Terms : Hide Images
| 5040550243 | Act | A major division of the action of a play or drama | 0 | |
| 5040558833 | Action | The events or unfolding of events in a narrative. The action is what happens in the plot of the literary work, including what the characters say and do to advance the story | 1 | |
| 5040577088 | Aesthetic Distance | A separation between the audience and a work of art that is necessary for the audience to recognize and appreciate the work as an aesthetic object. Distance does not imply complete detachment. It allows the audience to view the work free from overly personal identifications and experience its contents fully and freely | 2 | |
| 5040617168 | Allegory | The concrete presentation of an abstract idea with at least two levels of meaning- The surface storyline and the political, philosophical, or religious meaning | 3 | |
| 5040634043 | Alliosis | Presenting alternatives: "You can eat well or you can sleep well." While such a structure often results in the logical fallacy of the false dichotomy or the either/or fallacy, it can create a cleverly balanced and artistic sentence | 4 | |
| 5040659984 | Alliteration | The repetition of sounds in a sequence of words. Alliteration often refers to repeated initial consonant sounds | 5 | |
| 5040670828 | Allusion | An indirect reference, often to a person, event, statement, theme, or work. Allusions enrich meaning through the connotations they carry | 6 | |
| 5101345443 | Ambiguity | Lack of clarity or uncertainty in meaning. May be intentional or unintentional, and the richness and complexity of literary works depend to a great extent on ambiguity, which can be used to create alternate meanings or levels of meaning. | 7 | |
| 5101403501 | Amplification | A rhetorical figure involving a dramatic ordering of words, often emphasizing some sort of expansion or progression. | 8 | |
| 5101485441 | Anacoluthon | Intentional disruption of syntax to create intensity, excitement, confusion. | 9 | |
| 5101505441 | Anagnorisis | The moment in a drama when the protagonist discovers something that either leads to or explains a reversal of fortune. | 10 | |
| 5101544631 | Analepsis | The evocation in a narrative of scenes or events that took place at an earlier point in the story, (Flashback) | 11 | |
| 5101573508 | Anapest | A metrical foot in poetry that consists of three syllables. Two unstressed followed by a stressed. DEE-DEE-DUM | 12 | |
| 5101599935 | Anaphora | An exact repetition of words or phrases at the beginning of successive lines or sentences. | 13 | |
| 5101643347 | Anapodoton | Deliberately creating a sentence fragment by the omission of a clause | 14 | |
| 5101697919 | Anecdote | A brief account of some interesting or entertaining and often humorous incident. | 15 | |
| 5101783211 | Antagonist | The character pitted against the protagonist | 16 | |
| 5101792825 | Antanaclasis | The stylistic scheme of repeating a single word, but with a different meaning each time. From Shakespeare: "for many a thousand widows/ Shall this his mock mock out of their dear husbands; Mock mothers from their sons, mock castles down." Or, "Police police police." | 17 | |
| 5101810155 | Anticlimax | Rhetorical descent, usually sudden, from a higher to a lower emotional point--from a topic or tone with greater drama or significance to one with less impact or importance. Anticlimax typically results in disappointment or reversal of expectations. An example would be the last ten chapters of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. | 18 | |
| 5101814923 | Antihero | A protagonist who does not exhibit the typical qualities of the traditional hero. Instead of being grand or admirable (brave, honest, magnanimous) an antihero can be ordinary, petty, or a criminal. Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman. | 19 | |
| 5101820908 | Antimetabole | Repetition in reverse order: "One should eat to live, not live to eat." Or, "You like it; it likes you." The witches in Macbeth chant, "Fair is foul and foul is fair." | 20 | |
| 5101845780 | Antithesis | A rhetorical figure in which two ideas are directly opposed. Totalitarianism and freedom are antithetical concepts. | 21 | |
| 5101848965 | Aphorism | A concise, pointed, epigrammatic statement that purports to reveal a truth or principle. Aphorisms can be attributed to a specific person. "All you need is love" (The Beatles). "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet" (William Shakespeare). Once a statement is so widely known that authorship is lost, it is called a proverb. "It takes a village to raise a child." A statement that gives behavioral advice is called a maxim. "The early bird gets the worm. | 22 | |
| 5101872615 | Aposiopesis | A figure of speech wherein a sentence is deliberately broken off and left unfinished, the ending to be supplied by the imagination, giving an impression of unwillingness or inability to continue. An example would be the threat "Get out, or else—!" This device often portrays its users as overcome with passion (fear, anger, excitement) or modesty. Typically indicated by ellipses (...) or a dash (--). | 23 | |
| 5101880274 | Apostrophe | When a character speaks to a character or object that is not present or is unable to respond. The object of the apostrophe, if not human, is usually personified. | 24 | |
