Ms. D's Literary Terms Master List
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| 5165323544 | Allegory | a narrative either in verse or prose, in which characters, action, and sometimes setting represent abstract concepts apart from the literal meaning of the story. (ex. Everyman) |  | 0 |
| 5165323545 | Alliteration | the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words. | 1 | |
| 5165323546 | Ambiguity | An event or situation that may be interpreted in more than one way. | 2 | |
| 5165335584 | Anecdote | A short and amusing or interesting story about a real incident or person | 3 | |
| 5165323549 | Antagonist | a character in a story or play who opposes the chief character or protagonist. | 4 | |
| 5165323551 | Anti-climatic | When the ending of the plot in poetry or prose is unfulfilling or lackluster | 5 | |
| 5165323550 | Apostrophe | a figure of speech in which a speaker directly addresses an absent person or a personified quality, object, or idea. |  | 6 |
| 5165323553 | Assonance | the repetition of similar vowel sounds followed by different consonant sounds in stressed syllables or words. | 7 | |
| 5165323566 | Climax | as a term of dramatic structure, the decisive or turning point in a story or play when the action changes course and, as a result, begins to resolve itself. | 8 | |
| 5165323568 | Colloquial Language | informal language; language that is "conversational" | 9 | |
| 5165323569 | Connotation | the emotional associations surrounding a word, as opposed to its literal meaning or denotation. | 10 | |
| 5165323570 | Convention | understanding between reader and writer about certain details of a story that does not need to be explained | 11 | |
| 5165323572 | Deus Ex Machina | the resolution of the plot. In literature, the use of an artificial device or gimmick to solve a problem. | 12 | |
| 5165323574 | Diction | the author's choice of words or phrases in a literary work. | 13 | |
| 5165444170 | Denounment | the final part of a play, movie, or narrative in which the strands of the plot are drawn together and matters are explained or resolved | 14 | |
| 5165323575 | Dramatic irony | refers to a situation in which events or facts not known to a character on stage or in a fictional work are known to another character, the audience, or the reader. | 15 | |
| 5165323576 | Doppleganger | ghostly double or counterpart of a living person | 16 | |
| 5165453125 | Emotive Language | Deliberate use of language by a writer to instill a feeling or visual. | 17 | |
| 5165458872 | 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 | 18 | |
| 5165323579 | Epiphany | a revealing scene or moment in which a character experiences a deep realization about him/ himself. | 19 | |
| 5165323580 | Epistolary | A piece of literature contained in or carried on by letters | 20 | |
| 5165323581 | Euphemism | using a mild or gentle phrase instead of a blunt, embarrassing, or painful one. | 21 | |
| 5165323582 | Euphony | attempting to group words together harmoniously, so that the consonants permit an easy and pleasing flow of sound when spoken. | 22 | |
| 5165323583 | Expansion | . | 23 | |
| 5289739469 | Fable | A brief story that leads to a moral, often using animals as characters | 24 | |
| 5289742924 | Figurative Language | Language that cannot be taken literally since it was written to create a special effect or feeling. | 25 | |
| 5165323584 | Flashback | interruption of the narrative to show an episode that happened before that particular point in the story. | 26 | |
| 5165323585 | Flat Character | A character who embodies a single quality and who does not develop in the course of a story | 27 | |
| 5289752298 | Foil | A character who contrasts and parallels the main character in a play or story. | 28 | |
| 5289762853 | Folklore | oral tradition of a group; includes proverbs, prayers, common expressions, superstitions, beliefs, narrative tales, and legends | 29 | |
| 5165323586 | Foreshadowing | a hint given to the reader of what is to come. | 30 | |
| 5165323587 | Free verse | a type of poetry that differs from conventional verse forms in being "free" from a fixed pattern of meter and rhyme. | 31 | |
| 5289765895 | Genre | A category or type of literature (or of art, music, etc.) characterized by a particular form, style, or content. | 32 | |
| 5289765928 | Gothic novel | A novel in which supernatural horrors and an atmosphere of unknown terrors pervades the action | 33 | |
| 5165323588 | Heroine | A woman noted for courage and daring action or the female protagonist. | 34 | |
| 5165323589 | Hubris | in a hero, hubris refers to arrogant, excessive self-pride or self-confidence or a lack of some important perception or insight due to pride in one's abilities. | 35 | |
