Terms : Hide Images
| 4029024005 | abstract | a style in writing that is typically complex, discusses intangible qualities like good and evil, and seldom uses examples to support its points | 0 | |
| 4029024006 | academic | an adjective describing style; dry and theoretical writing; piece of writing seems to be sucking all the life out of its subject with analysis | 1 | |
| 4029024007 | accent | in poetry, the stressed portion of a word; sometimes set, often a matter of opinion | 2 | |
| 4029024008 | aesthetic | adj.: "appealing to the senses"; noun: coherent (logically connected) sense of taste | 3 | |
| 4029024009 | aesthetics | the study of beauty; "What is beauty?" "Is the beautiful always good?" | 4 | |
| 4029024010 | allegory | a story in which each aspect of the story has a symbolic meaning outside the tale itself; many fables have this quality; true ones are even more hard and fast; example: Orwell's Animal Farm | 5 | |
| 4029024011 | alliteration | the repetition of INITIAL consonant sounds; consonant clusters coming closely cramped and compressed | 6 | |
| 4029024012 | allusion | a reference to another work or famous figures; can be classical (refers to Greek and Roman mythology or literature), topical (refers to current event), or popular (refers to something from pop culture--TV show or hit movie) | 7 | |
| 4029024013 | anachronism | Greek for "misplaced in time"; something or someone that isn't in its correct historical or chronological time--i.e., Brutus wearing a watch | 8 | |
| 4029024014 | analogy | a comparison usually involving two or more symbolic parts; employed to clarify an action or relationship | 9 | |
| 4029024015 | anecdote | a short narrative | 10 | |
| 4029024016 | antecedent | the word, phrase, or clause that determines what a pronoun refers to | 11 | |
| 4029024017 | anthropomorphism | when inanimate objects, animals, or natural phenomena are given human characteristics, behaviour, or motivation--"In the forest, the darkness waited for me, I could hear its patient breathing." | 12 | |
| 4029024018 | anticlimax | occurs when an action produces far smaller results than one had been led to expect; frequently comic | 13 | |
| 4029024019 | antihero | a protagonist who is markedly unheroic: morally weak, cowardly, dishonest, or any number of other unsavory qualities | 14 | |
| 4029024020 | aphorism | a short and usually witty saying; astute observation--"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." (Lord Acton) | 15 | |
| 4029024021 | apostrophe | a figure of speech wherein the speaker talks directly to something that is nonhuman, absent, or dead | 16 | |
| 4029024022 | archaism | the use of deliberately old-fashioned language, used to create a feeling of antiquity | 17 | |
| 4029024023 | 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 | 18 | |
| 4029024024 | aspect | a trait or characteristic | 19 | |
| 4029024025 | assonance | the repeated use of vowel sounds--"Old king Cole was a merry old soul." | 20 | |
| 4029024026 | atmosphere | the emotional tone or background that surrounds a scene | 21 | |
| 4029024027 | ballad | a long, narrative poem, usually in regular meter and rhyme; typically has a naive folksy quality that sets it apart from epic poetry | 22 | |
| 4029024028 | bathos | when the writing of a scene strains for grandeur it can't support and tries to jerk tears from every little hiccup; intends to be dramatic but goes to the extreme of becoming ridiculous | 23 | |
| 4029024029 | pathos | when the writing of a scene evokes feelings of dignified pity and sympathy | 24 | |
| 4029024030 | black humor | the use of disturbing themes in comedy; morbid humor used to express the absurdity, insensitivity, paradox, and cruelty of the modern world, ordinary characters or situations exaggerated beyond normal limits of satire or irony | 25 | |
| 4029024031 | bombast | pretentious, exaggeratedly learned language; one tries to be eloquent by using the largest, most uncommon words | 26 | |
| 4029024032 | burlesque | broad parody, one that takes a style or form, such as tragic drama, and exaggerates it into ridiculousness; achieves its effects through caricature, ridicule, and distortion, devoid of any ethical element; interchangeable with parody | 27 | |
| 4029024033 | cacophony | using deliberately harsh, awkward sounds--the sound of midday traffic | 28 | |
| 4029024034 | cadence | the beat or rhythm of poetry in a general sense e.g., iambic pentameter; can be gentle and pulsing, conversational, and even vigorous, marching | 29 | |
| 4029024035 | canto | the name for a section division in a long work of poetry; divides a long poem into parts the way chapters divide a novel--like in Dante's Inferno | 30 | |