| 5101885478 | Archetype | The original model from which something is developed or made; in literary criticism, those images, figures, character types, settings, and story patterns that, according to Carl Jung, are universally shared by people across all cultures. Examples: The snake, the flood, the savior, the blonde guy wearing white with a square jaw and chiseled pecs who shows up at just the right time. | 25 | |
| 5101890577 | Assonance | Repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds. | 26 | |
| 5101893889 | Asyndeton | Using no conjunctions to create an effect of speed or simplicity: Veni. Vidi. Vici. "I came. I saw. I conquered." (As opposed to "I came, and then I saw, and then I conquered.") Been there. Done that. Bought the t-shirt. | 27 | |
| 5101905377 | Atmosphere | The general feeling created for the reader by a work at a given point. Atmosphere is established through elements such as imagery, setting, and sound. Atmosphere is not the same as tone, which is the author's attitude toward the reader, audience, or subject matter. | 28 | |
| 5101914576 | Aubade | A lyric poem delivered at dawn, usually by lovers who must part. Generally a joyful announcement of the new day after an evening of "adult together time." | 29 | |
| 5101920401 | Ballad | A poem that recounts a story--generally some dramatic episode--in the form of a song. | 30 | |
| 5101931102 | Bildungsroman | A novel that recounts the development of an individual from childhood or adolescence to maturity, to the point at which the protagonist recognizes his or her place in the world. Examples: Great Expectations, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Invisible Man, The Outsiders, The Spider-Man story. | 31 | |
| 5101944314 | Blank verse | Name for unrhymed iambic pentameter. An iamb is a metrical foot in which an unstressed syllable is followed by a stressed syllable. In iambic pentameter there are five iambs per line making ten syllables. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0aAWuUX5jU | 32 | |
| 5101952383 | Cacophony | Harsh, unpleasant, or discordant sounds. Opposite of euphony. An example of discordant sounds found in poetry would be Hart Crane's poem "The Bridge" (1930), which uses cacophony to communicate the chaos and evil in the industrial world: | 33 | |
| 5101957691 | Caesura | A pause in a line of poetry | 34 | |
| 5101959918 | Canon | A body of written works accepted as authoritative or authentic. | 35 | |
| 5101968799 | Catachresis | A term referring to the incorrect or strained use of a word. | 36 | |
| 5101976094 | Catharsis | The emotional effect a tragic drama has on its audience. | 37 | |
| 5101988638 | Character | A figure in a literary work. A flat character is defined by a single idea or quality. A round character has the three-dimensional complexity of a real person. | 38 | |
| 5138798041 | Cliche | An expression used so often (and often out of context) that it has lost its original impact. Ex: "Under the weather" for being ill and "show me the money" for greedy enthusiasm. | 39 | |
| 5138815105 | Climax | The turning point or the high point of action | 40 | |
| 5138818621 | Colloquial | Informal, conversational language. Colloquialisms are phrases or sayings that are indicative of a specific region. | 41 | |
| 5138821884 | Concrete | Opposite of abstract. Concrete terms refer to specific people, places, events, or things. If you can put it in a jar (even if it is painful), it is concrete. | 42 | |
| 5138827983 | Confessional poetry | A contemporary poetic mode in which poets discuss matters relating to their private lives. Confessional poets use intimate detail and often psychoanalytic terms to describe their most painful experiences. Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath are are pioneers of this style. | 43 | |
| 5138831045 | Conflict | A confrontation or struggle between opposing characters or forces in the plot of a narrative work, from which the action emanates and around which it revolves. | 44 | |
| 5138834664 | Connotation | An idea or meaning suggested by or associated with a word or thing, ie. Bat=evil. | 45 | |
| 5138840791 | Consonance | The repetition of consonant sounds in a phrase or line of poetry. The consonant sound may be at the beginning, middle, or end of the word. | 46 | |
| 5138843771 | Contraction | Removes an unstressed syllable and in order to maintain the rhythmic meter of a line. This practice explains some words frequently used in poetry such as th' in place of the, o'er in place of over, and 'tis or 'twas in place of it is or it was. | 47 | |
| 5138847985 | Convention | An understanding between a reader and a writer about certain details of a story that does not need to be explained. | 48 | |
| 5138850830 | Couplet | Two rhyming lines in poetry | 49 | |
| 5138858420 | Dactyl | A metrical foot in poetry that consists of one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed ones. Most nursery rhymes are dactylic: "Pat-a-cake, Pat-a-cake, Baker's man." | 50 | |
| 5138861214 | Denotation | A word's literal meaning(s), independent of any connotations; the dictionary definition of a word. | 51 | |
| 5138866926 | Denouement | The final resolution or clarification of a dramatic or narrative plot. | 52 | |
