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| 8554226033 | Allegory | Story or poem in which characters, settings, and events stand for other people or events or for abstract ideas or qualities. Example: The Wizard of Oz | 0 | |
| 8554230637 | Alliteration | Repetition of the same/similar consonant sounds in words that are close together. Ex: "She sells sea shells by the sea shore." | 1 | |
| 8554239650 | Allusion | Reference to someone or something that is known from history, literature, religion, etc. Ex: "When I was running late this morning, I thought to myself: to be or not to be; that is the question." | 2 | |
| 8554248390 | Ambiguity | Deliberately suggesting two or more different, and sometimes conflicting, meanings of work. Ex: A good life depends on a liver - Liver may be an organ or simply a living person. | 3 | |
| 8554264031 | Analogy | Comparison made between two things to show how they are alike. Ex: Life is like a box of chocolates. | 4 | |
| 8554269863 | Anaphora | Repetition of a word, phrase, or clause at the beginning of two or more sentences in a row. Ex: And .... And .... And .... | 5 | |
| 8554281620 | Anastrophe | Inversion of the usual, normal, or logical order of the parts of sentence. Ex: Patience I lack. | 6 | |
| 8554289650 | Anecdote | Brief story, told to illustrate a point or serve as an example of something, often shows character of an individual. Ex: Abigail Williams dancing in the forest; Excerpt from The Crucible | 7 | |
| 8554305079 | Antagonist | Opponent who struggles against or blocks the hero, or protagonist, in a story. Ex: Hyde in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde | 8 | |
| 8554313704 | Antimetabole | Repetition of words in successive clauses in reverse grammatical order. Ex: "One should eat to live, not live to eat." | 9 | |
| 8554320617 | Antithesis | Balancing words, phrases, or ideas that are strongly contrasted, often by means of grammatical structure. Ex: Speech is silver, but silence is gold. | 10 | |
| 8554328047 | Apostrophe | Calling out to an imaginary, dead, or absent person, or to a place or thing, or a personified abstract idea. Ex: "Loacoon! Thou great embodiment/ Of human life and human history!" | 11 | |
| 8554337949 | Assonance | The repetition of similar vowel sounds followed by different consonant sounds especially in words that are together. Ex: Men sell the wedding bells. (repeated letter E) | 12 | |
| 8554347251 | Asyndeton | Commas used without conjunction to separate a series of words. Ex: X,Y,Z... instead of X, Y, Z ... | 13 | |
| 8554356498 | Static Character | One who does not change much in the course of a story. Ex: Scar in The Lion King | 14 | |
| 8554362211 | Dynamic Character | One who changes in some important way as a result of the story's action. Ex: Harry in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. | 15 | |
| 8554371431 | Flat Character | Has only one or two personality traits. Ex: Elizabeth Proctor from the Crucible | 16 | |
| 8554381684 | Round Character | Has more dimensions to their personalities. Gatsby in The Great Gatsby | 17 | |
| 8554387495 | Chiasmus | A type of rhetorical balance in which the second part is syntactically balanced against the first, but with the parts reversed. Ex: Flowers are lovely, love is flowerlike. | 18 | |
| 8554396053 | Cliche | A word or phrase that has become lifeless due to overuse. Ex: Lost track of time | 19 | |
| 8554408975 | Colloquialism | A word or phrase in everyday use in conversation and informal writing but is inappropriate for formal situations. Ex: He's out of his head if he thinks I'm gonna go for such a stupid idea. | 20 | |
| 8554418655 | Conceit | An elaborate metaphor that compares two things that are startlingly different. Ex: Oh stay! three lives in one flea spare Where we almost, yet more than married are. This flea is you and I, and this Our marriage-bed and marriage-temple is. | 21 | |
| 8554440829 | Connotation | The associations and emotional overtones that have become attached to a word or phrase, in addition to it's strict dictionary definition. Ex: A dove implies peace or geniality | 22 | |
| 8554449298 | Couplet | Two consecutive rhyming lines of poetry. Ex: "The time is out of joint, O cursed spite That ever I was born to set it right." | 23 | |
| 8554461781 | Dialect | A way of speaking that is characteristic of a certain social group or of the inhabitants of a certain geographical area. Ex: Walter from To Kill a Mockingbird: "Reckon I have. Almost died first year I come to school and et em pecans, folks say he pizened em and put em over on the school side of the fence." | 24 | |
| 8554482433 | Diction | A speaker or writer's choice of words. Ex: Hello young man! vs. Hey kid! | 25 | |
| 8554496248 | Elegy | A poem of mourning. Ex: Death of Adonis by Bion of Smyrna | 26 | |
