Terms : Hide Images
| 10811518010 | unreliable narrator | a narrator whose account of events appears to be faulty, misleadingly biased, or otherwise distorted | 0 | |
| 10811518011 | Rhetoric | the art of using language effectively and persuasively | 1 | |
| 10811518012 | Villanelle | A 19 line form using only two rhymes and repeating two of the lines according to a set pattern | 2 | |
| 10811518013 | Metafiction | fiction that concerns the nature of fiction itself, either by reinterpreting a previous fictional work or by drawing attention to its own fictional status. | 3 | |
| 10811518014 | vignette | a short scene or story | 4 | |
| 10811518015 | Subplot | a minor plot that relates in some way to the main story | 5 | |
| 10811518016 | elegy | a sad or mournful poem | 6 | |
| 10811518017 | Paradox | A statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a possible truth. | 7 | |
| 10811518018 | narrative frame | a story within a story | 8 | |
| 10811518019 | Hyperbole | exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally. | 9 | |
| 10811518020 | Onomatopoeia | A word that imitates the sound it represents. | 10 | |
| 10811518021 | pastoral | A work of literature dealing with rural life | 11 | |
| 10811518022 | Epithet | an adjective or descriptive phrase expressing a quality characteristic of the person or thing mentioned. | 12 | |
| 10811518023 | Alliteration | the occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words. | 13 | |
| 10811518024 | end-stopped line | A line that ends with a natural speech pause, usually marked by punctuation | 14 | |
| 10811518025 | Anapest | unstressed, unstressed, stressed | 15 | |
| 10811518026 | colloquial | conversational | 16 | |
| 10811518027 | Assonance | Repetition of vowel sounds | 17 | |
| 10811518028 | Consonance | Repetition of a consonant sound within two or more words in close proximity. | 18 | |
| 10811518029 | parallel structure | the repetition of words or phrases that have similar grammatical structures | 19 | |
| 10811518030 | Iconography | the study of a group of representative pictures or symbols | 20 | |
| 10811518031 | Skene | building used as dressing room | 21 | |
| 10811518032 | dissonance | harsh, inharmonious, or discordant sounds | 22 | |
| 10811518033 | Passive voice/active voice | Passive: The fence was damaged by the wind. Active: The wind damaged the fence. | 23 | |
| 10811518034 | omniscient point of view | The point of view where the narrator knows everything about the characters and their problems - told in the 3rd person. | 24 | |
| 10811518035 | euphony | beautiful sound | 25 | |
| 10811518036 | cadence | Rhythmic rise and fall | 26 | |
| 10811518037 | Ekphrastic | related to a literary description of or response to a visual work of art | 27 | |
| 10811518038 | Exposition | a comprehensive description and explanation of an idea or theory. | 28 | |
| 10811518039 | cocophany | A harsh, discordant mixture of sounds | 29 | |
| 10811518040 | Anaphora | the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses | 30 | |
| 10811518041 | denouement | an outcome; result | 31 | |
| 10811518042 | temporal setting | when the story takes place | 32 | |
| 10811518043 | Indirect and Direct Characterization | Indirect: the process by which the personality of a fictitious character is revealed through the character's speech, actions, appearance, etc. Direct: he author literally tells the audience what a character is like. | 33 | |
| 10811518044 | Sibilance | Repetition of the 's' sound | 34 | |
| 10811518045 | anachronism | something out of place in time | 35 | |
| 10811518046 | Aphorism | A brief, cleverly worded statement that makes a wise observation about life. | 36 | |
| 10811518047 | suspension of disbelief | a willingness to suspend one's critical faculties and believe the unbelievable; sacrifice of realism and logic for the sake of enjoyment | 37 | |
| 10811518048 | Hamartia | tragic flaw | 38 | |
| 10811518049 | pedantic | An adjective that describes words, phrases, or general tone that is overly scholarly, academic, or bookish. | 39 | |
| 10811518050 | Zeugma | use of two different words in a grammatically similar way that produces different, often incongruous, meanings | 40 | |
| 10811518051 | Epiphany | A moment of sudden revelation or insight | 41 | |
| 10811518052 | Apostrophe | A figure of speech that directly addresses an absent or imaginary person or a personified abstraction, such as liberty or love. | 42 | |
| 10811518053 | Syllogism | A form of deductive reasoning consisting of a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion. | 43 | |
