Terms : Hide Images
| 4347929294 | act | a drama is usually divided into acts, and the acts are divided into scenes | 0 | |
| 4347947920 | allegory | an extended narrative that carries a second meaning along with the surface story | 1 | |
| 4347965050 | allusion | a reference, usually brief to a presumably familiar person or thing | 2 | |
| 4347973190 | ambiguity | any wording, action, or symbol that can be read in divergent ways | 3 | |
| 4347977098 | anaphora | The intentional repetition of a word or beginning clauses in order to create an artistic effect | 4 | |
| 4347995490 | anecdote | a short and interesting story or an amusing event often proposed to support or demonstrate some point and to make the reader or listener laugh | 5 | |
| 4347999179 | antagonist | the character in conflict with the protagonist | 6 | |
| 4348023756 | anticlimax | literally, an effect which works against the climax, frequently a descent from a noble or lofty tone to one noticeably less exalted | 7 | |
| 4348038820 | antithesis | a rhetorical device in which sharply opposing ideas are expressed within a balanced grammatical structure | 8 | |
| 4348054876 | apostrophe | a figure of speech in which someone absent or dead or something nonhuman is addressed as if it were alive and present and could reply | 9 | |
| 4348058346 | aside | a short passage spoken in an undertone, usually directed to the audience and presumed to be inaudible to other characters on the stage, and, most important, presumed to be true | 10 | |
| 4348086506 | atmosphere | the emotional mood created by the entirety of a literary work, established partly by the setting and partly by the author's choice of objects that are described | 11 | |
| 4353266564 | blank verse | unrhymed iambic pentameter | 12 | |
| 4348089764 | flat character | a character who exhibits one dominant quality | 13 | |
| 4348091413 | round character | a character that exhibits the complexity of traits associated with real people | 14 | |
| 4348092774 | static character | a character that does not change during the course of the action | 15 | |
| 4348094486 | dynamic character | a character that undergoes a change during the course of the action (matures) | 16 | |
| 4348096159 | stock character | a character found again and again in different literary works | 17 | |
| 4348100791 | catastrophe | the conclusion of a play, particularly a tragedy, that winds up the plot | 18 | |
| 4348106480 | catharsis | the purging of the emotions or relieving of emotional tensions through certain kinds of art, as tragedy or music | 19 | |
| 4348127855 | climax | the point at which a conflict or crisis reaches its peak; the moment at which the audience realizes whether the protagonist will win or lose the struggle | 20 | |
| 4348140811 | colloquial | ordinary language used in everyday speech | 21 | |
| 4348148782 | conceit | A figure of speech in which two vastly different objects are likened together with the help of an extended similes or metaphors. It develops a comparison which is exceedingly unlikely but is, nonetheless, intellectually imaginative | 22 | |
| 4348163698 | comic relief | a humorous scene, incident, character, or bit of dialogue occurring after some serious or tragic moment to relieve emotional intensity | 23 | |
| 4348170384 | external conflict | a struggle between a character and some outside force in a literary work | 24 | |
| 4348172552 | internal conflict | a struggle that takes place within a character in a literary work | 25 | |
| 4348178406 | connotation | the implications or suggestions evoked by a word | 26 | |
| 4348181594 | consonance | when two words in a line or lines of poetry have different vowel sounds but share the same consonant sounds | 27 | |
| 4348187621 | comedy | Generally deals with the light and amusing side of life, and it usually has a happy ending. It pictures life accurately, but not profoundly, and often deals with the folly and absurdity of people. | 28 | |
| 4351238545 | crisis | A brief period of time in a story or play when a conflict is intensified to the point where a resolution must occur. | 29 | |
| 4351273446 | dialect | the language of a particular district, class, or group of persons | 30 | |
| 4351274321 | dialogue | The lines spoken by a character or characters in a play, essay, story, or novel, especially a conversation between two characters, or a literary work that takes the form of such a discussion | 31 | |
| 4351278273 | diction | choice, use, and order of words in speech or writing | 32 | |
| 4351280484 | denotation | the literal or primary meaning of a word, in contrast to the feelings or ideas that the word suggests | 33 | |
| 4351281940 | denouement/ falling action | the sequence of events that follow the climax and end in the resolution in contrast to the rising action, which leads up to the plot's climax | 34 | |
| 4351285246 | deus ex machina | an unrealistic or unexpected intervention to rescue the protagonists or resolve the story's conflict | 35 | |
| 4351287309 | discourse | written or spoken communication or debate -- can be classified into four main categories: exposition, narration, description, argument | 36 | |
