Terms : Hide Images
| 13827268957 | ABSTRACT DICTION | Words which are general and "tell" something, without a picture. | 0 | |
| 13827268958 | ACTION | The bare events in a story. | 1 | |
| 13827268959 | ALLEGORY | An extended story which carries a deeper meaning below the surface. The story makes sense on a literal level but also conveys another more important meaning. The deeper meaning is usually spiritual, moral or political. | 2 | |
| 13827268960 | ALLITERATION | A literary device which creates interest by the recurrence of initial consonant sounds of different words within the same sentence. | 3 | |
| 13827268961 | ALLUSION | A literary device which creates interests through a brief, indirect reference (not a quotation) to another literary work, usually for the purpose of associating the tone or theme of the one work with the other. | 4 | |
| 13827268962 | AMBIGUITY | When, for a higher purpose, an author intentionally suggests more than one, and sometimes contradictory, interpretations of a situation. | 5 | |
| 13827268963 | ANALOGY | A comparison between two things, or pairs of things, to reveal their similarities; sometimes expressed as a simile. | 6 | |
| 13827268964 | ANALYTICAL ESSAY | Essay type. An attempt to identify an author's purpose and to evaluate his or her success in achieving it; often used as another name for a book review. | 7 | |
| 13827268965 | ANAPHORA | Repeated words or phrases used to emphasize a point, especially at the beginning of successive sentences or paragraphs. | 8 | |
| 13827268966 | ANTAGONIST | The character in a story who opposes the hero, or protagonist. | 9 | |
| 13827268967 | ANTHROPOMORPHISM | A literary technique in which the author gives human characteristics to non-human objects. | 10 | |
| 13827268968 | APHORISM | A short, pithy and instructive statement of truth; also called a maxim, or apothegm. | 11 | |
| 13827268969 | APOSTROPHE | A literary device which consists of a rhetorical pause or digression to address a person (distant or absent) directly. | 12 | |
| 13827268970 | ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY | Essay type. An attempt to convince an audience to think or act in a certain way based upon an appeal to reason (logos) | 13 | |
| 13827268971 | ASSONANCE | The close repetition of similar vowel sounds, in successive or proximate words, usually in stressed syllables. | 14 | |
| 13827268972 | BLANK VERSE | Unrhymed poetry written in iambic pentameter. | 15 | |
| 13827268973 | BOOK REVIEW | Essay type. An attempt to introduce an audience to a new or unfamiliar book by combining elements of an expository essay, a persuasive essay, and sometimes an analytical essay. | 16 | |
| 13827268974 | CATASTROPHE | The tragic conclusion of a story or play. The concluding action of a drama, especially a classical tragedy, following the climax and containing a resolution of the plot. | 17 | |
| 13827268975 | CHARACTER | A person (or a non-human with a human personality) in a literary work. Can also refer to the particular, unique traits of a person in a literary work. | 18 | |
| 13827268976 | CHARACTERIZATION | Tthe way in which an author presents and defines characters. | 19 | |
| 13827268977 | CHIASM | A literary structure in which parallel ideas are first stated in one order, and then repeated in reverse order. The most important point is placed in the middle, just before the reversal, to emphasize its importance. | 20 | |
| 13827268978 | CLIMAX | The decisive moment and the turning point of the action in the plot of a play or story. This is the crucial part of the drama, the part which determines the outcome of the conflict. | 21 | |
| 13827268979 | CONCEIT | An unusual, elaborate or startling analogy; a poetic literary device which was common among the Metaphysical poets of the 17th century. | 22 | |
| 13827268980 | CONCRETE DICTION | A use of words which are specific and "show" the reader a mental picture. | 23 | |
| 13827268981 | CONFLICT | The struggle between opposing forces that provides the central action and interest in any literary plot. | 24 | |
| 13827268982 | CONNOTATION | A literary device: a suggested, implied or evocative meaning. | 25 | |
