Terms : Hide Images
| 10467416724 | allegory | a story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one. | 0 | |
| 10467424150 | alliteration | The repetition of initial consonant sounds, such as "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers." | 1 | |
| 10467425129 | allusion | A reference to another work of literature, person, or event | 2 | |
| 10467425546 | anapest | A metrical foot consisting of two unaccented syllables followed by one accented syllable i.e. "Twas the night before Christmas when all through the house." | 3 | |
| 10467432141 | antecedent | The word, phrase, or clause referred to by a pronoun. i.e. "Adeline bit her lip" Adeline is the antecedent and her is the personal pronoun | 4 | |
| 10467438135 | aphorism | A brief, cleverly worded statement that makes a wise observation about life. i.e. "All things come to he who waits." | 5 | |
| 10467441447 | aside | a line spoken by an actor to the audience but not intended for others on the stage. i.e. In Romeo and Juliet, Romeo appears during Juliet's balcony soliloquy and asks, in an aside, "Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?" | 6 | |
| 10467446789 | assonance | Repetition of vowel sounds. i.e. "Try to light the fire" | 7 | |
| 10467453585 | bildungsroman | n. a type of novel concerned with the education, development, and maturing of a young protagonist; coming of age story i.e. To Kill a Mockingbird, Huckleberry Finn, Harry Potter | 8 | |
| 10467458222 | cacophony | A harsh, discordant mixture of sounds | 9 | |
| 10467458627 | chiasmus | a rhetorical or literary figure in which words, grammatical constructions, or concepts are repeated in reverse order, in the same or a modified form. i.e. "Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds." | 10 | |
| 10467470542 | conceit | a fanciful, particularly clever extended metaphor that compares two very disparate things i.e. "Thou counterfeit'st a bark, a sea, a wind; For still thy eyes, which I may call the sea, Do ebb and flow with tears; the bark thy body is, Sailing in this salt flood; the winds, thy sighs; Who, raging with thy tears, and they with them, Without a sudden calm, will overset Thy tempest-tossed body." Romeo compares Juliet to a boat in a storm | 11 | |
| 10467485263 | consonance | Repetition of consonant sounds i.e. "A Quietness distilled As Twilight long begun, Or Nature spending with herself Sequestered Afternoon—" Emily Dickinson consonant "n" to create the intended effect of consonance | 12 | |
| 10467555751 | couplet | two lines of verse, usually in the same meter and joined by rhyme, that form a unit i.e. "Good night! Good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow / That I shall say good night till it be morrow" Shakespeare used this couplet in Romeo and Juliet | 13 | |
| 10467566876 | dactyl | a metrical foot, or a beat in a line, containing three syllables in which the first one is accented, followed by second and third unaccented syllables and is the opposite of anapest i.e. "Out of the cradle, endlessly rocking Out of the mockingbird's throat, the musical shuffle Out of the Ninth-month midnight..." Walt Whitman is using dactyl in the phrase "Out of the..." | 14 | |
| 10467589457 | Darwinism | the theory of the evolution of species by natural selection advanced by Charles Darwin. | 15 | |
| 10467593168 | digression | straying from main point | 16 | |
| 10467594964 | enjambment | The running-over of a sentence or phrase from one poetic line to the next, without terminal punctuation | 17 | |
| 10467650299 | epistolary novel | a novel told through the medium of letters written by one or more of the characters | 18 | |
| 10467659223 | euphemism | An indirect, less offensive way of saying something that is considered unpleasant i.e. using passed away rather than dying | 19 | |
| 10467661314 | euphony | pleasant, harmonious sound | 20 | |
| 10467686443 | Existentialism | your life is predetermined so life is made meaningful by your choices; live in the moment | 21 | |
| 10467729010 | feminism | the belief that women should possess the same political and economic rights as men | 22 | |
| 10467729416 | flashback | a scene in a movie, novel, etc., set in a time earlier than the main story. | 23 | |
| 10467764844 | foil | A character who is in most ways opposite to the main character (protagonist) or one who is nearly the same as the protagonist. The purpose of the foil character is to emphasize the traits of the main character by contrast only i.e. Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy | 24 | |
| 10467766008 | hyperbole | PLEASANT, HARMONIOUS SOUND To their loving parents, the children's orchestra performance sounded like euphony, although an outside observer probably would have called it a cacophony of hideous sounds. Synonyms: harmony; melody; music; sweetness | 25 | |
