Terms : Hide Images
| 4140502088 | Allegory | A story in which each aspect of the story has a symbolic meaning outside the tale itself. | 0 | |
| 4140509096 | Alliteration | The repetition of initial consonant sounds. | 1 | |
| 4140510678 | Allusion | A reference to another work or famous figure | 2 | |
| 4140515058 | Ambiguity | Ambiguity is when the meaning of a word, phrase, or sentence is uncertain. There could be more than one meaning. | 3 | |
| 4140547897 | Anachronism | An error of chronology or timeline in a literary piece | 4 | |
| 4140551624 | Anaphora | The deliberate repetition of the first part of the sentence in order to achieve an artistic effect. Ex: We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. | 5 | |
| 4140563072 | Antagonist | A character who stands in opposition to the protagonist. | 6 | |
| 4140567210 | Protagonist | A protagonist is the central character or leading figure in poetry, narrative, novel or any other story. | 7 | |
| 4140575291 | Anthropomorphism | Anthropomorphism is a literary device that can be defined as a technique in which a writer ascribes human traits, ambitions, emotions or entire behavior to animals, non-human beings, natural phenomena or objects. Personification is an act of giving human characteristics to animals or objects to create imagery, while anthropomorphism aims to make an animal or object behave and appear like they are human beings. | 8 | |
| 4140584018 | Antithesis | A rhetorical device in which two opposite ideas are put together in a sentence to achieve a contrasting effect. | 9 | |
| 4140588069 | Archetype | A typical character, an action or a situation that seems to represent such universal patterns of human nature. Ex: the hero, the mentor, the journey, the villian | 10 | |
| 4140595117 | Aside | It is a short comment or speech that a character delivers directly to the audience or to himself, while other actors on the stage cannot listen. Only the audience can realize that an actor has expressed speech for them. | 11 | |
| 4146950355 | Assonance | The repeated use of vowel sounds, as in "Old king Cole was a merry old soul." | 12 | |
| 4146955227 | Consonance | The repetition of consonant sounds within words (rather than at their beginnings, which is alliteration). Ex: A flock of sick, black-checkered ducks. | 13 | |
| 4146979275 | Asyndeton | A writing style where conjunctions are omitted in a series of words, phrases, or clauses. It is used to shorten a sentence and focus on its meaning | 14 | |
| 4146998899 | Polysyndeton | The use of several conjunctions in close succession, especially where some could otherwise be omitted | 15 | |
| 4147004281 | Bathos | When an author seems to be trying really, really hard to write about something lofty or noble or elevated, but then descends into the trivial and/or stupid. | 16 | |
| 4147033140 | Cacophony | The use of words with sharp, harsh, hissing and unmelodious sounds | 17 | |
| 4147037680 | Euphony | A harmonious combination of words and sounds. | 18 | |
| 4147055337 | Catharsis | The purification or purgation of the emotions | 19 | |
| 4147058590 | Chiasmus | When two or more clauses are balanced against each other by the reversal of their structures. Ex: "Never let a Fool Kiss You or a Kiss Fool You." | 20 | |
| 4147072157 | Colloquialism | The use of informal words, phrases or even slang in a piece of writing. | 21 | |
| 4147081370 | Deux ex machina | To solve a seemingly intractable problem in a plot by adding in an unexpected character, object, or situation. Deus ex machina often has the sense of being quite contrived, as it seems like the author must resort to something that he or she did not set up properly plot-wise | 22 | |
| 4147087095 | Denotation/Connotation | The denotation of a word is its literal dictionary definition. Its connotation is the emotional strings that come attached to the word | 23 | |
| 4147148387 | Diction | The author's choice of word. Ex: Whether to use wept or cried. | 24 | |
| 4147156211 | Ethos, pathos, logos | Ethos is an appeal to ethics, and it is a means of convincing someone of the character or credibility of the persuader. Pathos is an appeal to emotion, and is a way of convincing an audience of an argument by creating an emotional response. Logos is an appeal to logic, and is a way of persuading an audience by reason. | 25 | |
| 4147166007 | Euphemism | Using a comparatively milder form of a negative description instead of its original, unsympathetic form. A nice way of saying something not so nice. | 26 | |
| 4147183475 | Farce | Type of a comedy that makes use of highly exaggerated and funny situations aimed at entertaining the audience. | 27 | |
| 4147192986 | Foil | A character that shows qualities that are in contrast with the qualities of another character | 28 | |
| 4147196170 | Foreshadowing | When a writer gives an advance hint of what is to come later in the story. | 29 | |
