
| 5538622253 | canto | is a divider in long poems, much like chapters in a novel | 29 | |
| 5538622255 | colloquialism | this is a word or phrase used in everyday conversational English that isn't a part of accepted "schoolbook" English | 30 | |
| 5538622256 | controlling image | when an image dominates and shapes the entire work | 31 | |
| 5538622258 | connotation | the suggest or implied meaning of a word/phrase | 32 | |
| 5538622259 | consonance | the repetition of two or more consonant sounds within a group of words or a line of poetry | 33 | |
| 5538622260 | couplet | a pair of lines that end in rhyme | 34 | |
| 5538622261 | heroic couplet | two rhyming lines in iambic pentameter are called this | 35 | |
| 5538622262 | denotation | the literal, dictionary definition of a word | 36 | |
| 5538622263 | denouement | the resolution that occurs at the end of a play or work or fiction | 37 | |
| 5538622265 | diction | the choice of words in oral and written discourse | 38 | |
| 5538622266 | syntax | the ordering and structuring of the words in a sentence | 39 | |
| 5538622267 | dirge | a song for the dead, its tone is typically slow, heavy, and melancholy | 40 | |
| 5538622268 | dissonance | the grating of incompatible sounds | 41 | |
| 5538622269 | doggerel | crude, simplistic verse, often in sing-song rhyme | 42 | |
| 5538622270 | dramatic irony | when the audience knows something that the characters in the drama do not | 43 | |
| 5538622271 | dramatic monologue | when a single speaker in literature says something to a silent audience | 44 | |
| 5538622272 | elegy | a poem or prose selection that laments or meditates on the passing/death of something/someone of value | 45 | |
| 5538622274 | ellipsis | three periods (...) indicating the omission of words in a thought or quotation | 46 | |
| 5538622275 | empathy | a feeling of association or identification with an object/person | 47 | |
| 5538622276 | end stopped | a term that describes a line of poetry that ends with a natural pause often indicated by a mark of punctuation | 48 | |
| 5538622277 | enjambment | the continuation of a syntactic unit from one line or couplet of a poem to the next with no pause | 49 | |
| 5538622278 | epic | an extended narrative poem that tells of the adventures and exploits of a hero that is generally larger than life and is often considered a legendary figure | 50 | |
| 5538622280 | epitaph | lines that commemorate the dead at their burial place. usually a line or handful of lines, often serious or religious, but sometimes witty and even irreverent | 51 | |
| 5538622281 | epigram | a concise but ingenious, witty and thoughtful statement | 52 | |
| 5538622282 | euphony | when sounds blend harmoniously; pleasing, harmonious sounds | 53 | |
| 5538622283 | epithet | an adjective or phrase that expresses a striking quality of a person or thing | 54 | |
| 5538622285 | euphemism | a mild or less negative usage for a harsh or blunt term | 55 | |
| 5538622288 | extended metaphor | a series of comparisons between two unlike objects that occur over a number of lines | 56 | |
| 5538622290 | falling action | the action in a play or story that occurs after the climax and that leads to the conclusion and often to the resolution of the conflict | 57 | |
| 5538622291 | fantasy | a story containing unreal, imaginary features | 58 | |
| 5538622292 | farce | a comedy that contains an extravagant and nonsensical disregard of seriousness, although it may have a serious, scornful purpose | 59 | |
| 5538622293 | figurative language | in contrast to literal language, this implies meanings. It includes devices such as metaphors, similes, and personification, etc. | 60 | |
| 5538622294 | foil | a secondary character whose purpose is to highlight the characteristics of a main character, usually by contrast | 61 | |
| 5538622295 | first person narrative | a narrative told by a character involved in the story, using first-person pronouns such as "I" and "we" | 62 | |
| 5538622296 | flashback | a return to an earlier time in a story or play in order to clarify present actions or circumstances | 63 | |
| 5538622297 | foreshadowing | an event or statement in a narrative that suggests, in miniature, a larger event that comes later | 64 | |
| 5538622298 | foot | the basic rhythmic unit of a line in poetry. it is formed by a combination of two or three syllables, either stressed or unstressed | 65 | |
| 5538622299 | frame | a structure that provides premise or setting for a narrative | 66 | |
| 5538622300 | free verse | a kind of poetry without rhymed lines, rhythm or fixed metrical feet | 67 | |
| 5538622301 | genre | a term used to describe literary forms, such as novel, play, and essay | 68 | |
| 5538622302 | Gothic novel | a novel in which supernatural horrors and an atmosphere of unknown terror pervades the action. i.e. "Frankenstein" | 69 | |
| 5538622304 | hubris | the excessive pride/ambition that leads to the main character's downfall | 70 | |
| 5538622305 | hyperbole | exaggeration/deliberate overstatement | 71 | |
| 5538622307 | implicit | to say or write something that suggests and implies but never says it directly or clearly | 72 | |
| 5538622308 | in medias res | Latin for "in the midst of things"; a narrative that starts not at the beginning of events but at some other critical point | 73 | |
