Terms : Hide Images
| 6702779008 | Alliteration | Repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words to create emphasis | 0 | |
| 6702779009 | Alliteration Example | Big, Bad, Barking Dog | 1 | |
| 6702779010 | Allusion | Reference in literature or in art to another literary, historical, or cultural work | 2 | |
| 6702779011 | Allusion Example | "It may well be we shall touch the Happy Isles/And see the great Achilles, whom we know" | 3 | |
| 6702779012 | Ambiguity | Intentionally unclear | 4 | |
| 6702779013 | Ambiguity Example | "Thou still unravished bride of quietness" | 5 | |
| 6702779014 | Anachronism | An element of a story is out of its time frame | 6 | |
| 6702797074 | Anachronism Example | Romeo riding to Mantua in a Porsche | 7 | |
| 6702797075 | Analogy | Explains an unfamiliar idea by comparing it to something that is familiar | 8 | |
| 6702797076 | Analogy Example | Knowledge is like fire | 9 | |
| 6702809778 | Anapest | Poetic measure- unaccented, unaccented, accented (rollicking, moving rhythm) | 10 | |
| 6703646826 | Anapest Example | "I am MONarch of All I surVEY" | 11 | |
| 6703646827 | Anecdote | A short, personal story used to emphasize a point | 12 | |
| 6703646828 | Antagonist | Character who is a resisting force to the goals of the protagonist | 13 | |
| 6703646829 | Antecedent | Word or phrase to which a pronoun refers ("O that this too solids FLESH would melt,/Thaw and resolve itself into a dew") | 14 | |
| 6703646830 | Anticlimax | An often disappointing, sudden end to an intense situation | 15 | |
| 6703646831 | Antihero | Protagonist that does not embody the classic characteristics of courage, strength, and nobility | 16 | |
| 6703646832 | Antihero Example | Holden Caulfield | 17 | |
| 6703646833 | Antithesis | A concept that is directly opposed to a previously presented idea | 18 | |
| 6703646834 | Aphorism | A statement that expresses a general truth or moral principle; a folk proverb | 19 | |
| 6703646835 | Aphorism Examplr | "Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise" | 20 | |
| 6703646836 | Apostrophe | A rhetorical address to an abstract entity | 21 | |
| 6703646837 | Apostrophe Example | "Death, be not proud!" | 22 | |
| 6703646838 | Apotheosis | Elevating someone to the level of a god | 23 | |
| 6703646839 | Archetype | A reoccurring character, situation, or symbol that occurs frequently throughout all cultures | 24 | |
| 6703646840 | Archetype Example | The Underdog | 25 | |
| 6703646841 | Aside | A remark or speech by a character to the audience that is not heard by other characters on stage | 26 | |
| 6703646842 | Assonance | Repeated use of a vowel sound within a phrase | 27 | |
| 6703646843 | Assonance Example | How now brown cow | 28 | |
| 6703646844 | Attitude | Author's feelings toward a subject; tone | 29 | |
| 6703646845 | Aubade | Poem or song about lovers who must leave each other in the early morning | 30 | |
| 6703646846 | Ballad | A song or poem passed down that tells a story; usually composed in four-line stanzas (quatrains) with abcb rhyme | 31 | |
| 6703646847 | Cacophony | Harsh, discordant sounds, unpleasant to the ear (sq, st, ck, ft, t, k, sc, ch) | 32 | |
| 6703646848 | Cacophony Example | "And squared and stuck there squares of soft white chalk,/And with a fish-tooth, scratched a moon on each) | 33 | |
| 6703646849 | Carpe Diem | Latin for "seize the day"; frequent in 16th and 17th century metaphysical poetry | 34 | |
| 6703646850 | Catharsis | Emotional cleansing or relief | 35 | |
| 6703646851 | Chiasmus | Opposite of parallel construction; inverting the second of two phrases that would otherwise be in parallel form | 36 | |
| 6703646852 | Chiasmus Example | "Ask not what you can do for our country, but what our country can do for you" | 37 | |