| 8554506752 | Epanalepsis | Device of repetition in which the same expression is repeated both at the beginning at the end of the line, clause, or sentence. Ex: Common sense is not so common | 27 | |
| 8554516584 | Epic | A long narrative poem, written in heightened language, which recounts the deeds of heroic character who embodies the values of a particular society. Ex: "From jigging veins of riming mother wits And such conceits as clownage keeps in pay We'll lead you to the stately tent of war, Where you shall hear the Scythian Tamburlaine Threatening the world with high astounding terms And scourging kingdoms with his conquering sword." | 28 | |
| 8554526419 | Epigraph | A quotation or aphorism at the beginning of a literary work suggestive of the theme. Ex: F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the following quotation at the beginning of The Great Gatsby: "Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her; If you can bounce high, bounce for her too, Till she cry "Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover, I must have you!" | 29 | |
| 8554536470 | Epistrophe | Device of repetition in which the same expression is repeated at the end of two or more lines, clauses, or sentences. Ex: What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny compared to what lies within us. - Ralph Waldo Emerson | 30 | |
| 8554547302 | Figurative Language | Words which are inaccurate if interpreted literally, but are used to describe. Personification, Hyperbole, Metaphor, etc. | 31 | |
| 8554553943 | Free Verse | Poetry that does not conform to a regular meter or rhyme scheme. Ex: Fog by Carl Sandburg The fog comes on little cat feet. It sits looking over harbor and city on silent haunches and then moves on. | 32 | |
| 8554560002 | Hyperbole | A figure of speech that uses an incredible exaggeration for effect. Ex: "If I told you once, I've told you a million times.." | 33 | |
| 8554566380 | Verbal Irony | Occurs when someone says one thing but really means something else. On the way to school, the school bus gets a flat tire and the bus driver says, "Excellent! This day couldn't start off any better!" | 34 | |
| 8554575288 | 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. Ex: A pilot has a fear of heights. | 35 | |
| 8554587084 | Dramatic Irony | A character in a play or story thinks one thing is true, but the audience or reader knows better. Ex: Two people are engaged to be married but the audience knows that the man is planning to run away with another woman. | 36 | |
| 8554595395 | Juxtaposition | A form of contrast by which writers call attention to dissimilar ideas or images or metaphors. Ex: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice anywhere." | 37 | |
| 8554604862 | Litotes | A form of understatement in which the positive form is emphasized through the negation of a negative form. Ex: "..the wearers of petticoat and farthingale.. stepping forth into the public ways, and wedging their not unsubstantial persons, if occasion were, into the throng..." | 38 | |
| 8554628751 | Loose Sentence | One in which the main clause comes first, follows by further dependent grammatical units. Ex: I went to the movies yesterday, bought candy, and shopped at the mall. | 39 | |
| 8554636566 | Lyric Poem | A poem that does not tell a story but expresses the personal feelings or thoughts of the speaker. Ex: Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date. Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimmed, And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed. | 40 | |
| 8554645773 | Metaphor | A figure of speech that makes a comparison between two unlike things without the use of specific words of comparison as like, as, than, etc. Ex: All the world's a stage. | 41 | |
| 8554655397 | Metonymy | A figure of speech in which a person, place, or thing, is referred to by something closely associated with it. Ex: "We requested from the crown support for our petition." | 42 | |
| 8554666161 | Mood | An atmosphere created by a writer's diction and the details selected. Ex: Charles Dickens creates a calm and peaceful mood in his novel Pickwick Papers: "The river, reflecting the clear blue of the sky, glistened and sparkled as it flowed noiselessly on." | 43 | |
| 8554675257 | Motif | A recurring image, word, phrase, action, idea, object, or situation used throughout a work, unifying the work by tying the current situation to previous ones, or new ideas to the theme. Ex: In Macbeth, there is a repeated motif of prophecy and foretelling. There are the three witches, who serve as a motif, and they foretell that Macbeth will be king, but then they also foretell Macbeth's death in a veiled way-alluding to the killing of Macbeth by MacDuff and that Banquo's heirs will be kings. | 44 | |
| 8554688640 | Onomatopoeia | The use of words whose sounds echo their sense. Ex: "Pop." "Zap." | 45 | |
