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| 5718376419 | Anecdote | A short narrative detailing particulars of an interesting episode or event. They differ from short stories in that they lack a complicated plot and relate a single episode. | 0 | |
| 5718377613 | Flashback | A method of presenting exposition dramatically. A flashback is used to present scenes or incidents that occurred prior to the opening scene of the work. | 1 | |
| 5718377614 | Narrative Voice | A term used to reference the voice who communicates the narrative. Here, the narrative communicated is important, but so are the traits that characterize the voice, including diction and syntax. | 2 | |
| 5718381168 | Syntax | The arrangement of words and phrases to create well-formed sentences in a language. | 3 | |
| 5718377620 | First Person | A point of view in which the voice communicating the narrative belongs to a character within the story or novel. Often the First Person Narrator is the protagonist. | 4 | |
| 5718378605 | Third Person Limited | A story in which the Third Person Narrator restricts him/herself to revealing the thoughts and feeling of a single character. Again, the thoughts and feelings are usually those of the protagonist. | 5 | |
| 5718385299 | Omniscient | A point of view in which the narrator knows all aspects of the account and can reveal the thoughts and feelings of any character at any time. | 6 | |
| 5718386776 | Dramatic | A point of view in which the reader gains information only through dialogue, actions and setting. This point of view restricts the reader's methods of deriving information to those employed in a play. | 7 | |
| 5718388661 | Stream of Consciousness | A form of narrative that is structured to reflect the workings of a particular character's mind. The narrative may appear disjointed or illogical and may rely more on psychological association rather than a logical pattern. | 8 | |
| 5718391993 | Direct Characterization | Information about a character that is conveyed directly by the narrator. | 9 | |
| 5718393019 | Indirect Characterization | Methods of indirect characterization include dialogue (character's speech), character's actions, Character's thoughts, details of personal settings, and opinions of other characters. These devices are more subtle and require interpretation from the reader. | 10 | |
| 5718394290 | Plot | (Exposition, Complication, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, Resolution): A chain of cause and effect related episodes constructed to make a statement. | 11 | |
| 5718395616 | Exposition | Essential background information about characters and setting before the conflict is introduced. | 12 | |
| 5718396346 | Complication | The event or person that disrupts the routine of the exposition and creates the conflict. | 13 | |
| 5718397273 | Rising Action | The events that create an intensification of the conflict and lead up to the climax. | 14 | |
| 5718397274 | Climax | The point of highest intensification in terms of conflict. The climax determines the direction the story will take from this point forward. | 15 | |
| 5718399102 | Falling Action | Falling action concerns the fallout from the climax, its influence on the protagonist's life. In a tragedy, it depicts the failing fortunes of the protagonist. | 16 | |
| 5718400362 | Resolution | The new routine or reality that is established as a result of playing through the conflict and climax. | 17 | |
| 5718401748 | Dynamic Character | A character who undergoes change or development through the course of a narrative. | 18 | |
| 5718402826 | Static Character | A character who does not undergo change or development in a narrative. | 19 | |
| 5718404096 | Round Character | A multi-faceted character who displays many complex character traits. | 20 | |
| 5718404891 | Flat Character | A single-faceted character or a character constructed around a single quality. | 21 | |
| 5718406999 | Stock Character | A character type in a specific genre of literature (the fool, the humorous sidekick, the femme fatale). | 22 | |
| 5718407000 | Protagonist | The chief character in a story or play. The character who enlists the reader's interest and sympathy whether his/her cause is heroic or ignoble. | 23 | |
| 5718408776 | Anti-hero | The protagonist of a modern play or novel who exhibits the converse of most of the traditional attributes of a hero. | 24 | |