| 6703646853 | Colloquial | Slang or regional dialect | 38 | |
| 6703646854 | Comic Relief | Humor that provides a release of tension | 39 | |
| 6703646855 | Conceit | A far-fetched comparison between two seemingly unlike things; an unusual extended metaphor | 40 | |
| 6703646856 | Conceit Examlle | "This flea is you and I, and this/Our marriage-bed and marriage-temple is." | 41 | |
| 6703646857 | Connotation | Association a word brings to mind | 42 | |
| 6703646858 | Consonance | Same consonant sound in a word or phrase with different vowel sounds | 43 | |
| 6703646859 | Conventional Character | A character with traits that are expected or traditional | 44 | |
| 6703646860 | Couplet | Two successive rhyming lines of the same number of syllables | 45 | |
| 6703646861 | Couplet Examples | "Hope springs eternal in the human breast:/Man never is, but always to be blest" | 46 | |
| 6703646862 | Dactylic | Foot of poetry with three syllables; stessed, unstressed, unstressed | 47 | |
| 6703646863 | Dactylic Example | "JUST for a HANDful of SILver he LEFT us" | 48 | |
| 6703646864 | Denotation | Dictionary definition of a word | 49 | |
| 6703646865 | Dénouement | Outcome or clarification at the end of a story | 50 | |
| 6703646866 | Deus Ex Machina | When the gods intervene in a story, especially to resolve an impossible conflict | 51 | |
| 6703646867 | Diction | Word choice for a desired effect or tone | 52 | |
| 6703646868 | Didactiv | A story, speech, or essay where the main purpose is to instruct, teach, or moralize | 53 | |
| 6703646869 | Distortion | An exaggeration or stretching of the truth to achieve a desired effect | 54 | |
| 6703646870 | Enjambment | In poetry, the running over of a sentence from one line to the next, or one stanza to the next. | 55 | |
| 6703646871 | Epigram | A short, clever poem with a witty turn of though | 56 | |
| 6703646872 | Epigraph | A brief quotation found at the beginning of a literary work | 57 | |
| 6703646873 | Epigraph Example | "The cattle are lowing, the baby awakes, but little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes" found at the beginning of Slaughterhouse-Five | 58 | |
| 6703646874 | Epiphany | A sudden flash of insight | 59 | |
| 6703646875 | Epistolary Novel | A novel in letter form written by one of the charactets | 60 | |
| 6703646876 | Euphemism | Substitution of an inoffensive word for an offensive one | 61 | |
| 6703646877 | Euphemism Example | He passed away | 62 | |
| 6703646878 | Euphony | Pleasant or harmonious sounds for an intended effect; l, m, n, and long vowel sounds | 63 | |
| 6703646879 | Euphony Example | "The gray sea and the long black land" | 64 | |
| 6703646880 | Farce | Comedy that relies on exaggerated or improbably situations, disasters, or sexual innuendo | 65 | |
| 6703646881 | Figurative Language | Uses figures of speech to convey meaning; metaphor, simile, metonymy, personification, hyperbole, etc. | 66 | |
| 6703646882 | First Person Narrator | A character in the story tells the story using the pronoun "I" | 67 | |
| 6703646883 | First Person Example | "I saw him too, looking up and wondering. I was within and without." | 68 | |
| 6703646884 | Flashback | Interrupting a narrative by going back to an earlier event or image of a past experience | 69 | |
| 6703646885 | Flat character | A simple, one-dimensional character | 70 | |
| 6703646886 | Foil | A character whose contrasting or opposing characteristics emphasize aspects of another character | 71 | |
| 6703646887 | Foil Example | Fortinbras to Hamlet | 72 | |
| 6703646888 | Foreshadowing | Hints at what is to come; even if only noticed in hindsight | 73 | |
| 6703646889 | Free Verse | Poetry without regular rhythm or rhyme | 74 | |
