Terms : Hide Images
| 5288614243 | Abstract | style that is typically complex, discusses intangible qualities like good and evil, and seldom uses examples to support its points | 0 | |
| 5288618210 | Academic | describes style; means dry and theoretical writing; "sucking all the life out of its subject with analysis" | 1 | |
| 5288622663 | Accent | refers to the stressed portion of a word | 2 | |
| 5288627023 | Aesthetic | the coherent sense of taste | 3 | |
| 5288629640 | Aesthetics | the study of beauty | 4 | |
| 5288632343 | Allegory | a story in which each aspect of the story has a symbolic meaning outside the tale itself | 5 | |
| 5288633976 | Alliteration | repetition of initial consonant sounds | 6 | |
| 5288636201 | Allusion | reference to another work or famous figure | 7 | |
| 5288639019 | Anachronism | "misplaced in time" | 8 | |
| 5288640512 | Analogy | a comparison; usually involve 2 or more symbolic parts, and are employed to clarify an action or a relationship | 9 | |
| 5288646522 | Anecdote | short narrative | 10 | |
| 5288648291 | Antecedent | word, phrase, or clause that determines what a pronoun refers to | 11 | |
| 5288650590 | Anthropomorphism | similar to personification; when inanimate objects are given human characteristics | 12 | |
| 5288653589 | Anticlimax | occurs when an action produces far smaller results than one had been led to expect | 13 | |
| 5288656105 | Antihero | a protagonist who is unheroic: morally weak, cowardly, dishonest, etc. | 14 | |
| 5288658535 | Aphorism | a short and witty saying | 15 | |
| 5288660154 | Apostrophe | a figure of speech where the speaker talks directly to something that is nonhuman | 16 | |
| 5288662651 | Archaism | the use of deliberately old fashioned language | 17 | |
| 5288664805 | Aside | speech made by an actor to the audience, as though momentarily stepping outside of the action on stage | 18 | |
| 5288666985 | Aspect | a trait or characteristic ("an aspect of the dew drop") | 19 | |
| 5288669240 | Assonance | the repeated use of vowel sounds | 20 | |
| 5288672556 | Atmosphere | the emotional tone or background that surrounds a scene | 21 | |
| 5288674501 | Ballad | a long, narrative poem, usually in very regular meter and rhyme | 22 | |
| 5288676081 | Bathos | occurs when writing strains for grandeur it cannot support and tries to jerk tears from every little thing | 23 | |
| 5288678245 | Pathos | appeal to emotion | 24 | |
| 5288680225 | Black humor | use of disturbing themes in comedy | 25 | |
| 5288682168 | Bombast | pretentious, exaggeratedly learned language (using long and uncommon words) | 26 | |
| 5288683845 | Burlesque | AKA parody; broad parody, one that takes a style or form and exaggerates it into ridiculousness | 27 | |
| 5288688114 | Cacophony | using deliberately harsh, awkward sounds | 28 | |
| 5288689900 | Cadence | the beat or rhythm of poetry in a general sense | 29 | |
| 5288691621 | Canto | the name for a section division in a long work of poetry; divides a long poem into parts the way chapters divide a novel | 30 | |
| 5288693548 | Caricature | a portrait (verbal or otherwise) that exaggerates a facet of personality | 31 | |
| 5288697031 | Catharsis | term from Aristotle; refers to the "cleansing" of emotion an audience member experiences, having lived through the experiences presented on stage | 32 | |
| 5288698878 | Chorus | group of citizens who stand outside the main action on stage and comment on it | 33 | |
| 5288702898 | Classic | typical; an accepted masterpiece | 34 | |
| 5288705608 | Coinage (neologism) | a new word | 35 | |
| 5288707011 | Colloquialism | a word/phrase used in everyday conversational English that is not accepted in English textbooks | 36 | |
| 5288708850 | Complex/Dense | suggesting that there is more than one possibility in the meaning of words; there are multiple layers of interpretation | 37 | |
| 5288711409 | Conceit | refers to a startling or unusual metaphor/ a metaphor developed and expanded upon over several lines | 38 | |
| 5288713013 | Controlling | occurs when the image dominates and shapes the entire work | 39 | |
| 5288717098 | Connotation | what the word suggests or implies | 40 | |
| 5288719351 | Denotation | literal meaning of a word | 41 | |
| 5288722259 | Consonance | the repetition of consonant sounds within words | 42 | |
| 5288791307 | Couplet | a pair of lines that end in rhyme | 43 | |
| 5288816519 | Decorum | a character's speech styled according to the social station, and in accordance with the occassion | 44 | |
| 5288832622 | Diction | author's choice of words | 45 | |
| 5288835999 | Syntax | refers to the ordering and structuring of the words | 46 | |
| 5288840553 | Dirge | a song for the dead; tone is slow, heavy, and melancholy | 47 | |
| 5288843393 | Dissonance | refers to the grating of incompatible sounds | 48 | |
| 5288846071 | Doggerel | crude, simplistic verse, often in sing-song rhyme (ex. limericks) | 49 | |
