Terms : Hide Images
| 4173937593 | abstract | an abstract style is typically complex, discusses intangible qualities like good and evil, and seldom uses examples to support its points | 0 | |
| 4173939287 | academic | dry and theoretical writing (when a piece seems to be sucking all the life out of its subject with analysis) | 1 | |
| 4173941036 | accent | in poetry, accent refers to the stressed portion of a word. In "To be, or not to be," accents fall on the first "be" and "not". | 2 | |
| 4173943859 | aesthetic | (adj. )appealing to the senses. Aesthetic judgement is a phrase synonymous with artistic judgement. (noun) an aesthetic is a coherent sense of taste; the plural noun aesthetics is the study of beauty | 3 | |
| 4173947902 | allegory | a story in which each aspect of the story has a symbolic meaning outside the tale itself | 4 | |
| 4174021188 | alliteration | the repetition of initial consonant sounds | 5 | |
| 4174022148 | allusion | a reference to another work or famous figure (topical allusion-current events; popular allusion- pop culture) | 6 | |
| 4174024059 | anachronism | misplaced in time | 7 | |
| 4174025782 | analogy | a comparison. usually involve two or more symbolic parts and are employed to clarify an action or relationship | 8 | |
| 4174028122 | anecdote | a short narrative | 9 | |
| 4174028478 | antecedent | the word, phrase, or clause that a pronoun refers to or replaces | 10 | |
| 4174029438 | anthropomorphism | when inanimate objects, animals, or natural phenomena are given human characteristics, behavior, or motivation (confused with personification-nonhuman qua lit takes on a human SHAPE) | 11 | |
| 4174031540 | anticlimax | when an action produces far smaller results than one had been led to expect; frequently comic | 12 | |
| 4174032927 | antihero | a protagonist (main character) who is markedly unheroic: morally weak, cowardly, dishonest, or any number of other unsavory qualities | 13 | |
| 4219346882 | aphorism | a short and usually witty saying | 14 | |
| 4219347755 | apostrophe | an address to someone not present or to a personified object or idea | 15 | |
| 4219348591 | archaism | the use of deliberately old-fashioned language | 16 | |
| 4219349260 | aside | a speech (usually just a short comment) made by an actor to the audience as though stepping outside of the action on stage | 17 | |
| 4219351316 | aspect | a trait or characteristic | 18 | |
| 4219352355 | assonance | the repeated use of vowel sounds | 19 | |
| 4219354645 | atmosphere | the emotional tone or background that surrounds a scene | 20 | |
| 4219355659 | ballad | a long, narrative poem usually in very regular meter ad rhyme; typically has a naive folksy quality | 21 | |
| 4219357530 | bathos, pathos | bathos: writing that strains for grandeur it can's support and tries to elicit tears from every hiccup; pathos: writing that evokes feelings of dignified pity and sympathy | 22 | |
| 4219361133 | black humor | use of disturbing themes in comedy | 23 | |
| 4219362594 | bombast | pretentious, exaggeratedly learned language; when one tries to be eloquent using the largest, most uncommon words | 24 | |
| 4219364803 | burlesque | broad parody, one that takes a style or a form such as tragic drama and exaggerates it into ridiculousness | 25 | |
| 4219368412 | cacophony | (in poetry) using deliberately harsh, awkward sounds | 26 | |
| 4219369550 | cadence | the beat or rhythm of poetry in a general sense | 27 | |
| 4219381389 | canto | the name for a section division in a long work of poetry, similar to the way chapters divide a novel | 28 | |
| 4219383159 | caricature | a portrait (verbal or otherwise) that exaggerates a facet of personality | 29 | |
| 4219384105 | catharsis | cleansing of emotion an audience member experiences having lived (vicariously) through the experiences presented on stage | 30 | |
| 4219385679 | chorus | group of citizens who stand outside the main action on stage and comment on it | 31 | |
| 4219386299 | classic | typical or an accepted masterpiece | 32 | |
| 4219387460 | classical | the arts of ancient greece and rome and the qualities of those arts | 33 | |
| 4219434307 | coinage (neologism) | a new world, usually one invented on the spot | 34 | |
| 4219437311 | colloquialism | a word or phrase used in everyday conversational English that isn't a part of accepted schoolbook English | 35 | |
| 4219438417 | complex, dense | suggest that there is more than one possibility in the meaning of words (image, idea, opposition); there are subtleties and variation, multiple layers of interpretation; the meaning is both explicit and implicit | 36 | |
| 4219609515 | conceit, controlling image | a startling or unusual metaphor, or one developed and expanded upon over several lines. when the image dominates and shapes the entire work, it's called a controlling image | 37 | |
| 4219611329 | connotation | everything that the word suggests or implies | 38 | |
| 4219611330 | denotation | the word's literal meaning | 39 | |
| 4219612683 | consonance | the repetition of consonant sounds within words (not at beginning) | 40 | |
| 4219613109 | couplet | a pair of lines that end in rhyme | 41 | |
| 4219613408 | decorum | when a character's speech is styled according to her social station and in accordance with the occasion | 42 | |
| 4219614825 | diction | the author's choice of words | 43 | |
| 4219615196 | syntax | the ordering and structuring of the words | 44 | |
| 4219616203 | dirge | a song for the dead. Its tone is typically slow, heavy, and melancholy | 45 | |
| 4219616770 | dissonance | the grating of incompatible sounds | 46 | |
| 4219617127 | doggerel | crude, simplistic verse, often in sing-song rhyme | 47 | |
| 4219617536 | dramatic irony | when the audience knows something that the characters in the drama do not | 48 | |
| 4219617878 | dramatic monologue | when a single speaker in literature says something to a silent audience | 49 | |
| 4219618409 | elegy | a type of poem that meditates on death or mortality in a serious, thoughtful manner | 50 | |
| 4219619420 | enjambment | the continuation of a syntactic unit from one line or couplet of a poem to the next with no pause | 51 | |
| 4219621166 | epic | a very long narrative poem on a serious them and in a dignified style; typically deal with glorious or profound subject matters. mock-epic: parody form that deals with mundane events and treats them as being worthy of epic poetry | 52 | |
| 4219623499 | epitaph | lines that commemorate the dead at their burial place | 53 | |
| 4219624568 | euphemism | a word or phrase that takes the place of a harsh, unpleasant, or impolite reality | 54 | |
| 4219625463 | euphony | when sounds blend harmoniously | 55 | |
| 4219625845 | explicit | to say or write something directly and clearly | 56 | |
| 4219626521 | farce | a funny play, a comedy | 57 | |
| 4219626868 | feminine rhyme | lines rhymed by their final two syllables | 58 | |
| 4219627812 | foil | a secondary character whose purpose s to highlight the characteristics of a main character, usually by contrast | 59 | |
| 4219628360 | foot | the basic rhythmic unit of a line of poetry; formed by a combination of two or three syllables | 60 | |
| 4219629074 | foreshadowing | an event or statement in a narrative that suggests, in miniature, a larger event that comes later | 61 | |
| 4219629622 | free verse | poetry written without a regular rhyme scheme or metrical pattern | 62 | |
| 4219630155 | genre | a subcategory of literature | 63 |