| 5538622309 | idyll | a lyric poem or passage that describes a kind of ideal life or place | 74 | |
| 5538622310 | image | a word or phrase representing that which can be seen, touched, tasted, smelled or felt | 75 | |
| 5538622311 | inversion | switching customary order of elements in a sentence or phrase. when done badly it can give a stilted, artificial look-at-me-I'm-poetry feel to the verse. type of syntax | 76 | |
| 5538622312 | irony | a mode of expression in which the intended meaning is the opposite of what is stated, often implying ridicule or light sarcasm | 77 | |
| 5538622314 | kenning | a device employed in Anglo-Saxon poetry in which the name of a thing is replaced by one of its functions/qualities, as in "ring-giver" for king and "whale-road" for ocean | 78 | |
| 5538622315 | lament | a poem of sadness or grief over the death of a loved one or over some other intense loss | 79 | |
| 5538622320 | lyric | personal, reflective poetry that reveals the speaker's thoughts and feelings about the subject; the word is used to describe tone, it refers to a sweet, emotional melodiousness | 80 | |
| 5538622323 | maxim | a saying or proverb expressing common wisdom or truth | 81 | |
| 5538622324 | metaphor | a figure of speech that compares unlike objects | 82 | |
| 5538622326 | meter | the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables found in poetry | 83 | |
| 5538622327 | metonymy | a figure of speech that uses the name of one thing to represent something else with which it is associated. e.g. "The White House says..." | 84 | |
| 5538622330 | mood | the emotional tone in a work of literature | 85 | |
| 5538622332 | objectivity | this treatment of a subject matter is an impersonal/outside view of events | 86 | |
| 5538622333 | subjectivity | this treatment of a subject matter uses the interior/personal view of a single observer and is typically colored with that observer's emotional responses | 87 | |
| 5538622334 | onomatopoeia | words that sound like what they mean | 88 | |
| 5538622336 | motif | a phrase, idea, event that through repetition serves to unify or convey a theme in a work of literature. | 89 | |
| 5538622338 | myth | an imaginary story that has become accepted part of the cultural or religious tradition of a group/society. often used to explain natural phenomena. | 90 | |
| 5538622339 | narrative | a form of verse or prose that tells a story | 91 | |
| 5538622340 | naturalism | a term often used as a synonym for "realism"; also a view of experiences that is generally characterized as bleak and pessimistic | 92 | |
| 5538622343 | ode | a lyric poem usually marked by serious, respectful and exalted feelings toward the subject. | 93 | |
| 5538622344 | omniscient narrator | a narrator with unlimited awareness, understanding, and insight of characters, setting, background, and all other elements of the story | 94 | |
| 5538622345 | oxymoron | a phrase composed of opposites; a contradiction. juxtaposition of contradictory element to create a paradoxical effect | 95 | |
| 5538622346 | opposition | one of the most useful concepts in analyzing literature. it means that you have a pair of elements that contrast sharply. | 96 | |
| 5538622347 | ottava rima | an eight-line rhyming stanza of a poem | 97 | |
| 5538622348 | parable | like a fable or an allegory, it's a story that instructs; a story consisting of events from which a moral or spiritual truth may be derived | 98 | |
| 5538622349 | paradox | a statement that seems self-contradictory yet true | 99 | |
| 5538622350 | parallelism | repeated syntactical similarities used for effect | 100 | |
| 5538622351 | parody | an imitation of a work meant to ridicule its style and subject | 101 | |
| 5538622353 | pastoral | a work of literature dealing with rural life | 102 | |
| 5538622355 | pathos | that element in literature that stimulates pity or sorrow | 103 | |
| 5538622356 | pentameter | a verse with five poetic feet per line | 104 | |
| 5538622358 | personification | giving an inanimate object human like qualities or form | 105 | |
| 5538622359 | plot | the interrelationship among the events in a story, including exposition, rising action, climax, falling action and resolution | 106 | |
| 5538622362 | point of view | the perspective from which the action of a novel in presented. | 107 | |
| 5538622363 | omniscient narrator | 3rd person narrator who sees like God into each character's mind and understands all the action going on. | 108 | |
| 5538622364 | limited omniscient narrator | 3rd person narrator who generally reports only what one character (usually the main) sees, and who only reports the thoughts of that one privileged character. | 109 | |
| 5538622365 | objective narrator | 3rd person narr. who only reports on what would be visible to a camera, doesn't know what the character is thinking unless the character speaks of it. | 110 | |
| 5538622366 | first person narrator | this is a narrator who is a character in the story and tells the tale from his/her POV. when the narrator is crazy, a liar, very young, or for some reason not entirely credible, the narrator is "unreliable" | 111 | |
| 5538622367 | prosody | the grammar of meter and rhythm in poetry | 112 | |
| 5538622368 | protagonist | the main character in a work of literature | 113 | |
| 5538622369 | prelude | an introductory poem to a longer work of verse | 114 | |
