Terms : Hide Images
| 4953779776 | Allegory | A narrative in either verse or prose, in which characters, action, and sometimes setting represent abstract concepts apart from the literal sense of the story | 0 | |
| 4953821735 | Alliteration | The repetition of consonant sounds at the beginnings of words or within words, particularly in accented syllables. | 1 | |
| 4953841711 | Allusion | A reference to a person event, place work of art, etc. | 2 | |
| 4953858962 | Analogy | A comparison made between two objects, situations, or ideas that are somewhat alike but unlike in most respects. | 3 | |
| 4953879612 | Antagonist | A character in a story or play who opposes the chief character , or protagonist. | 4 | |
| 4953890393 | Apostrophe | A figure of speech in which an absent person, an abstract concept, or an inanimate object is directly addressed. | 5 | |
| 4953915066 | Archetype | A symbol, story pattern, or character type that recurs frequently in literature and evokes strong, often unconscious, associations in the reader. ex: Damsel in distress, evil genius | 6 | |
| 4953938174 | Assonance | The repetition of similar vowel sounds followed by different consonant sounds in stressed syllables or words. | 7 | |
| 4954046892 | Ballad | A narrative passed on, or composed, in the oral tradition. It often makes use of repetition and dialogue. | 8 | |
| 4954060008 | Blank Verse | Unrhymed Iambic pentameter | 9 | |
| 5000106549 | Caesura | A pause in a line of verse, usually near the middle. It most often reflects the sense of the line and is greater than a normal pause between words. | 10 | |
| 5000656353 | Characterization | The methods an author uses to develop the personality of a character in a literary work. | 11 | |
| 5000669049 | Climax | The decisive point in a story or play, after which the action changes course and begins to resolve itself. | 12 | |
| 5000683912 | Complication | A circumstance that complicates something (?) | 13 | |
| 5000692056 | Connotation | The emotional associations surrounding a word as opposed to the word's literal meaning, or denotation. | 14 | |
| 5000699973 | Consonance | the repetition of consonant sounds that are preceded by different vowel sounds. | 15 | |
| 5000705188 | Couplet | A pair of rhyming lines with identical meter. | 16 | |
| 5000709826 | Denotation | The strict, literal meaning of a word | 17 | |
| 5000715339 | Denouement | The resolution of the plot. | 18 | |
| 5000717191 | Dialect | A form of speech characteristic of a particular region or class, differing from the standard language. | 19 | |
| 5088878945 | Diction | The author's choice of words and phrases in a literary work | 20 | |
| 5088884999 | Dramatic Irony | A situation in which events or facts not known to a character on stage or in a fictional work are known to the audience or reader | 21 | |
| 5088929679 | Dynamic Character | A literary, or dramatic character who undergoes an important inner change, as in change in personality or attitude | 22 | |
| 5088963788 | Elegy | A solemn, reflective poem, usually about death, written in formal style. | 23 | |
| 5088976822 | Exposition | Background information about the setting, characters and other elements of a story or play. | 24 | |
| 5088990496 | Extended Metaphor | A metaphor that is developed at great length, often through a whole work or great part of it. | 25 | |
| 5089006223 | Figurative Language | Language used in a non-literal way for the purpose of emphasis, clarification, or a special effect. | 26 | |
| 5089061089 | Epic | A long narrative poem (originally handed down in oral tradition - later a literary form) dealing with great heroes and adventures; having a national, world-wide, or cosmic setting; involving supernatural forces; and written in a deliberately ceremonial style. | 27 | |
| 5089096716 | First-person | Using pronouns such as 'I' or 'we' and presents information according to what a character (the narrator) knows, experiences, or infers. | 28 | |
| 5089136394 | Flashback | An event or scene taking place before the present time in the narrative is inserted into the chronological structure of the work | 29 | |
| 5139636174 | Flat Character | An easily recognized character type in fiction who may not be fully delineated but is useful to carry out some narrative purpose of the author. | 30 | |
| 5139636175 | Foil | A character whose traits are different from those of a comparable character, and who thus points up the strengths or weaknesses of the other character. | 31 | |
| 5139638811 | Foreshadowing | A clue given to the reader or audience of what is to come | 32 | |
| 5139638812 | Frame | A narrative device presenting a story or group of stories with in the frame of a larger narrative. | 33 | |