| 13827268983 | CONTEXT | Anything beyond the specific words of a literary work that may be relevant to the meaning of a literary work. | 26 | |
| 13827268984 | DECONSTRUCTION | A movement in literary criticism which denies that literature has any objective, enduring, or universal meaning (cf. nihilism). The reduction of literary meaning to political motives, power struggles and subjective emotions. | 27 | |
| 13827268985 | DENOTATION | A literary device. The author uses an explicit or literal meaning of a word in order to emphasize a specific, important fact. | 28 | |
| 13827268986 | DENOUEMENT | The final outcome or unraveling of the main dramatic complications in a play, novel, or other work of literature. It sometimes involves an explanation of secrets or misunderstandings. From the French word for "unknotting". | 29 | |
| 13827268987 | DESCRIPTIVE ESSAY | Essay type. An attempt to enable an audience to feel a certain way by using words to create a mood or emotion. | 30 | |
| 13827268988 | DEUS EX MACHINA | A plot device when a conflict was resolved through a means that seems unrelated to the story (e.g. when a god suddenly appeared, without warning, and solves everything). The term is used negatively, as a criticism, when an author's solution to a conflict seems artificial, forced, improbable, clumsy or otherwise unjustified. From Latin: "God out of the machine" | 31 | |
| 13827268989 | DIALOGUE | The lines which are spoken by, or between, the characters in a narrative. | 32 | |
| 13827268990 | DICTION | The distinctive vocabulary of a particular author. | 33 | |
| 13827268991 | DIGRESSION | A literary device in which the author creates a temporary departure from the main subject or narrative in order to focus on a related matter. | 34 | |
| 13827268992 | DOUBLE-ENTENDRE | From the French: "double meaning". A literary device which consists of a double meaning, especially when the second meaning is impolite or risqué. | 35 | |
| 13827268993 | ELEGY | A meditative poem in the classical tradition of certain Greek and Roman poems, which deals with more serious subject (e.g. justice, fate or providence). It often begins with an appeal to a muse for inspiration and includes ALLUSIONS to classical mythology. | 36 | |
| 13827268994 | EPIC | A long, grand, narrative (story-telling) poem about the brave, exemplary deeds of ancient heroes. | 37 | |
| 13827268995 | EPISTOLARY NOVEL | A novel which takes the form of letters which pass between the main characters. | 38 | |
| 13827268996 | EPITHET | a picturesque tag or nickname associated with a certain character. Can serve as a mnemonic device to remember and distinguish different characters. (e.g. 'grey-eyed', 'lord of men', etc.) | 39 | |
| 13827268997 | EPONYM | the person for whom something is named, such as the central characters of Hamlet and King Lear, from whom those plays take their titles. | 40 | |
| 13827268998 | ESSAY | a short work of nonfiction prose in which a writer attempts to fulfill a specific purpose. | 41 | |
| 13827268999 | EXPOSITORY ESSAY | Essay type. An attempt to enable an audience to understand something unfamiliar through a clear explanation which sets forth a number of connected facts. | 42 | |
| 13827269000 | FIVE-PARAGRAPH ESSAY | A standard essay format which sets forth the thesis in the first paragraph; supports the thesis in the following three paragraphs; and states the conclusion in the final paragraph. | 43 | |
| 13827269001 | FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE | Descriptive language in which one thing is associated with another, through the use of SIMILE, METAPHOR, or PERSONIFICATION. | 44 | |
| 13827269002 | FORESHADOWING | Hints of future events through unusual circumstances in the present. | 45 | |
| 13827269003 | FRAME STORY | The literary device of creating a larger story for the purpose of combining a number of shorter stories in a unity. | 46 | |
| 13827269004 | FREE VERSE | A type of poetry which avoids the patterns of regular rhyme or meter. Rhyme may be used, but with great freedom. There is no regular meter or line length. The poet relies instead upon DICTION, IMAGERY and SYNTAX to create a coherent whole. | 47 | |