| 4353227848 | dystopian literature | genre of fictional writing used to explore social and political structures in 'a dark, nightmare world.' | 37 | |
| 4351298755 | enjambment | a run-on line of poetry in which logical and grammatical sense carries over from one line into the next | 38 | |
| 4351302938 | epigram | a short usually witty statement, graceful in style and ingenious in thought | 39 | |
| 4351324260 | epigraph | a quotation preceding a book, chapter, or poem often intended to evoke something of its theme or atmosphere | 40 | |
| 4352663331 | epilogue | a conclusion added to a literary work such as a novel, play, or long poem; the opposite of a prologue | 41 | |
| 4352666884 | epithet | an adjective or phrase that is used to express the characteristic of a person or thing, such as Ivan the Terrible | 42 | |
| 4352671805 | exposition | the part of the story, usually near the beginning, in which the characters are introduced, the background is explained, and the setting is described. | 43 | |
| 4352691769 | euphemism | refers to polite, indirect expressions which replace words and phrases considered harsh and impolite or which suggest something unpleasant or harsh | 44 | |
| 4352699010 | fable | a brief story which illustrates some moral truth, often through animal characters | 45 | |
| 4352704272 | farce | a form of low comedy designed to provoke laughter through highly exaggerated caricatures of people in improbable or silly situations | 46 | |
| 4352711092 | flashback | a scene inserted into a film, novel, story or play showing events which happened at an earlier time | 47 | |
| 4352719195 | foil | a character that serves by contrast to highlight or emphasize opposing traits in another character | 48 | |
| 4353268709 | free verse | poetry that lacks regular meter and line length, relying upon the natural speech rhythms of the language | 49 | |
| 4352724732 | genre | a type or category of literature or film marked by certain shared features or conventions | 50 | |
| 4352726952 | hamartia | a tragic flaw, especially a misperception, a lack of some important insight | 51 | |
| 4352738902 | hero | traditionally, a character who has such admirable traits as courage, idealism, and fortitude, but also defined as the principal character of a literary work | 52 | |
| 4352755017 | heroic couplet | a pair of rhymed iambic pentameter lines | 53 | |
| 4352756455 | hubris | excessive pride and self-confidence - often the tragic hero's hamartia | 54 | |
| 4352761039 | hyperbole | deliberate exaggeration, used for either serious or comic effect | 55 | |
| 4352769981 | Iambic pentameter | a line of verse with five metrical feet, each consisting of one short (or unstressed) syllable followed by one long (or stressed) syllable | 56 | |
| 4352777005 | Inciting Incident | the event or decision that begins a story's problem | 57 | |
| 4352786767 | Invective | an attack, on a person or idea, using abusive language to ridicule or denounce | 58 | |
| 4352792482 | inversion (anastrophe) | the deliberate inversion of the common order of words | 59 | |
| 4352802703 | irony | a device in which the writer expresses a meaning contradictory to the stated or ostensible one | 60 | |
| 4352818901 | dramatic irony | something is known by the reader or audience, but unknown by some or all of the characters | 61 | |
| 4352841031 | verbal irony | the attitude of the writer or speaker is the opposite to that which is literally stated | 62 | |
| 4352855237 | irony of situation | a set of circumstances turns out to be the reverse of those anticipated or considered appropriate | 63 | |
| 4353046241 | juxtaposition | a literary technique in which two or more ideas, places, characters and their actions are placed side by side in a narrative or a poem for the purpose of developing comparisons and contrasts | 64 | |
| 4353051447 | litotes | an idea is expressed by the denial of it's opposite | 65 | |
| 4353051923 | metaphor | a figure of speech in which two unlike objects are compared by identification or substitution of one for the other (without using "like" or "as") | 66 | |
| 4353054542 | metonymy | a figure of speech in which the name of some object or idea is substituted for another to which it has some relation (ex. the White House) | 67 | |
| 4353060321 | mood | a literary element that evokes certain feelings or vibes in readers through words and descriptions | 68 | |
| 4353063763 | monologue | an extended speech by one person when others are on stage | 69 | |
| 4353065173 | motif | a theme, character, or verbal pattern which recurs in literature or folklore | 70 | |
| 4353068105 | motivation | a reason that explains, or partially explains a character's thoughts, feelings, actions or speech | 71 | |
| 4353077657 | narrative structure | generally described as the structural framework that underlies the order and manner in which a narrative is presented to a reader, listener, or viewer | 72 | |
| 4353069101 | novel | any extended fictional prose narrative focusing on a few primary characters but often involving scores of secondary characters | 73 | |
