Terms : Hide Images
| 5897050184 | Deus ex Machina | an unexpected power or event saving a seemingly hopeless situation, especially as a contrived plot device in a play or novel. | 0 | |
| 5897054006 | Catharsis | the process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions. | 1 | |
| 5897055409 | anagnorisis | a moment in a play or other work when a character makes a critical discovery | 2 | |
| 5897058256 | Equiviocation | the use of ambiguous language to conceal the truth or to avoid committing oneself | 3 | |
| 5897062443 | Peripeteia | a sudden reversal of fortune or change in circumstances, especially in reference to fictional narrative | 4 | |
| 5897062444 | Allusion | a brief and indirect reference to a person, place, thing or idea of historical, cultural, literary or political significance. | 5 | |
| 5897062445 | Hamartia | a fatal flaw leading to the downfall of a tragic hero or heroine. | 6 | |
| 5897063580 | Tragic Flaw | a literary device that can be defined as a trait in a character leading to his downfall and the character is often the hero of the literary piece. This trait could be the lack of self-knowledge, lack of judgment and often it is hubris | 7 | |
| 5897063581 | Hubris | excessive pride or self-confidence | 8 | |
| 5897064998 | Soliloquy | an act of speaking one's thoughts aloud when by oneself or regardless of any hearers, especially by a character in a play | 9 | |
| 5897064999 | Aside | a remark or passage by a character in a play that is intended to be heard by the audience but unheard by the other characters in the play. | 10 | |
| 5897066263 | Tragedy (dramatic) | a play dealing with tragic events and having an unhappy ending, especially one concerning the downfall of the main character. | 11 | |
| 5897066264 | Exeunt | Used as a stage direction to indicate that two or more performers leave the stage | 12 | |
| 5897067068 | Iambic Pentameter | In a line of poetry, an iamb is a foot or beat consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable, or a short syllable followed by a long syllable | 13 | |
| 5897067069 | Blank Verse | a literary device defined as un-rhyming verse written in iambic pentameter. In poetry and prose, it has a consistent meter with 10 syllables in each line (pentameter); where, unstressed syllables are followed by stressed ones and five of which are stressed but do not rhyme. | 14 | |
| 5897067998 | Heroic Couplet | a traditional form for English poetry, commonly used in epic and narrative poetry, and consisting of a rhyming pair of lines in iambic pentameter. | 15 | |
| 5897067999 | Verse | denotes a single line of poetry. The term can also be used to refer to a stanza or other parts of poetry. Generally, the device is stated to encompass three possible meanings, namely a line of metrical writing, a stanza, or, a piece written in meter. | 16 | |
| 5897068000 | Prose | a form of language that has no formal metrical structure. It applies a natural flow of speech, and ordinary grammatical structure rather than rhythmic structure, such as in the case of traditional poetry. | 17 | |
| 5897070931 | Dramatic Foil | a character who contrasts with another character (usually the protagonist) in order to highlight particular qualities of the other character. | 18 | |
| 5897071865 | Revenge Tragedy | a form of tragedy that focuses on the protagonist's plight for revenge, usually for the death of a close relative. | 19 | |
| 5897074072 | History (Shakespeare) | a continuous, systematic narrative of past events as relating to a particular people, country, period, person, etc., usually written as a chronological account | 20 | |
| 5897074073 | Comedy (Shakespeare) | a literary genre and a type of dramatic work that is amusing and satirical in its tone, mostly having cheerful ending. The motif of this dramatic work is triumph over unpleasant circumstance by which to create comic effects, resulting in happy or successful conclusion. | 21 | |
| 5897075587 | Romance (Shakespeare) | In traditional literary terms, a narration of the extraordinary exploits of heroes, often in exotic or mysterious settings, has also been used for stories of mysterious adventures, not necessarily of heroes. | 22 | |
| 5897075588 | High Comedy | a type of comedy characterized by witty dialogue, satire, biting humor, or criticism of life. Today, this can be seen among sitcoms and talk shows targeted at cultured and articulate audiences. | 23 | |
| 5897076240 | Low Comedy | a dramatic or literary form of entertainment with no primary purpose but to create laughter by boasting, boisterous jokes, drunkenness, scolding, fighting, buffoonery and other riotous activity. It is also characterized by "horseplay", slapstick or farce. | 24 | |
