70 Literary Terms For English

Front 1

Genre

Back 1

A type of text

Front 2

Speaker

Back 2

Voice in a poem. Can be the poet, a character,an animal etc.

Front 3

Point of View

Back 3

Vantage point which poem is held from.

Front 4

1st person narrator

Back 4

Speaker who tells his/her story (I)

Front 5

2nd person narrator

Back 5

Speaker who addresses the audience directly (uses you and I)

Front 6

3rd person narrator

Back 6

speaker who tells someone else's story (uses he or she)

Front 7

Tone

Back 7

Emotions of speaker

Front 8

Mood

Back 8

Emotions that are created in the reader while reading

Front 9

Tone v Mood

Back 9

Can be different between the read and the speaker

Front 10

Characterization

Back 10

Artistic representation of human character or movies

Front 11

Setting

Back 11

Time and place

Front 12

Theme

Back 12

Main idea/subject with which a literary work is concerned

Front 13

Symbol

Back 13

Something in a literary work that represents something else

Front 14

Allegory

Back 14

Symbolic literature in which features of the story can be seen as representations of a parallel narrative

Front 15

Diction

Back 15

the speakers vocabulary choices and style of expression (for example, formal/informal)

Front 16

Dialect

Back 16

a way of speaking that is distinctive to a particular group of people (region, social class, etc.)

Front 17

Imagery

Back 17

Description that create a realistic image in the readers mind

Front 18

Allusion

Back 18

A reference to another text within one text. Without it being said or made clear

Front 19

Stanza

Back 19

Group of lines forming a unit in a poem. Created by the skipping of a line.

Front 20

Epic

Back 20

A long narrative poem

Front 21

Lyric

Back 21

A poem that expresses the thoughts and feelings of a first person speaker, not always spoken by the writer himself

Front 22

Dramatic Monologue

Back 22

A poem written in first person which narrates the thoughts and feelings of a separate character (who is not the writer)

Front 23

Ballad

Back 23

Poem that tells a story simply enough to be understood on the first read.

Front 24

Figurative Language

Back 24

Not literal, consists of figures of speech.

Makes use of comparisons between different things to appeal to the imagination

Front 25

Figures of speech

Back 25

Compares an action or feeling to something else

Front 26

Metaphor

Back 26

Comparison not using like or as

Front 27

Simile

Back 27

Comparison using like or as

Front 28

Personification

Back 28

The writing technique when a writer instils human life like qualities in a non living/non human object

Front 29

Onomatopoeia

Back 29

A word that imitates a sound

Ex. Moo

Front 30

Oxymoron

Back 30

Fuses two contradictory or opposing ideas

Ex. Jumbo Shrimp

Front 31

Hyperbole

Back 31

Deliberate exaggeration or overstatement

Ex. I'm king of the world

Front 32

Verbal Irony

Back 32

A way of speaking in which the literal meaning is the opposite of the intended meaning.

Just like sarcasm but more subtle

Front 33

Dramatic Irony

Back 33

When the reader knows more than a particular character or speaker. In this case, the speaker does not intend to be ironic

Front 34

Rhyme

Back 34

Repetition of a sound

Ex. Long and song

Front 35

End Rhyme

Back 35

A rhyme occurring at the ends of lines

Front 36

Internal Rhyme

Back 36

A rhyme occurring within a line

Front 37

Rhyme Scheme

Back 37

The pattern of end rhymes in a poem

Front 38

Assonance

Back 38

The repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds

Ex. "That dolphin-torn, that gong-tormented sea"

Front 39

Consonance and Aliiteration

Back 39

Consonance- the repetition of identical/similar consonant sounds in close proximity.

Alliteration- a case of consonance where the repeated consonant sound is at the beginning of each word.

Front 40

Meter

Back 40

a poem's rhythmical pattern

Front 41

Scanning

Back 41

The marking of stressed and unstressed syllables

Front 42

Protagonist

Back 42

Main character of a literary work

Front 43

Antagonist

Back 43

The character who opposes the protagonist

Front 44

Dynamic Character

Back 44

A character who changes by the end of the literary work

Front 45

Static Character

Back 45

A character who remains the same throughout a literary work

Front 46

Plot

Back 46

The major events that occur within a literary work

Front 47

Conflict

Back 47

the source of tension and anticipation in a literary work

can be either: internal or external

Front 48

Suspense

Back 48

The sense of anticipation that an audience feels as a result of a literary work's conflict

Front 49

Climax

Back 49

The highest point of tension in a literary work

Front 50

Denouncement(resolution)

Back 50

A series of events that follow the climax, provides the conclusion of the story

Front 51

Flashback

Back 51

A scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point in the story.

Front 52

Foreshadowing

Back 52

Technique used to provide clues for the reader to be able to predict what might occur later in the story

Front 53

Aside

Back 53

dramatic divide: character speaks directly to the audience