| 5139641216 | Free Verse | A type of poetry that differs from conventional verse forms in being "free" from a fixed pattern of meter and rhyme, but using rhythm and other poetic devices. | 34 | |
| 5139641217 | Hyperbole | A figure of speech involving great exaggeration. | 35 | |
| 5139644924 | Imagery | The sensory details that provide vividness in a literary work and tend to arouse emotions in a reader that abstract language would not. | 36 | |
| 5139644925 | Inference | A reasonable conclusion about the behavior of a character or the meaning of an event, drawn from the limited information presented by the author. | 37 | |
| 5139647557 | Inversion | An inverting of the usual order of the words or parts of a sentence, primarily for emphasis or to achieve a certain rhythm or rhyme. | 38 | |
| 5139647558 | Irony | The term used to describe a contrast between what is claimed to be and what really is. | 39 | |
| 5230205382 | Irony of Situation | The irony is sustained over the whole work. There is sometimes a naive spokesman, who is not aware of the discrepancy between what he says and what the author intends. | 40 | |
| 5230206807 | Lyric | A poem, usually short, that expresses the emotion or state of mind of only one speaker. It usually creates a single impression. | 41 | |
| 5230206808 | Metaphor | A figure of speech that establishes an identity between two basically unlike things. | 42 | |
| 5230210182 | Metonymy | A figure of speech in which a term closely associated with a person or thing is made to stand for it. | 43 | |
| 5230210183 | Mood | The overall atmosphere or prevailing emotional aura of a work, sometimes established at the beginning. | 44 | |
| 5230210184 | Motif | A situation that recurs in various works or in various parts of the same work. | 45 | |
| 5230213909 | Narrative Poetry | Poetry that tells a story or recounts a series of events. | 46 | |
| 5230213910 | Ode | A lyric poem, formal in style and complex in form, often written in commemoration or celebration of a special quality, object, or occasion. | 47 | |
| 5230217732 | Onomatopoeia | A word or words used in such a way that the sound imitates the sound of the thing spoken of. | 48 | |
| 5230223486 | Paradox | A statement or situation that seems to be self-contradicting but has valid meaning. | 49 | |
| 5249901166 | Parallelism | An arrangement of parts of a sentences, paragraph, or other unit of composition in which one element equal in importance to another is similarly developed and phrased. | 50 | |
| 5249903165 | Parody | A humorous imitation of serious writing. | 51 | |
| 5249911806 | Pastoral | A conventional form of lyric poetry presenting an idealized picture of rural life. | 52 | |
| 5249913556 | Persona | The mask of the author as expressed by an important character in a particular work. | 53 | |
| 5249915928 | Personification | The representation of abstractions, ideas, or inanimate objects as living, or even human, beings.. | 54 | |
| 5249915929 | Plot | A series of related happenings in a literary work. | 55 | |
| 5249918621 | Point of View | The narrative situation a writer uses to present the action and characters of a story. | 56 | |
| 5249918622 | Protagonist | The leading character or hero in a literary work. | 57 | |
| 5249921303 | Rhyme | The exact repetition of sounds in at least the final accented syllables of two or more words. | 58 | |
| 5249938853 | Rhythm | In verse, the arrangement into patterns of stressed and unstressed sounds. | 59 | |
| 5344235393 | Round Character | Fully developed and acts according to complex and believable patterns of emotion, motivation, and behavior. | 60 | |
| 5344235394 | Satire | The literary form that employs wit to ridicule characters in a work who represent some social institution or human foible, with intention of inspiring self-reform. | 61 | |
| 5344237926 | Scansion | The result of scanning, or marking off lines of poetry into feet and indicating the stressed and unstressed syllables. | 62 | |
| 5344237927 | Setting | The time, place, and social situation in which the action of a work occurs. | 63 | |
| 5344238027 | Simile | A figure of speech involving a direct comparison, using "like" or "as," between two basically unlike things that are asserted to have something in common. | 64 | |
| 5344239852 | Sonnet | A lyric poem with a traditional form of fourteen iambic pentameter lines. | 65 | |
| 5344239853 | Static Character | Remain the same throughout the course of the narrative, untouched by events and people they encounter | 66 | |
| 5344242982 | Stereotype | A conventional over-simplified character, plot, or setting that possess little or no individuality but that may be used for a purpose. | 67 | |
| 5344247127 | Stream of Consciousness | The recording or re-creation of a character's flow of thought. | 68 | |
| 5344249152 | Style | The distinctive handling of language by an author. | 69 | |
