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Literary Terms Vocab
Stack #31571
| Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
| Alliteration | repetition of consonant sounds in words that are close to one another |
| Allusion | a reference to a statement, person, place, event, or thing that is known from literature, history, religion, mythology, politics, sports, science, or popular culture |
| Antagonist | character or force who comes into conflict with the protagonist |
| Antithesis | a contrast of ideas expressed in a grammatically balanced statement; ex. "and wretches hang that jurymen may dine" |
| Aphorism | a concise, sometimes witty saying that expresses a principle, truth, or observation about life; ex. "to err is human, to forgive, divine" |
| Apostrophe | a figure of speech where a speaker directly addresses an absent or dead person, an abstract quality, or something nonhuman as if it were present and capable of responding |
| Aside | private words that a character in a play speaks to the audience or to another character that are not supposed to be overheard by the others onstage |
| Assonance | the repetition of similar vowel sounds followed by different consonant sounds in words that are close together; ex. face and fade |
| Blank Verse | poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter |
| Character | an individual in a story or play |
| Cliche | an expression that was fresh and apt when first coined but is now so overused that it has become hackneyed and stale; ex. busy as a bee |
| Climax | the point of greatest emotional intensity or suspense within the plot |
| Complication/Crisis | part of the story where the main character takes some sort of action to resolve the conflict and meets with problems or complications |
| Conceit | a fanciful and elaborate figure of speech that makes a suprising connection between two seemingly dissimilar things |
| Conflict | a struggle or clash between opposing characters, forces, or emotions |
| Consonance | the repetition of final consonant sounds after different vowel sounds; ex. turn and torn |
| Dead Metaphor | a metaphor that has become so common that we no longer even notice that it is a figure of speech; ex. foot of the bed |
| Diction | a writer's or speaker's choice of words that expresses the writer's style; wording can be flowery (boutique), modern (pharmacy), old-fashioned (apothecary), general (sandwich), or specific (grilled cheese on rye) |
| Direct Characterization | when a writer tells us what the character looks like |
| Dramatic Irony | occurs when the audience or the readers know something important that a character in a play or story doesn't know (or has just found out about) |
| Dynamic Character | a character who changes in an important and believable way during the course of the story |
| Epigram | a brief, clever, and usually memorable statement; ex. "we think our fathers fools, so wise we grow, our wiser sons, no doubt, will think us so" or "early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise" |
| Epitaph | an inscription on a tombstone or a commemorative poem written about a dead person |
| Extended Metaphor | a metaphor that is extended, or developed, over several lines of writing or even throughout an entire poem |
| External Conflict | when the character struggles against some outside force: another person, society, natural disasters, etc |
| Falling Action | all the action following the turning point of the plot |
| Figurative Language | language that intentionally departs from the normal construction or meaning of words in order to create a certain effect or to make an analogy between two seemingly dissimilar things |
| Figure of Speech | a word or phrase that describes one thing in terms of another and is not meant to be understood on a literal level |
| First-Person Point of View | the narrator is a character in the story |
| Flat Character | a character with only 1 or 2 key personality traits and can be described in a single sentence |
| Foil | a character who sets off another character by strong contrast; emphasizes the differences between two characters |
| Foreshadowing | the use of clues to hint at what is going to happen later in the plot |
| Hyperbole | a figure of speech that uses exaggeration to express strong emotion or create a comic effect (overstatement) |
| Iamb | a metrical foot or unit of measure |
| Imagery | language that appeals ot the senses |
| Implied Metaphor | words that imply a comparison between two objects; ex. molt and wings imply a comparason between time and a bird shedding his feathers |
| Indirect Characterization | when we interpret the character for ourselves by observing his appearance, speech, private thoughts, effect on other characters, and accounts |
| Internal Conflict | struggles against opposing needs, desires, or emotions within the character himself |
| Irony | a contrast or discrepancy between expectation and reality - between what is said and what is really meant, what is expected and what really happens, or what appears to be true and what is really true |
| Kenning | a metaphorical phrase or compound word used to name a person, place, thing, or event indirectly; ex. "whale-road" |
| Limited Third-Person | the narrator is outside the story but tells the story from the vantage point of only one character |
| Metaphor | figure of speech that makes a comparison between two seemingly unlike things without using a connective word "like", "as", "than", or "resembles" |
| Metonymy | a figure of speech where something closely related to a thing or suggested by it is substituted for the thing itself; ex. the judiciary = "the bench, the king = "the crown" |
| Mixed Metaphor | the incongruous mixture of two or more metaphors |
| Motif | a word, character, object, image, metaphor, or idea that recurs in a work |
| Omniscient | the person telling the story knows everything going on in the story, even the person's personal thoughts and feelings |
| Onomatopoeia | the use of a word whose sound imitates or suggests its meaning; ex. BANG! |
| Oxymoron | a figure of speech that combines apparently contradictory or incongruous ideas; ex "bittersweet" |
| Paradox | apparent contradiction that is actually true; "Lesser than Macbeth and Greater", "Fair is foul and foul is fair", "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." |
| Pentameter | a poem with 5 iambs per line |
| Personification | a kind of metaphor where a nonhuman thing or quality is talked aout as if it were human |
| Plot | a series of related events connected together like links in a chain |
| Point of View | the vantage point from which a writer tells a story |
| Protagonist | the main character |
| Puns | a play on the multiple meanings of a word or of two words that sound alike but have different meanings; ex. Why was Cleopatra so negative? Because she was the queen of denial! |
| Resolution | occurs at the very end of the story, when all the conflicts are resolved |
| Rhymed Couplet | two lines that rhyme in a poem |
| Rising Action | all the action leading up to the turning point of the plot |
| Round Character | a more complex character with more sides to their personality |
| Setting | when and where a story takes place |
| Simile | figure of speech that makes a comparison between two seemingly unlike things by using a connective word "like", "as", "than", or "resembles" |
| Epic Simile (Homeric Simile) | extended simile in which many parallels are made between two dissimilar things |
| Single-Word Implied Mataphor | a metaphor said in a single word that is implied |
| Situational Irony | when things turn out differently from what is expected |
| Soliloquy | a long speech where a character, usually alone onstage, expresses his or her private thoughts or feelings; ex. "To be, or not to be..." |
| Static Character | a character that is exactly the same from the beginning of the story to the end of the story |
| Stock Character | a character who fits our preconceived notions about a "type" |
| Style | the manner in which writers or speakers say what they wish to say; can be formal, casual, plain, ornate, abstract, concrete, comic, poetic, forceful, journalistic, etc |
| Symbol | a person, place, thing, or even event that stands for both itself and something beyond itself; ex. lion= power, dove = peace (these are sometimes called public symbols) |
| Synaesthesia | a term used for descriptions of one kind of sensation in terms of another; ex. tasting of flora and the country green, dance, and provencal song, and sunburnt mirth" |
| Theme | the central idea or insight of a work of literature |
| Tone | the attitude a writer takes toward the reader, a subject, or a character (conveyed through the writer's choice of words and details) |
| Tragedy | a play, novel, or narrative depicting serious and important events, in which the main character comes to an unhappy end |
| Tragic Flaw | an error in judgement or a weakness in a dignified, courageous, and often high ranking character |
| Understatement | a figure of speech that consists of saying less than what is really meant or saying something with less force than is appropriate; ex. "it's only a little wet out there" when hurricanes are being dumped on you |
| Verbal Irony | when you say the opposite of what you really mean; sarcasm |
| Synecdoche | a figure of speech where a part stands for the whole; ex. "our daily bread" = food |
Created by:
moviefreak82
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