| 10811518054 | invective | An emotionally violent, verbal denunciation or attack using strong, abusive language. | 44 | |
| 10811518055 | Hubris | excessive pride | 45 | |
| 10811518056 | Litotes | A form of understatement that involves making an affirmative point by denying its opposite | 46 | |
| 10811518057 | objective point of view | a narrator who is totally impersonal and objective tells the story, with no comment on any characters or events. | 47 | |
| 10811518058 | metaphysical conceit | A type of simile which establishes a striking parallel between startlingly dissimilar things. | 48 | |
| 10811518059 | blank verse | unrhymed iambic pentameter | 49 | |
| 10811518060 | Alleory | a symbolic story in which people, settings, or actions represent ideas or moral qualities | 50 | |
| 10811518061 | tragic hero | A literary character who makes an error of judgment or has a fatal flaw that, combined with fate and external forces, brings on a tragedy | 51 | |
| 10811518062 | free verse | Poetry that does not have a regular meter or rhyme scheme | 52 | |
| 10811518063 | an act/scene | division elements of plays | 53 | |
| 10811518064 | declarative, imperative, interrogative | Three types of sentences | 54 | |
| 10811518065 | Octet | 8 lines of poetry | 55 | |
| 10811518066 | Ars Poetica | the art of poetry | 56 | |
| 10811518067 | non sequitur | A statement that does not follow logically from evidence | 57 | |
| 10811518068 | Sonnet | a poem of fourteen lines using any of a number of formal rhyme schemes, in English typically having ten syllables per line. | 58 | |
| 10811518069 | heroic couplet | two end-stopped iambic pentameter lines rhymed aa, bb, cc with the thought usually completed in the two-line unit | 59 | |
| 10811518070 | Epigraph | a quotation or aphorism at the beginning of a literary work suggestive of the theme. | 60 | |
| 10811518071 | sextet | musical group of six | 61 | |
| 10811518072 | Soliloquy | A long speech expressing the thoughts of a character alone on stage | 62 | |
| 10811518073 | parallel structure | the repetition of words or phrases that have similar grammatical structures | 63 | |
| 10811518074 | Catharsis | a release of emotional tension | 64 | |
| 10811518075 | Caesura | A natural pause or break in a line of poetry, usually near the middle of the line. | 65 | |
| 10811518076 | inverted sentence | A sentence in which the subject follows the verb | 66 | |
| 10811518077 | Reversal | The point at which the action of the plot turns in an unexpected direction for the protagonist. | 67 | |
| 10811518078 | Resolution | End of the story where loose ends are tied up | 68 | |
| 10811518079 | Trochee | stressed, unstressed | 69 | |
| 10811518080 | Enjambment | the continuation of a sentence without a pause beyond the end of a line, couplet, or stanza. | 70 | |
| 10811518081 | Tragedy | A serious form of drama dealing with the downfall of a heroic or noble character | 71 | |
| 10811518082 | Tragedy | A serious form of drama dealing with the downfall of a heroic or noble character | 72 | |
| 10811518083 | slant rhyme | rhyme in which the vowel sounds are nearly, but not exactly the same (i.e. the words "stress" and "kiss"); sometimes called half-rhyme, near rhyme, or partial rhyme | 73 | |
| 10811518084 | sight rhyme | words that look like they should rhyme but don't | 74 | |
| 10811518085 | archaic language | Old-fashioned, out-of-date language and expressions. | 75 | |
| 10811518086 | Shakespearean sonnet | a sonnet consisting three quatrains and a concluding couplet in iambic pentameter with the rhyme pattern abab cdcd efef gg | 76 | |
| 10811518087 | social setting | the place where the action unfolds | 77 | |
| 10811518088 | Synecdoche | a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa | 78 | |
| 10811518089 | Spring Rhythm | lost of variations/isolations | 79 | |
| 10811518090 | Metonymy | A figure of speech in which something is referred to by using the name of something that is associated with it | 80 | |
| 10811518091 | metric foot/meter | the smallest unit of meter; a combination of stressed/unstressed syllables | 81 | |
| 10811518092 | Petrarchan sonnet | a sonnet consisting of an octave with the rhyme pattern abbaabba, followed by a sestet with the rhyme pattern cdecde or cdcdcd | 82 | |
| 10811518093 | stream of consciousness | a style of writing that portrays the inner (often chaotic) workings of a character's mind. | 83 | |
| 10811518094 | Iamb | unstressed, stressed | 84 | |
| 10811518095 | carpe diem | seize the day | 85 | |
