The list of term's we're supposed to learn for Camp's test. All terms and definitions thanks to Julie.
Terms : Hide Images
| 355594084 | flat character | a character whose distinguishing moral qualities or personal traits are summed up in one or two traits | |
| 355594083 | foil character | a minor character whose situation or actions parallel those of a major character, and thus by contrast sets off or illuminates the major character; most often the contrast is complimentary to the major character | |
| 356470007 | antihero | A protagonist who is a non-hero or the antithesis of a traditional hero. While the traditional hero may be dashing, strong, brave, resourceful, or handsome, this character may be incompetent, unlucky, clumsy, dumb, ugly, or clownish | |
| 356470008 | stock character | a stereotyped character: one whose nature is familiar to us from prototypes in previous literature | |
| 356470009 | antithesis | Using opposite phrases in close conjunction. Examples might be, "I burn and I freeze," or "Her character is white as sunlight, black as midnight." The best [term] express their contrary ideas in a balanced sentence. It can be a contrast of opposites: "Evil men fear authority; good men cherish it." Alternatively, it can be a contrast of degree: "One small step for a man, one giant leap for all mankind." This term is an example of a rhetorical scheme. | |
| 356470010 | Conventional | An arbitrary one learned from others, not one determined by some natural law or genetic inheritance. | |
| 356470011 | antagonist | any force is a story or play that is in conflict with the protagonist. May be another person, an aspect of the physical or social environment, or a destructive element in the protagonist's own nature | |
| 356470012 | catharsis | a term used by Aristotle to describe some sort of emotional release experienced by the audience at the end of a successful tragedy | |
| 356470013 | metamorphosis | a striking change in appearance or character or circumstances | |
| 356470014 | tragic flaw | a misperception, a lack of some important insight, or some blindness that ironically results from one's own strengths and abilities. | |
| 356470015 | hubris | a negative term implying both arrogant, excessive self-pride or self-confidence, a lack of some important perception or insight due to pride in one's abilities. | |
| 356470016 | epiphany | a moment or event in which a character achieves a spiritual insight into life or into their own circumstance | |
| 356470017 | style | The author's words and the characteristic way that writer uses language to achieve certain effects. | |
| 356470018 | personification | a figure of speech in which human attributes are given to an animal, an object, or a concept | |
| 356470019 | flashback | A method of narration in which present action is temporarily interrupted so that the reader can witness past events--usually in the form of a character's memories, dreams, narration, or even authorial commentary. This allows an author to fill in the reader about a place or a character, or it can be used to delay important details until just before a dramatic moment. | |
| 356470020 | foreshadowing | Suggesting, hinting, indicating, or showing what will occur later in a narrative. It often provides hints about what will happen next. | |
| 356470021 | 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. Often, these include a symbol, a theme, a setting, or a character that some critics think have a common meaning in an entire culture, or even the entire human race. These images have particular emotional resonance and power. They recur in different times and places in myth, literature, folklore, fairy tales, dreams, artwork, and religious rituals. | |
| 356470022 | point of view | the angle of vision from which a story is told | |
| 356470023 | theme | A central idea or statement that unifies and controls an entire literary work. It can take the form of a brief and meaningful insight or a comprehensive vision of life; it may be a single idea, or a more complicated doctrine. It is the author's way of communicating and sharing ideas, perceptions, and feelings with readers, and it may be directly stated in the book, or it may only be implied. | |
| 356470024 | Tone | the writer's or speakers attitude toward the subject, the audience, or their self; the emotional coloring, or emotional meaning, or a work. | |
| 356470025 | Allusion | a reference, explicit or implicit, to something in previous literature or history. | |
| 356470026 | Imagery | the representation through language of sense experience | |
| 356470027 | Allegory | a narrative or description that has a second meaning beneath the surface, often relating each literal term to a fixed, corresponding abstract idea or moral principle; usually, the ulterior meaning belong to a pre-existing system of ideas or principles | |
| 356470028 | Stream of consciousness | narrative that presents the private thoughts of a character without commentary or interpretation by the author. | |
