Terms : Hide Images
| 6665666124 | Allegory | A prose or poetic narrative in which the characters, behavior, and even the setting demonstrates multilevels of meaning and significance. | 0 | |
| 6665677110 | Alliteration | The sequential initial repetition of a similar sound, usually applied to consonants | 1 | |
| 6665681937 | Allusion | A reference to a literary or historical event, person, or place. | 2 | |
| 6665687612 | Anaphora | The regular repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive phrases or clauses. | 3 | |
| 6665692221 | Anecdote | A brief story of tale told by a character in a piece of literature | 4 | |
| 6665695712 | Antagonist | Any force that is in opposition to the main character, or protagonist | 5 | |
| 6665699205 | Antithesis | The juxtaposition of sharply contrasting ideas in balanced or parallel words, phrases, grammatical structures, or ideas. | 6 | |
| 6665712602 | Apostrophe | An address or invocation to something that is inanimate | 7 | |
| 6665718081 | Archetype | Recurrent designs, patterns of action, character types, themes, or images which are identifiable in a wide range of literature | 8 | |
| 6665725828 | Assonance | A repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds, usually those found in stressed syllables of close proximity | 9 | |
| 6666023162 | Asyndeton | A style in which conjunctions are omitted, usually producing a fast-paced, more rapid prose. "I came, I saw, I conquered" | 10 | |
| 6666032176 | Attitude | The sense expressed by the tone of voice and/or the mood of a piece of writing; the feelings the author holds towards his subject, the people in his narrative, the events, the setting or even the theme. | 11 | |
| 6666039869 | Ballad | A narrative poem that is, or originally was, meant to be sung. (Repetition and refrain) | 12 | |
| 6666047801 | Ballad Stanza | A common stanza form, consisting of a quatrain that alternates four-beat and three-beat lines; one and three are unrhymed iambic tetrameter and two and four are rhymed iambic trimeter | 13 | |
| 6666061447 | Blank Verse | The verse from that most resembles common speech, consisted of unrhymed lines in iambic pentameter | 14 | |
| 6666069153 | Caesura | A pause in a line or verse, indicated by natural speech patterns rather than due to specific metrical patterns | 15 | |
| 6666074473 | Caricature | A depiction in which a character's characteristics or features are so deliberately exaggerated as to render them absurd | 16 | |
| 6666081596 | Chiasmus | A figure of speech by which the order of the terms in the first of two parallel clauses is reversed in the second. "Pleasure is a sin, and sin is a pleasure" | 17 | |
| 6666090378 | Colloquial | Ordinary language, the vernacular | 18 | |
| 6666092993 | Conceit | A comparison of two unlikely things that is drawn out within a piece of literature, in particular an extended metaphor within a poem | 19 | |
| 6666103932 | Connotation | What is suggested by a word, apart from what it explicitly describes, often referred to as the implied meaning of the word. | 20 | |
| 6666107995 | Consonance | The repetition of a sequence of two or more consonants, but with a change in the intervening vowels. "clinging and clanging" | 21 | |
| 6666117913 | Couplet | Two rhyming lines of iambic pentameter that together present a singe idea or connection. | 22 | |
| 6666121453 | Dactylic | The metrical pattern, as used in poetry, in which each foot consisted of a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables | 23 | |
| 6666129143 | Denotation | A direct and specific meaning, often referred to as the dictionary meaning of a word | 24 | |
| 6666132549 | Dialect | The language and speech idiosyncrasies of a specific area, region, or group of people | 25 | |
| 6666137705 | Diction | The specific word choice an author uses to persuade or convey tone, purpose, or effect. | 26 | |
| 6666143527 | Dramatic Monologue | A monologue set in a specific situation and spoken to an imaginary audience. Synonym for "soliloquy" | 27 | |
| 6666149636 | Elegy | A poetic lament upon the death or a particular person, usually ending in consolation | 28 | |
| 6666153718 | Enjambment | The continuation of a sentence from one line or couplet of a poem to the next | 29 | |
| 6666180728 | 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 of a culture; it uses elevated language and grand, high style | 30 | |
| 6666191082 | Exposition | That part of the structure that sets the scene, introduces and identifies characters, and establishes the situation at the beginning of a story or play | 31 | |