| 5360230869 | Symbol | A concrete image, such as an object, action, character, or scene, that signifies something bigger, such as a concept or idea. | 70 | |
| 5360233087 | Synecdoche | A figure of speech in which a part stands for the whole. | 71 | |
| 5360234519 | Syntax | The arrangement of words and phrases | 72 | |
| 5360234520 | Theme | The underlying meaning of a literary work. | 73 | |
| 5360235383 | Third-person Limited | Narrator knows and relates the thoughts of one particular character in the story. | 74 | |
| 5360236047 | Third-person Objective | Narrator describes only what can be seen, recording events like a newspaper reporter or a camera. | 75 | |
| 5360236497 | Third-person Omniscient | Narrator is able to relate the thoughts, feelings, and perceptions of any or all characters. | 76 | |
| 5360236498 | Tone | The author's attitude, either stated or implied, toward his or her subject matter and toward the audience. | 77 | |
| 5360237538 | Verbal Irony | The surface meaning of words is opposite to the intended, underlying meaning. | 78 | |
| 5360238323 | Verisimilitude | The appearance of truth or reality in fiction. | 79 | |
| 5450456982 | Anapest | A three-syllable metrical foot consisting of two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable, as in the word "interfere" | 80 | |
| 5450456983 | Aphorism | A brief saying embodying a moral | 81 | |
| 5450460237 | Cacophony | A succession of harsh, discordant sounds in either poetry or prose, used to achieve a specific effect. | 82 | |
| 5450462517 | Caricature | Exaggeration of prominent features of appearance or personality. | 83 | |
| 5450462518 | Chorus | In Greek tragedy, a group of actors who sing and dance their commentary on the dialogue taking place in the drama. | 84 | |
| 5450467564 | Classicism | The style of literature created by the ancient Greeks and Romans, characterized by attention to form; by order, restraint, and balance in the treatment of content; and by an absence of the values associated with Romanticism. | 85 | |
| 5450467565 | Comedy | A play or other work written primarily to amuse the reader or audience. | 86 | |
| 5450470122 | Dactyl | A three-syllable metrical foot consisting of a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables, as in the word "odyssey" | 87 | |
| 5450470123 | Epigram | Any short, witty verse or saying, often ending with a wry twist. | 88 | |
| 5450475336 | Epilogue | A concluding section added to a work in order to round it out or to comment on it. | 89 | |
| 5518384044 | Fable | A brief tale in which the characters' actions point out a moral truth. | 90 | |
| 5518385058 | Folk Literature | A type of early literature passed orally from generation to generation, and written down later. | 91 | |
| 5518385059 | Foot | A group of syllables in verse, usually consisting of one stressed syllable and one or more unstressed syllables. | 92 | |
| 5518385700 | Heroic Couplet | A pair of rhymed verse lines in iambic pentameter | 93 | |
| 5518389453 | Iamb | A two-syllable metrical foot consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable as in the word "until." | 94 | |
| 5518389454 | Lay | A short narrative poem, especially one written in french during the middle ages and based on legend. | 95 | |
| 5518390552 | Legend | A story handed down from the past, often associated with some period in the history of a people. | 96 | |
| 5518390553 | Masque | A short amateur dramatic court entertainment with more emphasis on music, costumes, and scenery than on poetry. | 97 | |
| 5518391201 | Miracle Play | A type of play produced during the late medieval and early Renaissance periods, based on the life of Jesus, on stories from the bible, or especially on legends of the saints. | 98 | |
| 5518391202 | Moral | The lesson or inner meaning to be learned from a fable, tale, or other story. | 99 | |
| 5615461407 | Morality Play | A type of play popular in the 1400s and 1500s in which the characters are personifications of abstract qualities such as vice, virtue, mercy, shame, wealth, knowledge, ignorance, poverty, and perseverance. | 100 | |
| 5615461408 | Myth | A traditional story connected with the beliefs of a people, usually attempting to account for something in nature or history. | 101 | |
| 5615461409 | Naturalism | Writing that depicts events as rigidly determined by the forces of heredity and environment, which are conceived of as being indifferent to human desires. | 102 | |
| 5615465762 | Neoclassicism | Writing of a later period that shows the influence of the Greek and Roman classics. | 103 | |
| 5615465763 | Parable | A brief fictional work that concretely illustrates an abstract idea or teaches some lesson or truth. | 104 | |