| 5138872315 | Deus ex machina | Term that refers to a character or force that appears at the end of a story or play to help resolve conflict. Word means "god from a machine." In ancient Greek drama, gods were lowered onto the stage by a mechanism to extricate characters from a seemingly hopeless situation. The phrase has come to mean any turn of events that solve the characters' problems through an unexpected and unlikely intervention. | 53 | |
| 5138879073 | Dialogue | Conversation between two or more characters in a literary work. | 54 | |
| 5138882698 | Diction | A speaker or author's word choice. The general type or character of language used in speech or in a work of literature. | 55 | |
| 5138892224 | Didactic | Instructive or providing information for a particular purpose. "Teachy." | 56 | |
| 5138896488 | Dissonance | Harsh, discordant sounds. | 57 | |
| 5138899576 | Domesticity | An aspect of patriarchal, nineteenth-century doctrine of separate spheres, according to which a woman's place was in the privacy of the home, whereas a man's place was in the wider, public world. | 58 | |
| 5138906825 | Ekphrasis | Literary representation of a response to a visual work or art, such as a painting or sculpture. | 59 | |
| 5138910393 | Elektra Complex | The desire a female child feels toward the male parent, from the ancient Greek legend of Elektra, who convinced her brother to kill their mother to avenge their father's murder. | 60 | |
| 5138915479 | Elegy | A poem or song composed especially as a lament for a deceased person. | 61 | |
| 5138918912 | Enallage | Intentionally misusing grammar to characterize a speaker or to create a memorable phrase. Boxing manager Joe Jacobs, for instance, became immortal with the phrase, "We was robbed!" Or, the editors of Punch magazine might tell their British readers, "You pays your money, and you takes your chances." | 62 | |
| 5138923185 | End Rhyme | Rhyme that occurs at the end of lines in verse. The last word of the line rhymes with the last word of another line. | 63 | |
| 5138928150 | End-Stopped Line | A line of poetry whose meaning is complete in itself and that ends with a grammatical pause marked by punctuation. | 64 | |
| 5138931701 | English (Shakespearean) Sonnet | A 14-line sonnet consisting of three quatrains with a rhyme scheme of abab cdcd efef, followed by a couplet, gg. | 65 | |
| 5138934911 | Enjambment | A poetic statement that spans more than one line. | 66 | |
| 5138937936 | Epigraph | A passage printed on the first page of a literary work, taken from earlier texts, to establish the tone or theme of what follows. | 67 | |
| 5138943423 | Epilogue | The concluding section of a work. | 68 | |
| 5138946451 | Epiphany | Sudden enlightenment or realization, a profound new outlook or understanding about the world usually attained while doing everyday mundane activities. | 69 | |
| 5138948837 | Epistolary Novel | A novel that tells its story through letters written from one character to another. Ex: Perks of Being a Wallflower | 70 | |
| 5138952795 | Epistrophe | Epistrophe | 71 | |
| 5138955405 | Epithet | An adjective or phrase applied to a noun to accentuate a certain characteristic. Ex: The Founding Fathers; Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen, that Mr. Rogers-looking fool. | 72 | |
| 5138958584 | Euphony | A succession of words which are pleasing to the ear. These words may be alliterative, utilize consonance or assonance, and are often used in poetry but also seen in prose. Opposite of cacophony. | 73 | |
| 5138964331 | Euphemism | The act of substituting a harsh, blunt, or offensive comment for a more politically accepted or positive one. | 74 | |
| 5138966841 | Fable | A usually short narrative making an edifying or cautionary point and often employing as characters animals that speak and act like humans. | 75 | |
| 5138968813 | Falling action | In a tragedy, the portion of the plot that follows the climax or the crisis and that leads to or culminates in the catastrophe. In other genres, it leads to the resolution of the plot. | 76 | |
| 5138974132 | Figurative language | Speech or writing that departs from literal meaning in order to achieve a special effect or meaning. Speech or writing employing figures of speech. | 77 | |
| 5138976299 | Foil | A character that by contrast underscores or enhances the distinctive characteristics of another. | 78 | |
| 5138979570 | Foot | The metrical length of a line is determined by the number of feet it contains. Monometer: One foot Dimeter: Two feet Trimeter: Three feet Tetrameter: Four feet Pentameter: Five feet Hexameter: Six feet Heptameter: Seven feet The most common feet have two to three syllables, with one stressed. Iamb- An iambic foot has two syllables. The first is unstressed and the second is stressed. The iambic foot is most common in English poetry. (re/spect) Trochee- A trochaic foot has two syllables. The first is stressed and the second is unstressed. (bum/mer, Free/burg, Pass/ler) Dactyl- A dactylic foot has three syllables beginning with a stressed syllable; the other two unstressed. (ec/sta/cy) Anapest- An anapestic foot has three syllables. The first two are unstressed with the third stressed. (con/tra/dict) | 79 | |
