4347929294 | act | a drama is usually divided into acts, and the acts are divided into scenes | | 0 |
4347947920 | allegory | an extended narrative that carries a second meaning along with the surface story | | 1 |
4347965050 | allusion | a reference, usually brief to a presumably familiar person or thing | | 2 |
4347973190 | ambiguity | any wording, action, or symbol that can be read in divergent ways | | 3 |
4347977098 | anaphora | The intentional repetition of a word or beginning clauses in order to create an artistic effect | | 4 |
4347995490 | anecdote | a short and interesting story or an amusing event often proposed to support or demonstrate some point and to make the reader or listener laugh | | 5 |
4347999179 | antagonist | the character in conflict with the protagonist | | 6 |
4348023756 | anticlimax | literally, an effect which works against the climax, frequently a descent from a noble or lofty tone to one noticeably less exalted | | 7 |
4348038820 | antithesis | a rhetorical device in which sharply opposing ideas are expressed within a balanced grammatical structure | | 8 |
4348054876 | apostrophe | a figure of speech in which someone absent or dead or something nonhuman is addressed as if it were alive and present and could reply | | 9 |
4348058346 | aside | a short passage spoken in an undertone, usually directed to the audience and presumed to be inaudible to other characters on the stage, and, most important, presumed to be true | | 10 |
4348086506 | atmosphere | the emotional mood created by the entirety of a literary work, established partly by the setting and partly by the author's choice of objects that are described | | 11 |
4353266564 | blank verse | unrhymed iambic pentameter | | 12 |
4348089764 | flat character | a character who exhibits one dominant quality | | 13 |
4348091413 | round character | a character that exhibits the complexity of traits associated with real people | | 14 |
4348092774 | static character | a character that does not change during the course of the action | | 15 |
4348094486 | dynamic character | a character that undergoes a change during the course of the action (matures) | | 16 |
4348096159 | stock character | a character found again and again in different literary works | | 17 |
4348100791 | catastrophe | the conclusion of a play, particularly a tragedy, that winds up the plot | | 18 |
4348106480 | catharsis | the purging of the emotions or relieving of emotional tensions through certain kinds of art, as tragedy or music | | 19 |
4348127855 | climax | the point at which a conflict or crisis reaches its peak; the moment at which the audience realizes whether the protagonist will win or lose the struggle | | 20 |
4348140811 | colloquial | ordinary language used in everyday speech | | 21 |
4348148782 | conceit | A figure of speech in which two vastly different objects are likened together with the help of an extended similes or metaphors. It develops a comparison which is exceedingly unlikely but is, nonetheless, intellectually imaginative | | 22 |
4348163698 | comic relief | a humorous scene, incident, character, or bit of dialogue occurring after some serious or tragic moment to relieve emotional intensity | | 23 |
4348170384 | external conflict | a struggle between a character and some outside force in a literary work | | 24 |
4348172552 | internal conflict | a struggle that takes place within a character in a literary work | | 25 |
4348178406 | connotation | the implications or suggestions evoked by a word | | 26 |
4348181594 | consonance | when two words in a line or lines of poetry have different vowel sounds but share the same consonant sounds | | 27 |
4348187621 | comedy | Generally deals with the light and amusing side of life, and it usually has a happy ending. It pictures life accurately, but not profoundly, and often deals with the folly and absurdity of people. | | 28 |
4351238545 | crisis | A brief period of time in a story or play when a conflict is intensified to the point where a resolution must occur. | | 29 |
4351273446 | dialect | the language of a particular district, class, or group of persons | | 30 |
4351274321 | dialogue | The lines spoken by a character or characters in a play, essay, story, or novel, especially a conversation between two characters, or a literary work that takes the form of such a discussion | | 31 |
4351278273 | diction | choice, use, and order of words in speech or writing | | 32 |
4351280484 | denotation | the literal or primary meaning of a word, in contrast to the feelings or ideas that the word suggests | | 33 |
4351281940 | denouement/ falling action | the sequence of events that follow the climax and end in the resolution in contrast to the rising action, which leads up to the plot's climax | | 34 |
4351285246 | deus ex machina | an unrealistic or unexpected intervention to rescue the protagonists or resolve the story's conflict | | 35 |
4351287309 | discourse | written or spoken communication or debate -- can be classified into four main categories: exposition, narration, description, argument | | 36 |