| 356470029 | Interior monologue | A type of stream of consciousness in which the author depicts the interior thoughts of a single individual in the same order these thoughts occur inside that character's head. The author does not attempt to provide (or provides minimally) any commentary, description, or guiding discussion to help the reader untangle the complex web of thoughts, nor does the writer clean up the vague surge of thoughts into grammatically correct sentences or a logical order. Indeed, it is as if the authorial voice ceases to exist, and the reader directly "overhears" the thought pouring forth randomly from a character's mind. | |
| 356470030 | Aside | a brief speech in which a character turns from the person being addressed to speak directly to the audience; a dramatic device for letting the audience know what a character is really thinking or feeling as opposed o what the character pretends to think or feel | |
| 356470031 | Metaphor | a figure of speech in which an implicit comparison is made between two things essentially unlike. It may take one of four forms: 1) that in which the literal term and the figurative term are both named, 2)that in which the literal term is named and the figurative term implied 3) that in which the literal term is implied and the figurative term named; 4) that in which both the literal and the figurative terms are implied | |
| 356470032 | Onomatopoeia | the use of words that supposedly mimic their meaning in their sound | |
| 356470033 | Simile | a figure of speech in which an explicit comparison is made between two things essentially unlike. The comparison is made explicit by the use of some such word or phrase as like, as, than, similar to, resembles, or seems. | |
| 356470034 | Pun | A play on two words similar in sound but different in meaning. | |
| 356470035 | Hyperbole | a figure of speech in which exaggeration is used in the service of truth | |
| 356470036 | Litotes | A form of meiosis using a negative statement. (meiosis- Understatement, the opposite of exaggeration) | |
| 356470037 | Oxymoron | a compact verbal paradox in which two successive words seemingly contradict one another | |
| 356470038 | Euphemism | Using a mild or gentle phrase instead of a blunt, embarrassing, or painful one. | |
| 356470039 | Conceit | An elaborate or unusual comparison--especially one using unlikely metaphors, simile, hyperbole, and contradiction. Before the beginning of the seventeenth century, it was a synonym for "thought" and roughly equivalent to "idea" or "concept." It gradually came to denote a fanciful idea or a particularly clever remark. In literary terms, the word denotes a fairly elaborate figure of speech, especially an extended comparison involving unlikely metaphors, similes, imagery, hyperbole, and oxymora. | |
| 356470041 | Colloquial | A word or phrase used everyday in plain and relaxed speech, but rarely found in formal writing. | |
| 356470042 | Apostrophe | a figure of speech in which someone absent or dead or something nonhuman is addressed as if it were alive and present and could reply. | |
| 356470043 | Diction | The choice of a particular word as opposed to others. | |
| 356470045 | Connotation | what a word suggests beyond its basic dictionary definition; a word's overtones of meaning | |
| 356470046 | Denotation | The minimal, strict definition of a word as found in a dictionary, disregarding any historical or emotional connotation | |
| 356470047 | Paradox | a statement or situation containing apparently contradictory or incompatible elements | |
| 356470048 | Metonymy | a figure of speech in which some significant aspect or detail of an experience is used to represent the whole experience. | |
| 356470049 | Synecdoche | a figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole. | |
| 356470050 | aphorism | A brief, cleverly worded statement that makes a wise observation about life. | |
| 356470051 | tongue in cheek | expressing a thought in a way that appears to be sincere, but is actually joking | |
| 357015173 | Limited point of view | the author tells the story using the third person, but is limited to a complete knowledge of one character in the story and tells us only what that one character thinks, feels, sees, or hears | |
| 357015174 | Omniscient point of view | the author tells the story using the third person, knowing all and free to tell us anything, including what the characters are thinking or feeling and why they act as they do | |
| 357015175 | First person | the story is told from the perspective of one of its characters | |
| 357015176 | Second person | a narrative mode in which the protagonist or another main character is referred to by employment of [term] personal pronouns and other kinds of addressing forms, for example the English [term] pronoun "you". | |
| 357015177 | Third person | the narrator seems to be someone standing outside the story who refers to all the characters by name or as he, she, they, and so on | |