| 5615472814 | Petrarchan Sonnet | A sonnet that can be divided into eight opening lines rhyming abba abba and six concluding lines rhyming cde cde or cd cd cd. | 105 | |
| 5615521624 | Prologue | A section preceding the main body of work and serving as an introduction to it, sometimes with thematic importance. | 106 | |
| 5615521625 | Proverb | A short, well-known saying, often handed down from the past, that expresses an obvious truth or familiar observation about life. | 107 | |
| 5615524668 | Rationalism | A philosophy that emphasizes the role or reason rather than of experience or of faith in answering the basic questions of human existence. | 108 | |
| 5615526641 | Realism | A way of representing life that emphasizes ordinary people in believable experiences. | 109 | |
| 5729761750 | Refrain | The repetition of one or more lines that emphasizes ordinary people in believable experiences. | 110 | |
| 5729761751 | Romance | A long narrative in poetry or prose that originated in the medieval period. | 111 | |
| 5729764471 | Romanticism | A type of literature that tends to portray the uncommon. | 112 | |
| 5729764472 | Saga | A medieval Scandinavian prose account of the battles and ways of a legendary Norse family hero, placing much emphasis on genealogy and featuring violent men and outspoken women. | 113 | |
| 5729771169 | Shakespearean Sonnet | Rhymed abab cdcd efef gg, presenting a four-part structure in which an idea or theme is developed in three quatrains and then brought to a conclusion in the couplet. | 114 | |
| 5729771170 | Slant Rhyme | Rhyme in which the vowel sounds are not quite identical. | 115 | |
| 5729776608 | Soliloquy | A dramatic convention that allows a character alone on stage to speak his or her thoughts aloud. | 116 | |
| 5729788086 | Tale | A simple prose or verse narrative, either true or fictional, in which the main interest is in the events themselves, rather than in the structure or the meaning of the events. | 117 | |
| 5729792500 | Tragedy | Dramatic or narrative writing in which the main character suffers disaster after a serious and significant struggle, but faces her downfall in such a way as to attain heroic stature. | 118 | |
| 5729792501 | Trochee | A metrical foot made up of one stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable, as in the word "answer" | 119 | |
| 5807861352 | 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. (or) A remark that is not directly related to the main topic of discussion. | 120 | |
| 5807861704 | Aubade | A poem or piece of music appropriate to the dawn or early morning. | 121 | |
| 5870756200 | Catharsis | The purging of emotions or relieving of emotional tensions, especially through certain kinds of art, tragedy or music | 122 | |
| 5870775366 | Character | Features or traits; moral or ethical quality | 123 | |
| 5870799350 | Comic Relief | An amusing episode in a serious or tragic literary work, especially a drama, that is introduced to relieve tension | 124 | |
| 5870802834 | Conflict | The struggle between two opposing forces. | 125 | |
| 5870810373 | Convention | A rule, method, or practice established by usage; custom. An agreement, compact, or contract. | 126 | |
| 5974029623 | Deus Ex Machina | An unexpected power or event saving a seemingly hopeless situation, especially as a contrived plot device in a play or novel. | 127 | |
| 5974053209 | Dramatic Monologue | A lyric poem in which the speaker addresses someone whose replies are not recorded. | 128 | |
| 5974128414 | Enjambment | (in verse) the continuation of a sentence without a pause beyond the end of a line, couplet, or stanza. | 129 | |
| 6032735978 | Euphony | Pleasing or sweet sound; especially : the acoustic effect produced by words so formed or combined as to please the ear | 130 | |
| 6032735979 | Form | The shape and structure of something as distinguished from its material | 131 | |
| 6060241341 | Idyll | An extremely happy, peaceful, or picturesque episode or scene, typically an idealized or unsustainable one. | 132 | |
| 6060241342 | Image | A physical likeness or representation of a person, animal, or thing, photographed, painted, sculptured, or otherwise made visible. | 133 | |
| 6060246246 | Impressionism | The depiction of scene, emotion, or character by details intended to achieve a vividness or effectiveness more by evoking subjective and sensory impressions than by recreating an objective reality | 134 | |
| 6060273954 | Lyric Poetry | A formal type of poetry which expresses personal emotions or feelings, typically spoken in the first person. | 135 | |
| 6060289189 | Metaphysical Poetry | Highly intellectualized poetry marked by bold and ingenious conceits, incongruous imagery, complexity and subtlety of thought, frequent use of paradox, and often by deliberate harshness or rigidity of expression | 136 | |
