Terms : Hide Images
| 4326716109 | Catharsis | the release of the emotions of pity and fear by the audience at the end of a work | 0 | |
| 4326717942 | Attitude | a speaker's, author's, or character's disposition toward or opinion of the subject | 1 | |
| 4326717943 | Fourth wall | the imaginary wall of the theater stage, broken by an actor to talk directly to the audience about the action of the play. A modern concept, subtly different from a Shakespearean aside. | 2 | |
| 4326723024 | Pathos | a quality of a play's action that stimulates the audience to feel pity for a character. Pathos is always an aspect of tragedy, and may be present in comedy as well. | 3 | |
| 4326723025 | Stock character | flat characters that embody stereotypes such as the "dumb blonde" or the "mean stepfather". They become types rather than individuals. | 4 | |
| 4326725668 | Epiphany | in fiction, when a character suddenly experiences a deep realization about himself or herself; a truth that is grasped in an ordinary manner. | 5 | |
| 4326727796 | Metafiction | a work that explores the nature, structure, logic, status, and function of storytelling within the context of the work itself. | 6 | |
| 4326727797 | In medias res | the common strategy of beginning a story in the middle of the action. | 7 | |
| 4326730837 | Bathos | insincere pathos; a ludicrous descent from the lofty to the commonplace | 8 | |
| 4326732423 | Internal monologue | inner voice; stream of consciousness; a narrative device in which an author allows the audience to literally know a character's thoughts from a first person perspective | 9 | |
| 4327188080 | Fixed form/open form | Fixed form is categorized by the pattern of its lines, meter, rhythm, or stanzas. Open form (free verse) does not conform to established patterns of meter, rhyme, and stanza. | 10 | |
| 4327192428 | Implied metaphor | A subtle comparison; the terms being compared are not specifically explained. "The man brayed his refusal to leave" (he is being compared to a mule). | 11 | |
| 4327195760 | Editorial omniscience | an intrusion by the narrator in order to evaluate a character for a reader | 12 | |
| 4327201067 | Unreliable narrator | Reveals an interpretation of events that is somehow different from the author's own interpretation of those events. | 13 | |
| 4327205485 | assonance/consonance | repetition of vowel sounds in neighboring words/repetition of consonant sounds in neighboring words (NOT rhyme) | 14 | |
| 4327212371 | panegyric | a literary expression of praise—"O Captain! My Captain" by Walt Whitman | 15 | |
| 4327229971 | Juvenalian Satire | after the Roman satirist Juvenal: Formal satire in which the speaker attacks vice and error with contempt and indignation. Juvenalian satire in its realism and its harshness is in strong contrast to Horatian satire. | 16 | |
| 4327232688 | Horatian Satire | after the Roman satirist Horace: Satire in which the voice is indulgent, tolerant, amused, and witty. The speaker holds up to gentle ridicule the absurdities and follies of human beings, aiming at producing in the reader not the anger of a Juvenal, but a wry smile. | 17 | |
| 4328724203 | Paralipsis | drawing attention to something in the act of glossing it over; talking about something by explaining that you're not going to talk about it (a type of irony). "not to mention..." | 18 | |
| 4328727019 | Non sequitur | a statement that does not follow logically the statement that preceded it | 19 | |
| 4328729640 | Caricature | a description or portrayal of a subject (usually a person) using exaggeration of some characteristics and oversimplification of others, in order to poke fun of the subject | 20 | |
| 4328732136 | Travesty | the treatment of a noble and dignified subject in an inappropriately trivial manner (Pyramus and Thisbe in A Midsummer Night's Dream) | 21 | |
| 4328735168 | Double entendre | a figure of speech in which a spoken phrase is devised to be understood in either of two ways. Typically one of the interpretations is rather obvious whereas the other is more subtle (and often ribald). | 22 | |
| 4328738093 | Cad (stock character) | a man whose behavior is unprincipled or dishonorable | 23 | |
| 4328743168 | Fop (stock character) | a pejorative term for a foolish man overly concerned with his appearance and clothes | 24 | |
| 4328746217 | Invective | insulting, abusive, or highly critical language | 25 | |
| 4328748640 | Juxtaposition | placing two contrasting images, ideas, or characters side by side in order to expose the follies of one, the other, or both | 26 | |
| 4328753743 | epigram | a brief witty poem, often satirical | 27 | |
| 4328756784 | deus ex machina | a god who resolves the entanglements of a play by supernatural intervention elegy - a lyric poem that l | 28 | |
| 4328764181 | Neutral omniscience | Narration that allows the characters' thoughts and actions to speak for themselves. | 29 | |
| 4328767547 | Extended metaphor | A sustained comparison in which part or all of a work consists of a series of related metaphors. | 30 | |
| 4328771126 | Archetype | Universal symbols that evoke deep and sometimes unconscious responses in a reader. Common literary archetypes include stories of quests, initiations, scapegoats, descents to the underworld, and ascents to heaven. Also—archetypal character. | 31 | |
| 4328777199 | Denouement | "unraveling"; used to describe the aftermath of a plot climax/turning point | 32 | |
| 4328777224 | Dramatic monologue | a type of lyric poem in which a character (the speaker) addresses a distinct but silent audience imagined to be present in the poem in such a way as to reveal a dramatic situation and, often unintentionally, some aspect of his or her temperament or personality. | 33 | |
| 4328780977 | Chiasmus/Chiastic structure | a figure of speech in which two or more clauses are related to each other through a reversal of structures to make a larger point (not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog). Chiasmus is also used as a plot structure. | 34 | |
| 4328784221 | Reversal/Peripeteia | the point at which the action of the plot turns in an unexpected direction for the protagonist. Oedipus' and Othello's recognitions are also reversals. | 35 | |
| 4328790914 | Exposition | a narrative device, used at the beginning of a work, that provides necessary background information about the characters and their circumstances. | 36 | |
| 4328794869 | Cosmic irony | occurs when a writer uses God, destiny, or fate to dash the hopes and expectations of a character or of humankind in general. | 37 | |
| 4328797569 | Masculine/feminine rhyme | Masculine rhyme describes the rhyming of single-syllable words, or when words of more than one syllable rhyme on the final stressed syllable (defend/contend). Feminine rhyme is the rhyming of a stressed syllable followed by one or more identical unstressed syllables (butter/clutter, gratitude/attitude). | 38 | |
| 4328800195 | Recognition | the moment in a story when previously unknown or withheld information is revealed to the protagonist, resulting in the discovery of the truth of his or her situation and, usually, a decisive change in course for that character. | 39 | |
| 4328805208 | Farce | a form of humor based on exaggerated, improbable incongruities. Farce involves rapid shifts in action and emotion, as well as slapstick comedy and extravagant dialogue. | 40 | |
| 4328809028 | Innuendo | an indirect intimation about a person or thing, especially of a disparaging or a derogatory nature. | 41 | |
| 4328812001 | Ingenue (stock character) | a young woman who is endearingly innocent and wholesome | 42 | |
| 4328816093 | Reversal | taking overused, clichéd ideas and images and reversing them for satirical effect (male/female stereotypes; racial stereotypes—particularly black/white stereotypes) | 43 | |
| 4328820392 | Parallelism, parallel structure, or parallel syntax | the repetition of words, phrases, or sentences to emphasize an idea or a series of ideas | 44 |