| 4147200958 | Hubris | The excessive pride or ambition that leads to the main character's downfall. | 30 | |
| 4147216681 | Hyperbole | An extreme exaggeration | 31 | |
| 4147220500 | In media res | Describes a story that starts in the middle of the action | 32 | |
| 4147233040 | 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. Ex: "Oh, what great luck I have!!!" | 33 | |
| 4147240892 | Juxtaposition | Placing two or more things side by side for the purpose of developing comparisons and contrasts. | 34 | |
| 4147252801 | Litote | 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. Ex: "She is not a beauty queen," means "She is ugly" or saying "I am not as young as I used to be" in order to avoid saying "I am old". | 35 | |
| 4147279726 | Loose sentence | A loose sentence is complete before its end (independent clause is in the beginning of sentence). Ex: Jack loved Diane despite her irritating snorting laugh, her complaining, and her terrible taste in music. | 36 | |
| 4147851868 | Metaphor | A metaphor compares two subjects without the use of "like" or "as" Ex: His eyes were burning coals. | 37 | |
| 4147860174 | Metonymy | A figure of speech that replaces the name of a thing with the name of something else with which it is closely associated. | 38 | |
| 4147863896 | Mood | The atmosphere of a story; the feeling created in the reader by a literary work | 39 | |
| 4147885176 | Motif | An object or idea with symbolic meaning that repeats itself throughout a literary work. | 40 | |
| 4147895618 | Non sequitur | Statements that do not follow logic and reason. Ex: Maria drives a car. She must be a wealthy person. | 41 | |
| 4147908447 | Onomatopoeia | A word which imitates the natural sounds of a thing. Ex: moo, chirp, buzz | 42 | |
| 4147912174 | Oxymoron | A phrase composed of opposites Ex: jumbo shrimp, a truthful lie | 43 | |
| 4147917545 | Parable | A short story with a moral lesson at the end. | 44 | |
| 4147925237 | Paradox | A statement that appears to be self-contradictory or silly but may include a latent truth. Ex: Truth is honey which is bitter, I am nobody | 45 | |
| 4147932940 | Parallelism | Repeated syntactical similarities used for effect | 46 | |
| 4147936618 | Parody | The work that results when a specific work is exaggerated to ridiculousness. An imitation of a writer, artist, subject, or genre in such a way as to make fun of or comment on the original work. | 47 | |
| 4147944574 | Pathetic fallacy | The description of inanimate objects in a manner that endows them with human emotions, thoughts, sensations, and feelings. | 48 | |
| 4147953111 | Periodic sentence | A periodic sentence is not grammatically complete until it has reached its final phrase. Ex: Despite Diane's irritation at Jack's peculiar habit of picking between his toes while watching TV and his terrible haircut, she loved him. | 49 | |
| 4150344715 | Persona | The person who is understood to be speaking (or thinking or writing) a particular work. The persona is almost always distinct from the author; it is the voice chosen by the author for a particular artistic purpose. The persona may be a character in the work or merely an unnamed narrator; but, insofar as the manner and style of expression in the work exhibit taste, prejudice, emotion, or other characteristics of a human personality, the work may be said to be in the voice of a persona. | 50 | |
| 4150431065 | Personification | When a a thing, an idea or an animal is given human attributes. | 51 | |
| 4150435088 | Pun | The usually humorous use of a word in such a way to suggest more meanings. | 52 | |
| 4150445052 | 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. | 53 | |
| 4150468932 | Simile | Simile is an explicit comparison between two unlike things through the use of connecting words, usually "like" or "as. | 54 | |
| 4150487357 | Soliloquy | A speech that a character makes in a work of drama only to him or herself. | 55 | |
| 4154730810 | Stock character | Standard or cliched character types: the drunk, the miser, the foolish girl, etc; flat and undimensional | 56 | |
| 4154741900 | Stream of consciousness | A method of narration that describes in words the flow of thoughts in the minds of the characters. | 57 | |
| 4154747165 | Symbolism | When an object represents an idea | 58 | |
| 4154756737 | Synechdoche | A figure of speech in which a part stands for a whole, or vice versa | 59 | |
| 4154766242 | Synesthesia | A figure of speech in which one sense is described using terms from another. | 60 | |
| 4154772631 | Syntax | sentence structure | 61 | |
| 4154783472 | Tone | The author's attitude toward his audience and subject. | 62 | |
| 4154795887 | Tragic flaw | The weakness of character in an otherwise good individual that ultimately leads to his demise | 63 | |