| 10467785380 | imagery | Description that appeals to the senses (sight, sound, smell, touch, taste) i.e. "Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, Having some business, do entreat her eyes To twinkle in their spheres till they return. What if her eyes were there, they in her head? The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars, As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven Would through the airy region stream so bright That birds would sing and think it were not night.-- See how she leans her cheek upon her hand!" Shakespeare uses imagery to describe Juliet | 26 | |
| 10467829704 | in medias res | It usually describes a narrative that begins, not at the beginning of a story, but somewhere in the middle — usually at some crucial point in the action. i.e. The Odyssey | 27 | |
| 10467832853 | irony | the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect. i.e. Friar Laurence sends a messenger to tell Romeo about Juliet's plan to drug herself into deathlike coma. We watch in horror as the messenger fails to deliver this vital piece of information. And though we know that Juliet is not really dead, we see Romeo poison himself because he cannot live without her. | 28 | |
| 10467840325 | litotes | understatement, especially that in which a positive statement is expressed by negating its opposite, as in "not bad at all." | 29 | |
| 10467854771 | Marxism | the economic and political theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels that hold that human actions and institutions are economically determined and that class struggle is needed to create historical change and that capitalism will ultimately be superseded | 30 | |
| 10467864965 | metaphor | A comparison without using like or as | 31 | |
| 10467873464 | meter | a unit of rhythm in poetry, the pattern of the beats. It is also called a foot | 32 | |
| 10467880007 | metonymy | a figure of speech consisting of the use of the name of one thing for that of another of which it is an attribute or with which it is associated i.e. ""The pen is mightier than the sword." | 33 | |
| 10467899084 | trochee | a foot consisting of one long or stressed syllable followed by one short or unstressed syllable. i.e. "Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright." | 34 | |
| 10467905325 | understatement | the presentation of something as being smaller, worse, or less important than it actually is. | 35 | |
| 10467905947 | modern | 1941-1945 (after the 2 world wars); stream of consciousness/radical break (think Picasso) | 36 | |
| 10467929906 | naturalism | your destiny is out of your control and is due to your environment/genetics (1887-1990s) | 37 | |
| 10467943294 | Onomatopoeia | A word that imitates the sound it represents. | 38 | |
| 10467945538 | oxymoron | paradoxical juxtaposition of words that seem to contradict one another i.e. jumbo shrimp | 39 | |
| 10467953006 | parable | (n.) a short narrative designed to teach a moral lesson i.e. The Boy Who Cried Wolf | 40 | |
| 10467967030 | pastoral | A work of literature dealing with rural life | 41 | |
| 10467992791 | personification | the attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something nonhuman, or the representation of an abstract quality in human form. | 42 | |
| 10467993417 | picaresque | (adj.) involving or characteristic of clever rogues or adventurers/relating to an episodic style of fiction dealing with the adventures of a rough and dishonest but appealing hero i.e. Huck Finn | 43 | |
| 10467996304 | Postmodern | 1950-?; mashup of different styles | 44 | |
| 10468001692 | pun | a joke exploiting the different possible meanings of a word or the fact that there are words that sound alike but have different meaning | 45 | |
| 10468006656 | Repetition | Repeated use of sounds, words, or ideas for effect and emphasis | 46 | |
| 10468007677 | Romantic | 1785-1832; deals with emotions and nature | 47 | |
| 10468007678 | satire | A literary work that criticizes human misconduct and ridicules vices, stupidities, and follies i.e. Huck Finn | 48 | |
| 10468011411 | simile | A comparison using "like" or "as" | 49 | |
| 10468016204 | soliloquy | an act of speaking one's thoughts aloud when by oneself or regardless of any hearers, especially by a character in a play. | 50 | |
| 10468015691 | sonnet | a poem of fourteen lines using any of a number of formal rhyme schemes, in English typically having ten syllables per line. | 51 | |
| 10468023490 | symbol | A thing that represents or stands for something else, especially a material object representing something abstract | 52 | |
| 10468026730 | synecdoche | a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa i.e. The White House | 53 | |
| 10468029287 | tone | Attitude a writer takes toward the audience, a subject, or a character | 54 | |
| 10468039823 | apostrophe | A figure of speech that directly addresses an absent or imaginary person or a personified abstraction, such as liberty or love. | 55 | |
| 10468041722 | paradox | A statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a possible truth. | 56 | |
| 10567435701 | Renaissance | 1500-1600; plays | 57 | |
| 10567437783 | Enlightenment | 1600-1750; novels | 58 | |
| 10567438973 | Victorian | 1832-1901; industrialization, etiquette, behavior | 59 |