| 5897076241 | Equivocation | an informal logical fallacy. It is the misleading use of a term with more than one meaning or sense. It generally occurs with polysemic words (words with multiple meanings). | 25 | |
| 5897076947 | Farce | a literary genre and the type of a comedy that makes the use of highly exaggerated and funny situations aimed at entertaining the audience. It is also a subcategory of dramatic comedy that is different from other forms of comedy, as it only aims at making the audience laugh. | 26 | |
| 5897076948 | Comic Relief | the inclusion of a humorous character, scene, or witty dialogue in an otherwise serious work, often to relieve tension. | 27 | |
| 5897076949 | Romantic Comedy | This type of drama involves the theme of love leading to happy conclusion. | 28 | |
| 5897077881 | Satire | a technique employed by writers to expose and criticize foolishness and corruption of an individual or a society by using humor, irony, exaggeration or ridicule. It intends to improve humanity by criticizing its follies and foibles | 29 | |
| 5897079099 | Dramatic Irony | a form of irony that is expressed through a work's structure: an audience's awareness of the situation in which a work's characters exist differs substantially from that of the characters', and the words and actions of the characters therefore take on a different—often contradictory | 30 | |
| 5897079100 | Imagery | to use figurative language to represent objects, actions and ideas in such a way that it appeals to our physical senses. | 31 | |
| 5897079101 | Stanza | In poetry, a division of four or more lines having a fixed length, meter or rhyming scheme, similar to paragraphs in prose. | 32 | |
| 5897080077 | Anaphora | In writing or speech, the deliberate repetition of the first part of the sentence in order to achieve an artistic effect | 33 | |
| 5897080078 | Simile | a figure of speech that makes a comparison, showing similarities between two different things. Unlike a metaphor, it draws resemblance with the help of the words "like" or "as". Therefore, it is a direct comparison. | 34 | |
| 5897081462 | Metaphor | a figure of speech which makes an implicit, implied or hidden comparison between two things that are unrelated but share some common characteristics. In other words, a resemblance of two contradictory or different objects is made based on a single or some common characteristics. | 35 | |
| 5897082130 | Implied Metaphor | a type of metaphor that compares two unlike things, but it does so without mentioning one of them. Instead, it implies the comparison by using a word or phrase that describes the unmentioned term and makes the comparison in that way. | 36 | |
| 5897082956 | Extended Metaphor | a comparison between two unlike things that continues throughout a series of sentences in a paragraph or lines in a poem. It is often comprised of more than one sentence and sometimes consists of a full paragraph. | 37 | |
| 5897082957 | Controlling Metaphor | a metaphore that dominates or controls an entire literary piece. This literary device is frequently seen in poetry. It is similar to an extended metaphor, which extends over a large portion, but not all, of a literary piece | 38 | |
| 5897084123 | Synecdoche | a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa, | 39 | |
| 5897084124 | Metonomy | the substitution of the name of an attribute or adjunct for that of the thing meant, | 40 | |
| 5897085402 | Personification | the attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something nonhuman, or the representation of an abstract quality in human form | 41 | |
| 5897085403 | Apostrophe | when a character in a literary work speaks to an object, an idea, or someone who doesn't exist as if it is a living person. This is ... | 42 | |
| 5897086328 | Overstatement/Hyperbole | exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally | 43 | |
| 5897086329 | Understatement | a figure of speech employed by writers or speakers to intentionally make a situation seem less important than it really is | 44 | |
| 5897086330 | Litote | ironic understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by the negative of its contrary | 45 | |
| 5897087679 | Paradox | a statement that contradicts itself and still seems true somehow. | 46 | |
| 5897087680 | Oxymoron | two contradictory words are together in one phrase | 47 | |
| 5897088644 | Symbol | a mark or character used as a conventional representation of an object, function, or process | 48 | |
| 5897088645 | Literary/Contextual Symbol | a setting, character, action, object, name, or anything else in a work that maintains its literal significance while suggesting other meanings. They gain their meaning within the context of a specific story. | 49 | |
