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| 7098909051 | Allegory | a prose or poetic narrative in which the characters, behavior, and even the setting demonstrates multilevels of meaning and significance. Often allegory is a universal symbol or personified abstraction such as Death portrayed as a black-cloaked "grim reaper" with a scythe and hourglass. | 0 | |
| 7098914215 | Alliteration | the sequential initial repetition of a similar sound, usually heard in closely proximate stressed syllables. | 1 | |
| 7098916177 | Allusion | a reference to literary or historical event, person, or place. | 2 | |
| 7098919512 | Anaphora | the regular repetition of the same word at the beginning of successive phrases or clauses | 3 | |
| 7098921213 | Anecdote | a brief story or tale told by a character in a piece of literature | 4 | |
| 7098923394 | Antagonist | any force that is in opposition to the main character | 5 | |
| 7098924052 | Antithesis | the juxtaposition of sharply contrasting ideas in balanced or parallel words, phrases, grammatical structure, or ideas. "To err is human, to forgive divine" | 6 | |
| 7098927381 | Apostrophe | an address or invocation to something that is inanimate-such as an angry lover who might scream at the ocean in his or her despair | 7 | |
| 7098929605 | Archetype | recurrent designs, patterns of action, character types, themes or images which are identifiable in a wide range of literature; female fatale | 8 | |
| 7098931853 | Assonance | a repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds, usually found in stressed syllables of close proximity | 9 | |
| 7098935635 | Asyndeton | a style in which conjunctions are omitted, usually producing a fast-paced, more rapid prose | 10 | |
| 7098936808 | Attitude | the sense expressed by the tone of voice and/or the mood of a piece of writing; the feeling the author holds towards his/her subject, the people in his/her narrative, the events, the setting or even the theme, even the reader | 11 | |
| 7098939160 | Ballad | a narrative poem that is, or originally was, meant to be sung. Repetition and refrain are characterize the ballad | 12 | |
| 7098940486 | Ballad stanza | a common stanza form, consisting of a quatrain (a stanza of four lines) that alternate four-beat and three-beat lines: one and three and unrhymed iambic tetrameter (four beats), and two and four are rhymed iambic trimeter (three beats) | 13 | |
| 7098944714 | Blank verse | the verse form that most resembles common speech, blank verse consists of unrhymed lines in iambic pentameter | 14 | |
| 7299944431 | Caesura | a pause in a lone of verse, indicated by natural speech patterns rather than due to specific metrical patterns. | 15 | |
| 7299949435 | Caricature | a depiction in which a character's characteristics or features are so deliberately exaggerated as to render them absurd. ex. political cartoons | 16 | |
| 7299956335 | Chiasmus | a figure of speech by which the order of the terms in the first of two parallel clauses is reserved in the second. ex. "Pleasure's a sin, and sometimes sin's a pleasure." | 17 | |
| 7299963054 | Colloquial | ordinary language | 18 | |
| 7299963715 | Conceit | a comparison of two unlikely things that is drawn out within a piece of writing, an extended metaphor in a poem. ex. a love affair compared to a flower budding | 19 | |
| 7299968121 | Connotation | the underlying meaning of a word | 20 | |
| 7299969227 | Consonance | the repetition of a sequence of two or more constants, but with a change in the interviewing vowels. ex. "pitter-patter, pish posh" | 21 | |
| 7299974823 | Couplet | two rhyming lines of iambic pentameter that together present a single idea or connection. ex. "So long as men can breathe or eyes can see/So long lives this and this gives life to thee." | 22 | |
| 7299979053 | Dactylic | the metrical pattern, as used in poetry, in which each foot consists of a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed ones. Words such as "Can' a da, hol' i day, cel' e brate" | 23 | |
| 7478369590 | Denotation | a direct and specific meaning, often referred to as the dictionary meaning of a word | 24 | |
| 7299984203 | Dialect | the language and speech idiosyncrasies of a specific region | 25 | |
| 7299986959 | Diction | the specific word choice the author uses to send a message | 26 | |
| 7299989335 | Dramatic monologue | a monologue set in a specific situation and spoken to an imaginary audience (soliloquy) | 27 | |
| 7299991607 | Elegy | a poetic lament upon the death of a particular person, usually ending in consolation. ex. Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" | 28 | |
| 7299996083 | Enjambment | the continuation of a sentence from one lone or couplet of a poem to the next | 29 | |
| 7299998356 | Epic | a poem that celebrates, in a continuous narrative, the achievements of mighty heroes and heroines, often concerned with the founding of a nation or developing culture; high style. ex. The Odyssey | 30 | |
| 7300005986 | Exposition | that part of structure that sets the scene, introduces and identifies characters, and establishes the situation at the beginning of a story or play | 31 | |