| 5718409770 | Antagonist | The character who stands in opposition to the protagonist. | 25 | |
| 5718410854 | Foil | A character who through strong contrast underscores or enhances the distinctive characteristics of another. | 26 | |
| 5718410855 | Frame Story | Literally, a story within a story. The primary narrative is framed by a separate dramatic situation. | 27 | |
| 5718413003 | Bildungsroman | A novel concerned with the psychological, emotional, and spiritual development of a young protagonist. | 28 | |
| 5718417536 | Act | A major division of a drama, often tied to varying degrees to the Roman model of the five act play, divided by exposition, complication, climax, falling action and catastrophe. | 29 | |
| 5718418988 | Anagnorisis | A moment of epiphany when a character discovers his/her true identity. | 30 | |
| 5718418989 | Aside | A dramatic convention by which an actor directly and audibly addresses the audience, but is not supposed to be heard by other actors on stage. | 31 | |
| 5718422052 | Catastrophe | The conclusion of a play, particularly a tragedy. The final stage of the falling action that ends the conflict and consisting of the actions that result from the climax. In tragedy, it typically involves the death of the protagonist. | 32 | |
| 5718424507 | Catharsis | The audience purges itself of negative emotions such as fear and pity through vicarious involvement with the plight of the tragic hero. | 33 | |
| 5718426429 | Comic Relief | A humorous scene, incident, or speech in the course of a serious drama. | 34 | |
| 5718427883 | Crisis | The decisive action on which the plot will turn, and as a result, the situation in which the protagonist finds himself is either sure to improve or get worse. | 35 | |
| 5718429036 | Denouement | The final unraveling of the plot, the solution to the mystery, the explanation or outcome. | 36 | |
| 5718430191 | Deus Ex Machina | The employment of some unexpected or improbable incident in order to make things turn out right. | 37 | |
| 5718430192 | Epilogue | A concluding statement or final remarks spoken by an actor to the audience. | 38 | |
| 5718433161 | Farce | A dramatic piece intended to excite laughter and depending less on plot and character than on exaggerated, improbable situations. The humor arises from gross incongruities, coarse wit, or horseplay. | 39 | |
| 5718435853 | Hamartia | Character flaw or judgment error of the protagonist in a Greek tragedy | 40 | |
| 5718435855 | Hubris | Great pride. Hubris is often the character flaw (hamartia) of the protagonist in a Greek drama. | 41 | |
| 5718437775 | Monologue | Any speech or narrative presented by one character, sometimes used to refer to a lengthy speech by a character. | 42 | |
| 5718437776 | Prologue | Sets forth the subject and provides the background necessary for understanding the play. | 43 | |
| 5718438612 | Scene | A continuous section of action in an unchanged locality. | 44 | |
| 5718442143 | Soliloquy | A speech delivered by a character who is alone on the stage. It gives the reader or viewer insight into the character's thoughts. | 45 | |
| 5718444146 | Tragedy | A drama which recounts an important and related series of events in the life of a person of significance and culminates in a catastrophe. | 46 | |
| 5718444147 | Tragic Hero | A person of high rank who, through ill-fortune or through his own vice or error falls from that high position. This fall is typically the result of a choice made by the protagonist but dictated by his tragic flaw. | 47 | |
| 5718445581 | Tragic Flaw | A character fault or flaw that leads to the fall of a tragic hero. | 48 | |
| 5718452182 | Dramatic Situation | The basic information necessary for the reader to feel grounded in a poem on the literal level | 49 | |
| 5718452183 | Alliteration | Repetition of the initial sound in a series of words, usually a beginning consonant sound ("bend your force, to break, blow, burn and make me new"). | 50 | |
| 5718453877 | Allusion | Reference to a well-known work of art ("By these his thorns give me his other crown") | 51 | |
| 5718455283 | Apostrophe | The speaker directly addresses something (an object or concept) that can't respond ("Death, be not proud, though some have called thee/mighty and dreadful"). | 52 | |
