Terms : Hide Images
| 11433525088 | alliteration | the repetition of consonant sounds in words that are close to one another | 0 | |
| 11433525089 | allusion | a reference to historical or fictional characters, places, or events, or to other works the writer assumes the reader will recognize | 1 | |
| 11433525090 | apostrophe | figure of speech in which a speaker directly addresses an absent or dead person, an abstract quality, or something nonhuman as if it were present and capable of responding | 2 | |
| 11433525091 | archetype | a pattern or model of action, a character type, or an image that recurs consistently enough in literature to be considered universal | 3 | |
| 11433525092 | assonance | repetition of similar vowel sounds followed by different consonant sounds in words that are close together | 4 | |
| 11433525093 | atmosphere | the mood or feeling in a literary work | 5 | |
| 11433525094 | blank verse/cacophony | poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter | 6 | |
| 11433525095 | caesura | a pause or break within a line of poetry, usually dictated by the natural rhythm of language | 7 | |
| 11433525096 | carpe diem | "seize the day" [Herrick's To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time/Marvell's To His Coy Mistress ] | 8 | |
| 11433525097 | conceit | an elaborate and surprising figure of speech comparing two very dissimilar things--it usually involves intellectual cleverness and ingenuity [Donne] | 9 | |
| 11433525098 | connotations | all the meanings, associations, or emotions a word suggests | 10 | |
| 11433525099 | couplet | two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme | 11 | |
| 11433525100 | dialect | a way of speaking that is characteristic of a particular region or group of people | 12 | |
| 11433525101 | diction | a writer's or speaker's choice of words | 13 | |
| 11433525102 | enjambment | the carrying of sense and grammatical structure in a poem beyond the end of one line, couplet, or stanza and into the next | 14 | |
| 11433525103 | epic | a long narrative poem that relates the great deeds of a larger-than-life hero who embodies the values of a particular society | 15 | |
| 11433525104 | epic simile | an extended, elaborated, ornate simile developed in a lengthy descriptive passage | 16 | |
| 11433525105 | epiphany | a moment of sudden insight or revelation that a character experiences | 17 | |
| 11433525106 | figure of speech | a word or phrase that describes one thing in terms of another and is not meant to be understood on a literal level | 18 | |
| 11433525107 | flashback | a scene that interrupts the present action of the plot to "flash back" and tell what happened at an earlier time | 19 | |
| 11433525108 | foil | a character who is used as a contrast to another character | 20 | |
| 11433525109 | foot | the basic unit of rhythmic measurement in a line of poetry (usually consists of at least one accented (stressed) syllable and one or more unaccented (unstressed) syllables). The number and type of feet in a line of a poem determine its meter | 21 | |
| 11433525110 | foreshadowing | use of clues to hint at what is going to happen later in the plot | 22 | |
| 11433525111 | free verse | poetry that has no regular meter or rhyme scheme | 23 | |
| 11433525112 | heroic couplet | a pair of rhyming iambic pentameter lines | 24 | |
| 11433525113 | hubris | the defect of character (excessive pride) which leads a tragic hero to disregard all warnings of impending disaster and thereby hasten the catastrophe | 25 | |
| 11433525114 | hyperbole | overstatement/exaggeration to express strong emotion or to create a comic effect | 26 | |
| 11433525115 | iambic pentameter | a poetic line of five iambic feet: the meter of blank verse, sonnet, and heroic couplet | 27 | |
| 11433525116 | imagery | language that appeals to the senses | 28 | |
| 11433525117 | in medias res | the technique of starting a story in the middle and then using flashback to tell what happened earlier | 29 | |
| 11433525118 | irony | contrast or discrepancy between expectation and reality | 30 | |
| 11433525119 | dramatic irony: | audience or reader knows something important that a character doesn't know | 31 | |
| 11433525120 | juxtaposition | placing two things (objects, words, ideas) side by side (in close proximity) for the purpose of comparison | 32 | |
| 11433525121 | loose sentence | one in which the subordinate elements come at the end to call attention to them | 33 | |
| 11433525122 | periodic sentence | one in which the writer builds suspense by beginning with subordinate elements and postponing the main clause | 34 | |
| 11433525123 | metaphor | an implied analogy in which one thing is imaginatively compared to or identified with another, dissimilar thing | 35 | |
| 11433525124 | meter | a generally regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry | 36 | |
| 11433525125 | metonymy | something closely related to a thing or suggested by it is substituted for the thing itself | 37 | |
| 11433525126 | mood | prevailing emotional attitude in a literary work or in part of a work | 38 | |
| 11433525127 | motif | a word, character, object, image, metaphor, or idea that recurs in a work or in several works | 39 | |