| 5138985347 | Foregrounding | Giving prominence to something in a literary work that would not be accentuated in ordinary discourse. An example would be Zora Neale Hurston's "foregrounding of language and culture in her fiction, dramatizing vernacular ways of speaking that are so independent, dynamic, and expressive that they cross over, challenge, and transform mainstream dialects." | 80 | |
| 5138989325 | Foreshadowing | Introducing into narrative material that prepares the reader for future events, actions, or revelations. Foreshadowing often helps to create mood and atmosphere. | 81 | |
| 5138993568 | Formalism | A style of literary criticism from the 30s. It's what we do for AP: the literary work is an object in its own right. We analyze what's on the page, not the author's life or social forces. This allows us to deal with any piece of literature, whether we are familiar with the context or author or not. | 82 | |
| 5138999831 | Frame story | A story that contains another story or stories. Usually the frame story explains why the interior story or stories are being told | 83 | |
| 5139002080 | Free verse | Poetry that lacks a regular meter, does not rhyme, and uses irregular line lengths. Writers of free verse disregard traditional poetic conventions and rely instead on parallelism, repetition, and the ordinary cadences and stresses of everyday discourse. | 84 | |
| 5139004515 | Freytag's pyramid | Gustav Freytag's conception of the typical structure of a five-act play: introduction, rising action, climax, falling action, catastrophe. | 85 | |
| 5139009879 | Genre | The classification of literary works on the basis of their content, form, or technique. Ex: Prose/Poetry, Epic/Drama/Lyric, Comedy/Tragedy/Pastoral/Satire | 86 | |
| 5139012307 | Gothic | A genre characterized by a general mood of decay, suspense, and terror; action that is dramatic and generally violent or otherwise disturbing; loves that are destructively passionate; and landscapes that are grandiose, if gloomy or bleak. Ex: Edgar Allan Poe, Dracula, Frankenstein. | 87 | |
| 5139018144 | Grotesque | Strangely unusual things, bizarre or unnatural combinations of characteristics or images. | 88 | |
| 5139022104 | Hagiography | Originally a biography recounting a saint's life. Now hagiography can refer to writing about a revered individual. Ex: "Michael Jordan's hagiographers were unwilling to admit he was a style trainwreck." | 89 | |
| 5139027221 | Hamartia | An error in judgment made by a tragic hero that brings about the suffering, downfall, and often death of that hero. | 90 | |
| 5139030554 | Harlem Renaissance | An intellectual and cultural movement of the 1920s centered in Harlem, then a predominantly African American section of New York City. Commonly dated 1919-1937. Significant writers include: Langston Hughes, WEB DuBois, Jean Toomer, Zora Neale Hurston, Dorothy West, Nella Larsen, Countee Cullen. | 91 | |
| 5139033052 | Hendiadys | The expression of an idea by the use of usually two independent words connected by and (as nice and warm) instead of the usual combination of independent word and its modifier (as nicely warm). | 92 | |
| 5139035865 | Hero/Heroine | Synonymous with protagonist, a hero or heroine is the main character of the work. | 93 | |
| 5139040935 | Hubris | Used in Greek tragedies, refers to excessive pride that usually leads to a hero's downfall. | 94 | |
| 5139044599 | Hypallage | Also known as a transferred epithet, is the trope in which a modifier, usually an adjective, is applied to the "wrong" word in the sentence. The word whose modifier is thus displaced can either be actually present in the sentence, or it can be implied logically. The effect often stresses the emotions or feelings of the individual by expanding them on to the environment. Ex: "restless night," "clumsy helmet," "happy morning." | 95 | |
| 5139048039 | Hyperbaton | A generic term for changing the normal or expected order of words. "One ad does not a survey make." The term comes from the Greek for "overstepping" because one or more words "overstep" their normal position and appear elsewhere. For instance, Milton in Paradise Lost might write, "High on a throne of royal gold . . . Satan exalted sat." In normal, everyday speech, we would expect to find, "High on a throne of royal gold . . . Satan sat exalted." | 96 | |
| 5139052117 | Hyperbole | A figure of speech in which exaggeration is used for emphasis or comic/dramatic effect. | 97 | |
| 5139055768 | Lamb | A metrical foot in poetry that consists of one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable. Ex: afloat, respect, in love. | 98 | |
| 5139058516 | Idyll | A narrative work, usually short, descriptive, and composed in verse that depicts and exalts pastoral scenes and themes. The simple shepherd's life is a typical subject. Often composed from the viewpoint of a "civilized" society that longs for something more primal, natural, or innocent. | 99 | |
| 5139081435 | Imagery | The use of vivid or figurative language to represent objects, actions, or ideas. | 100 | |
| 5139084845 | In Medias Res | A literary technique of beginning the narrative in the middle of the action. Used to "hook" the reader or audience. | 101 | |
| 5139098175 | Interior Monologue | A literary technique for rendering stream of consciousness by reproducing a character's mental flow. Presents thoughts, emotions, and sensations as experienced by the character. | 102 | |