| 6060289190 | Meter | The pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry. | 137 | |
| 6132771524 | Monologue | The speaker addresses someone whose responses are not recorded. A character alone on stage speaks his or her thoughts aloud. | 138 | |
| 6132771525 | Narrative Poem | Poetry that tells a story or recounts a series of events. | 139 | |
| 6132774573 | Narrator | The teller of a story. | 140 | |
| 6132774574 | Octave | Eight-line stanza that presents a proposition, dilemma, or question. | 141 | |
| 6132777281 | Oxymoron | A figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction. | 142 | |
| 6271088742 | Parallel Plot | The writer weaves two or more dramatic plots that are usually linked by a common character and a similar theme. | 143 | |
| 6271088743 | Pathos | The quality or power in an actual life experience or in literature, music, speech, or other forms of expression, of evoking a feeling of pity, or of sympathetic and kindly sorrow or compassion. | 144 | |
| 6271091054 | Quatrain | A stanza of four lines, especially one having alternate rhymes. | 145 | |
| 6271091055 | Resolution | The conclusion of a story which ties up all the loose ends in the plot. | 146 | |
| 6271095554 | Rhetorical Question | A question asked in order to create a dramatic effect or to make a point rather than to get an answer. | 147 | |
| 6311002986 | Sestet | Six-line stanza that provides a comment, application, or solution. | 148 | |
| 6311033815 | Sestina | A poem with six stanzas of six lines and a final triplet, all stanzas having the same six words at the line-ends in six different sequences that follow a fixed pattern, and with all six words appearing in the closing three-line envoy. | 149 | |
| 6346100052 | Spondee | A metrical foot of two stressed syllables, as in "Great Scott!" | 150 | |
| 6346100053 | Stage Directions | Directions given by the author of a play to indicate the action, costumes, setting, arrangement of the stage, and so on. | 151 | |
| 6355927328 | Stanza | A group of lines that are set off to form a division in a poem, sometimes linked with other stanzas by a rhyme scheme. | 152 | |
| 6355935197 | Structure | The arrangement of and relations between the parts or elements of something complex. The quality of being organized. | 153 | |
| 6355936818 | Subplot | A secondary plot, or a strand of the main plot that runs parallel to it and supports it. | 154 | |
| 6355938042 | Tercet | A three-lined stanza or poem that often contains a rhyme. | 155 | |
| 6355939659 | Tragic hero | A literary character who makes a judgment error that inevitably leads to his/her own destruction. | 156 | |
| 6355939744 | Understatement | A figure of speech employed by writers or speakers to intentionally make a situation seem less important than it really is. | 157 | |
| 6355946750 | Villanelle | A poetic device which requires a poem to have 19 lines and a fixed form. | 158 | |
| 6417006176 | Abstract | Words or phrases that name things not knowable through the five senses. | 159 | |
| 6417006177 | Concrete | Pertaining to or concerned with realities or actual instances rather than abstractions. | 160 | |
| 6638179408 | Situational Irony | A contrast between what is expected or intended and what actually happens. | 161 | |
| 6638180853 | Litotes | A figure of speech which employs an understatement by using double negatives or, in other words, positive statement is expressed by negating its opposite expressions. | 162 | |
| 6638180854 | Ambiguity | A word, phrase, or statement which contains more than one meaning. | 163 | |
| 6698516650 | Antithesis | A rhetorical device in which two opposite ideas are put together in a sentence to achieve a contrasting effect. | 164 | |
| 6698516817 | Polysyndeton | A stylistic device in which several coordinating conjunctions are used in succession in order to achieve an artistic effect. | 165 | |
| 6698520257 | Anacoluthon | "lacking sequence". It is a stylistic device and is defined as a syntactic deviation and interruption within a sentence from one structure to another. | 166 | |
| 6698522712 | Colloquialism | The use of informal words, phrases or even slang in a piece of writing. | 167 | |
| 6698522713 | Jargon | A use of specific phrases and words by writers in a particular situation, profession or trade. | 168 | |
| 6745899951 | Metric Feet | Unit of measurement repeated in a line of poetry. | 169 | |
| 6745899952 | Amphibrach | A long syllable between two short syllables. | 170 | |
| 6745899953 | Metric Lines | Line named according to the number of feet composing it. | 171 | |
| 6745899954 | Rhyme Scheme | Any pattern of rhyme in a stanza. | 172 | |
| 6745899955 | Ballad stanza | Stanza consisting of four alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and trimester. 2nd and 4th line rhyme. | 173 |
