Terms : Hide Images
| 4502132381 | allegory | a story or poem in which characters, settings, and events stand for other people or events or for abstract ideas or qualities | 0 | |
| 4502132382 | alliteration | repetition of the same or similar consonant sounds in words that are closer together | 1 | |
| 4502132383 | allusion | reference to someone or something that is known from history, literature, religion, politics, sports, science, or another branch of culture; an indirect reference to something | 2 | |
| 4502132384 | ambiguity | deliberately suggesting two or more different, and sometimes conflicting, meanings in a work; an event or situation that may be interpreted in more than one way- this is done on purpose by the author, when it is not done on purpose, it is vagueness and detracts from the work | 3 | |
| 4502132385 | analogy | comparison made between two things to show how they are alike | 4 | |
| 4502132386 | anaphora | repetition of a word, phrase, or clause at the beginning of two or more sentences in a row; deliberate repetition which helps make the writer's point more coherent | 5 | |
| 4502132387 | anastrophe | inversion of the usual, normal, or logical order of the parts of a sentence; purpose is rhythm or emphasis or euphony; a fancy word for inversion | 6 | |
| 4502132388 | anecdote | brief story, told to illustrate a point or serve as an example of something, often shows character of an individual | 7 | |
| 4502132389 | antagonist | opponent who struggles against or blocks the hero, or protagonist, in a story | 8 | |
| 4502132390 | antimetabole | repetition of words in successive clauses in reverse grammatical order (called chiasmus in poetry) | 9 | |
| 4502132391 | antithesis | balancing words, phrases, or ideas that are strongly contrasted, often by means of grammatical structure | 10 | |
| 4502132392 | antihero | central character who lacks all the qualities traditionally associated with heroes; may lack courage, grace, intelligence, or moral scruples | 11 | |
| 4502132393 | anthropomorphism | attributing human characteristics to an animal or inanimate object (personification) | 12 | |
| 4502132394 | aphorism | brief, cleverly worded statement that makes a wise observation about life or of a principle or accepted general truth (aka maxim, epigram) | 13 | |
| 4502132395 | apostrophe | calling out to an imaginary, dead, or absent person, or to a place or thing, or a personified abstract idea; if the character is asking a god or goddess for inspiration it is called an invocation | 14 | |
| 4502132396 | apposition | placing in immediately succeeding order of two or more coordinate elements, the latter of which is an explanation, qualification, or modification of the first, often offset by a colon | 15 | |
| 4502132397 | assonance | the repetition of similar vowel sounds followed by different consonant sounds especially in words that are together | 16 | |
| 4502132398 | asyndeton | commas used with conjunction to separate a series of words, thus emphasizing the parts equally | 17 | |
| 4502132399 | balance | constructing a sentence so that both halves are about the same length and important; sentences can be unbalanced to serve a special effect as well | 18 | |
| 4502132400 | characterization | the process by which the writer reveals the personality of a character | 19 | |
| 4502132401 | indirect characterization | the author reveals to the reader what the character is like by describing how the character looks and dresses, by letting the reader hear what the character says, by revealing the character's private thoughts and feelings, by revealing the character's effect on other people (showing how other characters feel or behave toward the character), or by showing the character in action; common in modern lit | 20 | |
| 4502132402 | direct characterization | the author tells us directly what the character is like: sneaky, etc.; romantic style involves this | 21 | |
| 4502132403 | static character | one who does not change much in the course of a story | 22 | |
| 4502132404 | dynamic character | one who changes in some important way as a result of the story's action | 23 | |
| 4502132405 | flat character | has only one or two personality traits, one-dimensional | 24 | |
| 4502132406 | round character | has multiple dimensions to personality; complex, like real people | 25 | |
| 4502132407 | chiasmus | in poetry, a type of rhetorical balance in which the second part is syntactically balanced against the first, but with the parts reversed (flowers are lovely, love is flowerlike); in prose this is called antimetabole | 26 | |
| 4502132408 | cliche | a word or phrase, often a figure of speech, that has become lifeless because of overuse | 27 | |
| 4502132409 | colloquialism | a word or phrase in everyday use in conversation and informal writing but is inappropriate for formal situations | 28 | |