| 5139104425 | Internal Rhyme | A rhyme that occurs within a line of verse. Ex: "They took some honey and plenty of money/Wrapped in a five-pound note." | 103 | |
| 5139111699 | Intertextuality | The condition of interconnectedness among texts, or the concept that any text is an amalgam of others, either because it exhibits signs of influence or because its language inevitably contains common points of reference with other texts through such things as allusion, quotation, genre, style, and even revisions. | 104 | |
| 5139114120 | Inversion | An intentional digression from ordinary word order which is used to maintain regular meters. For example, rather than saying "the rain came" a poem may say "came the rain". Meters can be formed by the insertion or absence of a pause. | 105 | |
| 5139116854 | Irony | When one thing should occur, is apparent, or in logical sequence, but the opposite occurs. A man in the ocean might say, "Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink." Dramatic Irony: When the audience or reader knows something characters do not know Verbal Irony: When one thing is said, but something else, usually the opposite, is meant Cosmic Irony: When a higher power toys with human expectations | 106 | |
| 5139120179 | Italian (Petrarchan) Sonnet | A poem with fourteen lines. An Italian sonnet subdivides into two quatrains and two tercets (or an octave which presents a problem and a sestet which ponders a solution). Rhyme scheme is typically ABBAABBA followed by CDCDCD or a (variation). A contemporary one: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/244570 | 107 | |
| 5139123575 | Litotes | A trope that involves making an affirmation by negating its opposite. "Not unkind" means "kind." "Not bad" usually means "good." | 108 | |
| 5139126254 | Loose Sentence | A complex sentence in which an independent clause is followed by one or more other elements. It is syntactically complete on the front end. Loose sentences are less formal, more conversational, and more common in English than periodic sentences. | 109 | |
| 5139129603 | Meiosis | A trope involving deliberate understatement, usually for comic, ironic, or satiric effect. Typically involves characterizing something in a way that, taken literally, minimizes its gravity. Ex: "One nuclear bomb can ruin your whole day." | 110 | |
| 5139132127 | Metaphor | A figure of speech that associates two distinct things without using a connective word. Ex: "That child is a wet napkin." | 111 | |
| 5139134268 | Metaplasmus | A type of neologism in which misspelling a word creates a rhetorical effect. To emphasize dialect, one might spell dog as "dawg." To emphasize that something is unimportant, we might add -let or -ling at the end of the word, referring to a deity as a "godlet", or a prince as a "princeling." To emphasize the feminine nature of something normally considered masculine, try adding -ette to the end of the word, creating a smurfette or a corvette. To modernize something old, the writer might turn the Greek god Hermes into the Hermenator. Likewise, Austin Powers renders all things shagedelic. The categories following this entry are subdivisions of metaplasmus. I remember these by thinking about adding PEP. Prosthesis--adding an extra syllable or letters to the beginning of a word: Shakespeare writes in his sonnets, "All alone, I beweep my outcast state." He could have simply wrote weep, but beweep matches his meter and is more poetic. Too many students are all afrightened by the use of prosthesis. Prosthesis creates a poetic effect, turning a run-of-the-mill word into something novel. Epenthesis--Epenthesis (also called infixation) -- adding an extra syllable or letters in the middle of a word. Shakespeare might write, "A visitating spirit came last night" to highlight the unnatural status of the visit. More prosaically, Ned Flanders from The Simpsons might say, "Gosh-diddly-darn-it, Homer." Proparalepsis--adding an extra syllable or letters to the end of a word. For instance, Shakespeare in Hamlet creates the word climature by adding the end of the word temperature to climate (1.1.12). The wizardly windbag Glyndwr (Glendower) proclaims that he "can call spirits from the vasty deep" in 1 Henry IV (3.1.52). Aphaeresis--deleting a syllable from the beginning of a word to create a new word. For instance, in King Lear, we hear that, "the king hath cause to plain" (3.1.39). Here, the word complain has lost its first syllable. In Hamlet 2.2.561, Hamlet asks, "Who should 'scape whipping" if every man were treated as he deserved, but the e- in escape has itself cleverly escaped from its position! Syncope--deleting a syllable or letter from the middle of a word. For instance, in Cymbeline, Shakespeare writes of how, "Thou thy worldy task hast done, / Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages" (4.2.258). In 2 Henry IV, we hear a flatterer say, "Your lordship, though not clean past your youth, hath yet some smack of age in you, some relish of the saltness of time" (1.2.112). Here, the -i- in saltiness has vanished to create a new word. Syncope is particularly common in poetry, when desperate poets need to get rid of a single syllable to make their meter match in each line. Apocope--deleting a syllable or letter from the end of a word. In The Merchant of Venice, one character says, "when I ope my lips let no dog bark," and the last syllable of open falls away into ope before the reader's eyes (1.1.93-94). In Troilus and Cressida, Shakespeare proclaims, "If I might in entreaties find success--/ As seld I have the chance--I would desire / My famous cousin to our Grecian tents" (4.5.148). Here the word seldom becomes seld. | 112 | |
