Terms : Hide Images
| 207404742 | Abstract | Complex, discusses intangible qualities like good and evil, seldom uses examples to support its points | |
| 207404743 | Abstraction | A concept or value that cannot be seen (love, honor, courage, etc.) which the writer illustrates by comparing it metaphorically to a known, concrete object | |
| 207404744 | Academic | Dry and rhetorical writing; sucking all the life out of its subject with analysis | |
| 207404745 | Accent | In poetry, the stressed portion of a word | |
| 207404746 | Aesthetic | Appealing to the senses; a coherent sense of taste | |
| 207404747 | Allegory | A story in which each aspect of the story has a symbolic meaning outside the tale itself | |
| 207404748 | Alliteration | The repetition of initial consonant sounds | |
| 207404749 | Allusion | A direct or indirect reference to another work or famous figure | |
| 207404750 | Ambiguity | Deliberately suggesting two or more different, and sometimes conflicting, meanings in a work | |
| 207404751 | Anachronism | "Misplaced in time." An aspect of a story that doesn't belong in its supposed time setting | |
| 207404752 | Analogy | A comparison, usually involving two or more symbolic parts, employed to clarify an action or a relationship. Usually used for the purpose of explaining or clarifying some unfamiliar idea by showing how the idea is similar to a familiar one | |
| 207404753 | Anaphora | The repetition of a word or expression at the beginning of successive phrases for rhetorical or poetic effect. Ex: "We cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground." | |
| 207404754 | Anecdote | A short narrative | |
| 207404755 | Antagonist | The character who is in conflict with the main character. May not even be a person...may be another side of the same character | |
| 207404756 | Antecedent | The word, phrase, or clause to which a pronoun refers | |
| 207404757 | Anthropomorphism | When inanimate or non-human subjects are given human characteristics. | |
| 207404758 | Anticlimax | Occurs when an action produces far smaller results than one had been led to expect. Can be intentionally employed to achieve a humorous or satiric effect | |
| 207404759 | Antihero | A protagonist who is markedly unheroic: morally weak, cowardly, dishonest, etc. | |
| 207404760 | Antithesis | The second of two contrasting or opposing constituents, following the thesis. Ex: "Give me performances, not promises." | |
| 207404761 | Aphorism | A short and usually witty saying which expresses an observation on life | |
| 211890124 | Apostrophe | A figure of speech wherein the speaker talks directly to something that is nonhuman. Often, it is to a god, a ghost, or some supernatural thing like Death, Night, or Fate | |
| 211890125 | Archaism | The use of deliberately old-fashioned language | |
| 211890126 | Aside | A speech (usually just a short comment) made by an actor to the audience, as though momentarily stepping outside of the action on stage. The other characters are presumed not to have heard the character | |
| 211890127 | Assonance | The repeated use of vowel sounds Ex: "Old king Cole was a merry old soul." | |
| 211890128 | Atmosphere | The emotional tone or background that surrounds a scene | |
| 211890129 | Ballad | A long, narrative poem (or song), usually in meter and rhyme. Typically has a naive folksy quality | |
| 211890130 | Bathos | Writing strains for gandeur it can't support and tries too hard to be a tear jerker. Often a failed attempt at pathos | |
| 211890131 | Black Humor | The use of disturbing themes in comedy | |
| 211890132 | Blank Verse | Unrhymed iambic pentameter | |
| 211890133 | Bombast | Pretentious, exaggerated, pompous language | |
| 216275372 | Burlesque | Broad parody, one that takes a style of form and exaggerates it into ridiculousness | |
| 216275373 | Cacophony | In poetry, using deliberately harsh, awkward sounds | |
| 216275374 | Cadence | The beat of rhythm or poetry in a general sense | |
| 216275375 | Caesura | A pause for effect in the middle of a line of poetry indicated by a period, dash, etc.; it may or may not affect the meter | |
| 216275376 | Canto | The name for a section division in a long work of poetry | |
| 216275377 | Caricature | A portrait (verbal or otherwise) that exaggerates a facet of personality | |
| 216275378 | Catharsis | Drawn from Aristotle's writings on tragedy. Refers to the "cleansing" of emotion an audience member experiences during a play | |