| 4353070193 | novella | a written, fictional, prose narrative normally longer than a short story but shorter than a novel | 74 | |
| 4353073358 | onomatopoeia | words whose pronunciation suggests their meaning | 75 | |
| 4353082066 | parable | a short, simple story illustrating a moral lesson | 76 | |
| 4353084156 | paradox | a statement which, though it appears self-contradictory, contains a basis of truth that reconciles the seeming opposites | 77 | |
| 4353084962 | parallelism | the arrangement of equally important ideas in similar grammatical constructions | 78 | |
| 4353092030 | personification | a figure of speech in which inanimate objects or abstract ideas are endowed with human qualities or characteristics | 79 | |
| 4353096002 | point of view | the point from which a story is seen or told: first person, second person, third person omniscient, third person limited omniscient, third person objective | 80 | |
| 4353103564 | prologue | an opening section of a longer work | 81 | |
| 4353106314 | prose | literary expression not marked by rhyme or metrical regularity; the language used in novels, short stories, articles, etc. | 82 | |
| 4353110185 | proverb | a short popular saying, generally an observation or a piece of advice | 83 | |
| 4353113499 | pun | a play on the multiple meanings of a word, or on two words that sound alike but have different meanings | 84 | |
| 4353116452 | refrain | a line or lines repeated at intervals in a poem or song, usually at the end of a stanza | 85 | |
| 4353118213 | repetition | repeating a word, phrase, or sentence in a passage of prose or poetry to make an idea more clear or for emphasis | 86 | |
| 4353124557 | rhyme Scheme | the arrangement of rhymes in a unit of verse | 87 | |
| 4353125401 | rising action | a series of related incidents build toward the point of greatest interest; the part of a play preceding the climax | 88 | |
| 4353128356 | sarcasm | the use of irony to mock or convey contempt; bitter, derisive expression | 89 | |
| 4353135323 | satire | writing used to expose and criticize foolishness and corruption of an individual or a society through humor, irony, exaggeration or ridicule with the intention of improving humanity by criticizing its follies and foibles | 90 | |
| 4353138079 | simile | an expressed comparison between two unlike objects, usually using "like" or "as" | 91 | |
| 4353145116 | slang | informal diction or the use of vocabulary considered inconsistent with the preferred formal wording common among the educated or elite in a culture | 92 | |
| 4353151139 | slant rhyme (also approximate rhyme) | rhymes created out of words with similar but not identical sounds. | 93 | |
| 4353153283 | soliloquy | one character ALONE on stage speaks directly to the audience to reveal what he or she is thinking and/or to reveal his or her true self | 94 | |
| 4353154154 | stream-of-consciousness | a method of narration that describes in words the flow of thoughts in the minds of the characters | 95 | |
| 4353165206 | subplot | a literary technique, it is a secondary plot, or a strand of the main plot that runs parallel to it and supports it | 96 | |
| 4353179639 | synecdoche | a figure of speech in which a part represents the whole object or idea (ex. All hands on deck) | 97 | |
| 4353185195 | syntax | the arrangement of words and sentences in writing | 98 | |
| 4353189104 | symbol | a word, place, character, or object that means something beyond what it is on a literal level. | 99 | |
| 4353190040 | theme | the central idea explored in a literary work; a universal statement (truth) about life | 100 | |
| 4353193438 | tone | the attitude of a writer toward a subject or an audience | 101 | |
| 4353194413 | tragedy | deals with serious themes and is concerned with human suffering; the protagonist struggles but cannot win; defeat is inevitable | 102 | |
| 4353199786 | tragic hero | a person of stature who is neither villainous nor exceptionally virtuous; he or she moves from happiness to misery through some frailty or error, his or her "tragic flaw." This tragic flaw brings about his or her downfall. | 103 | |
| 4371697712 | tragic flaw | the character flaw that brings down the tragic hero, often hubris | 104 | |
| 4353205666 | understatement | the device of presenting something as less significant than it really is | 105 | |
| 4353207930 | villain | an evil character who acts in opposition to the hero | 106 | |
| 4353212929 | utopian literature | a type of literature in which an ideal society is depicted | 107 | |
| 4353234517 | volta | in a sonnet, the turn of thought or argument: in Petrarchan or Italian sonnets it occurs between the octave and the sestet, and in Shakespearean or English before the final couplet. | 108 | |
| 4353235407 | voice | either, the author's individual writing style or point of view OR the characteristic speech and thought patterns of a first-person narrator; a persona | 109 | |
| 4353236091 | verse | lines arranged in metrical patterns OR a single line of poetry | 110 |