| 5139139880 | Meter | The measured arrangement of words in poetry, as by accentual rhythm, syllabic quantity, or the number of syllables in a line. | 113 | |
| 5139143032 | Metonymy | The use of a word or phrase to stand in for something else which it is often physically associated. ie. Hollywood for US cinema, the Crown for UK government, the White House, City Hall. | 114 | |
| 5139145399 | Mood | The general feeling created for the reader by a work at a given point. Mood is established through elements such as imagery, setting, and sound. Mood is not the same as tone, which is the author's attitude toward the reader, audience, or subject matter. | 115 | |
| 5139148012 | Motif | A recurrent, unifying element in an artistic work, such as an image, symbol, character type, action, idea, object, or phrase. | 116 | |
| 5139152948 | Myth | A traditional anonymous story, originally religious in nature, told by a particular cultural group in order to explain a natural or cosmic phenomenon. Myths are distinguished from legends (adventures of a human cultural hero like Robin Hood) and fables (which have a moral, didactic purpose and often feature animals). | 117 | |
| 5139155345 | Narrator | A speaker through whom an author presents a narrative. Narrators are classified by point of view: first-person--the author, the protagonist, another character, a witness to the action. "I'm on the ramp." second-person--the narrator refers to the reader as "you," making the reader a part of the story. "You are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning. But here you are, and you cannot say the terrain is entirely unfamiliar, although the details are fuzzy. You are at a nightclub talking to a girl with a shaved head. The club is either Heartbreak or the Lizard Lounge." third-person omniscient--each and every character is referred to by the narrator as "he", "she", "it", or "they." An omniscient narrator has knowledge of all times, people, places, and events, including all characters' thoughts. third-person limited--a limited narrator may know absolutely everything about a single character and every piece of knowledge in that character's mind, but the narrator's knowledge is "limited" to that character — that is, the narrator cannot describe things unknown to the focal character. Narrators are also classified by whether or not they are intrusive (opinionated), unintrusive (detached), reliable, unreliable, self-conscious or self-effacing. | 118 | |
| 5139159637 | Novel | A lengthy fictional prose narrative. | 119 | |
| 5139162168 | Novella | A shorter fictional prose narrative that ranges from 50-100 pages in length. | 120 | |
| 5139164498 | Occupatio | Literally "seizing," occupatio is the rhetorical figure of bringing up and responding to a counterpoint before the opponent has the chance to make it. Ex: "Now mom, I know you're going to say that if I join the Dungeons and Dragons club it may damage my social life, but Sheila and Tracy are already members!" This is opposed to apophasis, where the rhetorician feigns unwillingness to discuss a topic he or she is interested in. | 121 | |
| 5139167178 | Octave | An eight-line stanza. More specifically, the first eight lines of an italian sonnet. May pose a question or a dilemma that the sestet answers. | 122 | |
| 5139169616 | Ode | A relatively long, serious, and usually meditative lyric poem that treats a noble subject in a dignified or calm manner. | 123 | |
| 5139172011 | Oedipus Complex | The desire a young child feels for the opposite-sex parent and the hostility the child correspondingly feels toward the same-sex parent. Based on the Greek legend of Oedipus, who blinds himself after discovering that he killed his dad and then married his mother. | 124 | |
| 5139178340 | Onomatopoeia | Words that seem to signify meaning through sound effects. Ex: Hiss, sizzle, pop, moo, purr, quack, beep. | 125 | |
| 5139183069 | Other | A person or category of people seen as different from the dominant social group. Almost any ideology involves the classification of some group as the Other, often by virtue of race, class, gender, sexuality, or other characteristic. This practice often results in marginalization and oppression of that group. | 126 | |
| 5139186485 | Parable | A short, realistic, but usually fictional story told to illustrate a moral or religious point or lesson; a type of allegory. | 127 | |
| 5139189861 | Paradox | A statement that seems self-contradictory, but expresses an underlying truth. Ex: "It became necessary to destroy the town in order to save it." Or, from the Tao Te Ching: "My words are easy to know and practice, but there is no one in the world who is able to know and practice them." | 128 | |
| 5139197654 | Paralipsis | A rhetorical figure involving a speaker's assertion that he or she will not discuss something that he or she in fact goes on to discuss. | 129 | |