| 8554693712 | Oxymoron | A figure of speech that combines opposite or contradictory terms in a brief phrase. Ex: "Pretty ugly." | 46 | |
| 8554698204 | Parable | A relatively short story that teaches a moral, or lesson. Ex: The Tortoise and the Hare - Aesop | 47 | |
| 8554707107 | Parallel Structure | The repetition of words or phrases that have similar grammatical structures. Ex: Joe likes singing, walking and diving. This is correct and uses parallel structure. An incorrect version of this sentence would read: Joe likes singing, walking and to dive. | 48 | |
| 8554713806 | Paratactic Structure | Simply juxtaposes clauses or sentences. Ex: "I am tired: it is hot." | 49 | |
| 8554716661 | Periodic | Sentence that places the main idea or central complete thought at the end of the sentence, after all introductory elements. Ex: In spite of heavy snow and cold temperatures, the game continued. | 50 | |
| 8554727220 | Pathetic Fallacy | Mirrors mood, tone or actions. Ex: William Wordsworth in his poem "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" says: "I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills," The poet describes clouds as "lonely" to describe his state. | 51 | |
| 8554734876 | Personification | A figure or speech in which an object or animal is given human feelings, thoughts or attitudes. Ex: Lightning danced across the sky. | 52 | |
| 8554742809 | Polysyndeton | Sentence which uses a conjunction with no commas to separate the items in a series. Ex: Instead of X, Y, and Z... it results in X and Y and Z... | 53 | |
| 8554756623 | Protagonist | The central character in a story, the one who initiates or drives the action. Ex: John Proctor of The Crucible | 54 | |
| 8554764655 | Quatrain | A poem consisting of four lines. Ex: I have seen roses damasked, red and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks; And in some perfumes is there more delight Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. | 55 | |
| 8554779999 | Refrain | A word, phrase, line, or group of lines that is repeated, for effect, several times in a poem. Ex: Is it possible That nuisance, Should stop converting right into wrong? Is it possible? | 56 | |
| 8554787680 | Rhythm | A rise and fall of the voice produced by the alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables in language. Ex: Tyger, Tyger, burning bright, In the forest of the night. | 57 | |
| 8554796400 | Rhetoric | Art of effective communication, especially persuasive discourse. Ex: When at a restaurant, the server suggests, "Can I add some of our delicious sweet potato fries to your entree for a dollar more?" | 58 | |
| 8554801867 | Rhetorical Question | A question asked for an effect, and not actually requiring an answer. Ex: Can we do better next time? | 59 | |
| 8554808869 | Satire | A type of writing that ridicules the shortcomings of people or institutions in an attempt to bring about a change. Ex: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was written shortly after the Civil War, in which slavery was one of the key issues. While Mark Twain's father had slaves throughout his childhood, Twain did not believe that slavery was right in anyway. Through the character of Jim, and the major moral dilemma that followed Huck throughout the novel, Twain mocks slavery and makes a strong statement about the way people treated slaves. Miss Watson is revered as a good Christian woman, who had strong values, but she is a slave owner in the story. She owns a slave called Jim, who runs away upon hearing that Miss Watson might sell him to New Orleans. | 60 | |
| 8554821393 | Soliloquy | A long speech made by a character in a play while no other character are on stage. Ex: "To be, or not to be? That is the question— Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune..." Hamlet is in a state of mind that only Shakespeare can describe through his magnificent pen. Uncertain, reluctant Prince Hamlet was literally unable to do anything but merely wait to "catch the conscience of the king" to complete his supposed plan. | 61 | |
| 8554831849 | Stream of Consciousness | A style fo writing that portrays the inner workings of a character's mind. Ex: "He is young Leopold, as in a retrospective arrangement, a mirror within a mirror (hey, presto!), he beholdeth himself. That young figure of then is seen, precious manly, walking on a nipping morning from the old house in Clambrassil to the high school, his book satchel on him bandolier wise, and in it a goodly hunk of wheaten loaf, a mother's thought." | 62 | |
| 8554840700 | Style | The distinctive way in which a writer uses language: a writer's distinctive use of diction, tone, and syntax. Ex: If it sounds like I'm writing, then I prefer to rewrite it. (Conversational) | 63 | |
| 8554850658 | Symbol | A person, place, thing, or event that has meaning in itself and that also stands for something more than itself. Ex: Black is used to represent death or evil. | 64 | |
