Terms : Hide Images
| 4931302107 | Abstract | complex type of writing, discusses intangible qualities like good and evil | 0 | |
| 4931302108 | Academic | Dry and rhetorical writing; sucking all the life out of its subject with analysis. | 1 | |
| 4931302109 | Aesthetic | appealing to the senses, sense of taste, study of beauty | 2 | |
| 4931302110 | Accent | stressed portion of a word | 3 | |
| 4931302111 | Allegory | A story in which each aspect of the story has a symbolic meaning outside the tale itself. | 4 | |
| 4931302112 | Alliteration | Repetition of consonant sounds | 5 | |
| 4931302113 | Allusion | A brief and indirect reference to a person, place, thing or idea of historical, cultural, literary or political significance. | 6 | |
| 4931302114 | Anachronism | Something out of place in time | 7 | |
| 4931302115 | Analogy | A comparison of two different things that are similar in some way | 8 | |
| 4931302116 | Anecdote | short narrative | 9 | |
| 4931302117 | Antecedent | The word, phrase, or clause referred to by a pronoun. | 10 | |
| 4931302118 | Anthropomorphism | the attribution of human characteristics to animals or inanimate objects | 11 | |
| 4931302119 | Anticlimax | something unimportant coming after something important; letdown in thought or emotion; something unexciting, ordinary, or disappointing coming after something important or exciting | 12 | |
| 4931302121 | Antihero | A protagonist (main character) who is markedly unheroic: morally weak, cowardly, dishonest, or any number of other unsavory qualities. | 13 | |
| 4931302122 | Aphorism | a short and usually witty saying | 14 | |
| 4931302123 | Apostrophe | An address to someone not present, or to a personified object or idea | 15 | |
| 4931302124 | Archaism | The use of deliberately old-fashioned language. | 16 | |
| 4931302125 | Aside | A device in which a character in a drama makes a short speech which is heard by the audience but not by other characters in the play | 17 | |
| 4931302126 | Aspect | a trait or characteristic | 18 | |
| 4931302127 | Assonance | Repetition of a vowel sound within two or more words in close proximity | 19 | |
| 4931302128 | Atmosphere | the emotional tone or background that surrounds a scene | 20 | |
| 4931302129 | Ballad | a long narrative poem usually in very regular meter and rhyme, has a naive folksy quality. | 21 | |
| 4931302130 | Bathos | insincere or overly sentimental quality of writing/speech intended to evoke pity | 22 | |
| 4931302131 | Pathos | Emotional appeal | 23 | |
| 4931302132 | Black humor | the use of disturbing themes in comedy; morbid humor used to express the absurdity, insensitivity, paradox, and cruelty of the modern world, ordinary characters or situations exaggerated beyond normal limits of satire or irony | 24 | |
| 4931302133 | Bombast | (adj.) pompous or overblown in language; full of high-sounding words intended to conceal a lack of ideas | 25 | |
| 4931302134 | Burlesque | parody, comically written | 26 | |
| 4931302135 | Cacophony | A harsh, discordant mixture of sounds | 27 | |
| 4931302136 | Cadence | Beat or rhythm of poetry | 28 | |
| 4931302137 | Canto | division of a long poem | 29 | |
| 4931302138 | Caricature | A portrait (verbal or otherwise) that exaggerates a facet of personality. | 30 | |
| 4931302139 | Catharsis | Purification that brings emotional relief or renewal | 31 | |
| 4931302140 | Chorus | A group of characters who comment on the action of a play without participation in it. | 32 | |
| 4931302141 | Classic | typical, masterpiece | 33 | |
| 4931302142 | Coinage (neologism) | a new word defined on the spot | 34 | |
| 4931302143 | Colloquialism | A word or phrase (including slang) used in everyday conversation and informal writing but that is often inappropriate in formal writing (y'all, ain't) | 35 | |
| 4931302144 | Complex | suggests that there is more than one possibility in the meaning of words. | 36 | |
| 4931302145 | Conceit | A fanciful expression, usually in the form of an extended metaphor or surprising analogy between seemingly dissimilar objects. | 37 | |
| 4931302146 | Connotation | All the meanings, associations, or emotions that a word suggests | 38 | |
| 4931302147 | Denotation | The dictionary definition of a word | 39 | |
| 4931302148 | Consonance | Repetition of consonant sounds within the words | 40 | |
| 4931302149 | Couplet | A pair of lines that end in rhyme | 41 | |