| 4029024036 | caricature | a portrait (verbal or otherwise) that exaggerates a facet of personality | 31 | |
| 4029024037 | catharsis | drawn from Aristotle's writings on tragedy; refers to the "cleansing" of emotion an audience member experiences, having lived (vicariously) through the experiences presented on stage; purging of emotions through a form of art, in this case, literature | 32 | |
| 4029024038 | chorus | the group of citizens who stand outside the main action on stage and comment on it | 33 | |
| 4029024039 | classic | typical; an accepted masterpiece | 34 | |
| 4029024040 | classical | refers to the arts of ancient Greece and Rome and the qualities of those arts | 35 | |
| 4029024041 | coinage (tech. term: neologism) | a new word, usually one invented on the spot | 36 | |
| 4029024042 | colloquialism | a word or phrase used in everyday conversational English that isn't a part of accepted "schoolbook" English; slang words, informal English | 37 | |
| 4029024043 | complex, dense | two terms carrying the similar meaning of suggesting that there is more than one posibilty in the meaning of words (image, idea, opposition); there are subtleties and variations; there are multiple layers of interpretation; the meaning is both explicit and implicit | 38 | |
| 4029024044 | conceit | refers to a startling or unusual metaphor, or to a metaphor developed and expanded upon over several lines | 39 | |
| 4029024045 | controlling image | when the image of conceit dominates and shapes the entire work | 40 | |
| 4029024046 | connotation | what a word suggests or implies, not its literal meaning--i.e., dark meaning dangerous instead lacking of light | 41 | |
| 4029024047 | denotation | the literal meaning of a word | 42 | |
| 4029024048 | consonance | the repetition of consonant sounds WITHIN words--"A flock of sick, black-checkered ducks." | 43 | |
| 4029024049 | couplet | a pair of lines that end in rhyme | 44 | |
| 4029024050 | decorum | in order to observe, a character's speech must be styled according to his or her social station, and in accordance with the occasion--bum speaks like a bum about bumly things | 45 | |
| 4029024051 | diction | author's choice of words, choice of specific words | 46 | |
| 4029024052 | syntax | author's choice of words; refers to the ordering and structuring of the words | 47 | |
| 4029024053 | dirge | a song for the dead, tone is typically slow, heavy, and melancholy | 48 | |
| 4029024054 | dissonance | the grating of incompatible sounds | 49 | |
| 4029024055 | doggerel | crude, simplistic verse, often in sing-song rhyme--i.e., limericks | 50 | |
| 4029024056 | dramatic irony | when the audience knows something that the characters in the drama do not | 51 | |
| 4029024057 | dramatic monologue | when a single speaker in literature says something to a silent audience | 52 | |
| 4029024058 | elegy | a type of poem that meditates on death or mortality in a serious, thoughtful manner; often use the recent death of a noted or loved person as a starting point; also memorialize specific dead people | 53 | |
| 4029024059 | elements | the basic techniques of each genre of literature | 54 | |
| 4029024060 | enjambment | the continuation of a syntactic unit from one line or couplet of a poem to the next with no pause--i.e., | 55 | |
| 4029024061 | epic | a very long narrative poem on a serious theme in a dignified style; typically deal with glorious or profound subject matter--i.e., great war, heroic journey, battle with supernatural, etc. | 56 | |
| 4029024062 | mock-epic | parody form that deals with mundane events and ironically treats them as worthy of epic poetry | 57 | |
| 4029024063 | epitaph | lines that commemorate the dead at their burial place; usually a line or a handful of lines, often serious or religious, but sometimes witty and even irreverent | 58 | |
| 4029024064 | euphemism | a word or phrase that takes the place of a harsh, unpleasant, or impolite reality--i.e., passed away for died, let go for fired | 59 | |
| 4029024065 | euphony | when sounds blend harmoniously | 60 | |
| 4029024066 | explicit | to say or write something directly and clearly | 61 | |
| 4029024067 | farce | today it's used to refer to extremely broad humor; in earlier times, it was used to mean a simply funny play; a comedy (generic term for play then, btw, no implication of humor) | 62 | |
| 4029024068 | feminine rhyme | lines rhymed by their final two syllables--running, gunning; properly, the penultimate syllables are stressed and the final syllables are unstressed | 63 | |
