Terms : Hide Images
| 2800822977 | abstract | a style in writing that is typically complex, discusses intangible qualities like good and evil, and seldom uses examples to support its points | 0 | |
| 2800822979 | accent | in poetry, the stressed portion of a word; sometimes set, often a matter of opinion | 1 | |
| 2800822981 | aesthetics | the study of beauty; "What is beauty?" "Is the beautiful always good?" | 2 | |
| 2800822982 | allegory | a story in which each aspect of the story has a symbolic meaning outside the tale itself; many fables have this quality; true ones are even more hard and fast; example: Orwell's Animal Farm | 3 | |
| 2800822983 | alliteration | the repetition of INITIAL consonant sounds; consonant clusters coming closely cramped and compressed | 4 | |
| 2800822984 | allusion | a reference to another work or famous figures; can be classical (refers to Greek and Roman mythology or literature), topical (refers to current event), or popular (refers to something from pop culture--TV show or hit movie) | 5 | |
| 2800822986 | analogy | a comparison usually involving two or more symbolic parts; employed to clarify an action or relationship | 6 | |
| 2800822987 | anecdote | a short narrative | 7 | |
| 2800822990 | anticlimax | occurs when an action produces far smaller results than one had been led to expect; frequently comic | 8 | |
| 2800822991 | antihero | a protagonist who is markedly unheroic: morally weak, cowardly, dishonest, or any number of other unsavory qualities | 9 | |
| 2800822992 | aphorism | a short and usually witty saying; astute observation--"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." (Lord Acton) | 10 | |
| 2800822993 | apostrophe | a figure of speech wherein the speaker talks directly to something that is nonhuman, absent, or dead | 11 | |
| 2800822994 | archaism | the use of deliberately old-fashioned language, used to create a feeling of antiquity | 12 | |
| 2800822995 | aside | a speech (usually just a short comment) made by an actor to the audience, as though momentarily stepping outside of the action on stage | 13 | |
| 2800822996 | aspect | a trait or characteristic | 14 | |
| 2800822997 | assonance | the repeated use of vowel sounds--"Old king Cole was a merry old soul." | 15 | |
| 2800822999 | ballad | a long, narrative poem, usually in regular meter and rhyme; typically has a naive folksy quality that sets it apart from epic poetry | 16 | |
| 2800823002 | black humor | the use of disturbing themes in comedy; morbid humor used to express the absurdity, insensitivity, paradox, and cruelty of the modern world, ordinary characters or situations exaggerated beyond normal limits of satire or irony | 17 | |
| 2800823003 | bombast | pretentious, exaggeratedly learned language; one tries to be eloquent by using the largest, most uncommon words | 18 | |
| 2800823008 | caricature | a portrait (verbal or otherwise) that exaggerates a facet of personality | 19 | |
| 2800823009 | catharsis | drawn from Aristotle's writings on tragedy; refers to the "cleansing" of emotion an audience member experiences, having lived (vicariously) through the experiences presented on stage; purging of emotions through a form of art, in this case, literature | 20 | |
| 2800823012 | classical | refers to the arts of ancient Greece and Rome and the qualities of those arts | 21 | |
| 2800823014 | colloquialism | a word or phrase used in everyday conversational English that isn't a part of accepted "schoolbook" English; slang words, informal English | 22 | |
| 2800823016 | conceit | refers to a startling or unusual metaphor, or to a metaphor developed and expanded upon over several lines | 23 | |
| 2800823018 | connotation | what a word suggests or implies, not its literal meaning--i.e., dark meaning dangerous instead lacking of light | 24 | |
| 2800823019 | denotation | the literal meaning of a word | 25 | |
| 2800823020 | consonance | the repetition of consonant sounds WITHIN words--"A flock of sick, black-checkered ducks." | 26 | |
| 2800823021 | couplet | a pair of lines that end in rhyme | 27 | |
| 2800823023 | diction | author's choice of words, choice of specific words | 28 | |
| 2800823024 | syntax | author's choice of words; refers to the ordering and structuring of the words | 29 | |
| 2800823025 | dirge | a song for the dead, tone is typically slow, heavy, and melancholy | 30 | |
| 2800823026 | dissonance | the grating of incompatible sounds | 31 | |
| 2800823028 | dramatic irony | when the audience knows something that the characters in the drama do not | 32 | |
| 2800823029 | dramatic monologue | when a single speaker in literature says something to a silent audience | 33 | |
| 2800823032 | enjambment | the continuation of a syntactic unit from one line or couplet of a poem to the next with no pause--i.e., | 34 | |
| 2800823033 | epic | a very long narrative poem on a serious theme in a dignified style; typically deal with glorious or profound subject matter--i.e., great war, heroic journey, battle with supernatural, etc. | 35 | |
| 2800823034 | mock-epic | parody form that deals with mundane events and ironically treats them as worthy of epic poetry | 36 | |
