Terms : Hide Images
| 6604856046 | Abstract (style) | Typically complex, discusses intangible qualities like good and evil, doesn't use examples to support points | 0 | |
| 6604856381 | Academic (style) | Dry, theoretical writing, very analytical | 1 | |
| 6604859420 | Accent (poetic) | Stressed portion of the word, can be a matter of opinion which part is actually stressed | 2 | |
| 6604859980 | Aesthetic (adjective) | "Appealing to the senses," artistic judgment | 3 | |
| 6604861495 | Aesthetic (noun, singular) | Coherent sense of taste | 4 | |
| 6604862149 | Aesthetics (noun, plural) | The study of beauty | 5 | |
| 6604864142 | Allegory | A story in which each aspect of the story has a symbolic meaning outside the tale itself (e.x. the Ant and the Grasshopper) | 6 | |
| 6604865364 | Alliteration | The repetition of initial CONSONANT sounds | 7 | |
| 6604865685 | Allusion | A reference to another work, event, or famous figure (topical = current event, popular = pop culture) | 8 | |
| 6604867624 | Anachronism | "Misplaced in time" in Greek (e.x. if someone in Julius Caesar forgets to take off a digital wristwatch) | 9 | |
| 6604868947 | Analogy | Comparison using two symbolic parts to clarify an action or relationship | 10 | |
| 6604869390 | Anecdote | Short narrative | 11 | |
| 6604869391 | Antecedent | The word, phrase, or clause that a pronoun refers to or replaces. (E.x. the principal asked the children where they were going - they = pronoun, children = antecedent) | 12 | |
| 6604871024 | Anthropomorphism | In literature, when inanimate objects, animals, or natural phenomena are given human characteristics, behavior, or motivation | 13 | |
| 6604872234 | Anticlimax | Occurs when an action produces far smaller results than one had been led to expect, frequently used comically | 14 | |
| 6604873151 | Antihero | A protagonist who is markedly unheroic, morally weak, cowardly, dishonest | 15 | |
| 6604873608 | Aphorism | A short and witty saying | 16 | |
| 6604874527 | APOSTROPHE (not the punctuation mark) | An address to someone not present, or to a personified object or idea | 17 | |
| 6604875706 | Archaism | The use of deliberately-old fashioned language to create a feeling of antiquity | 18 | |
| 6604876038 | Aside | A speech or short comment made by an actor to the audience, as though momentarily stepping outside the action onstage | 19 | |
| 6604876763 | Aspect | Trait or characteristic | 20 | |
| 6604876764 | Assonance | The repeated use of VOWEL sounds | 21 | |
| 6604877267 | Atmosphere | Tone or emotional background surrounding the scene | 22 | |
| 6604878481 | Ballad | A long, narrative poem, usually regular in meter and rhyme, with a folksy quality (that distinguishes it from epic poetry) | 23 | |
| 6604879267 | Bathos | Writing strains for grandeur it can't support, tries to elicit too much emotion | 24 | |
| 6604879804 | Pathos | Writing of scene evokes feelings of dignified pity and sympathy | 25 | |
| 6604880096 | Black humor | Use of disturbing themes in comedy (e.x. Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot) | 26 | |
| 6604881262 | Bombast | Pretentious, exaggeratedly learned language, trying to be eloquent by using large and uncommon words | 27 | |
| 6604882231 | Burlesque (Parody) | Broad parody that takes a style and exaggerates it into ridiculousness | 28 | |
| 6604883266 | Cacophony | Using deliberately harsh, awkward sounds | 29 | |
| 6604883267 | Cadence | The beat or rhythm of poetry in a general sense | 30 | |
| 6604883972 | Canto | Name for a section division in a long work of poetry, dividing it into chapters | 31 | |
| 6604886519 | CARICATURE | A portrait (verbal or otherwise) that exaggerates a facet of personality | 32 | |
| 6604886851 | Catharsis | Aristotle's theories on tragedy, refers to the "cleansing" of emotion experienced by audience members who live vicariously through the play | 33 | |
| 6604887240 | Chorus (drama) | Group of citizens who stand outside the main action on stage and comment on it | 34 | |
| 6604887812 | Classic | An accepted masterpiece (though classical refers to Greece/Rome) | 35 | |
| 6604888998 | Coinage (neologism) | New word typically invented on the spot | 36 | |
| 6604889476 | Colloquialism | Word or phrase used in everyday English but isn't accepted | 37 | |
| 6604889760 | Complex/Dense | Carry meaning of suggesting that there is more than one possibility in the meaning of words, subtleties, multiple layers of interpretation | 38 | |
| 6604892381 | CONCEIT (CONTROLLING IMAGE) | Startling or unusual metaphor, developed and expanded over several lines (can dominate entire work) | 39 | |
| 6604893952 | Connotation | Everything else that the word suggests or implies besides its literal meaning | 40 | |