| 4029024069 | foil | a secondary character whose purpose is to highlight the characteristics of a main character, usually by contrast | 64 | |
| 4029024070 | foot | the basic rhythmic unit of a line of poetry, formed by a combination of two or three syllables, either stressed or unstressed | 65 | |
| 4029024071 | foreshadowing | an event or statement in a narrative that in miniature suggests a larger event that comes later | 66 | |
| 4029024072 | free verse | poetry written without a regular rhyme scheme or metrical pattern | 67 | |
| 4029024073 | genre | a subcategory of literature--i.e., scientific fiction, detective stories->types of fiction | 68 | |
| 4029024074 | Gothic, Gothic novel | form first showed up in the middle of the 1700s, heyday of popularity for sixty years; sensibility: mysterious, gloomy, sinister | 69 | |
| 4029024075 | hubris | the excessive pride or ambition that leads to the main character's downfall--like Caesar | 70 | |
| 4029024076 | hyperbole | exaggeration or deliberate overstatement: He has a watermelon head. | 71 | |
| 4029024077 | implicit | to say or write something that suggests and implies but never says it directly or clearly; reading between the lines | 72 | |
| 4029024078 | in medias res | Latin for "in the midst of things;" one of the conventions of epic poetry | 73 | |
| 4029024079 | interior monologue | a term for novels and poetry, not dramatic literature; refers to writing that records the mental talking that goes on inside a character's head; related, but not identical to the stream of consciousness; tends to be coherent, as though the character is actually talking | 74 | |
| 4029024080 | inversion | switching the customary order of elements in a sentence or phrase--Yoda speech! | 75 | |
| 4029024081 | *irony | comes in a variety of forms; a statement that means the opposite of what it seems to mean, deeper than sarcasm though; an undertow of meaning | 76 | |
| 4029024082 | lament | a poem of sadness or grief over the death of a loved one or over some other intense loss | 77 | |
| 4029024083 | lampoon | a satire | 78 | |
| 4029024084 | loose sentence | sentence is clear in the beginning, begins with main clause, followed by subordinates and modifiers | 79 | |
| 4029024085 | periodic sentence | leaves the completion of its main clause to the end, often produces effect of suspense | 80 | |
| 4029024086 | lyric | a type of poetry that explores the poet's personal interpretation of and feelings about the world; when used to describe a tone, refers to a sweet, emotional melodiousness | 81 | |
| 4029024087 | masculine rhyme | a rhyme ending on the final stressed syllable--spent, went | 82 | |
| 4029024088 | means, meaning | literal meaning-concrete and explicit; emotional meaning | 83 | |
| 4029024089 | 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 | 84 | |
| 4029024090 | metaphor | a comparison, or analogy that states one thing IS another--His eyes were burning coals. | 85 | |
| 4029024091 | metonym | a word that is used to stand for something else that it has attributes of or is associated with---"the crown" referring to the king, "The pen is mightier than the sword." (pen reps writers and ideas, sword reps war) | 86 | |
| 4029024092 | nemesis | the protagonist's archenemy or supreme and persistent difficulty | 87 | |
| 4029024093 | objectivity | treatment of a matter as impersonal or as an outside view of events | 88 | |
| 4029024094 | subjectivity | treatment of a matter using the interior personal view of a single observer and is typically coloured with that observer's emotional responses | 89 | |
| 4029024095 | onomatopoeia | words that sound how they're spelled--boom, splat | 90 | |
| 4029024096 | opposition | a pair of elements that contrast sharply, not necessarily "conflict," rather a pairing of images, each becomes more striking and informative because it's placed in contrast to the other one; creates mystery and tension, can be obvious or lead to irony, not always though | 91 | |
| 4029024097 | oxymoron | a phrase composed of opposites; a contradiction | 92 | |
| 4029024098 | parable | a story that instructs like a fable or an allegory | 93 | |
| 4029024099 | paradox | a situation or statement that seems to contradict itself, but on closer inspection, it does not---"It's raining, but I don't believe that it is." | 94 | |
| 4029024100 | parallelism | repeated syntactical similarities used for effect--He likes playing the piano, eating cookies, and reading lengthy novels. | 95 | |
| 4029024101 | paraphrase | to restate phrases and sentences in your own words, to rephrase; not an analysis or interpretation | 96 | |
| 4029024102 | parenthetical phrase | a phrase set off by commas that interrupts the flow of a sentence with some commentary or added detail | 97 | |