| 216275379 | Chorus | In Greek drama, the group of citizens who stand outside the main action on stage and comment on it, usually speaking in unison | |
| 216275380 | Classic | Typical, or an accepted masterpiece | |
| 216275381 | Cliche | A word or phrase that has become lifeless because of overuse. Avoid cliches like the plague | |
| 216275382 | Coinage (neologism) | A new word, usually one invented on the spot | |
| 216275383 | Colloquialism | A word or phrase used in everyday conversational English that isn't a part of accepted "school-book" English | |
| 216275384 | Complex (Dense) | Suggesting that there is more than one possibility in the meaning of words; subtleties and variations; multiple layers of interpretation; meaning both explicit and implicit | |
| 216275385 | Conceit (Controlling Image) | A startling or unusual metaphor, or a metaphor developed and expanded upon several lines. Often an extended metaphor that compares two things that are startlingly different | |
| 216275386 | Connotation | Everything other than the literal meaning that a word suggests or implies. The association and emotional overtones that have become attached to a word | |
| 216275387 | Consonance | The repetition of consonant sounds within words (rather than at their beginnings) | |
| 216275388 | Couplet | A pair of lines that end in rhyme | |
| 216275389 | Decorum | A character's speech must be styled according to her social station, and in accordance to the situation | |
| 216275390 | Denotation | A word's literal meaning, i.e., the standard dictionary definition with no connotative attachments | |
| 216275391 | Diction | The words an author chooses to use | |
| 217936755 | Deus ex Machina | Literally, "god from a machine," An unexpected, artificial or improbably character, device, or event introduced suddenly to resolve a situation or untangle a plot | |
| 217936756 | Dionysian | Named after the Greek god Dionysus, pertaining to the base side of a person | |
| 217936757 | Dirge | A song for the dead; tone is typically slow, heavy, depressed, and melancholy | |
| 217936758 | Dissonance | Refers to the grating of incompatible sounds | |
| 217936759 | Doggerel | Crude, simplistic verse, often in sing-song rhyme, like limericks | |
| 217936760 | Dramatic Irony | When the audience knows something that the characters do not | |
| 217936761 | Dramatic Monologue | When a single speaker in literature says something to a silent audience | |
| 217936762 | Dyostopia | The opposite of utopia; a controlled world where pain exists instead of pleasure | |
| 217936763 | Elegy | A type of poem that meditates on death or mortality in a serious, thoughtful manner | |
| 217936764 | Empathy | Feelings of pity and understanding for a character | |
| 217936765 | Enjambment | The continuation of a syntactic unit from one line or couplet of a poem to the next with no pause | |
| 217936766 | Epic | A very long narrative poem on a serious theme in a dignified style; typically deals with glorious or profound subject matter, along the lines of The Iliad | |
| 217936767 | Epigram | A witty saying, usually at the end of a poem; a brief witty observation about a person, institution, or experience | |
| 217936768 | Epitaph | Lines that commemorate the dead at the burial place | |
| 217936769 | Euphemism | A word or phrase that takes the place of a harsh, unpleasant, or impolite reality | |
| 217936770 | Euphony | When sounds blend harmoniously | |
| 217936771 | Explicit | To say or write something directly and clearly | |
| 217936772 | Fable | A very short story told in prose or poetry that teaches a practical lesson about how to succeed in life | |
| 217936773 | Farce | Extremely broad humor; in earlier times, a funny play or a comedy | |
| 217936774 | Foil | A secondary character whose purpose is to highlight the characteristics of a main character, usually by contrast | |
| 226725392 | Foot | The basic rhythmic unit of a line of poetry, formed by a combination of two or three syllables, either stressed or unstressed | |
| 226725393 | Free Verse | Poetry written without a regular rhyme scheme or metrical pattern | |
| 226725394 | Genre | A sub-category of literature | |
| 226725395 | Gothic | A sensibility that includes such features as dark, gloomy castles and weird screams from the attic each night | |
| 226725396 | Heroic Couplet | Two successive rhyming lines of iambic pentameter | |