| 6604893953 | Denotation | Literal meaning of a word | 41 | |
| 6604894746 | Consonance | Repetition of consonant sounds WITHIN words (rather than at the beginning) | 42 | |
| 6604895803 | COUPLET | A pair of lines that end in rhyme | 43 | |
| 6604897196 | Decorum | A character's speech must be styled according to their social station and in accordance with the occasion | 44 | |
| 6604897576 | DICTION | Author's choice of words | 45 | |
| 6604897905 | SYNTAX | Author's structure of words (sentence structure) | 46 | |
| 6604898217 | Dirge | Song for the dead, typically slow and melancholy | 47 | |
| 6604898764 | Dissonance | Grating of incompatible sounds | 48 | |
| 6604898765 | Doggerel | Crude, simplistic verse in sing-song rhyme (e.x. limericks) | 49 | |
| 6604899210 | DRAMATIC IRONY | When the audience knows something that the characters in the work do not | 50 | |
| 6604899673 | Elegy | Poem that meditates on death or mortality in a serious, thoughtful manner, using the death of recent, noted person as a starting point, memorialize | 51 | |
| 6604900910 | Short Story (elements) | Characters, irony, theme, symbol, plot, setting | 52 | |
| 6604901543 | Poetry (elements) | Figurative language, symbol, imagery, rhythm, rhyme | 53 | |
| 6604902005 | Drama (elements) | Conflict, characters, climax, conclusion, exposition, rising action, falling action, sets, props | 54 | |
| 6604902478 | Nonfiction/Rhetorical (elements) | Argument, evidence, reason, appeals, fallacies, thesis | 55 | |
| 6604903005 | ENJAMBMENT | The continuation of a syntactic unit from one line or couplet of a poem to the next with no pause | 56 | |
| 6604904063 | Epic | Long narrative poem on a serious theme in a dignified style, dealing with a glorious subject or profound subject matter (war, heroic journey, Fall from Eden, supernatural forces) | 57 | |
| 6604905085 | Epitaph | Lines that commemorate the dead at burial, line or handful of lines, can be serious/religious, sometimes witty | 58 | |
| 6604909926 | Euphemism | Word or phrase that takes place of harsh, unpleasant, impolite reality (e.x. passed away = died, let go = fired) | 59 | |
| 6604910782 | Euphony | When sounds blend together harmoniously | 60 | |
| 6604911088 | Explicit | To say or write something directly or clearly | 61 | |
| 6604911089 | Farce | Extremely broad humor, but in the past, meant funny play or comedy | 62 | |
| 6604912127 | Feminine Rhyme | Lines rhymed by their final two syllables | 63 | |
| 6604916009 | Foil | Secondary character whose purpose is to highlight the characteristics of a main character, usually by contrast | 64 | |
| 6604916447 | Foot | The basic rhythmic unit of a line of poetry, formed by two or three stressed or unstressed syllables | 65 | |
| 6604916850 | FORESHADOWING | Event or statement that suggests that something larger/worse could come later | 66 | |
| 6604917303 | Free Verse | Poetry without rhyme scheme or metric pattern | 67 | |
| 6604917590 | Genre | Subcategory of literature | 68 | |
| 6604917591 | Gothic | Sensibility derived from gothic novels, 18th century, Edgar Allan Poe | 69 | |
| 6604918311 | Hubris | Excessive pride or ambition leading to a character's downfall | 70 | |
| 6604919883 | HYPERBOLE | Exaggeration or deliberate overstatement | 71 | |
| 6604919884 | Implicit | To say something that suggests, implies, but never says directly or clearly. Meaning is present, but it's in the imagery, or between the lines. | 72 | |
| 6604921197 | en media res | Latin, "in the midst of things" - story begins when action has already started occurring | 73 | |
| 6604921756 | Interior monologue | Novels/poetry, writing recording the mental talking that goes on inside a character's head, coherent | 74 | |
| 6604924539 | Inversion | Switching customary order of elements in a sentence or phrase, common in poetry | 75 | |
| 6604924963 | IRONY | Powerful verbal tool, a statement that's the opposite of what it seems to mean, insinuates | 76 | |
| 6604926207 | Lament | A poem of sadness or grief about the death of a loved one, or some other loss | 77 | |
| 6604926857 | Lampoon | A satire | 78 | |
| 6604926858 | Loose Sentence | Grammatically complete before its end | 79 | |
| 6604927406 | Periodic Sentence | Not grammatically complete until its final phrase | 80 | |
| 6604927794 | Lyric | Type of poetry that explores poet's personal interpretation of, and feelings about, the world | 81 | |
| 6604928591 | Masculine Rhyme | A rhyme ending on the final stressed syllable | 82 | |
| 6604930576 | Melodrama | A form of cheesy theater in which the hero is good, the villain mean and rotten, and the heroine pure | 83 | |