| 4029024103 | parody | when a specific work is exaggerated to ridiculousness | 98 | |
| 4029024104 | pastoral | a poem set in a tranquil nature or even more specifically, one about shepherds | 99 | |
| 4029024105 | persona | the narrator in a non-first-person novel. in third person, get an idea of author's personality, but isn't really the author's personality; shadow-author | 100 | |
| 4029024106 | personification | giving an inanimate object human qualities or form--The darkness of the forest became the figure of a beautiful, pake-skinned woman in night-black clothes. | 101 | |
| 4029024107 | plaint | a poem or speech expressing sorrow | 102 | |
| 4029024108 | point of view | the perspective from which the action of a novel (or narrative poem) is presented | 103 | |
| 4029024109 | omniscient narrator | third-person narrator who sees into each character's mind and understands all the action that's going on | 104 | |
| 4029024110 | limited omniscient narrator | third-person narrator who generally reports only what one character (usually main character) sees, reports only thoughts of that one character | 105 | |
| 4029024111 | objective/camera-eye narrator | third-person narrator who only reports on what would be visible to a camera, doesn't know what the character is thinking unless character speaks of it | 106 | |
| 4029024112 | first-person narrator | narrator who is a character in the story and tells the story from his or her point of view; when crazy, a liar, or very young, narrator is unreliable | 107 | |
| 4029024113 | stream of consciousness technique | method is like first-person, but instead of the character telling the story, the author puts the reader in the character's head | 108 | |
| 4029024114 | prelude | an intro poem to a longer work or verse | 109 | |
| 4029024115 | protagonist | the main character of a novel or play | 110 | |
| 4029024116 | pun | usually humorous use of a word in such a way to suggest two or more meanings | 111 | |
| 4029024117 | refrain | a line or set of lines repeated several times over the course of a poem | 112 | |
| 4029024118 | requiem | a song or prayer for the dead | 113 | |
| 4029024119 | rhapsody | an intensely passionate verse or section of verse, usually of love or praise | 114 | |
| 4029024120 | rhetorical question | a question that suggests an answer | 115 | |
| 4029024121 | satire | exposes common character flaws to humor; attempts to improve things by pointing out people's mistakes in the hope that once exposed, such behaviours will become less common--hypocrisy, vanity, greed | 116 | |
| 4029024122 | simile | like a metaphor but softens the full-out equation of things, often, but not always, by using like or as | 117 | |
| 4029024123 | 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; not meant to imply that the actor acknowledges the audience is listening | 118 | |
| 4029024124 | stanza | a group of lines roughly analogues in function in verse to the paragraph's function in prose | 119 | |
| 4029024125 | stock characters | standard or cliched character types: the drunk, the miser, the foolish girl, etc. | 120 | |
| 4029024126 | subjunctive mood | a mood that represents an act or state (not as a fact but) as contingent or possible; wishful thinking--if I were you, if he were honest | 121 | |
| 4029024127 | suggest | to imply, infer, indicate; you have to pull out the meaning yourself | 122 | |
| 4029024128 | summary | a simple retelling of what you've just read; covers more material than paraphrase, more general, includes all the facts | 123 | |
| 4029024129 | suspension of disbelief | demand made of a theater audience to accept the limitations of staging and supply the details with imagination | 124 | |
| 4029024130 | symbolism | a device in literature where an object reps an idea | 125 | |
| 4029024131 | technique | the methods, the tools, "how-you-do-it" ways of the author | 126 | |
| 4029024132 | theme | the main idea of the overall work; the central idea; topic of discourse or discussion | 127 | |
| 4029024133 | thesis | the main position of an argument; the central contention that will be supported | 128 | |
| 4029024134 | tragic flaw | in tragedy, weakness of character in an other wise good/great individual that leads to his demise | 129 | |
| 4029024135 | travesty | a grotesque parody | 130 | |
| 4029024136 | truism | a way-too-obvious truth | 131 | |
| 4029024137 | utopia | an idealized place; paradise | 132 | |
| 4029024138 | zeugma | the use of a word to modify two or more words, but used for different meanings--On the fishing trip, he caught three trout and a cold. | 133 |