| 6666202051 | Extended metaphor | A detailed and complex metaphor that extended over a long section of a work, also known as a "conceit" | 32 | |
| 6666206551 | Falling Action | That part of plot structure in which the complications of the rising action are untangled. This is also known as "denouement" | 33 | |
| 6666212573 | Farce | A play or scene in a play or book that is characterized by broad humor, wild antics, and often slapstick and physical humor | 34 | |
| 6666218383 | Foreshadowing | To hint at or present an indication of the future beforehand | 35 | |
| 6666223521 | Formal Diction | Language that is lofty, dignified, and impersonal. Such diction is often used in narrative epic poetry | 36 | |
| 6666227813 | Flashback | Retrospection, where an earlier event is inserted into the normal chronology of the narrative | 37 | |
| 6666232742 | Free Verse | Poetry that is characterized by varying line lengths, lack of traditional meter, and nonrhyming lines | 38 | |
| 6666448647 | Genre | A type of class of literature such as epic or narrative or poetry or belles letters | 39 | |
| 6666452349 | Hyperbole | Overstatement characterized by exaggerated language | 40 | |
| 6666454757 | Iambic | A metrical form in which each foot consists of a unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one | 41 | |
| 6666457624 | Imagery | Broadly defined, any sensory detail or evocation in a work; the use of figurative language to evoke a feeling | 42 | |
| 6666463280 | Informal Diction | Language that is not as lofty or impersonal as formal diction, similar to everyday speech | 43 | |
| 6666468717 | In medias res | "In the midst of things"; refers to opening a story in the middle of the action, necessitating filling in past details by exposition or flashback | 44 | |
| 6666472631 | Irony | A situation or statement characterized by significant difference between what is expected or understood and what actually happens or is meant. Often humorous or sarcastic | 45 | |
| 6666477357 | Jargon | Specialized or technical language of a trade, profession, or similar group. | 46 | |
| 6666481196 | Juxtapostion | The location of one thing as being adjacent or juxtaposed with another. | 47 | |
| 6666487566 | Limited POV | A perspective confined to a single character, whether a first person or third person; the reader cannot know for sure what is going on in the minds of the other characters | 48 | |
| 6666492340 | Litote | A figure of speech that emphasizes its subject by conscious understatement. "not bad" for exceptional work | 49 | |
| 6666496618 | Loose Sentence | A sentence grammatically correct, and usually stating its main idea, before the end | 50 | |
| 6666504249 | Lyric | Originally designed poems meant to be sung to the accompaniment of a lyre; now any short poem in which the speaker expresses intense personal emotion | 51 | |
| 6666511653 | Message | A misleading term for "theme". The central idea or statement of a story, or area of inquiry or explanation | 52 | |
| 6666520466 | Metaphor | One thing pictured as if it were something else, suggesting a likeness or analogy between them. | 53 | |
| 6666524175 | Meter | The more or less regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry | 54 | |
| 6677932758 | Metonymy | A figure of speech in which an attribute or commonly associated figure is used to name or designate something | 55 | |
| 6677939539 | Mood | A feeling of ambiance resulting from the tone of a piece as well as the writer/narrator's attitude and POV | 56 | |
| 6677945175 | Motif | A recurrent device, formula, or situation that often serves as a signal for the appearance of a character or event | 57 | |
| 6677951529 | Narrative Structure | A textual organization based on sequences of connected events, usually presented in a straightforward, chronological framework | 58 | |
| 6677960382 | Narrator | The "character" who "tells" the story, also known as the persona | 59 | |
| 6677964541 | Occasional Poem | A poem written about or for a specific occasion, public or private. An epithalamium is a wedding poem, for example | 60 | |
| 6677973926 | Ode | A lyrical poem that is somewhat serious in subject and treatment, elevated in style and uses elaborate stanza structure | 61 | |
| 6677982669 | Omniscient POV | A perspective that can be seen from all the character's views. Access to all perceptions and thoughts | 62 | |
| 6677988378 | Onomatopoeia | A word capturing or approximating the sound of what it describes. "buzz" | 63 | |
| 6678013469 | Overstatement | Exaggerated language, also called hyperbole | 64 | |
| 6678016029 | Oxymoron | A figure of speech that combines two apparently contradictory elements, as in "wise fool" | 65 | |