| 5718455284 | Assonance | Repetition of a particular vowel sound in a series of words ("I don't supposed to be this close to the tracks"). | 53 | |
| 5718457399 | Accentual Syllabic Meter | A metric pattern where each line has roughly the same number of stressed syllables ("On Fridays he'd open a can of Jax / After coming home from the mill"). | 54 | |
| 5718458474 | Blank Verse | Poetry written in unrhymed, iambic pentameter verse. | 55 | |
| 5718461471 | Caesura | A strategic pause within a line of poetry (the Anglo-Saxon line in Beowulf: "and the kings who ruled them had courage and greatness.") | 56 | |
| 5718461472 | Conceit | A metaphor that is extended throughout a large portion of a poem or the entire poem. For example, John Donne's poem "The Bait" compares courtship to fishing. | 57 | |
| 5718463255 | Dramatic Monologue | A poem with an identifiable persona who tells his story to an identifiable audience. The story recounts a time of tension in the speaker's life and reveals more about the speaker than he intended. In fact, the reader hears two stories, the literal account told by the speaker, and a second account we infer from the details of the story ("My Last Duchess" by Robert Browning). | 58 | |
| 5718463256 | End-stopped Line | A line of poetry that ends with terminal punctuation, a period, question mark or exclamation point. | 59 | |
| 5718464713 | Enjambment | A line of poetry that ends in an unconventional place, carrying the sentence over to the next line. The line is broken strategically to produce a desired effect ("It gathers to a greatness like the ooze of oil / crushed"). | 60 | |
| 5718465601 | Free Verse | Poetry without any recognizable metrical pattern or rhyme scheme. | 61 | |
| 5718465612 | Iambic Pentameter | A line consisting of five iambic feet, an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable ("To pull the metal splinter from my palm"). | 62 | |
| 5718468768 | Image | A description that appeals to one of the senses ("a red wheelbarrow glazed with rainwater"). | 63 | |
| 5718468769 | Internal Rhyme | A rhyme that appears somewhere other than just at the ends of lines ("For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams"). | 64 | |
| 5718472682 | Metonymy | A figure of speech in which an attribute or commonly associated feature is used to represent a larger concept (The pen is mightier than the sword). | 65 | |
| 5718474860 | Onomatopoeia | The use of words whose sound imitates the word's meaning (buzz, hum, crash). | 66 | |
| 5718474861 | Oxymoron | A juxtaposition of opposites ("The cloud boiled over those stars until it was burned by their icy fire"). | 67 | |
| 5718476258 | Pathetic Fallacy | Endowing the natural world with human psychological state ("the sullen wind was soon awake") | 68 | |
| 5718477096 | Paradox | A statement or assertion that seems contradictory but, within the context of the poem, makes sense ("nor ever chaste unless you ravish me"). | 69 | |
| 5718477097 | Persona | The writer takes on a recognizable identity other that his or her own and gives the account from that point of view: "The River-Merchant's Wife" by Ezra Pound. | 70 | |
| 5718478321 | Personification | Giving something non-human human characteristics ("Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines"). | 71 | |
| 5718478377 | Slant Rhyme | A near rhyme (room and come), also known as consonantal or assonantal rhyme. | 72 | |
| 5718479585 | Shakespearean Sonnet | A fourteen line poem written in iambic pentameter comprised of three quatrains and a couplet and having a rhyme scheme of abab cdcd efef gg. Typically, the quatrains provide a series of examples and the couplet offers commentary on the examples. | 73 | |
| 5718482846 | Italian Sonnet | A fourteen line poem typically written in iambic pentameter comprised of an octave and a sestet. At the beginning of the sestet there is a shift in tone called a "volta." Often the octave will pose a mystery or raise a question and the sestet will provide a solution or an answer. The rhyme scheme for the octave is abbaabba, and the sestet rhyme scheme varies; one common scheme for the sestet is cdecde. | 74 | |
| 5718482847 | Synesthesia | The use of language typically applied to one sense to describe another ("to speak in the green language of chlorophyll"). | 75 | |
| 5718484621 | Synecdoche | The use of a part of an object to represent the whole ("the feet mechanical go round"). | 76 |