| 4931302150 | Decorum | Appropriateness of behavior or conduct of a character in a particular setting | 42 | |
| 4931302151 | Diction (Syntax) | Choice of words | 43 | |
| 4931302152 | Syntax | Sentence structure | 44 | |
| 4931302153 | Dirge | song for the dead | 45 | |
| 4931302154 | Dissonance | the grating of incompatible sounds | 46 | |
| 4931302155 | Doggerel | crude, simplistic verse often in sing song rhyme | 47 | |
| 4931302156 | Dramatic irony | Irony that occurs when the meaning of the situation is understood by the audience but not by the characters in the play. | 48 | |
| 4931302157 | Dramatic monologue | when a single speaker in literature says something to a silent audience | 49 | |
| 4931302158 | Elegy | a poem of serious reflection, typically a lament for the dead. | 50 | |
| 4931302159 | Elements | Basic techniques of each genre of literature | 51 | |
| 4931302160 | Enjambment | the continuation of a sentence without a pause beyond the end of a line, couplet, or stanza. | 52 | |
| 4931302161 | Epic | A long narrative poem, written in heightened language, which recounts the deeds of a heroic character who embodies the values of a particular society | 53 | |
| 4931302162 | Epitaph | a short written tribute in poetry or prose in memory of a deceased person | 54 | |
| 4931302163 | Euphemism | A polite or vague word or phrase used to replace another word or phrase that is thought of as too direct or rude. | 55 | |
| 4931302164 | Euphony | pleasant, harmonious sound | 56 | |
| 4931302165 | Explicit | definite, clearly stated | 57 | |
| 4931302166 | Farce | a play filled with ridiculous or absurd happenings; broad or far-fetched humor; a ridiculous sham | 58 | |
| 4931302167 | Feminine rhyme | lines rhymed by their final two syllables | 59 | |
| 4931302168 | 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 this character is to emphasize the traits of the main character by contrast only | 60 | |
| 4931302169 | Foot | the basic rhythmic unit of a line of poetry. Formed by 2 or 3 syllables. | 61 | |
| 4931302170 | Foreshadowing | A narrative device that hints at coming events; often builds suspense or anxiety in the reader. | 62 | |
| 4931302171 | Free verse | Poetry written without a rhyme scheme | 63 | |
| 4931302172 | Genre | A category or type of literature (or of art, music, etc.) characterized by a particular form, style, or content. | 64 | |
| 4931302173 | Gothic | characterized by gloom and mystery and the grotesque | 65 | |
| 4931302174 | Hubris | Excessive pride or ambition that leads to the main character's downfall | 66 | |
| 4931302175 | In media res | in or into the middle of a sequence of events as in a literary narrative | 67 | |
| 4931302176 | Interior monologue | writing that records the conversation that occurs inside a character's head | 68 | |
| 4931302177 | Inversion | Switching the customary order of elements in a sentence or phrase. | 69 | |
| 4931302178 | Irony | A contrast between expectation and reality | 70 | |
| 4931302179 | Lament | a poem of sadness or grief | 71 | |
| 4931302180 | Lampoon | a satire | 72 | |
| 4931302181 | Loose and periodic sentences | L: complete before its end; P: is not grammatically complete until it has reached its final phrase | 73 | |
| 4931302182 | Lyric | A type of poetry that explores the poet's personal interpretation of and feelings about the world. | 74 | |
| 4931302183 | Masculine rhyme | A rhyme ending on the final stressed syllable | 75 | |
| 4931302184 | Means | discovering what makes sense and what is important: literally and emotionally | 76 | |
| 4931302185 | Melodrama | A form of cheesy theater in which the hero is very, very good, the villain mean and rotten, and the heroine oh-so-pure. | 77 | |
| 4931302186 | Metaphor | A comparison without using like or as | 78 | |
| 4931302188 | Metonym | A figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for another with which it is closely associated (such as "crown" for "royalty"). | 79 | |
| 5886796979 | Mood | How the reader feels about the text while reading. | 80 | |
| 4931302189 | Nemesis | Enemy | 81 | |
| 4931302190 | Objectivity | an impersonal or outside view of events | 82 | |
| 4931302191 | Subjectivity | the interior or personal view of a single observer | 83 | |
| 4931302192 | Onomatopoeia | A word that imitates the sound it represents. | 84 | |
