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| 7339983400 | Act | A major unit of a drama or play. Modern dramas generally have one, two, or three acts. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE | 0 | |
| 7339990426 | Allegory | A literary work in which all or most of the characters, settings, and events stand for ideas, qualities, or figures beyond themselves. JOHN BUNYAN'S THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS EDMUND SPENCER'S THE FAERIE QUEENE GEORGE ORWELL's ANIMAL FARM | 1 | |
| 7339999268 | Alliteration | The repetition of consonant sounds, generally at the beginnings of words. JOHN M. HOPKIN'S PIED BEAUTY: "With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;" SAMUEL T. COLERIDGE'S THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER: "The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew." | 2 | |
| 7340032631 | Allusion | A reference to a well-known character, place, or situation from history, music, art, or another work of literature. W.H.Auden alludes to the Greek myth of Icarus in his poem MUSEE DES BEAUX ARTS | 3 | |
| 7340040302 | Ambiguity | The state of having more than one meaning ELIZABETH BOWEN'S THE DEMON LOVER | 4 | |
| 7340043465 | Analogy | A comparison that shows similarities between two things that are otherwise dissimilar. SHAKESPEARE'S SONNET 130: "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun." | 5 | |
| 7340048925 | Anapest | A metrical foot of three syllables in which two unstressed syllables are followed by a stressed one. SIEGFRIED SASSOON'S DOES IT MATTER?: "You can drink/ and forget/ and be glad..." | 6 | |
| 7340059523 | Anecdote | A brief account of an interesting happening. JAMES BOSWELL'S THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON: when Boswell was introduced to Johnson by Thomas Davies | 7 | |
| 7340066925 | Antagonist | A person or a face that opposes the protagonist or central character, in a story or a drama. BEOWULF: Grendel is an antagonist. | 8 | |
| 7340074885 | Anthropomorphism | The assignment of human characteristics to gods, animals, or inanimate objects. JANET FRAME'S TWO SHEEP: the sheep have human characteristics. | 9 | |
| 7340080770 | Aphorism | A short, pointed statement that expresses a wise or clever observation about human experience. ALEXANDER POPE'S AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM: "We think our fathers fools, so wise we grow/ Our sons, no doubt, will think us so." | 10 | |
| 7340089837 | Apostrophe | A figure of speech in which a speaker addresses an inanimate object, an idea, or an absent person. PERCY BYSSHE SHELLY'S ODE TO THE WEST WIND | 11 | |
| 7340095832 | Archetype | A symbol, a character, an image, or a story pattern that recurs frequently in literature and evokes strong reponses, often based on unconscious memory. SIR GAWAIN in SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT embarks on an archetypal journey. | 12 | |
| 7340142139 | Argument | A type of persuasive writing in which logic or reason is used to try to influence a reader's ideas or actions. MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT presents a powerful argument for the education of women in A VINDICTATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN. COLERIFGE'S THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER | 13 | |
| 7340150481 | Aside | In a play, a character's comment that is directed to the audience or another character but is not heard by any other character on stage. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S MACBETH: Act 1 Scene 4 "King: My worthy cawdor! Macbeth: [aside] The Prince of Cumberland!/ That is a step/ On which I must fall down, or else o'erleap. | 14 | |
| 7340163803 | Assonance | The repetition of the same or similar vowel sounds in stressed syllables that end with different consonant sounds. BEN JONSON'S ON MY FIRST SON: "Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;..." ROBERT BROWNING'S ANDREA DEL SARTO: "Ah, but man's reach should exceed his grasp..." | 15 | |
| 7340173776 | Atmosphere | The dominant emotional feeling of a literary work that contributes to the mood. GEORGE ORWLSS'S SHOOTING AN ELEPHANT builds the atmosphere of the natives' dislike of him as suspenseful. | 16 | |
| 7340180000 | Author's Purpose | An author's intent in writing a literary work. JOHN BUNYAN wrote THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS to provide moral instruction. | 17 | |
| 7340184691 | Autobiography | The story of a person's life written by that person. THE BOOK OF MARGERY KEMPE is the autobigraphy of a medieval woman. | 18 | |
| 7340187432 | Ballad | A narrative song or poem. SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE'S THE RIME OF THEANCIENT MARINER BONNY BARBARA ALLAN is a folk ballad. | 19 | |
| 7340193836 | Ballad Stanza | A quatrain, or four-line stanza, in which the first and third lines have four stressed syllables, and the second and fourth lines have three stressed syllables. GET UP AND BAR THE DOOR: It fell about the Matinmasa time,/ And a gay time it was then,/ When our goodwife got puddings to make,/ And she's boiled them in the pan. | 20 | |
| 7340203805 | Bias | An inclination toward a certain opinion or position on a topic, possibly stemming from prejudice. | 21 | |
| 7340207073 | Biography | An account of a person's life written by someone other than the subject. JAMES BOSWELL'S THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON | 22 | |
| 7340213907 | Blank Verse | Poetry or lines of dramatic verse written in unrhymes iambic pentameter. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S MACBETH: Act 2 Scene 1 "And on thy blade and dudgen/ gouts of blood,/" | 23 | |
| 7340217475 | Byronic Hero | The unconventional, brooding, romantic character popularized by LORD BYRON in some of his verse. | 24 | |
| 7340220411 | Cadence | The rhythmic rise and fall of language when it is spoken or read aloud. | 25 | |
| 7340230351 | Caesura | A pause in a line of poetry, usually near the middle of a line, with two stressed syllables before and two after, creating a strong rhythm. LORD ALFRED TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM A.H.H.: "Ring out the old// ring in the new/ Ring, happybells,//across the snow;" | 26 | |
| 7340236938 | Carpe Diem | A Latin phrase meaning "sieze the day"; in other words, "make the most of each moment." ANDREW MARVELL'S poem TO HIS COY MISTRESS | 27 | |
| 7340241769 | Cavalier Poetry | The work of a grou[ of English poets in the 1600s who were loyal to the monarchy. ROBERT HERRICK, SIR JOHN SUCKLING, and RICHARD LOVELACE | 28 | |
| 7340245503 | Character | A person portrayed in a literary work. KATHERINE MANSFIELD'S A CUP OF TEA has rounded out characters. V.S. NAIPAUL'S B. WORDSWORTH has flat characters. D.H. LAWRENCE"S THE ROCKING_HORSE WINNDER has characters that grown and change during the story. | 29 |