| 226725397 | Hubris | The excessive pride or ambition that leads to the main character's downfall | |
| 226725398 | Hyperbole | Exaggeration or deliberate overstatement | |
| 226725399 | Iamb ( as in Iambic Pentameter) | A poetic foot-light, heavy (IP=five iambs) | |
| 226725400 | Implicit | To say or write something that suggests and implies but never says it directly or clearly | |
| 226725401 | In media res | Latin for "in the midst of things" Ex: beginning an epic poem in the middle of action | |
| 226725402 | Interior Monologue | Refers to writing that records the mental talking that goes on inside a character's head; tends to be coherent | |
| 226725403 | Inversion | Switching the customary order of elements in a sentence or phrase | |
| 226725404 | Irony | A statement that means the opposite of what it seems to mean; uses an undertow of meaning, sliding against the literal | |
| 226725405 | Juxtaposition | A form of contrast by which writers call attention to dissimilar ideas; a poetic device in which normally unassociated ideas are placed next to one another; creating a surprising effect Ex: MLK once said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." | |
| 226725406 | Lament | A poem of sadness or grief over the death of a loved one or over some other intense loss | |
| 226725407 | Lampoon | A satire | |
| 226725408 | Lyric | A type of poetry that explores the poet's personal interpretation of and feelings about the world | |
| 226725409 | Metaphor | A comparison or analogy that states one thing IS another | |
| 226725410 | Metaphysical Poetry | 17th century poetry characterized by conceits, condensed metaphorical language, unusual comparisons, complex imagery | |
| 226725411 | Metonymy | A word that is used to stand for something else that it has attributes of or is associated with Ex: "We requested from the crown support for our petition." The crown stands for the royal family. | |
| 234107860 | Mixed Metaphor | A metaphor whose elements are either incongruent or contradictory by the use of incompatible identifications such as Hamlet's line: "to take arms against a sea of troubles." | |
| 234107861 | Mood | The atmosphere created by the writer's diction and details selected | |
| 234107862 | Motif | A recurring image, word, phrase, action, idea, object, or situation used through a work that unifies the word by tying the current situation to previous ones | |
| 234107863 | Nemesis | The protagonist's arch enemy or a supreme and persistent difficulty | |
| 234107864 | Non-sequitur | Latin for "It doesn't follow" Ex: "Our nation will prevail if we eat more eggs." | |
| 234107865 | Objectivity | Treatment of subject matter in an impersonal manner or from an outside view | |
| 234107866 | Ode | A poem in praise of something divine or noble | |
| 234107867 | Omniscient | A third person narrator who sees into each character's mind and understands all the action | |
| 234107868 | Onomatopoeia | Words that sound like what they mean Ex: swoosh, pow | |
| 234107869 | Opposition | A pairing of images whereby each becomes more striking and informative because it's placed in contrast to the other one | |
| 234107870 | Oxymoron | A phrase composed of opposites; a contradiction | |
| 234107871 | Parable | A story that instructs | |
| 234107872 | Paradox | A situation or statement that seems to contradict itself, but on closer inspection, does not | |
| 234107873 | Parallelism (Parallel Structure) | Repeated syntactical similarities used for effect | |
| 234107874 | Paraphrase | To restate phrases and sentences in your own words | |
| 234107875 | Parenthetical Phrase | A phrase set off by commas that interrupts the flow of a sentence with some commentary or added detail | |
| 234107876 | Parody | The work that results when a specific work is exaggerated to ridiculousness, usually for comic effect but sometimes for ridicule. THe humor depends upon the reader's familiarity with the original | |
| 234107877 | Pastoral | A poem set in tranquil nature or even more specifically, one about shepherds | |
| 234107878 | Pathos | Greek term for deep emotion, passion or suffering. Writing that evokes feelings of dignified pity and sympathy | |
| 234107879 | Persona | The mask worn by an actor in Greek drama. In a literary context, the ________ is the character of the first-person narrator in verse or prose narratives, and the speaker in lyric poetry. The use of the term (as distinct from "author") stresses that the speaker is part of the fictional creation | |
