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108 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Anthropomorphism
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When inanimate objects, animals, or natural phenomena are given human characteristics, behavior, or motivation
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Anticlimax
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When an action produces far smaller results that on had been led to expect
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Antihero
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A protagonist (main character) who is markedly unheroic: morally weak, cowardly, dishonest, or any number of other unsavory qualities
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Aphorism
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A short and usually witty saying
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Apostrophe
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A figure of speech wherein the speaker talks directly to something that is nonhuman
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Archaism
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The use of deliberately old-fashioned language
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Aside
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A speech (usually just a short comment) made by an actor to the audience
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Aspect
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A trait or characteristic
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Assonance
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The repeated use of vowel sounds
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Atmosphere
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The emotional tone or background that surrounds a scene
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Ballad
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A long, narrative poem, usually in very regular meter and rhyme
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Bathos, Pathos
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PATHOS: Writing that evokes feelings of dignified pity and sympathy
BATHOS: Insincere pathos; sentimentality; mawkishness |
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Black humor
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The use of disturbing themes in comedy
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Bombast
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Pretentious, exaggeratedly learned language
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Burlesque
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Broad parody, one that takes a style or a form and exaggerates it into ridculousness
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Cacophony
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Using deliberately harsh, awkward sounds
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Cadence
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The beat or rhythm of poetry in a general sense
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Canto
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The name for a section division in a long work of poetry
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Caricature
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A portrait (verbal or otherwise( that exaggerates a facet of personality
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Catharsis
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Refers to the "cleansing" of emotion an audience member experiences, having lived (vicariously) through the experiences presented on stage
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Chorus
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The group of citizens who stand outside the main action on stage and comment on it
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Classic
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Typical, or an accepted masterpiece
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Coinage (neologism)
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A new word, usually one invented on the spot
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Colloquialism
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Word or phrase used in everyday conversational English that isn't a part of accepted "schoolbook" English
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Complex, Dense
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Suggest that there are more than one possible meanings of the word; there are subtleties and variations; there are multiple layers of interpretation; the meaning is both explicit and implicit
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Conceit, Controlling Image
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Refers to a startling or unusual metaphor, or to a metaphor developed and expanded upon several lines
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Connotation, Denotation
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Denotation is literal meaning. Connotation is everything else that the word suggest or implies
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Consanance
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Repitition of consonant sounds within words
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Couplet
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A pair of lines that end in rhyme
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Decorum
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To observe, characters speech must by styled according to her social station, and in accordance with the occasion
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Diction, Syntax
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Authors choice of words
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Dirge
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A song for the dead. Its tone is typically slow, heavy, and melancholy
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Dissonance
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The grating of incompatible sounds
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Doggerel
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Crude, simplistic verse, often in sing-song rhyme. Limericks are a kind of doggerel
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Dramatic Irony
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When the audience knows something that the characters in the drama do not
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Dramatic monologue
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When a single speaker in literature says something to a silent audience
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Elegy
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A type of poem that meditates on death or mortality in a serious, thoughtful manner
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Elements
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Basic techniques of each genre of literature
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Enjambent
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The continuation of a syntactic unit from one line or couplet of a poem to the next with no pause
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Epic
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A very long narrative poem on a serious theme in a dignified style
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Epitaph
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Lines that commemorate the dead at their burial place
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Euphemism
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A word or phrase that takes the place of a harsh, unpleasant, or impolite reality
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Euphony
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When sounds blend harmoniously
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Explicit
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To say or write something directly and clearly
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Farce
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Extremely broad humor
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Feminine rhyme
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Lines rhymed by their final two syllables
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Foil
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A secondary character whose purpose is to highlight the characteristics of a main character, usually by contrast
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Foot
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The basic rhythmic unit of a line of poetry
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Foreshadowing
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An event or statement in a narrative that in miniature suggests a larger event that comes later
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Free verse
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Poetry written without a regular rhyme scheme or metrical pattern
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Genre
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A subcategory of literature
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Gothic, Gothic Novel
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Sensibility derived from Gothic novels
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Hubris
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The excessive pride or ambition that leads to the main characters downfall
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Hyperbole
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Exaggeration or deliberate overstatement
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Implicit