| 357015178 | Satire | a kind of literature that ridicules human folly or vice with the purpose of bringing about reform or of keeping others from falling into similar folly or vice | |
| 357015179 | 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. It often (but not always) deals with gods, supernatural beings, or ancestral heroes. The culture creating or retelling it may or may not believe that it refers to literal or factual events, but it values the narrative regardless of its historical authenticity for its (conscious or unconscious) insights into the human condition or the model it provides for cultural behavior. | |
| 357015180 | Parable | A story or short narrative designed to reveal allegorically some religious principle, moral lesson, psychological reality, or general truth. Rather than using abstract discussion, this always teaches by comparison with real or literal occurrences--especially "homey" everyday occurrences a wide number of people can relate to. | |
| 357015181 | Epistolary novel | Any novel that takes the form of a series of letters--either written by one character or several characters. The form allows an author to dispense with an omniscient point of view, but still switch between the viewpoints of several characters during the narrative. | |
| 357015182 | Anecdote | A short narrative account of an amusing, unusual, revealing, or interesting event. A good one has a single, definite point, and the setting, dialogue, and characters are usually subordinate to the point of the story. Usually, this does not exist alone, but it is combined with other material such as expository essays or arguments. Writers may use these to clarify abstract points, to humanize individuals, or to create a memorable image in the reader's mind. | |
| 357015183 | Farce | a type of drama related to comedy but emphasizing improbable situations, violent conflicts, physical action, and coarse wit over characterization or articulated plot | |
| 357015184 | Pastoral | An artistic composition dealing with the life of shepherds or with a simple, rural existence. It usually idealized shepherds' lives in order to create an image of peaceful and uncorrupted existence. More generally, it describes the simplicity, charm, and serenity attributed to country life, or any literary convention that places kindly, rural people in nature-centered activities. | |
| 357015185 | Parody | imitates the serious manner and characteristic features of a particular literary work in order to make fun of those same features. The humorist achieves this by exaggerating certain traits common to the work, much as a caricaturist creates a humorous depiction of a person by magnifying and calling attention to the person's most noticeable features. This term is often used synonymously with the more general term spoof, which makes fun of the general traits of a genre rather than one particular work or author. | |
| 357015186 | Didactic | poetry, fiction, or drama having as a primary purpose to teach or preach | |
| 357015187 | segue | to make a transition from one thing to another smoothly and without interruption | |
| 357015188 | Anticlimax | a drop, often sudden and unexpected, from a dignified or important idea or situation to one that is trivial or humorous. Also a sudden descent from something sublime to something ridiculous. In fiction and drama, this refers to action that is disappointing in contrast to the previous moment of intense interest. In rhetoric, the effect is frequently intentional and comic. | |
| 357015189 | Comic relief | in a tragedy, a comic scene that follows a scene of seriousness and by contrast intensities the emotions aroused by the serious scene | |
| 357015190 | Chiasmus | A literary scheme in which the author introduces words or concepts in a particular order, then later repeats those terms or similar ones in reversed or backwards order. It involves taking parallelism and deliberately turning it inside out, creating a "crisscross" pattern. | |
| 357015191 | Attitude | the speaker's position on a subject as revealed through his or her tone | |
| 357015192 | Anachronism | Placing an event, person, item, or verbal expression in the wrong historical period | |
| 357015193 | Denouement | the portion of a plot that reveals the final outcome of its conflicts or the solution of its mysteries | |
| 357015194 | Dues ex machine | the resolution of a plot by use of a highly improbably chance or coincidence | |
| 357015195 | Ambiguity | any wording, action, or symbol that can be read in divergent ways | |
| 357015196 | Syntax | the standard word order and sentence structure of a language, as opposed to diction (the actual choice of words) or content (the meaning of individual words). Standard English [term] prefers a Subject-Verb-Object pattern, but poets may tweak it to achieve rhetorical or poetic effects. Intentionally disrupting word order for a poetic effect is called anastrophe. It is often distinguished from morphology and grammar. | |