| 5897089649 | Allegory | a story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one | 50 | |
| 5897089650 | Didactic Poetry | is directly and unapologetically instructional or informational: it teaches or explains something such as a truth, a moral, a principle or a process | 51 | |
| 5897090677 | Irony | a figure of speech in which words are used in such a way that their intended meaning is different from the actual meaning of the words. It may also be a situation that may end up in quite a different way than what is generally anticipated | 52 | |
| 5897090678 | Situational Irony | a literary device that you can easily identify in literary works. Simply, it occurs when incongruity appears between expectations of something to happen, and what actually happens instead. . | 53 | |
| 5897092628 | Verbal Irony | a person says or writes one thing and means another, or uses words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of the literal meaning. | 54 | |
| 5897093460 | Cosmic Irony | the idea that fate, destiny, or a god controls and toys with human hopes and expectations; also, the belief that the universe is so large and man is so small that the universe is indifferent to the plight of man | 55 | |
| 5897096014 | Satire | technique employed by writers to expose and criticize foolishness and corruption of an individual or a society by using humor, irony, exaggeration or ridicule. It intends to improve humanity by criticizing its follies and foibles. | 56 | |
| 5897096015 | Setting | a piece of literature is the time and place in which the story takes place, can also include social statuses, weather, historical period, and details about immediate surroundings, can be real or fictional, or a combination of both real and fictional elements. | 57 | |
| 5897096016 | Style | the way a writer writes and it is the technique which an individual author uses in his writing. It varies from author to author and depends upon one's syntax, word choice, and tone. | 58 | |
| 5897096017 | Diction | style of speaking or writing determined by the choice of words by a speaker or a writer. This or choice of words separates good writing from bad writing. | 59 | |
| 5897097360 | Syntax | determines how the chosen words are used to form a sentence. Most often than not, adopting a complex diction means a complex structure of sentences and vice versa. | 60 | |
| 5897097361 | Tone | an attitude of a writer toward a subject or an audience. Tone is generally conveyed through the choice of words or the viewpoint of a writer on a particular subject. ... The tone can be formal, informal, serious, comic, sarcastic, sad, and cheerful or it may be any other existing attitudes. | 61 | |
| 5897098868 | Sarcasm | iterary and rhetorical device that is meant to mock with often satirical or ironic remarks with a purpose to amuse and hurt someone or some section of society simultaneously. | 62 | |
| 5897098869 | Minimalism | a style or technique that is characterized by extreme spareness and simplicity. | 63 | |
| 5897106860 | Alliteration | a stylistic literary device identified by the repeated sound of the first letter in a series of multiple words, or the repetition of the same letter sounds in stressed syllables of a phrase. | 64 | |
| 5897106861 | Assonance | the repetition of a vowel sound or diphthong in non-rhyming words. To qualify, the words must be close enough for the repetition of the sound to be noticeable. | 65 | |
| 5897106862 | Consonance | repetitive sounds produced by consonants within a sentence or phrase. This repetition often takes place in quick succession such as in pitter, patter. | 66 | |
| 5897106863 | Mood | a literary element that evokes certain feelings or vibes in readers through words and descriptions. Usually referred to as the atmosphere of a literary piece, as it creates an emotional situation that surrounds the readers. | 67 | |
| 5897108531 | Denotation | defined as literal or dictionary meanings of a word in contrast to its connotative or associated meanings. | 68 | |
| 5897108532 | Connotation | meaning that is implied by a word apart from the thing which it describes explicitly | 69 | |
| 5897109381 | Speaker | the voice behind the poem—the person we imagine to be saying the thing out loud. | 70 | |
| 5897109382 | Paraphrase | A restatement of speech or writing that retains the basic meaning while changing the words, often clarifies the original statement by putting it into words that are more easily understood. | 71 | |
| 5897109383 | Theme | defined as a main idea or an underlying meaning of a literary work that may be stated directly or indirectly. | 72 | |