| 6703646890 | Genre | Category of a piece of writing | 75 | |
| 6703646891 | Heroic Couplet | A rhymed couple written in iambic pentameter; used almost exclusively by Alexander Pope | 76 | |
| 6703646892 | Heroic Couplet | "The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read,/With loads of learned lumber in his head." | 77 | |
| 6703646893 | Hubris | Insolence, arrogance, or pride | 78 | |
| 6703646894 | Hyperbole | An extreme exaggeration | 79 | |
| 6703646895 | Hyperbole Example | Gatsby sends Daisy "a greenhouse" of flowers. | 80 | |
| 6703646896 | Iambic Pentameter | A five-foot line made up of unaccented followed by accented syllables; most common metric foot in English poetry | 81 | |
| 6703646897 | Imagery | Anything that affects or appeals to the reader's senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, or smell | 82 | |
| 6703646898 | In Media Res | A work that begins in the middle of the action | 83 | |
| 6703646899 | Internal Rhyme | A rhyme within the line, rather than at the end | 84 | |
| 6703646900 | Internal Rhyme Example | "A narrow fellow in the grass" | 85 | |
| 6703646901 | Inversion | A switch of the normal word order for emphasis or rhyme | 86 | |
| 6703646902 | Inversion Exampmr | "Strong he was" | 87 | |
| 6703646903 | Italian (Petrarchan) Sonnet | Fourteen line poem divided into two parts: first (8 lines abbaabba) second (6 lines cdcdcd) | 88 | |
| 6703646904 | Litotes | Affirmation of an idea by using negative understatement | 89 | |
| 6703646905 | Litotes Example | She is no saint | 90 | |
| 6703646906 | Lyric Poem | A fairly short emotionally expressive poem | 91 | |
| 6703646907 | Metamorphosis | A radical change in a character, either physical or emotional | 92 | |
| 6703646908 | Metaphor | Figure of speech comparing two dissimilar things, asserting that one thing IS another thing | 93 | |
| 6703646909 | Metaphor Exame | "Life's but a walking shadow" | 94 | |
| 6703646910 | Meter | Rhythmical pattern of a poem; syllables- iamb, anapest, trochee, davtyl | 95 | |
| 6703646911 | Metonymy | Figure of speech that replaces the name of something with a word or phrase closely associated to it | 96 | |
| 6703646912 | Metonymy Example | "The White House decided to declare war." | 97 | |
| 6703646913 | Narrative Poem | A poem that tells a story | 98 | |
| 6703646914 | Near, Off, or Slant Rhyme | A rhyme based on an imperfect or incomplete end of syllable sound | 99 | |
| 6703646915 | Onomatopoeia | Words that imitate sounds | 100 | |
| 6703646916 | Onomatopoeia Example | Trickle, drop, whiz, rumble | 101 | |
| 6703646917 | Oxymoron | Figure of speech that combines two contradictory words | 102 | |
| 6703646918 | Oxymoron Example | Bright smoke | 103 | |
| 6703646919 | Parable | A short story illustrating a moral or religious lesson | 104 | |
| 6703646920 | Parable Example | The Prodigal Son | 105 | |
| 6703646921 | Paradox | A statement or situation that at first seems impossible or oxymoronic; but which ultimately resolves its meaning | 106 | |
| 6703646922 | Paradox | My only love sprung from my only hate! | 107 | |
| 6703646923 | Parallelism | Repeated use of the same grammatical structure in a sentence or a series of sentences | 108 | |
| 6703646924 | Parallelism Example | "I came, I saw, I conquered" | 109 | |
| 6703647084 | Parody | A comical imitation of a serious piece with the intent to ridicule | 110 | |
| 6703647085 | Pastoral | A poem, play, or story that celebrates and idealizes rural life | 111 | |
| 6703647086 | Pathos | Evoking a reader's emotions- especially pity, compassion, and sympathy | 112 | |
| 6703647087 | Periodic Sentence | A sentence that delivers its point at the end | 113 | |