| 5288856076 | Dramatic irony | when the audience knows something that the characters in the drama do not | 50 | |
| 5288860795 | Dramatic Monologue | when a single speaker in literature says something to a silent audience | 51 | |
| 5288867127 | Elegy | a type of poem that meditates on death or mortality in a serious, thoughtful manner | 52 | |
| 5288883855 | Elements | the basic techniques of each genre of literature | 53 | |
| 5288892227 | Enjambment | continuation of a syntactic unit from one line or couplet of a poem to the next with no pause | 54 | |
| 5288897128 | Epic | a very long narrative poem on a serious theme in a dignified style | 55 | |
| 5288901452 | Epitaph | lines that commemorate the dead at their burial place | 56 | |
| 5288904435 | Euphemism | a word or phrase that takes the place of a harsh, unpleasant, or impolite reality (ex. "let go" in place of "fired") | 57 | |
| 5288912156 | Euphony | when sounds blend harmoniously | 58 | |
| 5288914969 | Explicit | to say or write something directly and clearly | 59 | |
| 5288918592 | Farce | refers to extremely broad humor; a comedy | 60 | |
| 5288923234 | Feminine Rhyme | lines rhymed by their final two syllables | 61 | |
| 5288931628 | First Person Narrator | narrator who is a character in the story and tells the tale from his point of view | 62 | |
| 5288936476 | Foil | a secondary character whose purpose is to highlight the characteristics of a main character, usually by contrast | 63 | |
| 5288941522 | Foot | the basic rhythmic unit of a line of poetry; formed by a combination of 2 or 3 syllables, either stressed or unstressed | 64 | |
| 5288950404 | Foreshadowing | an event or statement in a narrative that in miniature suggests a larger event that comes later | 65 | |
| 5288954549 | Free Verse | poetry written without a regular rhyme scheme or metrical pattern | 66 | |
| 5288960532 | Genre | a sub-category of literature | 67 | |
| 5288964363 | Gothic | sensibility derived from gothic novels | 68 | |
| 5288969199 | Hubris | the excessive pride or ambition that leads to the main character's downfall | 69 | |
| 5288981607 | Hyperbole | exaggeration or deliberate overstatement | 70 | |
| 5288984433 | Implicit | to say or write something that suggests and implies but never says it directly or clearly | 71 | |
| 5288988344 | In Medias Res | "in the midst of things" | 72 | |
| 5288998384 | Interior Monologue | refers to writing that records the mental talking that goes on inside a character's head; occurs in novels and poetry | 73 | |
| 5289015048 | Inversion | switching the customary order of elements in a sentence or phrase | 74 | |
| 5289020165 | Irony | a statement that means the opposite of what it seems to mean | 75 | |
| 5289028869 | Lament | a poem of sadness or grief over the death of a loved one or over some other intense loss | 76 | |
| 5289033012 | Lampoon | a satire | 77 | |
| 5289035040 | Loose Sentence | complete before its end | 78 | |
| 5289039472 | Periodic Sentence | not grammatically complete until it has reached its final phrase | 79 | |
| 5289045609 | Lyric | a type of poetry that explores the poet's personal interpretation of and feelings about the world | 80 | |
| 5289053653 | Masculine Rhyme | a rhyme ending on the final stressed syllable ("regular old rhyme") | 81 | |
| 5289064722 | Means/ Meaning | the one task you have to do all the time; concrete and explicit; also emotional meaning | 82 | |
| 5289321371 | Melodrama | a form of cheesy theater in which the hero is very good, the villain mean and rotten, and the heroine is oh-so-pure | 83 | |
| 5289329815 | Metaphor | a comparison, or analogy that states one thing is another | 84 | |
| 5289336311 | Simile | a comparison, that uses like or as | 85 | |
| 5331280628 | Metaphysical Conceit | conceit reserved for only metaphysical poems | 86 | |
| 5331283186 | Metonym | a word that is used to stand for something else that it has attributes of or is associated with | 87 | |
| 5331297688 | Nemesis | the protagonist's arch enemy or supreme and persistent difficulty | 88 | |
| 5331310579 | Neologism | technical term for coinage | 89 | |
| 5331315517 | Objectivity | a treatment of subject matter that is an impersonal or outside view of events | 90 | |
| 5331321865 | Subjectivity | a treatment that uses the interior or personal view of a single observer and is typically colored with that observer's emotional responses | 91 | |
| 5331334295 | Omniscient Narrator | a third person narrator who sees into each character's mind and understands all the action going on | 92 | |
| 5331348075 | Onomatopoeia | words that sound like what they mean (ex. boom, smack, etc.) | 93 | |
| 5331361179 | Opposition | a concept in which you have a pair of elements that contrast sharply | 94 | |
| 5331376410 | Oxymoron | a phrase composed of opposites; a contradiction (ex. jumbo shrimp) | 95 | |