| 4502132410 | comedy | a story that ends with a happy resolution of the conflicts faced by the main character or characters | 29 | |
| 4502132411 | conceit | an elaborate metaphor that compares two things that are startlingly different; often an extended metaphor | 30 | |
| 4502132412 | confessional poetry | a twentieth century term used to describe poetry that uses intimate material from the poet's life | 31 | |
| 4502132413 | conflict | the struggle between opposing forces or characters in a story | 32 | |
| 4502132414 | external conflict | conflicts that exist between two people, between a person and nature or machine, or between a person and society | 33 | |
| 4502132415 | internal conflict | an internal conflict involved opposing forces within a person's mind | 34 | |
| 4502132416 | connotation | the associations and emotional overtones that have become attached to a word or phrase in addition to its strict dictionary definition | 35 | |
| 4502132417 | couplet | two consecutive rhyming lines of poetry | 36 | |
| 4502132418 | dialect | a way of speaking that is characteristic of a certain social group or of the inhabitants of a certain geographical area | 37 | |
| 4502132419 | diction | a speaker or writer's choice of words | 38 | |
| 4502132420 | didactic | form of fiction or nonfiction that teaches a specific lesson or moral or provides a model of correct behavior/thinking | 39 | |
| 4502132421 | elegy | a poem of mourning, usually about someone who has died | 40 | |
| 4502132422 | eulogy | great praise or commendation, a laudatory speech, often about someone who has died | 41 | |
| 4502132423 | epanalepsis | device of repetition in which the same expression (single word or phrase) is repeated both at the beginning and at the end of the line, clause, or sentence (common sense is not so common) | 42 | |
| 4502132424 | 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 | 43 | |
| 4502132425 | epigraph | a quotation or aphorism at the beginning of a literary work suggestive of the theme | 44 | |
| 4502132426 | epistrophe | device of repetition in which the same expression is repeated at the end of two or more lines, clauses, or sentences (opposite of anaphora) | 45 | |
| 4502132427 | epithet | an adjective or adjective phrase applied to a person or thing that is frequently used to emphasize a characteristic quality (father of our country, great Emancipator) | 46 | |
| 4502132428 | homeric epithet | a compound adjective used with a person or thing (swift-footed Achilles, rosy-fingered dawn) | 47 | |
| 4502132429 | essay | a short piece of nonfiction prose in which the writer discusses some aspect of a subject | 48 | |
| 4502132430 | argumentation (persuasion, argument, causal relationship), description, exposition, narrative | essay types | 49 | |
| 4502132431 | persuasion, argument, causal relationship | argumentation essay types | 50 | |
| 4502132432 | argumentation | one of the four forms of discourse which uses logic, ethics, and emotional appeals (logos, ethos, pathos) to convince reader to think or act a certain way | 51 | |
| 4502132433 | persuasion | relies more on emotional appeal than on facts | 52 | |
| 4502132434 | argument | form of persuasion that appeals to reason instead of emotion to convince an audience to think or act in a certain way | 53 | |
| 4502132435 | causal relationship | form of argumentation in which the writer claims that one thing results from another, often used as part of a logical argument | 54 | |
| 4502132436 | description | a form of discourse that uses language to create a mood or emotion | 55 | |
| 4502132437 | exposition | one of the four major forms of discourse in which something is explained or set forth | 56 | |
| 4502132438 | narrative | the form of discourse that tells about a series of events | 57 | |
| 4502132439 | explication | act of interpreting or discovering the meaning of a text, usually involves close reading and special attention to figurative language | 58 | |
| 4502132440 | fable | a very short story told in prose or poetry that teaches a practical lesson about how to succeed in life | 59 | |
| 4502132441 | farce | a type of comedy in which ridiculous and often stereotyped characters are involved in silly, far-fetched situations | 60 | |
| 4502132442 | figurative language | words which are inaccurate if interpreted literally, but are used to describe (include similes and metaphors) | 61 | |
| 4502132443 | flashback | a scene that interrupts the normal chronological sequence of events in a story to depict something that happened at an earlier time | 62 | |
| 4502132444 | foil | a character who acts as a contrast to another character; often a funny sidekick to the dashing hero or a villain contrasting the hero | 63 | |