| 6703647088 | Periodic Sentence Example | Tirelessly, at the piano, without relief, she practiced scales. | 114 | |
| 6703647089 | Personification | Attributing human characteristics to an animal, inanimate object, or abstract entity. | 115 | |
| 6703647090 | Personification Example | "Daffodils tossed their heads in a sprightly dance" | 116 | |
| 6703647091 | Point of View | Perspective of the speaker | 117 | |
| 6703647092 | Protagonist | The main character in a work; often considered to be the hero or heroine | 118 | |
| 6703647093 | Pun | A humorous play on words that have several meanings or words that sound the same but have different meanings | 119 | |
| 6703647094 | Pun Example | As Mercutio is dying: "You will find me a grave man." | 120 | |
| 6703647095 | Quatrain | Four-line stanza | 121 | |
| 6703647096 | Refrain | Repetition of a line, stanza, or phrase | 122 | |
| 6703647097 | Refrain/Repetition Example | "Quoth the Raven, Nevermore" | 123 | |
| 6703647098 | Repetition | A word or phrase used more than once to emphasize an idea | 124 | |
| 6703647099 | Rhetorical Question | A question with an obvious answer, so no response is expected | 125 | |
| 6703647100 | Rhetorical Question Examplr | "Were it not madness to deny/To live because we're sure to die?" | 126 | |
| 6703647101 | Satire | Use of humor to ridicule and expose society in order to evoke change | 127 | |
| 6703647102 | Sestet | A six line stanza of poetry; also, the last six lines of a sonnet | 128 | |
| 6703647103 | Shift | A movement from one thought or idea to another; a change | 129 | |
| 6703647104 | Simile | Figure of speech that compares unlike things using like or as | 130 | |
| 6703647105 | Soliloquy | A characters speech to the audience when they are alone on stage | 131 | |
| 6703647106 | English (Shakespearean) Sonnet | Fourteen-line poem in iambic pentameter; abab, cdcd, efef, gg | 132 | |
| 6703647107 | Stanza | A grouping of poetic lines | 133 | |
| 6703647108 | Stock Character | A stereotypical character that the audience expects to have certain characteristics; similar to conventional and flat character | 134 | |
| 6703647109 | Stream of Consciousness | A style of writing that replicates the way the human mind works; ideas are presented in random order and some thoughts are left unfinished | 135 | |
| 6703647110 | Structure | The way in which parts of a written work are combined | 136 | |
| 6703647111 | Style | The way a writer uses language; the writer's voice; diction, figures of speech, syntax | 137 | |
| 6703647112 | Symbol | A concrete object, scene, or even character that has deeper significance because it is associated with an important idea or theme | 138 | |
| 6703647113 | Symbol Example | The rose bush in The Scarlet Letter | 139 | |
| 6703647114 | Synechdoche | Figure of speech where one part represents the entire object, or vice versa | 140 | |
| 6703647115 | Synecdoche Example | "Ladies and gentlemen, lend me your ears" | 141 | |
| 6703646925 | Syntax | The way words, phrases, and sentences are ordered and connected | 142 | |
| 6703647116 | Theme | The central idea of a literary work; the message the author wants the reader to understand | 143 | |
| 6703647117 | Tone | The author's attitude toward a subject | 144 | |
| 6703647118 | Tongue in Cheek | Expressing a thought in a way that appears to be sincere, but is actually joking | 145 | |
| 6703647119 | Tongue in Cheek Example | "How do you like this neon cowgirl uniform? I think I'll wear it to my job interview tomorrow." | 146 | |
| 6703647120 | Hamartia | A defect in a hero or heroine that leads to his or her downfall; tragic flaw | 147 | |
| 6703647121 | Transition/Segue | To get from one portion of a poem or story to another by smoothly connecting different parts of a work | 148 |