4353227848 | dystopian literature | genre of fictional writing used to explore social and political structures in 'a dark, nightmare world.' | | 37 |
4351298755 | enjambment | a run-on line of poetry in which logical and grammatical sense carries over from one line into the next | | 38 |
4351302938 | epigram | a short usually witty statement, graceful in style and ingenious in thought | | 39 |
4351324260 | epigraph | a quotation preceding a book, chapter, or poem often intended to evoke something of its theme or atmosphere | | 40 |
4352663331 | epilogue | a conclusion added to a literary work such as a novel, play, or long poem; the opposite of a prologue | | 41 |
4352666884 | epithet | an adjective or phrase that is used to express the characteristic of a person or thing, such as Ivan the Terrible | | 42 |
4352671805 | exposition | the part of the story, usually near the
beginning, in which the characters are
introduced, the background is explained, and the setting is described. | | 43 |
4352691769 | euphemism | refers to polite, indirect expressions which replace words and phrases considered harsh and impolite or which suggest something unpleasant or harsh | | 44 |
4352699010 | fable | a brief story which illustrates some moral truth, often through animal characters | | 45 |
4352704272 | farce | a form of low comedy designed to provoke laughter through highly exaggerated caricatures of people in improbable or silly situations | | 46 |
4352711092 | flashback | a scene inserted into a film, novel, story or play showing events which happened at an earlier time | | 47 |
4352719195 | foil | a character that serves by contrast to highlight or emphasize opposing traits in another character | | 48 |
4353268709 | free verse | poetry that lacks regular meter and line length, relying upon the natural speech rhythms of the language | | 49 |
4352724732 | genre | a type or category of literature or film marked by certain shared features or conventions | | 50 |
4352726952 | hamartia | a tragic flaw, especially a misperception, a lack of some important insight | | 51 |
4352738902 | hero | traditionally, a character who has such admirable traits as courage, idealism, and fortitude, but also defined as the principal character of a literary work | | 52 |
4352755017 | heroic couplet | a pair of rhymed iambic pentameter lines | | 53 |
4352756455 | hubris | excessive pride and self-confidence - often the tragic hero's hamartia | | 54 |
4352761039 | hyperbole | deliberate exaggeration, used for either serious or comic effect | | 55 |
4352769981 | Iambic pentameter | a line of verse with five metrical feet, each consisting of one short (or unstressed) syllable followed by one long (or stressed) syllable | | 56 |
4352777005 | Inciting Incident | the event or decision that begins a story's problem | | 57 |
4352786767 | Invective | an attack, on a person or idea, using abusive language to ridicule or denounce | | 58 |
4352792482 | inversion (anastrophe) | the deliberate inversion of the common order of words | | 59 |
4352802703 | irony | a device in which the writer expresses a meaning contradictory to the stated or ostensible one | | 60 |
4352818901 | dramatic irony | something is known by the reader or audience, but unknown by some or all of the characters | | 61 |
4352841031 | verbal irony | the attitude of the writer or speaker is the opposite to that which is literally stated | | 62 |
4352855237 | irony of situation | a set of circumstances turns out to be the reverse of those anticipated or considered appropriate | | 63 |
4353046241 | juxtaposition | a literary technique in which two or more ideas, places, characters and their actions are placed side by side in a narrative or a poem for the purpose of developing comparisons and contrasts | | 64 |
4353051447 | litotes | an idea is expressed by the denial of it's opposite | | 65 |
4353051923 | metaphor | a figure of speech in which two unlike objects are compared by identification or substitution of one for the other (without using "like" or "as") | | 66 |
4353054542 | metonymy | a figure of speech in which the name of some object or idea is substituted for another to which it has some relation (ex. the White House) | | 67 |
4353060321 | mood | a literary element that evokes certain feelings or vibes in readers through words and descriptions | | 68 |
4353063763 | monologue | an extended speech by one person when others are on stage | | 69 |
4353065173 | motif | a theme, character, or verbal pattern which recurs in literature or folklore | | 70 |
4353068105 | motivation | a reason that explains, or partially explains a character's thoughts, feelings, actions or speech | | 71 |
4353077657 | narrative structure | generally described as the structural framework that underlies the order and manner in which a narrative is presented to a reader, listener, or viewer | | 72 |
4353069101 | novel | any extended fictional prose narrative focusing on a few primary characters but often involving scores of secondary characters | | 73 |