| 4502132445 | foreshadowing | the use of hints and clues to suggest what will happen later in a plot | 64 | |
| 4502132446 | free verse | poetry that does not conform to a regular meter or rhyme scheme | 65 | |
| 4502132447 | hyperbole | use of incredible exaggeration or overstatement for effect | 66 | |
| 4502132448 | hypotactic | sentence marked by the use of connecting words between the clauses or sentences, explicitly showing the logical or other relationships between them | 67 | |
| 4502132449 | hypotaxis | use of the syntactic subordination explained in definition of hypotactic but of just one clause to another (i am tired because it is hot) | 68 | |
| 4502132450 | imagery | the use of language to evoke a picture or a concrete sensation of a person, a thing, a place, or an experience | 69 | |
| 4502132451 | inversion | the reversal or the normal word order in a sentence or phrase | 70 | |
| 4502132452 | irony | a discrepancy between appearances and reality | 71 | |
| 4502132453 | verbal irony | occurs when someone says one thing but really means another | 72 | |
| 4502132454 | situational irony | takes place when there is a discrepancy between what is expected to happen or what would be appropriate to happen and what really does happen | 73 | |
| 4502132455 | dramatic irony | a character in the story thinks one thing is true but the audience or reader knows better | 74 | |
| 4502132456 | juxtaposition | poetic and rhetorical device in which normally unassociated ideas, words, or phrases are placed next to each other creating surprise and wit (the apparition of these faces in the crowd;/ Petals on a wet, black bough); also a form of contrast by which writers call attention to dissimilar ideas (injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere) | 75 | |
| 4502132457 | litotes | a form of understatement in which the positive form is emphasized through the negation of the negative (not unsubstantial= substantial) | 76 | |
| 4502132458 | local color | a term applied to fiction or poetry which tends to place special emphasis on a particular setting, including its customs, clothing, dialect, and landscape | 77 | |
| 4502132459 | loose sentence | one in which the main clause comes first, followed by further dependent grammatical units (see periodic sentence) (EX: hester gazed after him a little while, looking with a half-fantasitc curiosity to see whether the tender grass of early spring would not be blighted beneath him, and show the wavering track of this footsteps, sere and brown, across its cheerful verdure) | 78 | |
| 4502132460 | lyric poem | a poem that does not tell a story but expresses the personal feelings or thoughts of the speaker | 79 | |
| 4502132461 | ballad | tells a story | 80 | |
| 4502132462 | metaphor | a figure of speech that makes a comparison between two unlike things without the use of such specific words of comparison as like, as, than, or resembles | 81 | |
| 4502132463 | implied metaphor | does not explicitly state the two terms of the comparison | 82 | |
| 4502132464 | extended metaphor | a metaphor that is extended or developed as far as the writer wants to take it (see conceit) | 83 | |
| 4502132465 | dead metaphor | a metaphor that has been used so often that the comparison is no longer vivid (the head of the house, seat of the government) | 84 | |
| 4502132466 | mixed metaphor | a metaphor that has gotten out of control and mixes its terms so that they are visually or imaginatively incompatible (the president is a lame duck who is running out of gas) | 85 | |
| 4502132467 | metonymy | a figure of speech in which a person, place, or thing is referred to by something closely associated with it | 86 | |
| 4502132468 | mood | an atmosphere created by a writer's diction and the details selected | 87 | |
| 4502132469 | motif | a recurring image, word, phrase, action, idea, object, or situation used throughout a work (or in several works for one author), unifying the work by tying the current situation to previous ones or new ideas to the theme | 88 | |
| 4502132470 | motivation | the reasons for a character's behavior | 89 | |
| 4502132471 | onomatopoeia | the use of words whose sounds echo their sense | 90 | |
| 4502132472 | oxymoron | a figure of speech that combines opposite or contradictory terms in a brief phrase | 91 | |
| 4502132473 | parable | a relatively short story that teaches a moral or lesson about how to lead a good life | 92 | |
| 4502132474 | paradox | a statement that appears self-contradictory but reveals a truth | 93 | |
| 4502132475 | koan | a kind of paradox used in Zen Buddhism to gain intuitive knowledge (what is the sound of one hand clapping?) | 94 | |
| 4502132476 | parallel structure | the repetition of words or phrases that have similar grammatical structures | 95 | |
| 4502132477 | paratactic sentence | simply juxtaposes clauses or sentences (I am tired: it is hot) | 96 | |
