Literary Terms

59111128	allusion	a reference to a literary or historical event, person, or place
59111129	elegy	a poetic lament upon the death of a particular person, usually ending in consolation
59111130	iambic	a metrical form in which each foot consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one.
59111131	irony	a situation or statement characterized by significant difference between what is expected or understood and what actually happens or is meant
59111132	meter	the more or less regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry
59454793	narrator	the character who tells the story, or in poetry, the persona
59454794	parallel structure	the use of similar forms in writing for nouns, verbs, phrases, or thoughts
59454795	realism	the practice in literature of attempting to describe nature and life without idealization and with attention to detail.
59454796	refrain	a repeated stanza or line in a poem or song
59454797	satire	a literary work that holds up human failings to ridicule and censure
59454798	scansion	the analysis of verse to show its meter
59454799	stanza	a section of a poem demarcated by extra line spacing
59454800	syntax	the way words are put together to form phrases, clauses, and sentences
59454801	theme	a generalized, abstract paraphrase of the inferred central or dominant idea or concern of a work; the statement a poem makes about its subject
59454802	tone	the attitude a literary work takes toward its subject and theme; the tenor of a piece of writing based on a particular stylistic devices employed by the writer.
61432582	alliteration	the sequential initial repetition of a similar sound, usually applied to consonants, usually heard in closely proximate stressed syllables
61432583	anaphora	the regular repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive phrases or clauses
61432584	assonance	a repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds, usually those found in stressed syllables of close proximity
61432585	caesura	a pause in a line of verse, indicated by natural speech patterns rather than due to specific metrical patterns
61432586	consonance	the repetition of a sequence of two or more consonants, but with a change in the intervening vowels.
61432587	couplet	two rhyming lines or iambic pentameter that together present a single idea or connection, two lines
61432588	dactylic	the metrical patter, as used in poetry, in which each foot consists of a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed ones.
61432589	quatrain	a poetic stanza of four lines
61432590	rhyme	the repetition of the same or similar sounds, most often at the ends of lines.
61432591	rhythm	the modulation of weak and strong (stressed and unstressed) elements in the flow of speech.
61432592	cinquain	five lines
61432593	tercet	three lines
61432594	quatrain	four lines
61432595	sestet	six lines
61432596	heptatich	seven lines
61432597	octave	eight lines
61432598	trochee	a metrical form in which each foot consists of stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable.
62420679	apostrophe	an address or invocation to something that is inanimate
62420680	conceit	a comparison of two unlikely things that is drawn out within a piece of literature
62420681	diction	the specific word choice an author uses to persuade or convey tone, purpose, or effect.
62420682	hyperbole	overstatement characterized by exaggerated language
62420683	informal diction	language that is not as lofty or impersonal as formal diction
62420684	in medias res	"in the midst of things"; refers to opening a story in the middle of the action, necessitating filling in past details by exposition or flashback.
62420685	juxaposition	the location of one thing as being adjacent or juxtaposed with another. This placing of two items side by side creates a certain effect, reveals an attitude or accomplishes some purpose of the writer.
62420686	litote	a figure of speech that emphasizes its subject by conscious understatement.
62420687	metaphor	one thing is pictured as if it were something else, suggesting a likeness or analogy between them.
62420688	metonymy	a figure of speech in which an attribute or commonly associated feature is used to name or designate something .
62420689	motif	a recurrent device, formula, or situation that often serves as a signal for the appearance of a character or event.
62420690	onomatopoeia	a word capturing or approximating the sound of what it describes
62420691	oxymoron	a figure of speech that combines two apparently contradictory elements
62420692	paradox	a statement that seems contradictory but may actually be true
62420693	parody	a work that imitates another work for comic effect by exaggerating the style and changing the content of the original
62420694	personification	treating an abstraction or nonhuman object as if it were a person by endowing it with human qualities
62420695	protagonist	the main character in a work, who may or may not be heroic
62420696	simile	a direct, explicit comparison of one thing to another, usually using words like or as to draw the connection
62420697	symbolism	a person, place, thing, event, or pattern in a literary work that designates itself and at the same time figuratively represents for something else.