| 11433525128 | muse | In Greek mythology, the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne (memory), each of which patronized a field of study or art--practitioners in these fields traditionally invoked the aid of the appropriate | 40 | |
| 11433525129 | octave | an eight-line stanza or poem, or the first eight lines of an Italian (Petrarchan) sonnet | 41 | |
| 11433525130 | onomatopoeia | the use of a word whose sound imitates or suggests its meaning | 42 | |
| 11433525131 | paradox | an apparent contradiction that is actually true (a seeming contradiction) | 43 | |
| 11433525132 | parallelism | repetition of words, phrases, or sentences that have the same grammatical structure | 44 | |
| 11433525133 | pastoral | a type of poem that depicts rustic life in idyllic, idealized terms | 45 | |
| 11433525134 | pathetic fallacy | a figurative device in which nature is given human qualities, often responding to human actions | 46 | |
| 11433525135 | pathos | the quality in a work of literature which arouses feelings of sympathy, pity, or sorrow in the reader | 47 | |
| 11433525136 | personification | a kind of metaphor in which a nonhuman thing or quality is talked about as if it were human | 48 | |
| 11433525137 | plot | series of related events that make up a story or drama | 49 | |
| 11433525138 | point of view | the vantage point from which the writer tells the story (omniscient/first-person/limited third-person) | 50 | |
| 11433525139 | pun | a play on the multiple meanings of a word, or on two words that sound alike but have different meanings | 51 | |
| 11433525140 | quatrain | a four-line stanza or poem, or a group of four lines unified by a rhyme scheme | 52 | |
| 11433525141 | rhetorical question | a question not expecting an answer, or one to which the answer is self-evident | 53 | |
| 11433525142 | rhyme | repetition of accented vowel sounds and all sounds following them in words that are close together | 54 | |
| 11433525143 | rhythm | alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables in language which communicates a sense of movement | 55 | |
| 11433525144 | sarcasm | harsh, cutting, personal remarks to or about someone, not necessarily ironic | 56 | |
| 11433525145 | satire | a kind of writing that ridicules human weakness, vice, or folly in order to bring about social reform | 57 | |
| 11433525146 | scansion | (scanning] analysis of verse into metrical patterns | 58 | |
| 11433525147 | sestet | a six-line stanza or poem, or the last six lines of an Italian (Petrarchan) sonnet | 59 | |
| 11433525148 | setting | the time and place of a story or play | 60 | |
| 11433525149 | simile | a figure of speech that makes a comparison between two seemingly unlike things by using a connective word such as like, as, or than | 61 | |
| 11433525150 | soliloquy | a long speech in which a character who is usually alone onstage expresses his or her private thoughts or feelings | 62 | |
| 11433525151 | sonnet | a fourteen-line poem, usually written in iambic pentameter, that has one of several rhyme schemes | 63 | |
| 11433525152 | Petrarchan (Italian) Sonnet | divided into two parts--an eight-line octave (abbaabba) and a six-line sestet with a rhyme scheme (cdecde or cdccdc or cdedce) The OCTAVE usually presents a problem, poses a question, or expresses an idea, which the SESTET then resolves, answers, or drives home | 64 | |
| 11433525153 | Shakespearean (English) Sonnet | (most common) composed of three four-line units (QUATRAINS), followed by a concluding two-line unit (COUPLET) The three QUATRAINS often express related ideas or examples, while the COUPLET sums up the poet's conclusion or message | 65 | |
| 11433525154 | stanza | a group of consecutive lines in a poem that form a single unit | 66 | |
| 11433525155 | synecdoche | figure of speech in which a part of something stands for the whole thing [wheels = automobile] | 67 | |
| 11433525156 | symbol | person, place, thing, or event that stands both for itself and for something beyond itself | 68 | |
| 11433525157 | syntax | arrangement and grammatical relation of words, phrases, and clauses in sentences; the ordering of words into phrases, clauses, and sentences [sentence length and punctuation should also be considered] | 69 | |
| 11433525158 | theme | the central idea or insight of a work of literature, usually expressed as a statement about life | 70 | |
| 11433525159 | tone | the attitude a writer takes toward the reader, a subject, or a character | 71 | |
| 11433525160 | tragedy | a narrative depicting serious and important events in which the main character comes to an unhappy end—a move toward death or away from life (alienation) | 72 | |
| 11433525161 | trope | a figure of speech employing a word or phrase out of its ordinary usage in order to give life to an idea | 73 | |
| 11433525162 | understatement | a figure of speech that consists of saying less than what is really meant, or saying something with less force than is appropriate (a form of irony) | 74 | |
| 11433525163 | verisimilitude | the appearance of truth, actuality, or reality; what seems to be true in fiction given allowances for conventions, premises, etc.--the inherent authenticity of a work | 75 | |
| 11433525164 | voice | the sense a written work conveys to a reader of its writer's attitude, personality, and character | 76 |