| 4502132478 | parody | a work that makes fun of another work by imitating some aspect of the writer's style | 97 | |
| 4502132479 | periodic | sentence that places the main idea or central complete though at the end of the sentence, after all introductory elements | 98 | |
| 4502132480 | personification | a figure of speech in which an object or animal is given human feelings, thoughts, or attitudes | 99 | |
| 4502132481 | plot | the series of related events in a story or play, also called storyline | 100 | |
| 4502132482 | exposition, rising action, climax, resolution | parts of the plot | 101 | |
| 4502132483 | climax | the point in a plot that creates the greatest intensity, suspense, or interest (aka turning point) | 102 | |
| 4502132484 | rising action | complications in conflict and situations (may introduce new ones as well) | 103 | |
| 4502132485 | resolution | the conclusion of a story, when all or most of the conflicts have been settled; often called the denouement | 104 | |
| 4502132486 | point of view | the vantage point from which the writer tells the story | 105 | |
| 4502132487 | first person | one of the characters tells the story | 106 | |
| 4502132488 | third person | an unknown narrator tells the story but zooms in to focus on the thoughts and feelings of only one character | 107 | |
| 4502132489 | omniscient | an omniscient or all knowing narrator tells the story, also using the third person pronouns; the narrator often tells everything about many characters | 108 | |
| 4502132490 | objective | a narrator who is totally impersonal and objective tells the story, with no comment on any characters or events | 109 | |
| 4502132491 | polysyndeton | sentence which uses a conjunction with NO commas to separate the items in a series; instead of x, y, and z, polysyndeton results in x and y and z | 110 | |
| 4502132492 | protagonist | the central character in a story, the one who initiates or drives the action; usually the hero or anti-hero | 111 | |
| 4502132493 | hamartia | the tragic flaw leading to downfall (associated with a tragic hero) | 112 | |
| 4502132494 | pun | a play on words based on the multiple meanings of a single word or on words that sound alike but have different meanings | 113 | |
| 4502132495 | quatrain | a poem consisting of four lines, or four lines of a poem that can be considered as a unit | 114 | |
| 4502132496 | refrain | a word, phrase, line, or group of lines that is repeated for effect several times in a poem | 115 | |
| 4502132497 | rhythm | a rise and fall of the voice produced by the alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables in language | 116 | |
| 4502132498 | rhetoric | art of effective communication, especially persuasive discourse | 117 | |
| 4502132499 | rhetorical question | a question asked for an effect, and not actually requiring an answer | 118 | |
| 4502132500 | romance | in general, a story in which an idealized hero or heroine undertakes a quest and is successful | 119 | |
| 4502132501 | satire | a type of writing that ridicules the shortcomings of people or institutions in an attempt to bring about change | 120 | |
| 4502132502 | simile | a figure of speech that makes an explicit comparison between two unlike things, using words such as like, as, than or resembles | 121 | |
| 4502132503 | soliloquy | a long speech made by a character in a play while no other characters are on stage | 122 | |
| 4502132504 | stereotype | a fixed idea or conception of a character or an idea which does not allow for any individuality, often based on religious, social, or racial prejudices | 123 | |
| 4502132505 | stream of consciousness | a style of writing that portrays the inner (often chaotic) workings of a character's mind | 124 | |
| 4502132506 | style | the distinctive way in which a writer uses language; a writer's distinctive use of diction, tone, and syntax | 125 | |
| 4502132507 | suspense | a feeling of uncertainty and curiosity about what will happen next in a story | 126 | |
| 4502132508 | symbol | a person place, thing, or event that has meaning in itself and that also stands for something more than itself | 127 | |
| 4502132509 | synecdoche | a figure of speech in which a part represents the whole ("if you don't drive properly, you will lose your wheels" wheels represent car) | 128 | |
| 4502132510 | syntactic fluency | ability to create a variety of sentence structures, appropriately complex and/or simple and varied in length | 129 | |
| 4502132511 | syntactic permutation | sentence structures that are extraordinarily complex and involved, often difficult for reader to follow | 130 | |
| 4502132512 | tall tale | an outrageously exaggerated, humorous story that is obviously unbelievable | 131 | |
| 4502132513 | telegraphic sentence | a sentence shorter than five words in length | 132 | |