| 5165323590 | Hyperbole | a figure of speech involving great exaggeration. | 36 | |
| 5165323591 | Illocution | Language that avoids meaning of the words. | 37 | |
| 5165323592 | Imagery | the sensory details that provide vividness in a literary work and tend to arouse emotions or feeling in a reader which abstract language does not. | 38 | |
| 5165323593 | In medias res | Latin for "in the middle of things"; used to describe a plot that begins in the middle of events and then reveals past through flashbacks. |  | 39 |
| 5165323594 | Irony | the term used to describe a contrast between what appears to be and what really is. | 40 | |
| 5165323595 | Memoir | A historical account or biography written from personal knowledge or special sources | 41 | |
| 5165323597 | Metaphor | a figure of speech involving an implied comparison. | 42 | |
| 5165323599 | Metonymy | a figure of speech in which a specific term naming an object is substituted for another word with which it is closely associated. |  | 43 |
| 5165323600 | Motif | a recurrent word, image, theme, object, or phrase that tends to unify a literary work or that may be elaborated into a theme. | 44 | |
| 5165323601 | Narrator (persona/ point of view) | the teller of the story. | 45 | |
| 5289797662 | Novella | a short novel | 46 | |
| 5289799391 | Neutral Language | Language opposite from emotive language as it is literal or even objective in nature. | 47 | |
| 5165323602 | Onomatopoeia | words sued in such a way that the sound of the words imitates the sound of the thing being spoken of. | 48 | |
| 5165323603 | Paradox | a statement, often metaphorical, that seems to be self-contradictory but which has valid meaning. |  | 49 |
| 5165323605 | Parody | a kind of burlesque that is a humorous imitation of serious writing, usually for the purpose of making the style of an author appear ridiculous. |  | 50 |
| 5165323607 | Personification | the representation of abstractions, ideas, animals, or inanimate objects as human beings by endowing them with life-like qualities. | 51 | |
| 5165323608 | Poetic Justice | When characters "get what they deserve" in the end of a story. | 52 | |
| 5165323609 | Prequel | A literary, dramatic, or cinematic work whose narrative takes place before that of a preexisting work or a sequel. | 53 | |
| 5165323610 | Prologue | A speech, passage, or event coming before the main speech or event | 54 | |
| 5165323611 | Prose | Any writing that is not poetry | 55 | |
| 5165323612 | Protagonist | the leading character in a literary work. | 56 | |
| 5165323613 | Pun | a play on words; a humorous use of a word that has different meanings or of two or more words with the same or nearly the same sound but different meanings. |  | 57 |
| 5289832874 | Rising action | Events leading up to the climax | 58 | |
| 5165323616 | Rites of passage | An incident which creates tremendous growth signifying a transition from adolescence to adulthood. |  | 59 |
| 5289841322 | Round Character | A character who demonstrates some complexity and who develops or changes in the course of a work | 60 | |
| 5289843197 | Resolution | End of the story where loose ends are tied up | 61 | |
| 5289843198 | Satire | A literary work that criticizes human misconduct and ridicules vices, stupidities, and follies. | 62 | |
| 5165323618 | Simile | a figure of speech involving a comparison of two unlike things using 'like' or 'as'. | 63 | |
| 5165323619 | Situational irony | an occurrence that is contrary to what is expected or intended. |  | 64 |
| 5289850716 | Slang | A type of language that consists of words and phrases that are regarded as very informal, are more common in speech than writing, and are typically restricted to a particular context or group of people | 65 | |
| 5165323620 | Soliloquy | a dramatic convention that allows a character alone on stage to speak his or her thoughts aloud. | 66 | |
| 5165323624 | Style | the distinctive handling of language by an author. | 67 | |
| 5165323625 | Symbol | a person, place, or object that represents something beyond itself. | 68 | |
| 5165323626 | Symbolism | A device in literature where an object represents an idea. | 69 | |
| 5289862186 | Tragedy | A serious form of drama dealing with the downfall of a heroic or noble character | 70 | |
| 5289864950 | Tone | A writer's attitude toward his or her subject matter revealed through diction, figurative language, and organization on the sentence and global levels. | 71 | |
| 5165323632 | Verbal irony | the intended meaning of a statement or work is different from what the statement or work literally says. | 72 |