| 5538622370 | pun | the usually humorous use of a word in such a way to suggest two or more meanings | 115 | |
| 5538622372 | quatrian | a four-line poem or a four-line unit of a longer poem | 116 | |
| 5538622373 | refrain | a line or set of lines repeated several times over the course of a poem | 117 | |
| 5538622374 | requiem | a song of prayer for the dead | 118 | |
| 5538622376 | rhetoric | the language of a work and its style; words, often highly emotional, used to convince or sway an audience | 119 | |
| 5538622377 | rhetorical question | a question that suggests an answer. in theory, the effect is that it causes the listener to feel they have come up with the answer themselves | 120 | |
| 5538622380 | rhyme scheme | the patterns of rhymes within a given poem i.e. abba | 121 | |
| 5538622381 | rhythm | the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables that make up a line of poetry. similar to meter | 122 | |
| 5538622384 | satire | a literary style used to poke fun at, attack or ridicule an idea, vice, or foible, often for the purpose of inducing change. great subjects for this include hypocrisy, vanity and greed, especially if those characteristics have become institutionalized in society | 123 | |
| 5538622385 | simile | figurative comparison using the words "like" or "as" | 124 | |
| 5538622386 | setting | the total environment for the action in a novel/play. it includes time, place, historical milieu, and social, political and even spiritual circumstances | 125 | |
| 5538622389 | scansion | the act of determining the meter of a poetic line. | 126 | |
| 5538622390 | sonnet | a popular form of verse consisting of fourteen lines and a prescribed rhyme scheme. two types: Shakespearean and Petrarchan | 127 | |
| 5538622391 | soliloquy | a speech spoken by a character alone on stage. meant to convey the impression that the audience is listening to the character's THOUGHTS. unlike an aside, it is not meant to imply that the actor acknowledges the audience's presence | 128 | |
| 5538622392 | stanza | a group of lines in verse, roughly analogous in function to the paragraph in prose; a group of two or more lines in poetry combined according to subject matter, rhyme, or some other plan | 129 | |
| 5538622393 | stream of consciousness | a style of writing in which the author tries to reproduce the random flow of thoughts in the human mind, e.g. Ernest Hemingway | 130 | |
| 5538622394 | stock characters | standard or cliched character types: the drunk, the miser, the foolish girl, etc. | 131 | |
| 5538622396 | style | the manner in which an author uses and arranges words, shapes ideas, forms sentences and creates a structure to convey ideas | 132 | |
| 5538622397 | subplot | a subordinate or minor collection of events in a novel or play, usually connected to the main plot | 133 | |
| 5538622398 | subtext | the implied meaning that underlies the main meaning of a work of literature | 134 | |
| 5538622399 | summary | a simple retelling of what you've just read. what you DON'T want to do in the Open Essay section :) | 135 | |
| 5538622400 | symbolism | a device in literature where an object represents an idea | 136 | |
| 5538622401 | synecdoche | a figure of speech in which a part signifies the whole or the whole signifies the part | 137 | |
| 5538622402 | theme | the main idea or meaning, often an abstract idea upon which a work of literature is built | 138 | |
| 5538622403 | thesis | the main position of an argument. the central contention that will be supported | 139 | |
| 5538622404 | tone | the author's attitude toward the subject being written about. it's the characteristic emotion that pervades a work or part of a work | 140 | |
| 5538622405 | tragic flaw | in a tragedy, this is the weakness of a character in an otherwise good individual that ultimately leads to his demise | 141 | |
| 5538622406 | tragedy | a form of literature in which the hero is destroyed by some character flaw and a set of forces that cause the hero considerable anguish, or even death | 142 | |
| 5538622410 | verbal irony | a discrepancy between the true meaning of a situation and the literal meaning of the written or spoken words | 143 | |
| 5538622411 | verse | a synonym for poetry. also a group of lines in a song or poem; also a single line of poetry | 144 | |
| 5538622414 | villanelle | a French verse form calculated to appear simple and spontaneous but consisting of 19 lines and a prescribed pattern of rhymes | 145 | |
| 5538622415 | voice | the real or assumed personality used by a writer or speaker. a verb is in the active voice when it expresses an action performed by its subject. a verb is in the passive voice when it expresses an action performed upon its subject or when the subject is the result of the action. Active: The crew raked the leaves. Passive: The leaves were raked by the crew. | 146 | |
| 5538622418 | anastrophe | inversion of the natural or usual word order | 147 | |
| 5538622419 | anaphora | repetition of the same words or group of words at the beginning of successive clauses. e.g. "I have a dream..." | 148 | |
| 5538622427 | paronomasia | use of words alike in sound but different in meaning. "ask for me tomorrow and you will find me a GRAVE man." | 149 | |
| 5538622432 | dialect | a way of speaking that is characteristic of a particular region/group of people | 150 |