| 4931302193 | Opposition | a pair of elements that sharply contrast | 85 | |
| 4931302194 | Oxymoron | A figure of speech that combines opposite or contradictory terms in a brief phrase. | 86 | |
| 4931302195 | Parable | like a fable or an allegory, a story that instructs | 87 | |
| 4931302196 | Paradox | A statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a possible truth. | 88 | |
| 4931302197 | Parallelism | repeated syntactical similarities used for effect | 89 | |
| 4931302198 | Paraphrase | to restate | 90 | |
| 4931302199 | Parenthetical Phrase | a phrase set off by commas that interrupts the flow of a sentence with some commentary or added detail | 91 | |
| 4931302200 | Parody | A work that closely imitates the style or content of another with the specific aim of comic effect and/or ridicule. | 92 | |
| 4931302201 | Pastoral | A work of literature dealing with rural life | 93 | |
| 4931302202 | Persona | the narrator in a non-first-person novel | 94 | |
| 4931302203 | Personification | A figure of speech in which an object or animal is given human feelings, thoughts, or attitudes | 95 | |
| 4931302204 | Plaint | a poem or speech expressing sorrow | 96 | |
| 4931302205 | Omniscient narrator | a narrator who is able to know, see, and tell all, including the inner thoughts and feelings of the characters | 97 | |
| 4931302206 | Limited omniscient narrator | third-person narrator who generally reports only what one character (usually main character) sees, reports only thoughts of that one character | 98 | |
| 4931302207 | Objective narrator | 3rd person narr. who only reports on what would be visible to a camera, doesn't know what the character is thinking unless the character speaks of it. | 99 | |
| 4931302208 | Stream of Consciousness | a style of writing that portrays the inner (often chaotic) workings of a character's mind. | 100 | |
| 4931302187 | Simile | A comparison using "like" or "as" | 101 | |
| 5886806201 | Tone | Attitudes and presuppositions of the author that are revealed by their linguistic choices (diction, syntax, rhetorical devices) | 102 | |
| 4931302209 | Prelude | an introductory poem to a longer work | 103 | |
| 4931302210 | Pun | A play on words | 104 | |
| 4931302211 | Protagonist | Main character | 105 | |
| 4931302212 | Refrain | A line or set of lines repeated several times over the course of a poem. | 106 | |
| 4931302213 | Requiem | a song of prayer for the dead | 107 | |
| 4931302214 | Rhapsody | an intensely passionate verse or section of verse, usually of love or praise | 108 | |
| 4931302215 | Rhetorical question | A question whose answer is assumed | 109 | |
| 4931302216 | Satire | A literary work that criticizes human misconduct and ridicules vices, stupidities, and follies. | 110 | |
| 4931302217 | Soliloquy | A long speech expressing the thoughts of a character alone on stage | 111 | |
| 4931302218 | Stanza | A group of lines in a poem | 112 | |
| 4931302219 | Stock characters | standard or cliched character types: the drunk, the miser, the foolish girl, etc. | 113 | |
| 4931302220 | Subjunctive mood | A grammatical situation involving the words "if" and "were," setting up a hypothetical situation. | 114 | |
| 4931302221 | Suggest | imply | 115 | |
| 4931302222 | Summary | A retelling of the most important parts of what was read. | 116 | |
| 4931302223 | Suspension of disbelief | demand made of a theater audience to accept the limitations of staging and supply the details with imagination | 117 | |
| 4931302224 | Symbolism | A device in literature where an object represents an idea. | 118 | |
| 4931302225 | Technique | the methods, the tools, "how-you-do-it" ways of the author | 119 | |
| 4931302226 | Theme | Central idea of a work of literature | 120 | |
| 4931302227 | Thesis | Focus statement of an essay; premise statement upon which the point of view or discussion in the essay is based. | 121 | |
| 4931302228 | Tragic flaw | A weakness or limitation of character, resulting in the fall of the tragic hero. | 122 | |
| 4931302229 | Travesty | a grotesque parody | 123 | |
| 4931302230 | Truism | a way too obvious truth | 124 | |
| 4931302231 | Unreliable narrator | a narrator whose account of events appears to be faulty, misleadingly biased, or otherwise distorted | 125 | |
| 4931302232 | Utopia | an ideal society | 126 | |
| 4931302233 | Zeugma | the use of a word to modify 2 or more words, but have different meanings | 127 |