| 13827269005 | GENRE | A distinct classification in literature. A classification according to what different works have in common, in their structure and treatment of a subject. | 48 | |
| 13827269006 | HEROIC COUPLET | One of the most common forms of English poetry, consisting of two rhymed lines of iambic pentameter which together express a complete thought. | 49 | |
| 13827269007 | HYPERBOLE | Exaggeration for effect. | 50 | |
| 13827269008 | IMAGERY | The use of words to create pictures. May involve all the senses, but usually involves the sense of sight. | 51 | |
| 13827269009 | IMAGE-AS-TEXT | The use of pictures to convey messages. | 52 | |
| 13827269010 | INTERPRETATION | The general explanation of the meaning of a literary work. May also be called "explication" when applied to poetry. | 53 | |
| 13827269011 | IRONY | Using a word or situation to mean the opposite of its usual or literal meaning, usually done in humor, sarcasm or disdain. | 54 | |
| 13827269012 | JUXTAPOSITION | The arrangement of two or more ideas, characters, actions, settings, phrases, or words side-by-side or in similar narrative moments for the purpose of comparison, contrast, rhetorical effect, suspense, or character development. | 55 | |
| 13827269013 | LETTER TO THE EDITOR | Essay type. An attempt to introduce or respond to a current issue of civil importance by combining elements of an argumentative (rational) and persuasive (emotional) essay in a very brief format. | 56 | |
| 13827269014 | LYRIC | A type of poem which was originally a song meant to be sung to the accompaniment of a musical instrument, the lyre. It was associated with songs of celebration and dancing. | 57 | |
| 13827269015 | MALAPROPISM | A comic misuse of common words. | 58 | |
| 13827269016 | METAPHOR | A figure of speech in which one thing is equated with something else. A comparison of different things by speaking of them directly, as if they were the same. | 59 | |
| 13827269017 | METER | Repeated patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry. | 60 | |
| 13827269018 | METONYMY | A figure of speech in which something is referred to by one of its distinct characteristics; e.g. referring to the theater as "The Stage," the monarchy as "The Crown," or the judicial system as "The Bench." | 61 | |
| 13827269019 | MODERNISM | A literary movement in the early 20th century which prided itself on its novelty in breaking away from established rules and traditions. | 62 | |
| 13827269020 | MOOD | The atmosphere that pervades a literary work with the intention of evoking a certain emotion or feeling from the audience. | 63 | |
| 13827269021 | MOTIF | One of the key ideas or literary devices which supports the main THEME of a literary work. It may consist of a character, a recurrent image or verbal pattern. | 64 | |
| 13827269022 | NARRATIVE ESSAY | Essay type. An attempt to enable an audience to understand something unfamiliar through a compelling story which sets forth a series of connected events. | 65 | |
| 13827269023 | NARRATOR | The speaker in a work of prose. | 66 | |
| 13827269024 | NOVEL | An extended piece of prose fiction: a major category in literature. | 67 | |
| 13827269025 | ONOMATOPOEIA | The use of words which sound like what they describe. | 68 | |
| 13827269026 | OXYMORON | A figure of speech that combines opposite qualities in a single term. | 69 | |
| 13827269027 | PARADOX | A statement that appears to be contradictory, but which reveals a deeper (or higher) truth. | 70 | |
| 13827269028 | PARODY | A literary technique which imitates and ridicules (usually through exaggeration) another author or literary genre. | 71 | |
| 13827269029 | PERSONA | The speaker in a work of poetry. | 72 | |
| 13827269030 | PERSONIFICATION | Attributing human qualities to inanimate objects, animals, things or ideas. | 73 | |
| 13827269031 | PERSUASIVE ESSAY | Essay type. An attempt to convince an audience to think or act in a certain way based upon emotional appeals (pathos) | 74 | |
| 13827269032 | PLAGIARISM | Accidental or intentional intellectual theft in which a writer, poet, artist, scholar, or student steals an original idea, phrase, or section of writing from someone else and presents this material as his or her own work without indicating the source via appropriate explanation or citation. | 75 | |