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To say or write something that suggests and implies but never says it directly or clearly
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In median res
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Latin for "in the midst of things"
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Interior monologue
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Refers to writing that records the mental talking that goes on inside a characters head
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Inversion
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Switching the customary order of elements in a sentence or phrase
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Irony
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A statement that means the opposite of what it seems to mean
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Lament
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A poem of sadness or grief over the death of a loved one or over some other intense loss
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Lampoon
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A satire
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Loose and periodic sentences
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A loose sentence is complete before it ends. A periodic sentence is not grammatically complete until it has reached its final phrase
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Lyric
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A type of poetry that explores the poet's personal interpretation of and feelings about the world
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Masculine rhyme
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A rhyme ending on the final stressed syllable
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Means, Meaning
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Literal meaning which is concrete and explicit, and there is emotional meaning
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Melodrama
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A form of cheesy theater in which the hero is very, very good, the villain mean and rotten, and the heroine oh-so-pure
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Metaphor and Simlie
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Metaphor: Comparison, or analogy that states one thing IS another
Simile: Comparison but softens the full-out equation of things, often but not always by using LIKE or AS |
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Metonym
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A word that is used to stand for something else that is has attributes of or is associated with.
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Nemesis
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The protagonist's archenemy or supreme and persistent difficulty
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Objectivity and Subjectivity
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An objective treatment of subject matter is an impersonal or outside view of events. A subjective treatment uses the interior or personal view of a single observer and is typically colored with that observer's emotional responses
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Onomatopoeia
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Words that sound like what they mean
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Opposition
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Having a pair of elements that contrast sharply
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Oxymoron
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A phrase composed of opposites; a contradiction
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Parable
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Like a fable or an allegory, a parable is a story that instructs
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Paradox
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A situation or statement that seems to contradict itself, but on closer inspection, does not
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Parallelism
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Repeated syntactical similarities used for effect
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Paraphrase
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To restate phrases and sentences in your own words, to rephrase
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Parenthetical phrase
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A phrase set off by commas that interrupts the flow of a sentence with some commentary or added detail
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Parody
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The work that results when a specific work is exaggerated to ridiculousness
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Pastoral
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A poem set in tranquil nature or even more specifically, one about shepards
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Persona
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The narrator in a non-first person novel
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Personification
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Giving an inanimate object human qualities or form
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Plaint
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A poem or speech expressing sorrow
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Point of View
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Perspective from which the action of a novel (or narrative poem) is presented
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Prelude
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An introductory poem to a longer work of verse
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Protagonist
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The main character of a novel or play
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Pun
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The usually humorous use of a word in such a way to suggest two or more meanings
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Refrain
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A line or set of lines repeated several times over the course of a poem
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Requiem
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A song of prayer for the dead
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Rhapsody
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An intensely passionate verse or section of verse, usually of love or praise
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Rhetorical Question
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A question that suggest an answer
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Satire
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Exposes common character flaws to the cold light of humor; attempts to improve things by pointing out peoples mistakes in the hope that once exposed, such behavior will become less common
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Soliloquy
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A speech spoken by a character alone on stage
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Stanza
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A group of lines roughly analogous in function in verse to the paragraph's function in prose
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Stock characters
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Standard or cliched character types
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Subjunctive Mood
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To set up a hypothetical situation, a kind of wishful thing
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Suggest
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To imply, infer, indicate
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Summary
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A simple retelling of what you've just read
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Suspension of disbelief
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The demand made of a theater audience to accept the limitations of staging and supply the details with imagination
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Symbolism
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A device in literature where an object represents an idea
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Technique
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The methods, the tools, the "how-she-does-it" ways of the author
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Theme
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The main idea of the overall work; the central idea
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Thesis
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The main position of an argument
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Tragic flaw
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This is the weakness of character in an otherwise good (or even great) individual that ultimately leads to his demise
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Travesty
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A grotesque parody
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Truism
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A way too obvious truth
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Utopia
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An idealized place
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Zeugma
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The use of a word to modify two or more words, but used for different meanings
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