| 4502132514 | theme | the insight about human life that is revealed in a literary work | 133 | |
| 4502132515 | tone | the attitude a writer takes toward the subject of a work, the characters in it, or the audience, revealed through diction, figurative language, and organization | 134 | |
| 4502132516 | tragedy | in general, a story in which a heroic character either dies or comes to some other unhappy end | 135 | |
| 4502132517 | tricolon | sentence of three parts of equal importance and length, usually three independent clauses | 136 | |
| 4502132518 | understatement | a statement that says less than what is meant | 137 | |
| 4502132519 | unity | unified parts of the writing are related to one central idea or organizing principle; dependent upon coherence | 138 | |
| 4502132520 | vernacular | the language spoken by the people who live in a particular locality | 139 | |
| 4502132521 | impressionism | a 19th century movement in literature and art which advocated a recording of the artist's personal impressions of the world rather than a strict representation of reality | 140 | |
| 4502132522 | modernism | a term for the bold new experimental styles and forms that swept the arts during the first third of the twentieth century (1920s-1945) | 141 | |
| 4502132523 | naturalism | a 19th century literary movement that was an extension of realism and that claimed to portray life exactly as it was (lates 1800s-mid 1900s) | 142 | |
| 4502132524 | plain style | writing that stresses simplicity and clarity of expression but will still utilize allusions and metaphors and was the main form of the Puritan writers | 143 | |
| 4502132525 | puritanism | writing style of America's early English-speaking colonists; emphasizes obedience to God and consists mainly of journals, sermons, and poems (1620-1770s) | 144 | |
| 4502132526 | rationalism | a movement that began in Europe in the 17th century, which held that we can arrive at truth by using our reason rather than relying on the authority of the past, on the authority of the Church, or an institution, also called neoclassicism or Age of Reason (1770s-early 1800s) | 145 | |
| 4502132527 | realism | a style of writing, developed in the 19th century that attempts to depict life accurately without idealized or romanticizing it (1850s-early 1900s) | 146 | |
| 4502132528 | regionalism | literature that emphasizes a specific geographic setting and that reproduces the speech, behavior, and attitudes of the people who live in that region (1884-early 1900s) | 147 | |
| 4502132529 | romanticism | a revolt against rationalism that affected literature and the other arts, beginning in the late 18th century and remaining strong throughout most of the nineteenth century (early 1800s-1870s) | 148 | |
| 4502132530 | surrealism | a movement in art and literature that started in Europe during the 1920s; wanted to replace conventional realism with the full expression of the unconscious mind, which they considered to be more real than the "real" world of appearances | 149 | |
| 4502132531 | symbolism | a literary movement that originated in late nineteenth century France, in which writers rearranged the world of appearances in order to reveal a more truthful version of reality | 150 | |
| 4502132532 | transcendentalism | a 19th century movement in the Romantic tradition, which held that every individual can reach ultimate truths through spiritual intuition, which transcends reasons and sensory experience | 151 | |
| 4502132533 | archetype | a typical character, an action or a situation that seems to represent such universal patterns of human nature (also known as universal symbol and may be a character, theme, symbol, or setting) | 152 | |
| 4502132534 | aside | a short comment or speech that a character delivers directly to the audience or to himself, while other actors on the stage cannot listen; reveals private opinions and reactions of the character | 153 | |
| 4502132535 | atmosphere | emotions or feelings an author conveys to his readers through description of objects and settings | 154 | |
| 4502132536 | bildungsroman | a kind of novel that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of its main character from his or her youth to adulthood | 155 | |
| 4502132537 | blank verse | un-rhyming verse written in iambic pentameter | 156 | |
| 4502132538 | cacophony | the use of words with a sharp, harsh, hissing, and unmelodious sounds primarily those of consonants | 157 | |
| 4502132539 | caesura | a rhythmical pause in a poetic line or a sentence | 158 | |
| 4502132540 | canon (literary canon) | traditional collection of writings against which other writings or evaluated (also writings included in anthologies or the literary writings of a particular writer) | 159 | |