| 5331381846 | Parable | similar to a fable or allegory; it is a story that instructs | 96 | |
| 5331386376 | Paradox | a situation or statement that seems to contradict itself, but on closer inspection, does not | 97 | |
| 5331400339 | Parallelism | repeated syntactical similarities used for effect | 98 | |
| 5331406450 | Paraphrase | to restate phrases and sentences in your own words; to re-phrase | 99 | |
| 5331414191 | Parenthetical Phrase | a phrase set off by commas that interrupts the flow of a sentence with some commentary or added detail (ex. Jack's three dogs, including that miserable little spaniel, were with him that day) | 100 | |
| 5331431503 | Parody | the work that results when a specific work is exaggerated to ridiculousness | 101 | |
| 5331503839 | Pastoral | a poem set in tranquil nature or even more specifically, one about shepherds | 102 | |
| 5331526047 | Persona | the narrator in a non-first-person novel | 103 | |
| 5331530541 | Personification | when an inanimate object takes on human shape | 104 | |
| 5331535532 | Plaint | a poem or speech expressing sorrow | 105 | |
| 5331549351 | Point of View | the perspective from which the action of a novel is presented, whether the action is presented by one character or from different vantage points over the course of the novel | 106 | |
| 5331572090 | Limited Omniscient Narrator | a third person narrator who generally reports only what one character sees, and who only reports the thoughts of that one privileged character | 107 | |
| 5331601920 | Objective/ Camera-Eye Narrator | a third person narrator who only reports on what would be visible to a camera | 108 | |
| 5331615159 | Stream of Consciousness Technique | method that is similar to first person narration but instead of the character telling the story, the author places the reader inside the main character's head and makes the reader privy to all of the character's thoughts as they scroll through her consciousness | 109 | |
| 5331643652 | Prelude | an introductory poem to a longer work of verse | 110 | |
| 5331649598 | Protagonist | the main character of a novel or play | 111 | |
| 5331651625 | Pun | the usually humorous use of a word in such a way to suggest two or more meanings | 112 | |
| 5331665015 | Refrain | a line or set of lines repeated several times over the course of a poem | 113 | |
| 5331673032 | Requiem | a song of prayer for the dead | 114 | |
| 5331681287 | Rhapsody | an intensely passionate verse or section of verse, usually of love or praise | 115 | |
| 5331689190 | Rhetorical Question | a question that suggests an answer; it causes the listener to feel she has come up with the answer on her own | 116 | |
| 5331705223 | Satire | attempts to improve things by pointing out people's mistakes in the hope that once exposed, such behavior will become less common; exposes common character flaws to the cold light of humor | 117 | |
| 5331746698 | Soliloquy (***UNLIKE AN ASIDE, THIS IS NOT MEANT TO IMPLY THAT THE ACTOR ACKNOWLEDGES THE AUDIENCE'S PRESENCE) | a speech spoken by a character alone on stage; meant to convey the impression that the audience is listening to the character's thoughts | 118 | |
| 5331782876 | Stanza | a group of lines roughly analogous in function in verse to the paragraph's function in prose | 119 | |
| 5331789963 | Stock Characters | standard or cliched character types: the drunk, the miser, the foolish girl, etc. | 120 | |
| 5331803924 | Subjunctive Mood | occurs when one sets up a hypothetical situation, a kind of wishful thing | 121 | |
| 5331823419 | Suggest | to imply, infer, indicate | 122 | |
| 5331827374 | Summary | a simple retelling of what you've just read; in comparison to paraphrase, it is more general and covers more material | 123 | |
| 5331867622 | Suspension of Disbelief | the demand made of a theater audience to accept the limitations of staging and supply the details with imagination | 124 | |
| 5331888552 | Symbolism | a device in literature where an object represents an idea | 125 | |
| 5331893959 | Technique | the methods, the tools, the "how-she-does-it" ways of the author | 126 | |
| 5331917217 | Theme | the main idea of the overall work; the central idea | 127 | |
| 5331923660 | Thesis | the main position of an argument; the central contention that will be supported | 128 | |
| 5331932096 | Tragic Flaw | in a tragedy, this is the weakness of a character in an otherwise good individual that ultimately leads to his demise | 129 | |
| 5331940136 | Travesty | a grotesque parody | 130 | |
| 5331942623 | Truism | a way-too obvious truth | 131 | |
| 5331945511 | Unreliable Narrator | when the first person narrator is crazy, a liar, very young, or for some reason not entirely credible | 132 | |
| 5331956100 | Utopia | an idealized place; imaginary community | 133 | |
| 5331958615 | Zeugma | the use of a word to modify two or more words, but used for different meanings | 134 |