| 357015197 | In medias 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. | |
| 357015198 | Pathos | In its rhetorical sense,it is a writer or speaker's attempt to inspire an emotional reaction in an audience--usually a deep feeling of suffering, but sometimes joy, pride, anger, humor, patriotism, or any of a dozen other emotions. In its critical sense, it signifies a scene or passage designed to evoke the feeling of pity or sympathetic sorrow in a reader or viewer. | |
| 357015199 | Epigraph | a quotation at the beginning of a poem, short story, book chapter, or other piece of literature. This introduces or refers to the larger themes of the piece: in a way, it may help draw the reader's attention to these ideas, setting the stage. It, unlike quotations that occur within a work, does not require quotation marks. | |
| 357015200 | Inversion | another word for anastrophe. Inverted order of words or events as a rhetorical scheme. Anastrophe is specifically a type of hyperbaton in which the adjective appears after the noun when we expect to find the adjective before the noun. | |
| 357015201 | Distortion | An exaggeration or stretching of the truth to achieve a desired effect. | |
| 357015202 | Parallelism | When the writer establishes similar patterns of grammatical structure and length. | |
| 357015203 | Periodic sentence | A long sentence that is not grammatically complete (and hence not intelligible to the reader) until the reader reaches the final portion of the sentence. | |
| 357015204 | Shift | In writing, a movement from one thought or idea to another; a change. | |
| 357015205 | Apotheosis | the elevation of a person (as to the status of a god) | |
| 357015206 | Carpe diem | Literally, the phrase is Latin for "seize the day". The term refers to 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. | |
| 357015207 | Analogy | drawing a comparison in order to show a similarity in some respect | |
| 357015208 | Alliteration | the repetition at close intervals of the initial consonant sounds of accented syllables of important words. Important words and accented syllables beginning with vowels may also be said to _____ with each other inasmuch as they all have the same lack of an initial consonant sound. | |
| 357015209 | Consonance | the repetition at close intervals of the final consonant sounds of accented syllables or important words. | |
| 357015210 | Internal rhyme | a rhyme in which one or both of the rhyme-words occurs within the line | |
| 357015211 | Iambic pentameter | a lightly stressed syllable followed by a heavily stressed syllable, with five feet | |
| 357015212 | Free verse | nonmetrical poetry in which the basic rhythmic unit is the line, and in which pauses, line breaks, and formal patterns develop organically from the requirements of the individual poem rather than from established poetic forms | |
| 357015213 | Heroic couplet | Two successive rhyming lines of iambic pentameter. The second line is usually end-stopped. It was common practice to string long sequences of [term] together in a pattern of aa, bb, cc, dd, ee, ff (and so on). Because this practice was especially popular in the Neoclassic Period between 1660 and 1790, the [term] is often called the neoclassic couplet if the poem originates during this time period. Note that "[term]" in this case has nothing to do with subject-matter. | |
| 357015214 | Ballad | a fairly short narrative poem written in a songlike stanza form. | |
| 357015215 | Blank verse | unrhymed iambic pentameter | |
| 357015216 | Couplet | two successive lines, usually in the same meter, linked by rhyme | |
| 357015217 | Meter | the regular patterns of accent that underlie metrical verse; the measurable repetition of accented and unaccented syllables in poetry | |
| 357015218 | Narrative poem | a poem that tells a story | |
| 357015219 | Sonnet forms | Three common forms of a lyric poem of fourteen lines, usually in iambic pentameter, with rhymes arranged according to certain definite patterns. These poems usually expresses a single, complete idea or thought with a reversal, twist, or change of direction in the concluding lines. | |
| 357015220 | Petrarchan sonnet | an eight line stanza (called an octave) followed by a six line stanza (called a sestet). The octave has two quatrains rhyming abba, abba, the first of which presents the theme, the second further develops it. In the sestet, the first three lines reflect on or exemplify the theme, while the last three bring the poem to a unified end. The sestet may be arranged cdecde, cdcdcd, or cdedce. | |
| 357015221 | Shakespearean sonnet | uses three quatrains; each rhymed differently, with a final, independently rhymed couplet that makes an effective, unifying climax to the whole. Its rhyme scheme is abab, cdcd, efef, gg. Typically, the final two lines follow a "turn" or a "volta," (sometimes spelled volte, like volte-face) because they reverse, undercut, or turn from the original line of thought to take the idea in a new direction. | |