| 7300008407 | Extended metaphor | a detailed and complex metaphor that goes on for a long time | 32 | |
| 7300010212 | Falling action | the part of the plot structure in which the complications of the rising action are untangled (denouement) | 33 | |
| 7300013298 | Farce | a play or scene in a play or book that is characterized by broad humor, wild antics, and often slapstick and physical humor. ex. Midsummer's Night's Dream | 34 | |
| 7300017951 | Foreshadowing | to hint at something to come in the future | 35 | |
| 7300023368 | Formal diction | language that is lofty, dignified, and impersonal, usually used in epics | 36 | |
| 7300024828 | Free verse | poetry that is characterized by varying line lengths, lack of traditional meter, and non-rhyming lines. ex. Leaves of Grass | 37 | |
| 7300028457 | Genre | a type or class of literature | 38 | |
| 7300029341 | Hyperbole | overstatement | 39 | |
| 7300030620 | Iambic | a metrical form in which each foot consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. ex. "give, re morse, com pare, re peat" | 40 | |
| 7300035139 | Imagery | broadly defined, any sensory detail or evocation in a work, using figurative language to evoke a feeling | 41 | |
| 7300038904 | Informal diction | language that is not lofty or impersonal; everyday speech | 42 | |
| 7300040146 | In medias res | "in the mist of things"; refers to opening a story in the middle of the action, necessitating filling in past details by exposition or flashback | 43 | |
| 7300043491 | Irony | a situation or statement characterized by significant difference between what is expected or understood and what actually happens or is meant | 44 | |
| 7300047408 | Jargon | specialized speech of a trade, profession, or similar group | 45 | |
| 7300050049 | Juxtaposition | the location of one thing as being adjacent with another, it creates a certain effect, reveals an attitude, etc. | 46 | |
| 7300055617 | Limited point of view | a perspective confined to a single character, whether a first person or a third person; the reader cannot know for sure what is going on in the minds of other characters | 47 | |
| 7300059334 | Litote | a figure of speech that emphasizes it subjects by conscious understatement | 48 | |
| 7300061516 | Loose sentence | a sentence that is complete stating its main idea before the end. ex. "The child ran as if being chased by demons." | 49 | |
| 7300064441 | Lyric | originally designated poems meant to be sung to the accompaniment of a lyre; now a short poem in which the speaker expresses intense personal emotion rather than describing a narrative | 50 | |
| 7300069317 | Message | a misleading term for theme; the central idea or statement of a story, or area of inquiry or explanation | 51 | |
| 7300074708 | Metaphor | one thing pictured as if it were something else, like an analogy | 52 | |
| 7300079244 | Meter | the more or less regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry. ex. pentameter | 53 | |
| 7300083825 | Metonymy | a figure of speech in which an attribute or commonly associated feature is used to name or designated something else. ex. "The White House said..." | 54 | |
| 7300087288 | Mood | a feeling or ambiance resulting from the tone of a piece as well as the writer/narrator's attitude and point of view | 55 | |
| 7300090469 | Motif | a recurrent device, formula, or situation that often serves as a signal for the appearance of a character or event | 56 | |
| 7300095936 | Narrative Structure | a textual organization based on sequences of connected events, usually presented in a straightforward, chronological framework | 57 | |
| 7300101042 | Narrator | the "character" who "tells" the story, or poetry, the persona | 58 | |
| 7304594840 | Occasional poem | a poem written about or for a specific occasion, public or private, An epithalamium is a wedding poem for example | 59 | |
| 7304598920 | Ode | a lyric poem that is somewhat serious in subject and treatment, elevated in style and sometimes uses elaborate stanza structure, which is often patterned in sets of threes, usually in praise of something | 60 | |
| 7304608036 | Omniscient point of view | also called unlimited focus: a perspective that can be seen from one character's view, then another's, or can be moved in or out of the mind of any character at any time. The reader has access to the perceptions and thoughts of all the characters in the story | 61 | |
| 7304627787 | Onomatopoeia | a word capturing a sound | 62 | |
| 7304630688 | Overstatement | exaggerated language; hyperbole | 63 | |
| 7304634230 | Oxymoron | a figure of speech that combines two contradictory elements, as in "wise fool" | 64 | |
| 7304639537 | Parable | short fiction that illustrates an explicit moral lesson through the use of analogy | 65 | |
| 7304642730 | Paradox | a statement that seems contradictory but may actually be true | 66 | |
| 7304648743 | Parody | a work that imitates another work for comic effect by exaggerating the style and changing the content of the original | 67 | |
| 7304679882 | Parallel Structure | the use of similar forms in writing for nouns, verbs, and phrases | 68 | |