4353070193 | novella | a written, fictional, prose narrative normally longer than a short story but shorter than a novel | | 74 |
4353073358 | onomatopoeia | words whose pronunciation suggests their meaning | | 75 |
4353082066 | parable | a short, simple story illustrating a moral lesson | | 76 |
4353084156 | paradox | a statement which, though it appears self-contradictory, contains a basis of truth that reconciles the seeming opposites | | 77 |
4353084962 | parallelism | the arrangement of equally important ideas in similar grammatical constructions | | 78 |
4353092030 | personification | a figure of speech in which inanimate objects or abstract ideas are endowed with human qualities or characteristics | | 79 |
4353096002 | point of view | the point from which a story is seen or told: first person, second person, third person omniscient, third person limited omniscient, third person objective | | 80 |
4353103564 | prologue | an opening section of a longer work | | 81 |
4353106314 | prose | literary expression not marked by rhyme or metrical regularity; the language used in novels, short stories, articles, etc. | | 82 |
4353110185 | proverb | a short popular saying, generally an observation or a piece of advice | | 83 |
4353113499 | pun | a play on the multiple meanings of a word, or on two words that sound alike but have different meanings | | 84 |
4353116452 | refrain | a line or lines repeated at intervals in a poem or song, usually at the end of a stanza | | 85 |
4353118213 | repetition | repeating a word, phrase, or sentence in a passage of prose or poetry to make an idea more clear or for emphasis | | 86 |
4353124557 | rhyme Scheme | the arrangement of rhymes in a unit of verse | | 87 |
4353125401 | rising action | a series of related incidents build toward the point of greatest interest; the part of a play preceding the climax | | 88 |
4353128356 | sarcasm | the use of irony to mock or convey contempt; bitter, derisive expression | | 89 |
4353135323 | satire | writing used to expose and criticize foolishness and corruption of an individual or a society through humor, irony, exaggeration or ridicule with the intention of improving humanity by criticizing its follies and foibles | | 90 |
4353138079 | simile | an expressed comparison between two unlike objects, usually using "like" or "as" | | 91 |
4353145116 | slang | informal diction or the use of vocabulary considered inconsistent with the preferred formal wording common among the educated or elite in a culture | | 92 |
4353151139 | slant rhyme (also approximate rhyme) | rhymes created out of words with similar but not identical sounds. | | 93 |
4353153283 | soliloquy | one character ALONE on stage speaks directly to the audience to reveal what he or she is thinking and/or to reveal his or her true self | | 94 |
4353154154 | stream-of-consciousness | a method of narration that describes in words the flow of thoughts in the minds of the characters | | 95 |
4353165206 | subplot | a literary technique, it is a secondary plot, or a strand of the main plot that runs parallel to it and supports it | | 96 |
4353179639 | synecdoche | a figure of speech in which a part represents the whole object or idea (ex. All hands on deck) | | 97 |
4353185195 | syntax | the arrangement of words and sentences in writing | | 98 |
4353189104 | symbol | a word, place, character, or object that means something beyond what it is on a literal level. | | 99 |
4353190040 | theme | the central idea explored in a literary work; a universal statement (truth) about life | | 100 |
4353193438 | tone | the attitude of a writer toward a subject or an audience | | 101 |
4353194413 | tragedy | deals with serious themes and is concerned with human suffering; the protagonist struggles but cannot win; defeat is inevitable | | 102 |
4353199786 | tragic hero | a person of stature who is neither villainous nor exceptionally virtuous; he or she moves from happiness to misery through some frailty or error, his or her "tragic flaw." This tragic flaw brings about his or her downfall. | | 103 |
4371697712 | tragic flaw | the character flaw that brings down the tragic hero, often hubris | | 104 |
4353205666 | understatement | the device of presenting something as less significant than it really is | | 105 |
4353207930 | villain | an evil character who acts in opposition to the hero | | 106 |
4353212929 | utopian literature | a type of literature in which an ideal society is depicted | | 107 |
4353234517 | volta | in a sonnet, the turn of thought or argument: in Petrarchan or Italian sonnets it occurs between the octave and the sestet, and in Shakespearean or English before the final couplet. | | 108 |
4353235407 | voice | either, the author's individual writing style or point of view OR the characteristic speech and thought patterns of a first-person narrator; a persona | | 109 |
4353236091 | verse | lines arranged in metrical patterns OR a single line of poetry | | 110 |