| 10811518096 | subordinate character | less important or minor characters | 86 | |
| 10811518097 | Parody | A work that closely imitates the style or content of another with the specific aim of comic effect and/or ridicule. | 87 | |
| 10811518098 | farce | (n.) a play filled with ridiculous or absurd happenings; broad or far-fetched humor; a ridiculous sham | 88 | |
| 10811518099 | Personification | A figure of speech in which an object or animal is given human feelings, thoughts, or attitudes | 89 | |
| 10811518100 | refrain | A line or set of lines repeated several times over the course of a poem. | 90 | |
| 10811518101 | Satire | A literary work that criticizes human misconduct and ridicules vices, stupidities, and follies. | 91 | |
| 10811518102 | wit | intellectually amusing language that surprises and delights | 92 | |
| 10811518103 | Pun | A play on words | 93 | |
| 10811518104 | Trope | The generic name for a figure of speech such as image, symbol, simile, and metaphor. | 94 | |
| 10811518105 | epigram | a witty saying expressing a single thought or observation | 95 | |
| 10811518106 | Plot | Sequence of events in a story | 96 | |
| 10811518107 | versimilitude | the quality of appearing to be true, real, likely, or probable | 97 | |
| 10811518108 | in media res | in the middle of things | 98 | |
| 10811518109 | Quatrain | A four line stanza | 99 | |
| 10811518110 | blank verse | unrhymed iambic pentameter | 100 | |
| 10811518111 | trimeter, tetrameter, pentameter | We name a metrical line according to the number of "feet," such as an iamb or a trochee, in it. If a line has four feet, it is tetrameter (If that line is iambic or trochaic, there will usually be eight syllables). If a line has five feet, it is pentameter. Six feet, hexameter, and so on. English verse tends to be pentameter, French verse tetrameter, and Greek verse, hexameter. | 101 | |
| 10811518112 | loose sentence | A complex sentence in which the main clause comes first and the subordinate clause follows | 102 | |
| 10811518113 | overplot | a main plot in fiction or drama. | 103 | |
| 10811518114 | Parable | A simple story used to illustrate a moral or spiritual lesson | 104 | |
| 10811518115 | Monologue | (n.) a speech by one actor; a long talk by one person | 105 | |
| 10811518116 | Synecdoche | a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa | 106 | |
| 10811518117 | meter | A regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry | 107 | |
| 10811518118 | Motif | A recurring theme, subject or idea | 108 | |
| 10811518119 | temporal setting | The era(s), year(s), season(s), day(s), and/or particular hour(s) in which a work of literature is set. | 109 | |
| 10811518120 | spatial setting | where the story takes place | 110 | |
| 10811518121 | caricature | an exaggerated portrayal of one's features | 111 | |
| 10811518122 | prose poem | usually a short composition having the intentions of poetry but written in prose rather than verse | 112 | |
| 10811518123 | Tercet | three line stanza | 113 | |
| 10811518124 | abstract | existing in thought or as an idea but not having a physical or concrete existence. | 114 | |
| 10811518125 | Oxymoron | A figure of speech that combines opposite or contradictory terms in a brief phrase. | 115 | |
| 10811518126 | Archetype | a very typical example of a certain person or thing | 116 | |
| 10811518127 | complex-compound sentence | A sentence with multiple independent clauses and at least one dependent clause. | 117 | |
| 10811518128 | Subplot | a minor plot that relates in some way to the main story | 118 | |
| 10811518129 | sililoquy | a speech when a character is alone on a stage and expresses thoughts aloud | 119 | |
| 10811518130 | Persona | an individual's characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting | 120 | |
| 10811518131 | Foil | A character who acts as a contrast to another character | 121 | |
| 10811518132 | cadence | rhythm | 122 | |
| 10811518133 | situational irony | An outcome that turns out to be very different from what was expected | 123 | |
| 10811518134 | dramatic irony | when a reader is aware of something that a character isn't | 124 | |
| 10811518135 | verbal irony | A figure of speech in which what is said is the opposite of what is meant | 125 | |
| 10811518136 | periodic sentence | sentence whose main clause is withheld until the end | 126 | |
| 10811518137 | Ode | A lyric poem usually marked by serious, respectful, and exalted feelings toward the subject. | 127 | |
| 10811518138 | Comedy of Manners | a comedy that satirizes behavior in a particular social group, especially the upper classes. | 128 | |