| 5897111581 | Lyric Poem | a fairly short poem which is the expression of strong feelings of thoughts or perceptions of a single speaker in a meditative manner | 73 | |
| 5897111582 | Narrative Poem | form of poetry that tells a story, often making use of the voices of a narrator and characters as well; the entire story is usually written in metered verse. | 74 | |
| 5897113095 | Cliche | expression that has been overused to the extent that it loses its original meaning or novelty. May also refer to actions and events which are predictable because of some previous events. | 75 | |
| 5897113811 | Marxist Criticism | loose term describing literary criticism based on socialist and dialectic theories. Criticism views literary works as reflections of the social institutions from which they originate. | 76 | |
| 5897113812 | Postcolonial Criticism | academic discipline that analyzes, explains, and responds to the cultural legacy of colonialism and imperialism. | 77 | |
| 5897115636 | Mythological Criticism | a critical approach or technique that seeks mythic meaning or imagery in literature, looking beyond the immediate context of the work in time and place. | 78 | |
| 5897115637 | Archetypes | a typical character, an action or a situation that seems to represent such universal patterns of human nature | 79 | |
| 5897117247 | Reader-Response Criticism | literary theory that focuses on the reader (or "audience") and their experience of a literary work, in contrast to other schools and theories that focus attention primarily on the author or the content and form of the work | 80 | |
| 5897118178 | Deconstructionism | a paradox about a paradox: It assumes that all discourse, even all historical narrative, is essentially disguised self-revelatory messages | 81 | |
| 5897119667 | Post-Modernism | literature which is marked, both stylistically and ideologically, by a reliance on such literary conventions as fragmentation, paradox, unreliable narrators, often unrealistic and downright impossible plots, games, parody, paranoia, dark humor and authorial self-reference | 82 | |
| 5897119668 | Persona | means the mask of an actor, and is therefore etymologically linked to the dramatis personae which refers to the list of characters and cast in a play or a drama. It is also known as a theatrical mask. | 83 | |
| 5897120536 | Ambiguity | a word, phrase, or statement which contains more than one meaning | 84 | |
| 5897120537 | Dramatic Monologue | a poem in the form of a speech or narrative by an imagined person, in which the speaker inadvertently reveals aspects of their character while describing a particular situation or series of events. | 85 | |
| 5897123672 | Carpe Diem | a common moral or theme in classical literature that the reader should make the most out of life and should enjoy it before it ends. | 86 | |
| 5897125578 | Poetic Diction | term used to refer to the linguistic style, the vocabulary, and the metaphors used in the writing of poetry | 87 | |
| 5897125579 | Formal Diction | proper, elevated, and elaborate language characterized by complex words and a lofty tone | 88 | |
| 5897125580 | Middle Diction | correct language and word order without elaborate words or a lofty tone | 89 | |
| 5897127419 | Informal Diction | relaxed, conversational, colloquial, or substandard language | 90 | |
| 5897127420 | Colloquilaism | is the use of informal words, phrases or even slang in a piece of writing | 91 | |
| 5897128318 | Dialect | The language used by the people of a specific area, class, district or any other group of people, involves the spelling, sounds, grammar and pronunciation used by a particular group of people and it distinguishes them from other people around them | 92 | |
| 5897129685 | Motif | A phrase, idea, or event that through repetition serves to unify or convey a theme in a work of literature. | 93 | |
| 5897129686 | Monologue | the speech or verbal presentation that a single character presents in order to express his/her collection of thoughts and ideas aloud. Often this character addresses directly to audience or another character | 94 | |
| 5897132439 | Aside | when a character's dialogue is spoken but not heard by the other actors on the stage, useful for giving the audience special information about the other characters onstage or the action of the plot. | 95 | |
| 5897133380 | Foil | A minor character whose personality or attitude contrasts with that of the main character. Juxtaposing one character against another intensifies the qualities of both, to advantage or sometimes to disadvantage | 96 | |
| 5897135098 | Conflict | a literary element that involves a struggle between two opposing forces usually a protagonist and an antagonist. | 97 | |