| 6604931181 | METAPHOR | A comparison or analogy without using like or as | 84 | |
| 6604931509 | SIMILE | A comparison or analogy that uses like or as | 85 | |
| 6604932482 | Metonym | A word that is used to stand for something else that has the attributes of, or is associated with (E.x. 50 cows = 50 head of cattle) | 86 | |
| 6604938291 | Nemesis | The protagonist's archenemy, difficulty | 87 | |
| 6604938731 | OBJECTIVITY | Treatment of subject matter that is impersonal or outside | 88 | |
| 6604938993 | SUBJECTIVE | Interior or personal view of a single observer, colored with that viewer's emotional response | 89 | |
| 6604939618 | Onomatopoeia | Words that describe noises | 90 | |
| 6604941010 | OPPOSITION | Elements that contrast sharply, not necessarily conflict but a pairing of images that strengthen each other by the contrast they create | 91 | |
| 6604942361 | Oxymoron | A phrase composed of opposites | 92 | |
| 6604942362 | Parable | A story that instructs, like a fable or allegory | 93 | |
| 6604942628 | PARADOX | A situation or statement that seems to contradict itself, but on closer inspection, does not. | 94 | |
| 6604943182 | Parallelism | Repeated syntactical similarities used for effect | 95 | |
| 6604943949 | Paraphrase | Restate phrases in your own words | 96 | |
| 6604943950 | Parenthetical Phrase | A phrase set off by commas that interrupts the flow of a sentence with commentary or added detail | 97 | |
| 6604944514 | Pastoral | Poem set in tranquil nature | 98 | |
| 6604944919 | Persona | The narrator in a non-first-person novel, some idea of the author's personality | 99 | |
| 6604945674 | PERSONIFICATION | Giving an inanimate object human qualities or form | 100 | |
| 6604946036 | Plaint | A poem or speech expressing sorrow | 101 | |
| 6604947919 | POINT OF VIEW | Perspective from which the action of a novel is presented | 102 | |
| 6604948364 | Omniscient narrator | Third-person narrator who sees into each character's mind and understands all the action | 103 | |
| 6604948762 | Limited Omniscient Narrator | Third-person narrator who generally reports only what one character sees and reports that character's thoughts | 104 | |
| 6604949604 | Objective/camera-eye | Third-person who only reports on what is visible to a camera | 105 | |
| 6604950570 | First-person | Narrator who is a character in the story and tells the tale from his or her point of view, can be unreliable | 106 | |
| 6604951876 | Stream of consciousness technique | First-person narration but places reader inside main character's head, makes reader privy to all character's thoughts | 107 | |
| 6604955656 | Prelude | Introductory poem to longer work of verse | 108 | |
| 6604957181 | Refrain | Line or set of lines repeated over several times over the course of a poem | 109 | |
| 6604957526 | Requiem | Song/prayer for the dead | 110 | |
| 6604957794 | Rhapsody | Intensely passionate verse or section of verse, usually love or praise | 111 | |
| 6604958482 | Rhetorical Question | A question that suggests an answer, making the listener feel like she has to come up with the answer herself | 112 | |
| 6604958903 | SATIRE | Exposes common character flaws with humor, points out peoples' mistakes in hope to reduce that behavior | 113 | |
| 6604959668 | Soliloquy | Speech spoken alone by character onstage, convey the impression of listening to the audience's thoughts | 114 | |
| 6604960118 | STANZA | Group of lines in a poem, almost like a paragraph | 115 | |
| 6604960402 | Stock characters | Standard or cliché characters | 116 | |
| 6604960854 | Subjunctive Mood | A hypothetical situation is set up | 117 | |
| 6604960855 | Suggest | To imply, infer, indicate, implicit | 118 | |
| 6604961267 | Summary | Mechanical, superficial retelling of what was read | 119 | |
| 6604961268 | Suspension of disbelief | The demand made of theater audience to accept limitations of staging, supply the details with imagination | 120 | |
| 6604963191 | SYMBOLISM | An object represents an idea | 121 | |
| 6604963192 | Technique | Methods of the author, tone, opposition, etc. | 122 | |
| 6604963944 | THEME | Main idea of overall work, central idea, topic of discourse/discussion | 123 | |
| 6604964292 | Thesis | Main position of an argument | 124 | |
| 6604964293 | Tragic flaw | Weakness of character in good individual that ultimately leads to demise | 125 | |
| 6604964683 | Travesty | Grotesque parody | 126 | |
| 6604964684 | Truism | Way-too-obvious truth | 127 | |
| 6604964962 | Utopia | Idealized place, imaginary community where people live in happiness | 128 | |
| 6604966019 | Zeugma | Use of word to modify two or more words, used for different meanings (e.x. He closed the door and his heart on his lost love). | 129 |