| 10811518139 | comedy | A humorous work of drama | 129 | |
| 10811518140 | dynamic character | A character who grows, learns, or changes as a result of the story's action | 130 | |
| 10811518141 | Couplet | Two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme | 131 | |
| 10811518142 | word play | Playing on words or speech sounds | 132 | |
| 10811518143 | loose sentence | A complex sentence in which the main clause comes first and the subordinate clause follows | 133 | |
| 10811518144 | Bildungsroman | A coming of age story | 134 | |
| 10811518145 | Rhetoric | the art of using language effectively and persuasively | 135 | |
| 10811518146 | Mood | Feeling or atmosphere that a writer creates for the reader | 136 | |
| 10811518147 | inciting incident | event that introduces the central conflict | 137 | |
| 10811518148 | shaped verse | another name for concrete poetry: poetry that is shaped to look like an object | 138 | |
| 10811518149 | feminist literature | literary works that explore women's identity and role in society | 139 | |
| 10811518150 | Colonial Literature | The assumption that European ideas, ideals, and experiences are universal and a standard of all humankind | 140 | |
| 10811518151 | Impressionism | An artistic movement that sought to capture a momentary feel, or impression, of the piece they were drawing | 141 | |
| 10811518152 | Naturalism | a style and theory of representation based on the accurate depiction of detail. | 142 | |
| 10811518153 | Kafkaesque | absurdity we have to deal with living in a world of faceless bureaucracies | 143 | |
| 10811518154 | Dramatic unities | time, action, place | 144 | |
| 10811518155 | non sequitur | something that does not logically follow | 145 | |
| 10811518156 | spatial setting | where the story takes place | 146 | |
| 10811518157 | Aside | a line spoken by an actor to the audience but not intended for others on the stage | 147 | |
| 10811518158 | static character | A character that does not change from the beginning of the story to the end | 148 | |
| 10811518159 | free verse | Poetry that does not have a regular meter or rhyme scheme | 149 | |
| 10811518160 | oeuvre | the complete work of an artist, composer, or writer | 150 | |
| 10811518161 | Modernism | A cultural movement embracing human empowerment and rejecting traditionalism as outdated. Rationality, industry, and technology were cornerstones of progress and human achievement. | 151 | |
| 10811518162 | Minimalism | an attitude of doing only the least that is required by law in our moral life | 152 | |
| 10811518163 | Harlem Renaissance | A period in the 1920s when African-American achievements in art and music and literature flourished | 153 | |
| 10811518164 | Postmodernism | Post-World War II intellectual movement and cultural attitude focusing on cultural pluralism and release from the confines and ideology of Western high culture. | 154 | |
| 10811518165 | Synesthesia | describing one kind of sensation in terms of another ("a loud color", "a sweet sound") | 155 | |
| 10811518166 | Romanticism | 19th century artistic movement that appealed to emotion rather than reason | 156 | |
| 10811518167 | Beat Movement | a social and artistic movement of the 1950's stressing unrestrained literary self expression and nonconformity with the mainstream culture | 157 | |
| 10811518168 | Realism | A 19th century artistic movement in which writers and painters sought to show life as it is rather than life as it should be | 158 | |
| 10811518169 | Transcendentalism | A philosophy pioneered by Ralph Waldo Emerson in the 1830's and 1840's, in which each person has direct communication with God and Nature, and there is no need for organized churches. It incorporated the ideas that mind goes beyond matter, intuition is valuable, that each soul is part of the Great Spirit, and each person is part of a reality where only the invisible is truly real. Promoted individualism, self-reliance, and freedom from social constraints, and emphasized emotions. | 159 | |
| 10811518170 | periodic sentence | sentence whose main clause is withheld until the end | 160 | |
| 10811518171 | psychological realism | the extent to which the psychological processes triggered in an experiment are similar to psychological processes that occur in everyday life | 161 | |
| 10811518172 | Regionalism | an element in literature that conveys a realistic portrayal of a specific geographical locale, using the locale and its influences as a major part of the plot | 162 |
