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LCC1 Terms
Vocabulary
Question | Answer |
---|---|
Allegory | A narrative verse or prose in which the literal events consistently point to a parallel sequence of symbolic ideas. |
Allusion | A brief reference in a text to a person, place or thing. |
Apostrophe | A direct address to someone or something. |
Connotation | An association or additional meaning that a word, image, or phrase may carry. |
Denotation | The literal, dictionary meaning of a word. |
Diction | Word choice or vocabulary. |
Tone | The attitude toward a subject conveyed in a literary work. |
Epiphany | A moment of insight, discovery or revelation. |
Flashback | A scene relived in character's memory. |
Genre | A conventional combination or literary form and subject matter, usually aimed at creating certain effects. |
Hyberbole (Overstatement) | Exaggeration used to emphasis a point. |
Imagery | The collection of a set of images, usually in a poem. |
In Media Res | "In the midst of things" Refers to a narrative device of beginning a story midway in the events it depicts (usually at an exciting moment) before explaining the context. |
Irony | A literary device in which a discrepancy of meaning is masked beneath the surface of the language. |
Metonymy | Figure of speech in which the name of a thing is substituted for that another closely associated with it. (ex: The White House decided vs. The President decided) |
Narrative (and Narrator) | One of the four types of poetry. And a voice or character that provides the reader with information and insight about the characters. |
Persona | "Mask" A fictitious character created by an author to be the speaker of a poem, story, or novel. It is always a narrator of the work and not a character in it. |
Plot | The arrangement of actions, events, and situations that unfold in a narrative. |
Setting | The time and place of a literary work. |
Style | All the distinct ways an author uses to create a literary work. |
Novel | An extended work of fictional prose narrative. (book length) |
Epistolary Novel | Novel in which the story is told by the way of letters written by one or more of the characters. |
Nonfiction Novel | Actual events are presented. (Based on a true event) |
Apprenticeship Novel | This genre of novel depicts a youth who struggles towards maturity. |
Picaresque Novel | The narrator of this novel presents the life of a likable scoundrel who is at odds with society. Usually recounts adventures tricking the rich and gullible. |
Novella | A prose narrative longer than a short story, but shorter than a novel. |
Epic Novel | Traces the adventures of a legendary or mystic hero. |
Fable | A brief narrative told to illustrate a moral. |
Parable | A brief, usually allegorical narrative that teaches a moral. The moral theme can be interpreted in many ways. (ex: The Prodical Son) |
Tale | A short narrative without a complex plot. It has less developed characters and linear plotting. |
Nonfiction Novel | Events are not real. |
Short Story | A prose narrative too brief to be publishes in a separate volume. Usually presents one or two main characters. |
Subplot (Double Plot) | A second story or plotline that is complete and interesting in it's own right, but doesn't defer from the main plot. |
Synecdoche | The use of a significant part of a thing to stand for the whole or it or vice versa. (ex: To say wheels for CAR or rhyme for poetry) |
Theme | A reoccuring subject or idea |
Tone | The attitude towards a subject. |
Understatement | An ironic figure of speech that deliberately describes something in a way that is less than the true case. |
Free verse | Describes poetry that organizes its lines without meter. May be rhymed, but usually not. |
Prose Poetry | Poetic language printed in prose paragraphs, but displaying the careful attention to sound, imagery and figurative language. |
Visual Poetry | Refers to sense of sight or presents something one may see. |
Monometer | A verse meter consisting of one metrical foot, or one primary stress per line. |
Dimeter | A verse containing two metrical feet. |
Trimeter | Three metrical feet |
Tetrameter | Four metrical feet of verse |
Pentameter | Five metrical feet in a verse |
Hexameter | Six metrical feet |
Heptameter | Seven metrical feet |
Octameter | Eight metrical feet |
Nonameter | Nine metrical feet |
Decameter | Ten metrical feet in a verse. |
Form | The means by which a literary work conveys its meaning. |
Blank Verse | The most common and well known meter of unrhymed poetry in English. It contains 5 iambic feet per line and is never rhymed. (Blank means unrhymed) |
Free Verse | Describes poetry that organizes its lines without meter. |
Haiku | A Japanese form that has 3 unrhymed lines of 5,7, and 5 syllables. |
Limerick | A short, usually comical verse of 5 anapestic lines usually rhyming aabba. (3,3,2,2,3) |
Epigram | A very short poem usually ending with some sharp turn of wit or meaning. |
Triolet | A short lyric form of 8 rhymed lines borrowed from the french. Often playful. |
Dactylic | A metrical foot of verse in which one stressed syllable is followed by two unstressed syllables. |
Exact Rhyme | A full rhyme in which the sounds following the initial letters of the words are identical in sound (ex: follow, hollow) |
Slant Rhyme | A rhyme in which the final consonant sounds are the same but the vowel sounds are different (ex: litter, letter) |
End Rhyme | Rhyme that occurs at the ends of lines, rather than within them. |
Italian sonnet (Petrarchan sonnet) | A sonnet with the following rhyme pattern: abba, abba for the first eight lines (the octave), the final six lines(the sestet) may follow any pattern |
English sonnet (Shakespearean) | Has a rhyme scheme organized into 3 quatrains with the final couplet: abab,cdcd,efef,gg. |
Stanza | "stopping place" A recurring pattern of 2 or more lines of verse. |
Couplet | A 2 line stanza in poetry usually rhymed, which tends to have lines of equal length. |
Tercet | A group of 3 lines of verse, usually all ending with the same rhyme. |
Quatrain | A stanza consisting of 4 lines. Most common stanzas in English poetry. |
Sestet | A poem or stanza of 6 lines. |
Octave | A stanza of eight lines |
Antagonist | The most significant character or force that opposes the protagonist in a narrative or drama. |
Apostrophe | A direct address to someone or something |
Aside | In drama, a few words or short passage spoken in undertone to the audience. |
Characterization | The techniques a writer uses to create, reveal, and develop the characters. |
Moral | A paraphrasable message or lesson implied or directly stated in a literary work. |
Motivation | What a character in a story/drama wants. |
Protagonist | The central character in a literary work. |
Scene | In drama, a division of the action in an act of the play. |
Stock Character | A common or stereotypical character that occurs frequently in literature (ex: a mad scientist) |
Understatement | An ironic figure of speech that deliberately describes something in a way that is less that the true case. |
Comedy | A literary work aimed at amusing an audience. |
Burlesque | Incongruous imitation of either the style or subject matter of a serious genre. |
Comedy of Manners | A realistic form of comic drama that flourished with 17th century playwrights. |
Commedia | A form of comic drama developed by guilds of professional Italian actors in the mid 16th century. |
Farce | A type of comedy featuring exaggerated character types in ludicrous and improbably situations. |
High Comedy | A comic genre evoking laughter from an audience. No intellectual appeal |
Low Comedy | A comic style using slapstick jokes. Has intellectual appeal. |
Romantic Comedy | A form of comic drama in which the plot focuses on a pair of young lovers who overcome difficulties to a happy ending. |
Slapstick | A kind of farce comedy involving pie throwing or other violent action |
Satire | A genre using derisive humor to ridicule human weakness and folly or attack political injustices. |
Tragedy | The representation of serious and important actions that lead to a disastrous end for the protagonist. |
Tragicomedy | A type of drama that combines elements of both tragedy and comedy. |
Melodrama | Originally a stage featuring background music and sometimes songs to underscore the emotion of each scene. Weak in characterization, but strong on action, suspense, and passion. |