| 6678019066 | Parable | A short fiction that illustrates an explicit moral lesson through the use of an analogy | 66 | |
| 6678024684 | Paradox | A statement that seems contradictory, but may actually be true. "fight for peace" | 67 | |
| 6678032708 | Parody | A work that imitates another work for comic effect by exaggerating the style and changing the content of the original | 68 | |
| 6678037244 | Parallel Structure | The use of similar forms of writing for nouns, verbs, phrases, or thoughts | 69 | |
| 6678045068 | Pastoral | A poem that describes the simple life of country folk, usually shepherds | 70 | |
| 6678050516 | Periodic Sentence | A sentence which is not grammatically correct until the end | 71 | |
| 6678054912 | Persona | The voice or figure of the author who tells and structures the story and who may or may not share the values of the actual author | 72 | |
| 6678059233 | Personification | Treating an abstraction or nonhuman object as if it were a person (giving it human qualities) | 73 | |
| 6678065548 | Petrarchan Sonnet | Italian Sonnet; One octave and one sestet. abba abba cde cde rhyme scheme | 74 | |
| 6678071632 | Plot | The arrangement of the narration based on the cause-effect relationship of the events | 75 | |
| 6678078421 | Protagonist | The main character in a work, who may or may not be heroic | 76 | |
| 6678079733 | Quatrain | A poetic stanza of four lines | 77 | |
| 6678082779 | Realism | The practice in literature of attempting to describe nature and life without idealism and with attention to detail | 78 | |
| 6678087471 | Refrain | A repeated stanza of line(s) in a poem or song | 79 | |
| 6678091202 | Rising Action | The development of action in a work, usually at the beginning | 80 | |
| 6678093470 | Rhyme | The repetition of the same or similar sounds, most often at the ends of lines | 81 | |
| 6678096073 | Rhythm | The modulation of weak and strong (stressed and unstressed) elements in the flow of speech | 82 | |
| 6678100038 | Sarcasm | A form of verbal irony in which apparent praise is actually harshly or bitterly critical | 83 | |
| 6678103745 | Satire | A literary work that holds up human failings to ridicule and censure | 84 | |
| 6678107036 | Scansion | The analysis of verse to show its meter | 85 | |
| 6678108614 | Setting | The time and place of the action in a story, poem, or play | 86 | |
| 6678115605 | Shakespearean Sonnet | Also called an English Sonnet; The quatrains, one couplet. abab cdcd efef gg rhyme scheme | 87 | |
| 6678125633 | Shaped Verse | Another name for concrete poetry. Poetry that is shaped like an object | 88 | |
| 6678130381 | Simile | A direct, explicit comparison to one thing or another, using the words "like" or "as" | 89 | |
| 6678135321 | Soliloquy | A monologue in which the character in a play is alone and speaking only to themself | 90 | |
| 6678141156 | Speaker | The person who is the voice of a poem | 91 | |
| 6678143015 | Stanza | A section of a poem demarcated by extra line spacing | 92 | |
| 6678146069 | Sterotype | A characterization based on conscious or unconscious assumptions that some one aspect, such as gender, age, etc are accompanied by certain characteristics or values | 93 | |
| 6678155219 | Stock Character | One who appears in a number of stories or plays such as the cruel stepmother | 94 | |
| 6678159360 | Style | A distinctive manner of expression | 95 | |
| 6678161155 | Symbolism | A person, place, thing, event, or pattern in a literary work that designates itself and at the same time figuratively represents or "stands for" something else | 96 | |
| 6678169604 | Synecdoche | When a part is used to signify a whole, as in "all hands on deck" | 97 | |
| 6678172574 | Syntax | The way words are put together to form phrases, clauses, or sentences | 98 | |
| 6678177696 | Terza Rima | A verse form consisting of three-line stanzas in which the second line of each rhymes with the first and third of the next. | 99 | |
| 6678183497 | Theme | A generalized, abstract paraphrase of the inferred central of dominant idea or concern of a work | 100 | |
| 6678186750 | Tone | The attitude a literary work takes toward its subject and theme | 101 | |
| 6678189050 | Tragedy | A drama in which a character is brought to a disastrous end in his or her confrontation with a superior force | 102 | |
| 6678195787 | Trochee | A metrical form in which each foot consists of stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one | 103 | |
| 6678198850 | Turning Point | The third part of plot structure, the point at which the action stops rising and begins falling or reversing | 104 |