| 357015222 | Miltonic sonnet | similar to the Petrarchan sonnet, but it does not divide its thought between the octave and the sestet--the sense or line of thinking runs straight from the eighth to ninth line. Also, [term] expands the sonnet's repertoire to deal not only with love as the earlier sonnets did, but also to include politics, religion, and personal matters. | |
| 357015223 | Slant rhyme | Rhymes created out of words with similar but not identical sounds. In most of these instances, either the vowel segments are different while the consonants are identical, or vice versa. This type of rhyme is also called approximate rhyme, inexact rhyme, near rhyme, half rhyme, off rhyme, analyzed rhyme, or suspended rhyme. | |
| 357015224 | Assonance | the repetition at close intervals of the vowel sounds of accented syllables or important words | |
| 357015225 | Stanza | a group of lines whose metrical pattern (and usually its rhyme scheme as well) is repeated throughout a poem | |
| 357015226 | Soliloquy | a speech in which a character, alone on the stage, addresses himself or herself; this is 'thinking out loud,' a dramatic means of letting an audience know a character's thoughts and feelings | |
| 357015227 | Quatrain | 1) a four-line stanza 2) a four-line division of a sonnet marked off by its rhyme scheme | |
| 357015228 | Sestet | 1) a six-line stanza 2) the last six lines of a sonnet structured on the Italian model | |
| 357015229 | Lyric poem | A short poem (usually no more than 50-60 lines, and often only a dozen lines long) written in a repeating stanzaic form, often designed to be set to music. Unlike a ballad, it usually does not have a plot, but it rather expresses the feelings, perceptions, and thoughts of a single poetic speaker (not necessarily the poet) in an intensely personal, emotional, or subjective manner. Often, there is no chronology of events, but rather objects, situations, or the subject is written about in a "[term] moment." Sometimes, the reader can infer an implicit narrative element in them, but it is rare for it to proceed in the straightforward, chronological "telling" common in fictional prose. | |
| 357015230 | Dactyl | a metrical foot consisting of one accented syllable followed by two unaccented syllables | |
| 357015231 | Cacophony | a harsh, discordant, unpleasant-sounding choice and arrangement of sounds | |
| 357015232 | Aubade | a poem about dawn; a morning love song; or a poem about the parting of lovers at dawn | |
| 357015233 | Anapest | a metrical foot consisting of two unaccented syllables followed by one accented syllable | |
| 357015234 | Euphony | a smooth, pleasant-sounding choice and arrangement of sounds | |
| 357015235 | Epigram | An inscription in verse or prose on a building, tomb, or coin. (2) a short verse or motto appearing at the beginning of a longer poem or the title page of a novel, at the heading of a new section or paragraph of an essay or other literary work to establish mood or raise thematic concerns. The opening [term] to Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" is one such example. (3) A short, humorous poem, often written in couplets, that makes a satiric point. | |
| 357015236 | Enjambment | A line having no pause or end punctuation but having uninterrupted grammatical meaning continuing into the next line. | |
| 357015237 | Villanelle | a nineteen-line fixed form consisting of five tercets rhymed aba and a concluding quatrain rhymed abaa, with lines 1 and 3 of the first tercet serving as refrains in an alternating pattern through line 15 and then repeated as lines 18 and 19 | |
| 357015238 | Elegy | In classical Greco-Roman literature, "[term]" refers to any poem written in alternating hexameter and pentameter lines. More broadly, [term] came to mean any poem dealing with the subject-matter common to the early Greco-Roman [term]s--complaints about love, sustained formal lamentation, or somber meditations. Typically, they are marked by several conventions of genre: (1) The [term], much like the classical epic, typically begins with an invocation of the muse, and then continues with allusions to classical mythology (2) The poem usually contains a poetic speaker who uses the first person. (3) The speaker raises questions about justice, fate, or providence. (4) The poet digresses about the conditions of his own time or his own situation. (5) The digression allows the speaker to move beyond his original emotion or thinking to a higher level of understanding.6) The conclusion of the poem provides consolation or insight into the speaker's situation. In Christian ones, the lyric reversal often moves from despair and grief to joy when the speaker realizes that death or misfortune is but a temporary barrier separating one from the bliss of eternity. (7) The poem tends to be longer than a lyric but not as long as an epic. (8) The poem is not plot-driven. |
