Terms : Hide Images
| 14688480768 | Theme | The idea or point of a story formulated as a generalization | 0 | |
| 14688487437 | Character | Imaginary people created by the writer; perhaps the most important element of literature | 1 | |
| 14688498462 | Protagonist | Major character at the center of the story | 2 | |
| 14688499981 | Antagonist | A character or force that opposes the protagonist | 3 | |
| 14688503125 | Minor Character | Often provides support and illuminates the protagonist | 4 | |
| 14688510962 | Static Character | A character who remains the same | 5 | |
| 14688512849 | Dynamic Character | A character who changes in some important way | 6 | |
| 14688528455 | Characterization | The means by which writers reveal character | 7 | |
| 14688534805 | Explicit Judgement | Narrator gives facts and interpretive comment | 8 | |
| 14688539410 | Implied Judgement | Narrator gives description; reader makes the judgement | 9 | |
| 14688571431 | Plot | The arrangement of ideas and/or incidents that make up a story | 10 | |
| 14688576307 | Causality | One event occurs before another event | 11 | |
| 14688581206 | Foreshadowing | A suggestion of what is going to happen | 12 | |
| 14688586775 | Suspense | A sense of worry established by the author | 13 | |
| 14688592670 | Conflict | Struggle between opposing forces | 14 | |
| 14688595618 | Exposition | Background information regarding the setting, characters, plot | 15 | |
| 14688600168 | Rising Action | Intensification of conflict | 16 | |
| 14688606562 | Climax/Crisis | Turning point; moment of great tension that fixes the action | 17 | |
| 14688612359 | Resolution/Denouement | The way the story turns out | 18 | |
| 14688614480 | Structure | The design or form of the completed action; often provides clues to character and action. Can even philosophically mirror the author's intentions, especially if it is unusual | 19 | |
| 14688630717 | Setting | The place or location of the action, the setting provides the historical and cultural context for characters. It can often symbolize the emotional state of characters | 20 | |
| 14688717122 | Point of View | Can sometimes indirectly establish the author's intentions; pertains to who tells the story and how it is told | 21 | |
| 14688730752 | Narrator | The person telling the story | 22 | |
| 14688732741 | First-Person | Narrator participates in action but sometimes has limited knowledge/vision | 23 | |
| 14688736475 | Objective | Narrator is unnamed/unidentified (a detached observer). Does not assume character's perspective and is not a character in the story. The narrator reports on events and lets the reader supply the meaning | 24 | |
| 14690391723 | Omniscient | All-knowing narrator (multiple perspectives). The narrator takes us into the character and can evaluate a character for the reader (editorial omniscience). When a narrator allows the reader to make his or her own judgments from the action of the characters themselves; it is called neutral omniscience | 25 | |
| 14690411504 | Limited Omniscient | All-knowing narrator about one or two characters, but not all | 26 | |
| 14690431484 | Language and Style | Style is the verbal identity of a writer, oftentimes based on the author's use of diction (word choice) and syntax (the order of words in a sentence). A writer's use of language reveals his or her town, or the attitude toward the subject matter | 27 | |
| 14690447136 | Irony | A contrast or discrepancy between one thing and another | 28 | |
| 14690454746 | Verbal Irony | We understand the opposite of what the speaker says | 29 | |
| 14690461212 | Irony of Circumstance or Situational Irony | When one event is expected to occur but the opposite happens. A discrepancy between what seems to be and what is | 30 | |
| 14690479341 | Dramatic Irony | Discrepancy between what characters know and what readers know | 31 | |
| 14690485698 | Ironic Vision | An overall tone of irony that pervades a work, suggesting how the writer views the characters | 32 | |
| 14690490136 | Allegory | A form of narrative in which people, places, and events seem to have hidden meanings. Often a retelling of an older story | 33 | |
| 14690496574 | Connotation | The implied meaning of a word | 34 | |
| 14690510719 | Denotation | The dictionary definition of a word | 35 | |
| 14690512783 | Diction | Word choice and usage (for example, formal vs. informal), as determined by considerations of audience and purpose | 36 | |
| 14690520661 | Figurative Language | The use of words to suggest meanings beyond the literal. There are a number of figures of speech | 37 | |
| 14690535278 | Metaphor | Making a comparison between unlike things without the use of a verbal clue | 38 | |
| 14690546155 | Simile | Making a comparison between unlike things, using "like" or "as" | 39 | |
| 14690549952 | Hyperbole | Exaggeration | 40 | |
