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| 1237075045 | Allegory | An extended narrative that carries a second meaning along with the surface story. The second meaning usually involves incarnations of abstract ideas. William Golding's Lord of the Flies is considered to be allegorical and Cormac McCarthy's the Road may be read in this way. Also, George Orwell's Animal Farm. | 0 | |
| 1237075046 | Alliteration | The repetition of accented consonant sounds either at the beginning of words (or a stressed syllable within a word) that are close to each other g. g. the repetition of the s, th, and w consonants from Shakespeare's Sonnet 30 | 1 | |
| 1237075047 | Allusion | A reference in literature to previous literature, history, mythology, pop culture, or the Bible. Especially the Bible. | 2 | |
| 1237075048 | Ambiguity | The quality of being intentionally unclear. Makes the situation able to be interpreted in more than one way. For example, when Hamlet says to Ophelia :get thee to a nunnery: is he literally urging her to go to a convent or is he calling her a *****? | 3 | |
| 1237075049 | Analogy | A comparison, usually extended, of two different things | 4 | |
| 1237075050 | Anaphora | The repetition of an identical word or group of words in successive verses or clauses: I gaver her cakes and I gave her Ale, I gave her sack and Sherry I kissed her once and I kissed her twice, And we were wonderous merry | 5 | |
| 1237075051 | Anecdote | A brief account of a story about an individual or incident to illustrate a point. | 6 | |
| 1237075052 | Antagonist | A character who functions as a resisting force to the goals of the protagonist, without association of good or evil e. g. the creature in Frankenstein or Macduff in Macbeth | 7 | |
| 1237075053 | Antihero | A protagonist who carries the action of the literary piece but does not embody the classic characteristics of courage, strength, and nobility. On TV, Jack Bauer of "24" is an anti-hero, as is Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment | 8 | |
| 1237075054 | Antithesis | Balancing words, phrases, or ideas that are strongly contrasted, often by means of grammatical structure. e.g. Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice; Man proposes, God disposes; Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; Speech is silver, but silence is gold; Patience is bitter, but it has a sweet fruit; Money is the root of all evils: poverty is the fruit of all goodness; You are easy on the eyes, but hard on the heart. | 9 | |
| 1237075055 | Aphorism | A short pithy/terse statement of a truth or doctrine (serious subject) e. g. from Pope's An Essay on Man "the proper study of mankind is man"; Bible is full of them. | 10 | |
| 1237075056 | Apostrophe | A figure of speech in which a person not present or a personified abstraction is directly addressed as though present | 11 | |
| 1237075057 | Appositive | A noun or noun substitute placed next to (in apposition to) another noun to be described or defined by the appositive. The appositive can be placed before or after the noun. e.g. Darcy, a supremely proud aristocrat, at first snubs Elizabeth Bennet. | 12 | |
| 1237075058 | Aside | In a play, a character's short speech or remark heard by the audience but not by other characters e. g. Hamlet's comment that he is "A little more than kin, and less than kind" | 13 | |
| 1237075059 | Assonance | The repetition of similar vowel sounds, usually close together, to achieve a particular effect or euphony | 14 | |
| 1237075060 | Atmosphere | The emotional tone pervading a section or a whole of a literary work | 15 | |
| 1237075061 | Bildungsroman | A novel which is an account of the youthful development of a hero or heroine e. g. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Jane Eyre | 16 | |
| 1237075062 | Balance | Constructing a sentence so that both halves are about the same length and importance, Sentences can be unbalance to serve a special effect as well. | 17 | |
| 1237075063 | Characterization | How the author tells the audience about a character's thoughts, feelings, or actions | 18 | |
| 1237075064 | Chiasmus | A literary scheme involving a specific inversion of word order. It involves taking parallelism and deliberately turning it inside out, creating a "crisscross" pattern e.g. "Never let a Fool Kiss You or a Kiss Fool You." Chiasmus is different from antimetabole. An antimetabole is repetition of words in the consecutive clauses but in an inverted or transposed order. For example, "You forget what you want to remember, and you remember what you want to forget." Antimetabole examples resemble chiasmus examples as they are marked by the inversion of structure. In chiasmus, however, the words and phrases are not repeated. | 19 | |
| 1237075065 | Cliche | An expression that deviates enough from ordinary usage to call attention to itself and used so often it is felt to be hackneyed or cloying e. g. "He's fit as a fiddle" | 20 | |
| 1237075066 | Indirect Characterization | The author reveals to the reader what the character is like by describing how the character looks and dresses, by letting the reader hear what the character says, by revealing the character's private thoughts and feelings, by revealing the characters effect on other people (showing how other characters feel or behave toward the character), or by showing the character in action. | 21 | |
| 1237075067 | Colloquialism | Words, phrases, or expressions used in everyday speech and writing; a word or phrase that is not formal or literary, typically one used in ordinary or familiar conversation. | 22 | |
| 1237075068 | Direct Characterization | A literary technique whereby the author uses his own direct comments or those of a narrator to inform the audience about how to understand, interpret and value a character. e.g. sneaky, generous, mean | 23 | |
| 1237075069 | Static Character | A character that does not grow or change throughout the story, that ends as he/she began. | 24 | |
| 1237075070 | Dynamic Character | is one who changes in some important way as a result of the story's action. | 25 | |
| 1237075071 | Flat Character | A character who is not well-developed, but rather one-dimensional ; he/she has only one or two personality traits | 26 | |
| 1237075072 | Round Character | A fully developed fictional character created by the author. The writer reveals the character's physical and personality traits as well as the character's background. | 27 | |
| 1237075073 | Complex Sentence | A sentence that contains one main clause (independent clause) and at least one subordinate clause (dependent clause) | 28 | |
| 1237075074 | Compound Sentence | Contains two independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction or a semicolon | 29 | |
| 1237075075 | Connotation | All the meanings, associations, or emotions that a word suggests | 30 | |
| 1237075076 | Comic Relief | An amusing scene, incident, or speech introduced into serious or tragic elements, as in a play, in order to provide temporary relief from tension, or to intensify the dramatic action. | 31 | |
| 1237075077 | Catharsis | Drawn from Aristotle's writings on tragedy. Refers to the "cleansing" of emotion an audience member experiences during a play; an emotional or psychological cleansing that brings relief or renewal. | 32 | |
| 1237237436 | Antimetabole | An antimetabole is repetition of words in the consecutive clauses but in an inverted or transposed order. For example, "You forget what you want to remember, and you remember what you want to forget." Antimetabole examples resemble chiasmus examples as they are marked by the inversion of structure. In chiasmus, however, the words and phrases are not repeated. | 33 |