| 5139202460 | Parataxis/Paratactic Style | A sequence of sentences bearing only a loose logical relation to one another. Elements within those sentences tend to be joined by simple conjunctions (like and) that do little to show or explain causal or temporal relations. Another way to think about it is that all of the sentences carry the same weight. Ex: "There were no rooms at the inn. We drove farther until we found a hotel. It was raining heavily and we got soaked on the way to the door. Our socks stank of mildew. We ate dinner there and talked little." | 130 | |
| 5139205145 | Pastoral | A literary mode historically and conventionally associated with shepherds and country living. | 131 | |
| 5139216905 | Pentameter | A line of verse with five metrical feet. The most common line length in English verse. Ex: "Deer walk | upon | our moun | tains, and | the quail |" | 132 | |
| 5139246582 | Periodic Sentence | A complex sentence that is not syntactically complete until its very end. The opposite of a loose sentence. | 133 | |
| 5139249182 | Periphrasis | A roundabout way of speaking or writing. The term is often used pejoratively to designate pompous or wordy writing. Ex: Ronald Reagan once called a lie a "terminological inexactitude." | 134 | |
| 5139251331 | Personification | A figure of speech in which human characteristics are bestowed upon anything nonhuman. | 135 | |
| 5139254404 | Plot | The arrangement and interrelation of events in a narrative work, chosen and designed to engage the reader's attention and interest, while also providing a framework for the exposition of the author's message or theme. | 136 | |
| 5139258342 | Poetic diction | The choice and phrasing of words deemed suitable for verse. Ex: "Ere," "thrice," "thou." | 137 | |
| 5139260965 | Poetic justice | The idea that virtuous and evil actions are ultimately dealt with justly, with virtue rewarded and evil punished." | 138 | |
| 5139264944 | Poetic License | The linguistic liberty taken by poets in composing verse. They can do unusual things, break rules, etc. | 139 | |
| 5139267267 | Point of View | The vantage point from which a narrative is told. | 140 | |
| 5139271608 | Polysyndeton | Polysyndeton is the use of several conjunctions in close succession, especially where some might be omitted (as in "he ran and jumped and laughed for joy"). It is a stylistic scheme used to achieve a variety of effects: it can increase the rhythm of prose, speed or slow its pace, convey solemnity or even ecstasy and childlike exuberance. Another common use of polysyndeton is to create a sense of being overwhelmed, or in fact directly overwhelm the audience by using conjunctions, rather than commas, leaving little room for a reader to breathe. Ex: "We ate well and cheaply and drank well and cheaply and slept well and warm together and loved each other." --Ernest Hemingway | 141 | |
| 5139273728 | Postcolonial Literature | The body of literature written by authors with roots in countries that were once colonies established by European nations. Postcolonial Theory explores the situation of colonized peoples both during and after colonization. | 142 | |
| 5139277024 | Postmodernist Literature | A term referring to radically experimental works produced after WWII. Much of postmodernist writing reveals and highlights the alienation of individuals and the meaninglessness of human existence. | 143 | |
| 5139279455 | Prose Poem | A brief, rhythmic composition blending prose and verse, ranging from several lines to several pages. Prose poems are written in sentences and do not have line breaks. | 144 | |
| 5139281377 | Protagonist | The main character of a work; usually the hero or heroine, but sometimes an antihero. | 145 | |
| 5139283358 | Quatrain | A stanza containing four lines. | 146 | |
| 5139283503 | Refrain | A phrase, line, or lines that recur(s) throughout the poem or song. It may vary slightly, but is usually exactly the same. When the refrain is meant to be repeated or sung by a group of people, it is called a chorus. | 147 | |
| 5139286490 | Resolution | The culmination of a fictional plot. | 148 | |
| 5139289715 | Rhyme | An echoing of similar sounds in words. | 149 | |
| 5139292820 | Rhyme Scheme | The pattern of rhyme in a poem or stanza. | 150 | |
| 5139295265 | Rhythm | The measured flow of words, signifying the basic beat or pattern in language that is established by stressed syllables, unstressed syllables, and pauses. | 151 | |
| 5139297645 | Rising Action | The part of a drama that follows the inciting moment and precedes the climax. During the rising action, the plot becomes more complicated and the conflict intensifies. | 152 | |
| 5139299968 | Round Character | Characters which are fully developed, with the complexity and depth associated with real people. They can surprise readers convincingly and have full-blown personalities complete with contractions and quirks that make it difficult to describe them reductively. | 153 | |
| 5139303595 | Satire | A literary genre or mode that uses irony, wit, and sometimes sarcasm to expose humanity's vices and foibles. Corrective ridicule. | 154 | |
| 5139306362 | Scansion | The analysis of poetic meter, the more or less regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables found in verse. | 155 | |
| 5139308969 | Setting | The combination of place, historical time, and social milieu that provides the general background for the characters and plot of a literary work. | 156 | |