| 4154880405 | Trope | A figure of speech through which writers intend to express meanings of words differently than their literal meanings. | 64 | |
| 4154896314 | Versimilitude | The extent to which the literary text is believable, or the extent to which it imitates life. | 65 | |
| 4154906513 | Narrative poem | A form of poetry that tells a story, often making use of the voices of a narrator and characters as well | 66 | |
| 4154914810 | Epic poem | A long, narrative poem that is usually about heroic deeds and events | 67 | |
| 4154920225 | Lyric poem | a type of emotional, musical poem | 68 | |
| 4154923829 | Sonnet | Has 14 fourteen lines; Each line has 10 syllables, and is written in iambic pentameter. It has a specific rhyme scheme and a "volta" or a specific turn (where the poem takes a new direction). | 69 | |
| 4155024823 | Sestina | This poetic form is all about sixes. A sestina consists of six stanzas with—count 'em—six lines each, followed by a three-line stanza at the very end, known as an envoi. For those of you keeping track, that's a grand total of 39 lines. The final word of each line of the first stanza gets repeated in the lines of the subsequent stanzas, but in a different order every time. Each stanza plays off the order of the stanza that came before, so that the first line's end-word in each stanza just so happens to be the end-word of the last line of the previous stanza. Patterns, patterns everywhere. | 70 | |
| 4155048546 | Villanelle | A nineteen-line poetic form consisting of five tercets followed by a quatrain. | 71 | |
| 4155057376 | Stanza | Equivalent to paragraphs in prose. | 72 | |
| 4155061703 | Heroic Couplet | A pair of lines that end in rhyme in iambic pentameter | 73 | |
| 4155069842 | Tercet | A stanza of 3 lines | 74 | |
| 4155076849 | Quatrain | A stanza of 4 lines | 75 | |
| 4155080231 | Cinquain | A stanza of 5 lines | 76 | |
| 4155080232 | Sestet | A stanza of 6 lines | 77 | |
| 4155081509 | Septet | A stanza of 7 lines | 78 | |
| 4155088710 | Octave | A stanza of 8 lines | 79 | |
| 4155097752 | Foot | A measuring unit in poetry, which is made up of stressed and unstressed syllables. | 80 | |
| 4155107068 | Iamb | A metrical foot consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one. | 81 | |
| 4155177502 | Trochee | A metrical foot consisting of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one | 82 | |
| 4155183733 | Spondee | A metrical foot consisting of two stressed syllables | 83 | |
| 4155185712 | Dactyl | A metrical foot consisting of 3 syllables, one stressed followed by two unstressed | 84 | |
| 4155197143 | Anapest | A metrical foot consisting of 3 syllables, two unstressed followed by one stressed | 85 | |
| 4155203098 | Pentameter | A line of poetry that has five strong metrical feet or beats. | 86 | |
| 4155213760 | Tetrameter | Verse written in tetrameter has four feet. | 87 | |
| 4155217540 | Blank verse | Non-rhyming verse written in iambic pentameter. | 88 | |
| 4155235706 | End-stopped line | An end-stop occurs when a line of poetry ends with a period or definite punctuation mark, such as a colon. | 89 | |
| 4155244459 | Enjambment | Moving over from one line to another without a terminating punctuation mark | 90 | |
| 4155257427 | Caesura | A pause that occurs in the middle of a line in poetry. | 91 | |
| 4155359947 | Aubade | A song or poem about lovers separating at dawn. | 92 | |
| 4155363553 | Ballad | A simple narrative poem of folk origin, composed in short stanzas and adapted for singing. | 93 | |
| 4155372984 | Elegy | A mournful poem, usually written in remembrance of a lost one for a funeral or as a lament. | 94 | |
| 4155376415 | Epigram | A rhetorical device that is a memorable, brief, interesting. Often ingenious or witty statements are considered as epigrams such as this quote by Eleanor Roosevelt, "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." | 95 | |
| 4155385113 | Ode | A kind of poem devoted to the praise of a person, animal, or thing. An ode is usually written in an elevated style and often expresses deep feeling. | 96 | |
| 4155387851 | Pastoral | A poem set in tranquil nature or even more specifically, one about shepherds. | 97 | |
| 4155391628 | Apostrophe | When a speaker talks directly something that is absent. | 98 | |
| 4155392993 | Conceit | A kind of metaphor that compares two very unlike things in a surprising and clever way. Often, conceits are extended metaphors that dominate an entire passage or poem. | 99 | |
| 4155396018 | Refrain | A line or set of lines repeated several times over a course of a poem. | 100 | |
| 4155403916 | Shift | the shift introduces a change in the speaker's understanding of what he is narrating, signaling to readers that he has reached an insight. | 101 | |
| 4155406425 | Scansion | The process of analyzing a poem's meter. When you practice scansion—when you scan—you read a line of poetry, counting its feet, finding the stresses | 102 |