| 241696576 | Personification | When a nonhuman object takes on human characteristics | |
| 241696577 | Plaint | A poem or speech expressing sorrow | |
| 241696578 | Point of View | The perspective from which the action of a novel is presented | |
| 241696579 | Prelude | An introductory poem to a longer work of verse | |
| 241696580 | Protagonist | The main character of a novel or play | |
| 241696581 | Pun | The usually humorous use of a word in such a way to suggest two or more meanings | |
| 241696582 | Quatrain | A poem consisting of four lines, or four lines of a poem that can be considered a unit | |
| 241696583 | Refrain | A line or set of lines repeated several times over the course of a poem | |
| 241696584 | Requiem | A song of prayer for the dead | |
| 241696585 | Rhapsody | An intensely passionate verse or section of verse, usually of love or praise | |
| 241696586 | Rhetorical Question | A figure of speech in the form of a question posed for its persuasive effect without the expectation of a reply | |
| 241696587 | Satire | Vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement | |
| 241696588 | Simile | A comparison of unlike things that uses "like" or "as" | |
| 241696589 | Soliloquy | A speech spoken by a character alone on stage, meant to convey the impression that the audience is listening to the character's thoughts | |
| 241696590 | Sonnet | A lyric poem of fourteen lines, usually in iambic pentameter, with rhymes arranged according to certain definite patterns. It usually expresses a single, complete idea or thought with a reversal, twist, or change of direction in the concluding lines | |
| 241696591 | Italian or Petrarchan | (Sonnet) Has an 8 line stanza followed by a 6 line stanza. 8 lines present the theme and then further develop it. 6 lines reflect on the theme and then bring the poem to a unified end | |
| 241696592 | English or Shakespearean | (Sonnet) Uses three quatrains: each rhymed differently, with a final, independently rhymed couplet that an effective, unifying climax to the whole | |
| 241696593 | Stanza | A group of lines roughly analogous in function in verse to the paragraphs function in prose | |
| 241696594 | Stream of Consciousness | Author places the reader inside the main character's head and makes the reader privy to all of the character's thoughts | |
| 241696595 | Stock Characters | Standard or cliched character types | |
| 241696596 | Subjectivity | A treatment of subject matter that uses the interior or personal view of a single observer and is typically colored with that observer's emotional responses | |
| 241696597 | Subjunctive Mood | A grammatical situation involving the words "if" and "were," setting up a hypothetical situation | |
| 246130461 | Suspension of Disbelief | The demand made of an audience to accept the limitations and supply the details with their imagination | |
| 246130462 | Symbolism | A device in literature where an object represents an idea | |
| 246130463 | Synecdoche | A figure of speech in which a part represents the whole "If you don't drive properly, you will lose your wheels." | |
| 246130464 | Syntax | The ordering and structuring of words | |
| 246130465 | Time Line | a. Puritanism (1620-1770s) b. Neoclassic (1770s- early 1800s) c. Romanticism (early 1800s-1870s) etc. | |
| 246130466 | Tragic Flaw | In a tragedy, the weakness of a character in an otherwise good (or even great) individual that ultimately leads to his demise | |
| 246130467 | Truism | A way-too obvious truth | |
| 246130469 | Understatement | A statement that deliberately says less than what is meant Ex. During the second war with Iraq, American troops complained of a fierce sand storm that made night vision equipment useless. A British commando commented: "It's a bit breeze." | |
| 246130471 | Unreliable Narrator | When the first person narrator is crazy, a liar, very young, or for some reason not entirely credible | |
| 246130473 | Utopia | An idealized place; imaginary community in which people are able to live in happiness, prosperity, and peace | |
| 246130475 | Vernacular | The language spoken by the people who live in a particular locality | |
| 246130477 | Zeugma | The use of a word to modify two or more words, but used for different meanings. "He closed the door and his heart on his lost love." |