| 5139311607 | Sestet | Any six-line poem or stanza. More specifically, the last six lines of an Italian sonnet, which typically answer or resolve the question or problem posed in the octave | 157 | |
| 5139315012 | Sibilance | A type of alliteration involving repetition or the consonant s or other letters and letter combinations such as c (cent), ch (chalet), sh (shade), and z (zip). | 158 | |
| 5139317852 | Simile | A figure of speech comparing two distinct things using like or as. If you want to nerd out, like connects the vehicle (image used to represent the subject) and the tenor (subject). In "that child is like a cylcone," child is the tenor and cyclone is the vehicle. Slant rhyme | 159 | |
| 5139319988 | Soliloquy | A monologue delivered by a character while alone on the stage that reveals inner thoughts, emotions, or information that the audience needs to know. | 160 | |
| 5139322557 | Stanza | A grouped set of lines in a poem., usually separated from other such clusters by a blank line. | 161 | |
| 5139324990 | Stream of Consciousness | A literary technique featuring the mental flow of one or more characters. This flow is more determined by free association than by logic or grammatical rules. May seem fragmented, illogical, or inchoherent. | 162 | |
| 5139327185 | Stress | The emphasis placed on a syllable. In the last name "Freeburg," the first syllable is stressed. | 163 | |
| 5139330876 | Style | The way in which a literary work is written. Produced by the message the author communicates to the plus how the author chooses to present it. | 164 | |
| 5139333183 | Surrealism | A literary and artistic movement whose proponents view the unconscious mind as the source of imaginative expression and who seek to liberate the mind from the constraints of reason, convention, self-censorship, and conscious control. Characterized by unusual sequencing and syntax, free association, fantastic/nightmarish images, and the juxtaposition of jarringly incongruous elements. Maya Deren's film Meshes of the Afternoon is a great visual example. | 165 | |
| 5139336219 | Symbol | Something concrete that stands for something larger and/or more complex--often an idea or a range of interrelated ideas, attitudes, and practices. The Golden Arches represent McDonald's, and to much of the world, American culture. | 166 | |
| 5139336512 | Synesthesia | The condition where one kind of sensory stimulus evokes the subjective experience of another. Ex: "heavy silence," "icy tone," "red hot." | 167 | |
| 5139339757 | Synecdoche | A figure of speech where a part of something represents the whole. Ex: calling a car your "wheels," referring to the violins and cellos as "the strings," senior citizens as "greyheads," football as "pigskin," etc. | 168 | |
| 5139342575 | Syntax | The arrangement--the ordering, grouping, and placement--of words within a phrase, clause or sentence. Syntax is one of two components of diction (the other is vocabulary). Consider the differences between these examples: "I rode across the meadow" and "Rode I across the sea of grass." | 169 | |
| 5139345594 | Tercet | A group of three lines of verse. | 170 | |
| 5139348252 | Texture | A term referring to the surface details or elements of a work. Texture includes: imagery, meter, rhyme, alliteration, euphony, etc. | 171 | |
| 5139350819 | Theme | The statements that a text seems to be making about its subject. Theme is usually a "big" idea: suffering, freedom, happiness, death, morality. | 172 | |
| 5139352837 | Thesis | The position taken by someone expostulating on a particular topic with the intent of proving that position plausible or correct. A claim. | 173 | |
| 5139356506 | Threnody | A threnody is a song, hymn or poem of mourning composed or performed as a memorial to a dead person. | 174 | |
| 5139359500 | Tone | The attitude of an author toward the reader, audience, or subject matter of a literary work. | 175 | |
| 5139363479 | Tragedy | A serious drama, written in prose or verse, that typically ends in disaster and that focuses on a character who undergoes unexpected personal reversals. | 176 | |
| 5139365689 | Tragic Flaw | A character trait in a tragic hero or heroine that brings about his or her downfall. Arrogance (hubris) is a common tragic flaw. | 177 | |
| 5139367692 | Trochee | A metrical foot in poetry that consists of one stressed syllable followed by one unstressed syllable. | 178 | |
| 5139373467 | Unreliable Narrator | A narrator who, intentionally or unintentionally, fails to provide an accurate report of events or situations and whose credibility is therefore compromised. | 179 | |
| 5139376944 | Verisimilitude | The apparent truthfulness and credibility of a fictional literary work. Works that achieve verisimilitude seem believable to the reader or audience because they mesh with human experience or accord with conventions that enable a suspension of disbelief. | 180 | |
| 5139378928 | Villanelle | A French verse form consisting of nineteen lines grouped in five tercets followed by a quatrain and involving only two rhymes, with the rhyme scheme aba aba aba aba aba abaa. | 181 | |
| 5139381773 | Zeugma | A rhetorical figure where one word or phrase governs or modifies two or more words or phrases. Ex: "Mary likes chocolate, John vanilla." "Lust conquered shame; audacity, fear; madness, reason." | 182 |