| 4502132541 | carpe diem | idea that our future is unpredicted, so we should do whatever we can do today and not just depend upon chance or opportunities that we hope to come | 160 | |
| 4502132542 | catharsis | an emotional discharge through which one can achieve a state of moral or spiritual renewal or achieve a state of liberation from anxiety or stress | 161 | |
| 4502132543 | consonance | repetitive sounds produced by consonants within a sentence or phrase that often takes place in quick succession | 162 | |
| 4502132544 | denotation | literal or dictionary meanings of a word in contrast to its connotative or associated meanings | 163 | |
| 4502132545 | dramatic monologue | the speech or verbal presentation that a single character presents in order to express his/her collection of thoughts and ideas aloud | 164 | |
| 4502132546 | end-stopped line | a device in which a pause comes at the end of a syntactic unit (sentence, clause, or phrase) | 165 | |
| 4502132547 | enjambment | moving over from one line to another without a terminating punctuation mark | 166 | |
| 4502132548 | epigram | rhetorical device that is a memorable, brief, interesting, and surprising satirical statement (no one can make you feel inferior without your consent) | 167 | |
| 4502132549 | epiphany | that moment in the story where a character achieves realization, awareness, or a feeling of knowledge after which events are seen through the prism of this new light in the story | 168 | |
| 4502132550 | euphony | the use of words and phrases that are distinguished as having a wide range of noteworthy melody or loveliness in the sounds they create; gives pleasing and soothing effects to the ears due to repeated sounds | 169 | |
| 4502132551 | foot | a measuring unit in poetry made up of stressed and unstressed syllables | 170 | |
| 4502132552 | hubris | extreme pride and arrogance shown by a character that ultimately brings about his downfall | 171 | |
| 4502132553 | metaphysical poetry | characterized by conceits and by speculation about topics such as love or religion | 172 | |
| 4502132554 | meter | a stressed and unstressed syllabic pattern in a verse or within the lines of a poem | 173 | |
| 4502132555 | narration | the action or process of narrating a story | 174 | |
| 4502132556 | ode | a form of poetry such as sonnet or elegy, a literary technique that is lyrical in nature, but not very lengthy | 175 | |
| 4502132557 | pastoral | a very ancient genre of poetry that deals with the loves and lives of shepherds and shepherdesses, and other such country folk | 176 | |
| 4502132558 | pathetic fallacy | a literary device that attributes human qualities and emotions to inanimate objects of nature | 177 | |
| 4502132559 | persona | a voice or an assumed role of a character that represents the thoughts of a writer or a specific person the writer wants to present as his mouthpiece | 178 | |
| 4502132560 | prosody | the study of meter, intonation and rhythm of a poetic work. It is a phonetic term that uses meter, rhythm, tempo, pitch and loudness in a speech for conveying information about the meanings and structure of an utterance | 179 | |
| 4502132561 | end rhyme | when last syllables or words in two or more lines rhyme with each other | 180 | |
| 4502132562 | slant rhyme | (also called an imperfect rhyme, near rhyme or oblique rhyme) a rhyme in which the stressed syllables of ending consonants match, however the preceding vowel sounds do not match | 181 | |
| 4502132563 | internal rhyme | a poetic device which can be defined as metrical lines in which its middle words and its end words rhymes with each other | 182 | |
| 4502132564 | rhyme scheme | the pattern of rhyme that comes at the end of each verse or line in poetry | 183 | |
| 4502132565 | sarcasm | a literary and rhetorical device that is meant to mock with often satirical or ironic remarks with a purpose to amuse and hurt someone or some section of society simultaneously | 184 | |
| 4502132566 | shift or turn | a change or movement in a piece resulting from an epiphany, realization, or insight gained by the speaker, character, or reader | 185 | |
| 4502132567 | sonnet | a poem with 14 lines written in iambic pentameter; each line has 10 syllables; specific rhyme scheme | 186 | |
| 4502132568 | sound devices | resources used by poets to convey and reinforce the meaning or experience of poetry through the skillful use of sound | 187 | |
| 4502132569 | stock character | a type of character that is usually found in a particular literary form | 188 | |
| 4502132570 | syntax | sentence structure | 189 | |
| 4502132571 | terza rima | a rhyme scheme that uses tercets (three lines stanzas); its interlocking pattern on end words follow: Aba bcb cdc ded and so on... | 190 | |
| 4502132572 | unreliable narrator | a narrator, whether in literature, film, or theatre, whose credibility has been seriously compromised (post-modern) | 191 |
