Terms : Hide Images
| 7232873042 | allegory | The term loosely describes any writing in verse or prose that has a double meaning. This narrative acts as an extended metaphor in which persons, abstract ideas, or events represent not only themselves on the literal level, but they also stand for something else on the symbolic level. | 0 | |
| 7232873043 | alliteration | Repeating a consonant sound in close proximity to others, or beginning several words with the same vowel sound. | 1 | |
| 7232873399 | allusion | A casual reference in literature to a person, place, event, or another passage of literature, often without explicit identification. | 2 | |
| 7232874498 | archetype | An original model or pattern from which other later copies are made, especially a character, an action, or situation that seems to represent common patterns of human life. | 3 | |
| 7232874499 | aside | In drama, a few words or a short passage spoken by one character to the audience while the other actors on stage pretend their characters cannot hear the speaker's words. | 4 | |
| 7232874500 | bildungsroman | The German term for a coming-of-age story | 5 | |
| 7232874992 | character | Any representation of an individual being presented in a dramatic or narrative work through extended dramatic or verbal representation. | 6 | |
| 7232874993 | round character | complex in temperament and motivation; drawn with subtlety; capable of growth and change during the course of the narrative (character) | 7 | |
| 7232874994 | flat character | built around a single idea or quality and unchanging over the course of the narrative (character) | 8 | |
| 7232876466 | static character | a simplified character who does not change or alter his or her personality over the course of a narrative | 9 | |
| 7232876467 | dynamic character | one whose personality changes or evolves over the course of a narrative or appears to have the capacity for such change. | 10 | |
| 7232876680 | climax | The moment in a play, novel, short story, or narrative poem at which the crisis reaches its point of greatest intensity and is thereafter resolved. It is also the peak of emotional response from a reader or spectator and usually the turning point in the action | 11 | |
| 7232877339 | direct characterization | direct characterization | 12 | |
| 7232877340 | indirect characterization | indirect characterization | 13 | |
| 7232878844 | internal conflict | Conflict may also be completely internal, such as the protagonist struggling with his psychological tendencies (drug addiction, self-destructive behavior, and so on) | 14 | |
| 7232878845 | external conflict | The opposition between two characters (such as a protagonist and an antagonist), between two large groups of people, or between the protagonist and a larger problem such as forces of nature, ideas, public mores, and so on. | 15 | |
| 7232878846 | convention | A common feature that has become traditional or expected within a specific genre (category) of literature or film. | 16 | |
| 7232879356 | connotation | The extra tinge or taint of meaning each word carries beyond the minimal, strict definition found in a dictionary. | 17 | |
| 7232879357 | denotation | The minimal, strict definition of a word as found in a dictionary, disregarding any historical or emotional connotation. | 18 | |
| 7232879358 | diction | The choice of a particular word as opposed to others. | 19 | |
| 7232881002 | exposition | The use of authorial discussion to explain or summarize background material rather than revealing this information through gradual narrative detail. Often, this technique is considered unartful, especially when creative writers contrast showing (revelation through details) and telling (exposition). | 20 | |
| 7232881003 | figurative language | A deviation from what speakers of a language understand as the ordinary or standard use of words in order to achieve some special meaning or effect. | 21 | |
| 7232881004 | foil | A character that serves by contrast to highlight or emphasize opposing traits in another character. | 22 | |
| 7232882270 | imagery | A common term of variable meaning, imagery includes the "mental pictures" that readers experience with a passage of literature. It signifies all the sensory perceptions referred to in a poem, whether by literal description, allusion, simile, or metaphor. Imagery is not limited to visual imagery; it also includes auditory (sound), tactile (touch), thermal (heat and cold), olfactory (smell), gustatory (taste), and kinesthetic sensation (movement). | 23 | |
| 7232882271 | in media res | The classical tradition of opening an epic not in the chronological point at which the sequence of events would start, but rather at the midway point of the story. Later on in the narrative, the hero will recount verbally to others what events took place earlier. | 24 | |
| 7232882788 | irony | "saying one thing and meaning another." | 25 | |
| 7232882789 | dramatic irony | involves a situation in a narrative in which the reader knows something about present or future circumstances that the character does not know. | 26 | |
| 7232882790 | verbal irony | is a trope in which a speaker makes a statement in which its actual meaning differs sharply from the meaning that the words ostensibly express. Often this sort of irony is plainly sarcastic in the eyes of the reader, but the characters listening in the story may not realize the speaker's sarcasm as quickly as the readers do | 27 | |
| 7232883860 | situational irony | is a trope in which accidental events occur that seem oddly appropriate, such as the poetic justice of a pickpocket getting his own pocket picked. However, both the victim and the audience are simultaneously aware of the situation | 28 | |