| 7304683706 | Pastoral | a poem that describes the simple life of country folk, usually shepherds who live a timeless, painless (and sheepless) life in a world fill of beauty, music, and love | 69 | |
| 7304696502 | Periodic sentence | a sentence which is not grammatically complete until the end | 70 | |
| 7304691927 | Persona | the voice or figure of the author who tells and structures the story and who may or may not be the author | 71 | |
| 7304698870 | Personification | treating an abstraction or nonhuman object as if it were a person | 72 | |
| 7304702594 | Petrarchan sonnet | also called Italian sonnet: in a form that divides the poem into one section of eight lines and a second section of six lines, usually following the abba abba cde rhyme scheme though the sestet's (6) rhyme varies | 73 | |
| 7304710318 | Plot | the arrangement of the narration based on the cause-effect relationship of events | 74 | |
| 7304712571 | Protagonist | the main character in a work, who may or may not be heroic | 75 | |
| 7304717348 | Quatrain | a poetic stanza of four lines | 76 | |
| 7304718222 | Realism | the practice in literature of attempting to describe nature and life without idealization and with attention to detail | 77 | |
| 7304725211 | Refrain | a repeated stanza or line(s) in a poem or song | 78 | |
| 7304726759 | Rising action | the development of action in a work, usually at the beginning | 79 | |
| 7304728719 | Rhyme | the repetition of similar sounds | 80 | |
| 7372251334 | Rhythm | the modulation of weak and strong elements in the flow of speech | 81 | |
| 7372255012 | Sarcasm | a form of verbal irony in which apparent praise is actually harshly or bitterly critial | 82 | |
| 7372262990 | Satire | a literary work that holds up human failings to ridicule and censure | 83 | |
| 7372269442 | Scansion | the analysis of verse to show its meter | 84 | |
| 7372272774 | Setting | the time and place of the action in literature | 85 | |
| 7372289931 | Shakespearean sonnet | also called an English sonnet: a sonnet form that divides the poem into three units of four lines and the final unit of two lines, usually abab cdcd efef gg | 86 | |
| 7372301976 | Shaped verse | another name for concrete poetry, shaped to look like an object | 87 | |
| 7372308627 | Simile | a direct comparison using like or as | 88 | |
| 7372311507 | Soliloquy | a monologue in which the character in a play is alone and speaking only to him/herself | 89 | |
| 7372319066 | Speaker | the person, not necessarily the author, who is the voice of a poem | 90 | |
| 7372323967 | Stanza | a section of a poem demarcated by extra line spacing, a division of thought not pattern, can be identified by lines | 91 | |
| 7372339440 | Stereotype | a characterization based on conscious or unconscious assumptions that some one aspect, such as gender, age, etc. are predictably accompanied by certain character triats | 92 | |
| 7372354679 | Stock character | one who appears in a number of stories or plays, such as the femme fatale | 93 | |
| 7372362737 | Structure | the organization of various elements in a work | 94 | |
| 7372366586 | Style | a distinctive manner of expression, expressed through diction, rhythm, imagery, etc. | 95 | |
| 7372376707 | Symbolism | a person, place, or thing in a literary work that designates itself and at the same time figuratively represents something else | 96 | |
| 7372388741 | Synecdoche | when a part is used to signify the whole | 97 | |
| 7372397105 | Syntax | the way words are put together to form phrases, clauses, and sentences: sentence structure and how it influences the reader | 98 | |
| 7372406984 | Terza rima | a verse form consisting of three-lines stanzas in which the second line of each rhymes with the first and third of the next | 99 | |
| 7372415400 | Theme | a generalized, abstract paraphrase of the inferred meaning of a work | 100 | |
| 7372420096 | Tone | the attitude a literary work takes toward its subject and theme | 101 | |
| 7372425928 | Tragedy | a drama in which a character is brought to a disastrous end in his/her confrontation with a superior force, usually because the character has a fatal flaw | 102 | |
| 7372437094 | Trochee | a metrical form in which each foot consists of stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable ex. car' wash | 103 | |
| 7372449591 | Turning point | the third part of plot structure, the point at which the action stops rising and begins to fall, climax | 104 | |
| 7372458482 | Villanelle | a verse form consisting of nineteen lines divided into six stanzas- five tercets (3-line stanzas) and one quatrain (4 lines). The first and third line of the first tercet rhyme, and this rhyme is repeated through each of the next four tercets and in the last two lines concluding the quatrain | 105 | |
| 7372491224 | Voice | the known or unknown source of words of the story | 106 | |
| 8593836713 | Flashback | retrospection, where an earlier event is inserted into the normal chronology of the narrative. Harper Lee's novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, is written as a flashback to specific events that took place in the adult narrator's life. | 107 |