| 5897135099 | Four Types of Conflict | Person v Person, Person v Self, Person v Society, Person v Nature | 98 | |
| 5897136345 | Exposition | The background and events that lead to the presentation of the main idea or purpose of a work of literature | 99 | |
| 5897136346 | Status Quo | Latin phrase meaning the existing state of affairs, particularly with regards to social or political issues. In the sociological sense, it generally applies to maintain or change existing social structure and values. | 100 | |
| 5897137144 | Inciting Incident | the event or decision that begins a story's problem. Everything up and until that moment is Backstory; everything after is "the story | 101 | |
| 5897137145 | Rising Action | a series of relevant incidents that create suspense, interest and tension in a narrative | 102 | |
| 5897137146 | Complication | An intensification of the conflict in a story or play. | 103 | |
| 5897138193 | Climax | The high point, or turning point, or a story or play. | 104 | |
| 5897138194 | Falling Action | the part of a literary plot that occurs after the climax has been reached and the conflict has been resolved. | 105 | |
| 5897138195 | Resolution | the part of the story's plot line in which the problem of the story is resolved or worked out | 106 | |
| 5897139448 | Denoument | The resolution that occurs at the end of a play or work of fiction | 107 | |
| 5897139449 | Ambiguous | words or statements lead to vagueness and confusion, and shape the basis for instances of unintentional humor. | 108 | |
| 5897140234 | Vague | indefinite or indistinct in nature or character, as ideas or feelings | 109 | |
| 5897140235 | in medias res | A narrative that starts not at the beginning of events but at some other critical point | 110 | |
| 5897141907 | Flashback | A return to an earlier time in a story or play in order to clarify present action or circumstances. It might also be a character's account of the past, a dream, or a sudden association with past events | 111 | |
| 5897141908 | Character | one who undergoes an important inner change, as a change in personality or attitude: | 112 | |
| 5897142970 | Foreshadowing | Providing hints of things to come in a story or play. | 113 | |
| 5897142971 | Suspense | the intense feeling that an audience goes through while waiting for the outcome of certain events | 114 | |
| 5897142972 | Protagonist | the leading character or one of the major characters in a drama, movie, novel, or other fictional text | 115 | |
| 5897144180 | Antagonist | A character or force in a work of literature that, by opposing the protagonist, produces tension or conflict | 116 | |
| 5897145524 | Literary Analysis | an argumentative analysis about a literary work. Although some summary is needed within the argument, the objective is not to write a report about a book or story. | 117 | |
| 5897145525 | interpretation | an explanation of the meaning of another's artistic or creative work; an elucidation of a poem. | 118 | |
| 5897145526 | Formalism | a school of literary criticism and literary theory having mainly to do with structural purposes of a particular text. It is the study of a text without taking into account any outside influence. | 119 | |
| 5897146866 | New Criticism | It emphasized close reading, particularly of poetry, to discover how a work of literature functioned as a self-contained, self-referential aesthetic object. | 120 | |
| 5897148173 | Psychoanalytical Critism | literary criticism or literary theory which, in method, concept, or form, is influenced by the tradition of psychoanalysis begun by Sigmund Freud. | 121 | |
| 5897148174 | Formalism | a school of literary criticism and literary theory having mainly to do with structural purposes of a particular text. It is the study of a text without taking into account any outside influence. | 122 | |
| 5897149362 | New Criticism | It emphasized close reading, particularly of poetry, to discover how a work of literature functioned as a self-contained, self-referential aesthetic object. | 123 | |
| 5897150450 | Oedipus Complex | boy's psychosexual competition with his father for possession of his mother | 124 | |
| 5897150451 | Electra Complex | girl's psychosexual competition with her mother for possession of her father. | 125 | |
| 5897156438 | Gender Critism | examines the influence of gender on the way literature is written and read. | 126 | |
| 5897156439 | Denouement | a literary device which can be defined as the resolution of the issue of a complicated plot in fiction. | 127 | |
| 5897161273 | Interpretation | an explanation of the meaning of another's artistic or creative work; an elucidation: an interpretation of a poem. | 128 |