| 8554861146 | Synecdoche | A figure of speech in which a part represents the whole. Ex: "If you don't drive properly, you will lose your wheels." | 65 | |
| 8554868443 | Symploce | A figure of speech in which a word or phrase is used successively at the beginning of two or more clauses or sentences and another word or phrase with a similar wording is used successively at the end of them. Ex: "For want of a nail the shoe was lost. For want of a shoe the horse was lost. For want of a horse the rider was lost. For want of a rider the battle was lost. For want of a battle the kingdom was lost. And all for the want of a horseshoe nail." (attributed to Benjamin Franklin and others) | 66 | |
| 8554880981 | Telegraphic Sentence | A sentence shorter than five words in length. Ex: I like to eat. | 67 | |
| 8554889677 | Theme | The insight about human life that is revealed in a literary work. Ex: Coming of age - loss of innocence. | 68 | |
| 8554896291 | 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. Ex: In A River Runs Through It, loss is also addressed with a kind of acceptance. The tone here is a bit wistful, yet peaceful and moving towards acceptance nonetheless. This was the last fish we were ever to see Paul catch. My father and I talked about this moment several times later, and whatever our other feelings, we always felt it fitting that, when we saw him catch his last fish, we never saw the fish but only the artistry of the fisherman. | 69 | |
| 8554909697 | Vernacular | The language spoken by the people who live in particular locality. Ex: English in the United States | 70 | |
| 8554927013 | Narrative Poetry | A narrative poem tells the story of an event in the form of a poem. Ex: I Still Love You, You're My Big Brother by Jade You were always a risk taker, Especially in the car, you liked to burn rubber, My mates thought it was funny, it was cool, When you gave them a lift and played the fool. Driving with no hands, hanging out the sun roof, Shutting you eyes and generally being a goof Thinking you were some Evil Knieval. Did you know you'd cause this upheaval? | 71 | |
| 8554934244 | Ballad | A poem or song narrating a story in short stanzas. Ex: In the middle of the 15th century, Francois Villon wrote a ballad entitled "Ballad of the Gibbet" where he stated: "Brothers and men that shall after us be, Let not your hearts be hard to us: For pitying this our misery Ye shall find God the more piteous." | 72 | |
| 8554940840 | Dramatic Monologue | A poem in which an imagined speaker addresses a silent listener, usually not the reader. Ex: Romeo and Juliet (By William Shakespeare) "But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east and Juliet is the sun! Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, Who is already sick and pale with grief ... O that I were a glove upon that hand, That I might touch that cheek!" | 73 | |
| 8554949457 | Lyric Poem | An emotional, rhyming poem. Ex: Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Love is Not Love at All" Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain; Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink And rise and sink and rise and sink again; Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath, Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone; Yet many a man is making friends with death Even as I speak, for lack of love alone. It well may be that in a difficult hour, Pinned down by pain and moaning for release, Or nagged by want past resolution's power, I might be driven to sell your love for peace, Or trade the memory of this night for food. It well may be. I do not think I would. | 74 | |
| 8554959817 | Ode | A lyric poem in the form of an address to a particular subject, often elevated in style or manner and written in varied or irregular meter. Ex: Ode to the Confederate Dead by Allen Tate "Row after row with strict impunity The headstones yield their names to the element, The wind whirrs without recollection; In the riven troughs the splayed leaves Pile up, of nature the casual sacrament To the seasonal eternity of death; Then driven by the fierce scrutiny Of heaven to their election in the vast breath, They sough the rumour of mortality." | 75 | |
| 8554970142 | Sonnet | A poem of fourteen lines using any of a number of formal rhyme schemes, in English typically having ten syllables per line. Ex: Sonnet 55, Shakespeare Not marble, nor the gilded monuments Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme; But you shall shine more bright in these contents Than unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish time. When wasteful war shall statues overturn, And broils root out the work of masonry, Nor Mars his sword, nor war's quick fire shall burn The living record of your memory. 'Gainst death, and all oblivious enmity Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room Even in the eyes of all posterity That wear this world out to the ending doom. So, till the judgment that yourself arise, You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes. | 76 | |