| 2800823036 | euphemism | a word or phrase that takes the place of a harsh, unpleasant, or impolite reality--i.e., passed away for died, let go for fired | 37 | |
| 2800823041 | foil | a secondary character whose purpose is to highlight the characteristics of a main character, usually by contrast | 38 | |
| 2800823042 | foot | the basic rhythmic unit of a line of poetry, formed by a combination of two or three syllables, either stressed or unstressed | 39 | |
| 2800823043 | foreshadowing | an event or statement in a narrative that in miniature suggests a larger event that comes later | 40 | |
| 2800823044 | free verse | poetry written without a regular rhyme scheme or metrical pattern | 41 | |
| 2800823045 | genre | a subcategory of literature--i.e., scientific fiction, detective stories->types of fiction | 42 | |
| 2800823048 | hyperbole | exaggeration or deliberate overstatement: He has a watermelon head. | 43 | |
| 2800823053 | *irony | comes in a variety of forms; a statement that means the opposite of what it seems to mean, deeper than sarcasm though; an undertow of meaning | 44 | |
| 2800823058 | lyric | a type of poetry that explores the poet's personal interpretation of and feelings about the world; when used to describe a tone, refers to a sweet, emotional melodiousness | 45 | |
| 2800823062 | metaphor | a comparison, or analogy that states one thing IS another--His eyes were burning coals. | 46 | |
| 2800823063 | metonym | a word that is used to stand for something else that it has attributes of or is associated with---"the crown" referring to the king, "The pen is mightier than the sword." (pen reps writers and ideas, sword reps war) | 47 | |
| 2800823067 | onomatopoeia | words that sound how they're spelled--boom, splat | 48 | |
| 2800823069 | oxymoron | a phrase composed of opposites; a contradiction | 49 | |
| 2800823070 | parable | a story that instructs like a fable or an allegory | 50 | |
| 2800823071 | paradox | a situation or statement that seems to contradict itself, but on closer inspection, it does not---"It's raining, but I don't believe that it is." | 51 | |
| 2800823072 | parallelism | repeated syntactical similarities used for effect--He likes playing the piano, eating cookies, and reading lengthy novels. | 52 | |
| 2800823073 | paraphrase | to restate phrases and sentences in your own words, to rephrase; not an analysis or interpretation | 53 | |
| 2800823075 | parody | when a specific work is exaggerated to ridiculousness | 54 | |
| 2800823076 | pastoral | a poem set in a tranquil nature or even more specifically, one about shepherds | 55 | |
| 2800823078 | personification | giving an inanimate object human qualities or form--The darkness of the forest became the figure of a beautiful, pake-skinned woman in night-black clothes. | 56 | |
| 2800823080 | point of view | the perspective from which the action of a novel (or narrative poem) is presented | 57 | |
| 2800823081 | omniscient narrator | third-person narrator who sees into each character's mind and understands all the action that's going on | 58 | |
| 2800823082 | limited omniscient narrator | third-person narrator who generally reports only what one character (usually main character) sees, reports only thoughts of that one character | 59 | |
| 2800823084 | first-person narrator | narrator who is a character in the story and tells the story from his or her point of view; when crazy, a liar, or very young, narrator is unreliable | 60 | |
| 2800823087 | protagonist | the main character of a novel or play | 61 | |
| 2800823088 | pun | usually humorous use of a word in such a way to suggest two or more meanings | 62 | |
| 2800823089 | refrain | a line or set of lines repeated several times over the course of a poem | 63 | |
| 2800823092 | rhetorical question | a question that suggests an answer | 64 | |
| 2800823093 | satire | exposes common character flaws to humor; attempts to improve things by pointing out people's mistakes in the hope that once exposed, such behaviours will become less common--hypocrisy, vanity, greed | 65 | |
| 2800823094 | simile | like a metaphor but softens the full-out equation of things, often, but not always, by using like or as | 66 | |
| 2800823095 | soliloquy | a speech spoken by a character alone on stage; meant to convey the impression that the audience is listening to the character's thoughts; not meant to imply that the actor acknowledges the audience is listening | 67 | |
| 2800823096 | stanza | a group of lines roughly analogues in function in verse to the paragraph's function in prose | 68 | |
| 2800823097 | stock characters | standard or cliched character types: the drunk, the miser, the foolish girl, etc. | 69 | |
| 2800823102 | symbolism | a device in literature where an object reps an idea | 70 | |
| 2800823104 | theme | the main idea of the overall work; the central idea; topic of discourse or discussion | 71 | |
| 2800823106 | tragic flaw | in tragedy, weakness of character in an other wise good/great individual that leads to his demise | 72 |