| 13827269033 | PLOT | The author's plan or scheme to accomplish some purpose. The unified structure of events and incidents (usually including "conflict," "climax" and "denouement") which expresses the author's purpose for writing. | 76 | |
| 13827269034 | POETRY | A type of literature that emphasizes metaphor and other figures of speech in lines which are arranged for emotional effect, usually according to meter. It is one of the two most basic types of literature. | 77 | |
| 13827269035 | POST-MODERNISM | A term used for the pessimistic, contemporary worldview which began in the 1960s, rejecting tradition, resisting authority, and denying any final or enduring meaning and purpose in life (and literature). | 78 | |
| 13827269036 | PROSE | The ordinary use of language, without the artistic embellishments of rhythm, meter or rhyme. In general usage, it is any form of language, written or spoken, which is not poetry. | 79 | |
| 13827269037 | PROTAGONIST | The central character in a literary work. | 80 | |
| 13827269038 | ANTAGONIST | A character who is opposite to, or challenges, the central character. | 81 | |
| 13827269039 | PUN | A humorous use of words which sound alike. | 82 | |
| 13827269040 | PUNCTUATION | The distinctive use of punctuation by different authors. | 83 | |
| 13827269041 | SATIRE | a literary tone used to ridicule or make fun of human vice or weakness, often with the intent of correcting, or changing, the subject of the attack. | 84 | |
| 13827269042 | SETTING | The locale, time, and CONTEXT in which the ACTION of a literary work takes place. | 85 | |
| 13827269043 | SIMILE | A comparison of different things by speaking of them as "like" or "as" the same. | 86 | |
| 13827269044 | SOLILOQUY | An extended speech in which a lone character expresses his or her thoughts; a dramatic monologue which allows the audience to "hear" what the character is "thinking." | 87 | |
| 13827269045 | SONNET | A fourteen-line lyric poem in predominantly iambic pentameter, with a formal rhyme scheme. | 88 | |
| 13827269046 | STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS | The writer expresses a character's thoughts and feelings as a chaotic stream, with no apparent order or logic. The text is held together through psychological association and realistic characterization. | 89 | |
| 13827269047 | SYMBOLISM | The use of words or objects to stand for or represent other things; something that stands for something else. | 90 | |
| 13827269048 | SYNECDOCHE | A figure of speech by which a part of something refers to the whole, as in "Give us this day our daily bread" (for basic necessities of life) or "fifty wagging tails" (for fifty dogs). | 91 | |
| 13827269049 | SYNTAX | An author's distinctive form of sentence construction. | 92 | |
| 13827269050 | THEME | An author's insight about life. The main idea or universal meaning, the lesson or message of a literary work. | 93 | |
| 13827269051 | TONE | The writer's attitude, mood or moral outlook toward the subject and/or readers. | 94 | |
| 13827269052 | UNDERSTATEMENT | A statement which says less than is really meant. It is a figure of speech which is the opposite of HYPERBOLE. | 95 | |
| 13827269053 | VIEWPOINT/POINT OF VIEW | The intellectual or emotional perspective held by a NARRATOR or PERSONA (not to be confused with the author) in connection with a story. | 96 | |
| 13827269054 | FIRST PERSON PARTICIPANT | The story is narrated by one of the main characters in the story. | 97 | |
| 13827269055 | FIRST PERSON OBSERVER | The story is narrated by a minor character, someone who plays only a small part in the plot. | 98 | |
| 13827269056 | THIRD PERSON OMNISCIENT | The story is narrated not by a character, but by an impersonal author who sees and knows everything, including characters' thoughts. | 99 | |
| 13827269057 | THIRD PERSON LIMITED | The story is narrated by the author, but he/she focuses on the thinking and actions of a particular character. | 100 | |
| 13827269058 | OBJECTIVE | The story describes only what can be seen, as a newspaper reporter. | 101 | |
| 13827269059 | VOICE | An author's distinctive literary style, basic vision and general attitude toward the world. | 102 |