| 8554977311 | Petrarchan | Denoting a sonnet of the kind used by the Italian poet Petrarch, with an octave rhyming abbaabba, and a sestet typically rhyming cdcdcd or cdecde. Ex: Sonnet Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) Ye ladies, walking past me piteous-eyed, Who is the lady that lies prostrate here? Can this be even she my heart holds dear? Nay, if it be so, speak, and nothing hide. Her very aspect seems itself beside, And all her features of such altered cheer That to my thinking they do not appear Hers who makes others seem beatified. 'If thou forget to know our lady thus, Whom grief o'ercomes, we wonder in no wise, For also the same thing befalleth us, Yet if thou watch the movement of her eyes, Of her thou shalt be straightaway conscious. O weep no more; thou art all wan with sighs. | 77 | |
| 8554987575 | Shakespearean | English or Shakespearean sonnets have 14 lines, but are grouped differently. There are three quatrains, which have four lines each, followed by a couplet, which is two lines. The rhyme scheme is a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d, e-f-e-f, g-g. Ex: Sonnet 130 (a) My Mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; (b) Coral is far more red than her lips' red; (a) If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; (b) If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. (c) I have seen roses damasked, red and white, (d) But no such roses see I in her cheeks; (c) And in some perfumes is there more delight (d) There in the breath that from my mistress reeks. (e) I love to hear her speak; yet well I know (f) That music hath a far more pleasing sound; (e) I grant I never saw a goddess go; (f) My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground (g) Any yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare (g) As any she belied with false compare. | 78 | |
| 8555000399 | Spenserian | A sonnet in which the lines are grouped into three interlocked quatrains and a couplet and the rhyme scheme is abab, bcbc, cdcd, ee. Ex: A gentle knight was pricking on the plaine, Ycladd in mightie armes and silver shielde, Wherein old dints of deepe woundes did remaine, The cruell markes of many a bloody fielde; Yet armes till that time did he never wield: His angry steede did chide his foaming bitt, As much disdayning to the curbe to yield: Full jolly knight he seemed, and faire did sitt, As one for knightly jousts and fierce encounters fitt. | 79 | |
| 8555008620 | The Villanelle | A nineteen-line poem with two rhymes throughout, consisting of five tercets and a quatrain, with the first and third lines of the opening tercet recurring alternately at the end of the other tercets and with both repeated at the close of the concluding quatrain. Ex: The Home on the Hill Edward Arlington Robinson (1869-1935) They are all gone away, The house is shut and still, There is nothing more to say Through broken walls and gray, The wind blows bleak and shrill, They are all gone away Nor is there one today, To speak them good or ill There is nothing more to say Why is it then we stray Around the sunken sill? They are all gone away And our poor fancy play For them is wasted skill, There is nothing more to say There is ruin and decay In the House on the Hill: They are all gone away, There is nothing more to say. | 80 | |
| 8555019295 | Meter- five common pattern | Iambic, Trochaic, Spondaic, Anapaestic, Dactylic Ex: Ambic (x /) : That time of year thou mayst in me behold Trochaic (/ x): Tell me not in mournful numbers Spondaic (/ /): Break, break, break/ On thy cold gray stones, O Sea! Meters with three-syllable feet are Anapaestic (x x /): And the sound of a voice that is still Dactylic (/ x x): This is the forest primeval, the murmuring pines and the hemlock (a trochee replaces the final dactyl) | 81 | |
| 8555044794 | Foot- 8 types | A basic repeated sequence of meter composed of two or more accented or unaccented syllables. Ex: iamb, trochee, dactyl, anapest, spondee | 82 | |
| 8555053751 | Stanza | A group of lines forming the basic recurring metrical unit in a poem Ex: Essay on Criticism by Alexander Pope "True wit is nature to advantage dress'd; What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd." | 83 | |
| 8555065121 | Enjambment | The continuation of a sentence without a pause beyond the end of a line, couplet, or stanza. Ex: "The holy time is quiet as a Nun Breathless with adoration; the broad sun Is sinking down in its tranquility;" Wordsworth, "Beauteous Evening" | 84 | |
| 8555072539 | Antipophora | A figure of speech in which the speaker poses a question and then answers the question. Ex: "Is our species crazy? "Plenty of evidence." (Saul Bellow, Mr. Sammler's Planet. Viking Press, 1970) | 85 |