| 7232884320 | literal language | A literal passage, story, or text is one intended only (or primarily) as a factual account of a real historical event rather than a metaphorical expression, an allegorical expression of a larger symbolic truth, or a hypothetical example. The most common mistake students make is confusing the terms true, factual, and literal. Some things are true but not factual. Some things are meant literally but they are not factual. And some things are presented factually that aren't true. | 29 | |
| 7232884321 | metaphor | A comparison or analogy stated in such a way as to imply that one object is another one, figuratively speaking. When we speak of "the ladder of success," we imply that being successful is much like climbing a ladder to a higher and better position | 30 | |
| 7232884322 | extended metaphor | 31 | ||
| 7232884689 | mood | In literature, a feeling, emotional state, or disposition of mind--especially the predominating atmosphere or tone of a literary work. | 32 | |
| 7232884690 | monologue | does not necessarily represent spoken words, but rather the internal or emotional thoughts or feelings of an individual. can also be used to refer to a character speaking aloud to himself, or narrating an account to an audience with no other character on stage | 33 | |
| 7232884691 | motif | A conspicuous recurring element, such as a type of incident, a device, a reference, or verbal formula, which appears frequently in works of literature. | 34 | |
| 7232885208 | myth | a traditional tale of deep cultural significance to a people in terms of etiology, eschatology, ritual practice, or models of appropriate and inappropriate behavior. | 35 | |
| 7232885209 | oxymoron | Using contradiction in a manner that oddly makes sense on a deeper level. | 36 | |
| 7232885210 | paradox | Using contradiction in a manner that oddly makes sense on a deeper level. Common paradoxes seem to reveal a deeper truth through their contradictions, such as noting that "without laws, we can have no freedom." | 37 | |
| 7232885814 | parody | imitates the serious manner and characteristic features of a particular literary work in order to make fun of those same features. | 38 | |
| 7232885815 | personification | A trope in which abstractions, animals, ideas, and inanimate objects are given human character, traits, abilities, or reactions. | 39 | |
| 7232886327 | point of view | The way a story gets told and who tells it. | 40 | |
| 7232886964 | first person | the narrator speaks as "I" and the narrator is a character in the story who may or may not influence events within it | 41 | |
| 7232886965 | third person omniscient | a narrator who knows everything that needs to be known about the agents and events in the story, and is free to move at will in time and place, and who has privileged access to a character's thoughts, feelings, and motives | 42 | |
| 7232886966 | third person limited | a narrator who is confined to what is experienced, thought, or felt by a single character, or at most a limited number of characters | 43 | |
| 7232887503 | third person objective | When the narrator reports speech and action, but never comments on the thoughts of other characters | 44 | |
| 7232887504 | resolution | the outcome or result of a complex situation or sequence of events, an aftermath or resolution that usually occurs near the final stages of the plot. | 45 | |
| 7232887505 | satire | An attack on or criticism of any stupidity or vice in the form of scathing humor, or a critique of what the author sees as dangerous religious, political, moral, or social standards. | 46 | |
| 7232887784 | simile | An analogy or comparison implied by using an adverbial preposition such as like or as, in contrast with a metaphor, which figuratively makes the comparison by stating outright that one thing is another thing | 47 | |
| 7232887785 | soliloquy | A monologue spoken by an actor at a point in the play when the character believes himself to be alone. The technique frequently reveals a character's innermost thoughts, including his feelings, state of mind, motives or intentions | 48 | |
| 7232888235 | stock character | A character type that appears repeatedly in a particular literary genre, one with certain conventional attributes or attitudes. | 49 | |
| 7232888520 | symbol | A word, place, character, or object that means something beyond what it is on a literal level. | 50 | |
| 7232888521 | syntax | the orderly arrangement of words into sentences to express ideas | 51 | |
| 7232888522 | theme | A central idea or statement that unifies and controls an entire literary work. | 52 | |
| 7232889964 | tone | The means of creating a relationship or conveying an attitude or mood. | 53 | |
| 7232889965 | tragedy | A serious play in which the chief character, by some peculiarity of psychology, passes through a series of misfortunes leading to a final, devastating catastrophe | 54 | |
| 7232891274 | tragic hero | The main character in a Greek or Roman tragedy | 55 | |
| 7232891275 | catharsis | the marking feature and ultimate end of any tragedy | 56 | |
| 7232891654 | verisimilitude | The sense that what one reads is "real," or at least realistic and believable. For instance, the reader possesses a sense of verisimilitude when reading a story in which a character cuts his finger, and the finger bleeds. | 57 | |
| 7232892184 | willing suspension of disbelief | Temporarily and willingly setting aside our beliefs about reality in order to enjoy the make-believe of a play, a poem, film, or a story. Perfectly intelligent readers can enjoy tall-tales about Pecos Bill roping a whirlwind, or vampires invading a small town in Maine, or frightening alternative histories in which Hitler wins World War II, without being "gullible" or "childish." | 58 |