| 14690561834 | Personification | Endowing inanimate objects with human characteristics | 41 | |
| 14690566611 | Imagery | A concrete representation of a sense impression, a feeling, or an idea which appeals to one or more of our senses. Look for a pattern | 42 | |
| 14690572091 | Tactile Imagery | Sense of touch | 43 | |
| 14690577175 | Aural Imagery | Sense of hearing | 44 | |
| 14690612832 | Olfactory Imagery | Sense of smell | 45 | |
| 14690614916 | Visual Imagery | Sense of sight | 46 | |
| 14690617567 | Gustatory Imagery | Sense of taste | 47 | |
| 14690619477 | Rhythm and Meter | Rhythm is the pulse or beat in a line of poetry, the regular occurrence of an accent or stress. Meter is the measure or patterned count of a poetry line (a count of the stresses we feel in a poem's rhythm). The unit of poetic meter in English is called a "foot" , a unit of measure consisting of stressed and unstressed syllables. Ask how it affects the tone and meaning | 48 | |
| 14691023751 | Sound | Do the words rhyme? Is there alliteration(repetition of consonants) or assonance (repetition of vowels)? How does this affect the tone? | 49 | |
| 14691043262 | Structure | The pattern of organization of a poem. For example, a sonnet is a 14-line poem usually written in iambic pentameter. Because the sonnet is strictly constrained, it is considered a closed or fixed form. An open or free form is a poem in which the author uses a looser form, or perhaps one of his or her own invention. It is not necessarily formless | 50 | |
| 14691079422 | Symbolism | When objects or actions mean more than themselves | 51 | |
| 14691080758 | Syntax | Sentence structure and word order | 52 | |
| 14691083505 | Voice: Speaker and Tone | The voice that conveys the poem's tone; its implied attitude towards its subject | 53 | |
| 14735256313 | Aside | Words spoken by an actor directly to the audience, which are not "heard" by the other characters on stage during a play. Example: Shakespeare's Othello, character Iago voices his inner thoughts a number of times to the audience | 54 | |
| 14735267998 | Comedy | A type of drama in which the characters experience reversals of fortune, usually for the better. Things work out happily in the end. Comic drama may be either romantic--characterized by a tone of tolerance and geniality--or satiric. Satiric works offer a darker version of human nature, one that ridicules human folly. Shaw's Arms and the Man is a romantic comedy; Chekhov's Marriage Proposal is a satiric comedy | 55 | |
| 14735298971 | Comic Relief | The use of a comic scene to interrupt a succession of intensely tragic dramatic moments. The comedy of scenes offering relief typically parallels the tragic action that the scenes interrupt. It is lacking in Greek tragedy but occurs regularly in Shakespeare's tragedies. One example is the opening scene of Act V of Hamlet, in which a gravedigger banters with Hamlet | 56 | |
| 14735343918 | Dialogue | The conversation of characters in a literary work. In fiction, it is typically enclosed within quotation marks. In plays, characters' speech is preceded by their names | 57 | |
| 14735350689 | Foil | A character who contrasts and parallels the main character in a play or story. Laertes, in Hamlet, is a foil for the main character; in Othello, Emilia and Bianca are foils for Desdemona | 58 | |
| 14735362832 | Soliloquy | A speech in a play that is meant to be heard by the audience but not by other characters on the stage. If there are no other characters present, the soliloquy represents the character thinking aloud. Hamlet's "To be or not to be" speech is an example. See aside | 59 | |
| 14735378489 | Stage Direction | A playwright's description of interpretive comments that provide readers (and actors) with information about the dialogue, setting, and action of a play. Modern playwrights, including Ibsen, Shaw, Miller, and Williams tend to include substantial stage directions, while earlier playwrights typically used them more sparsely, implicitly, or not at all. See gesture | 60 | |
| 14735423693 | Tragedy | A type of drama in which the characters experience reversals of fortune, usually for the worst. In tragedy, catastrophe and suffering await many of the characters, especially the hero. Examples include Shakespeare's Othello and Hamlet; Sophocles' Antigone and Oedipus the King, and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. See Tragic Flaw and Tragic Hero | 61 | |
| 14736027211 | Tragic Flaw | A weakness or limitation of character, resulting in the fall of the tragic hero. Othello's jealousy and too-trusting nature is one example. See Tragedy and Tragic Hero | 62 | |
| 14736035884 | Tragic Hero | A privileged, exalted character of high repute, who, by virtue of a tragic flaw and fate, suffers a fall from glory into suffering. Sophocles' Oedipus is an example. See Tragedy and Tragic Flaw | 63 |
