Engl 1102 Vocab

Front 1

allegory

Back 1

figurative treatment of one subject under the guise of another

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alliteration

Back 2

the commencement of two or more words of a word group with the same letter

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allusion

Back 3

an incidental mention of something, either directly or by implication

Front 4

archetype

Back 4

an original model or type after which other similar things are patterned

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autobiography

Back 5

a history of a person's life written or told by that person

Front 6

black vernacular

Back 6

a nonstandard form of American English characteristically spoken by African Americans in the United States

Front 7

canon

Back 7

the works of an author that have been accepted as authentic; a standard; criterion

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character

Back 8

a person represented in a drama, story, etc.

Front 9

claim

Back 9

an assertion of something as a fact; a just title to something

Front 10

climax

Back 10

a decisive moment that is of maximum intensity or is a major turning point in a plot

Front 11

close reading

Back 11

placing great emphasis on the particular over the general, paying close attention to individual words, syntax, and the order in which sentences and ideas unfold as they are read

Front 12

closed poetic form

Back 12

poems that follow a pre-existent design; sonnet

Front 13

colloquialism

Back 13

characteristic of spoken or written communication that seeks to imitate informal speech

Front 14

connotation

Back 14

the associated or secondary meaning of a word or expression in addition to its explicit or primary meaning

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creole

Back 15

a person born in Louisiana but of usually French ancestry

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cultural symbol

Back 16

something used for or regarded as representing something else in a specific culture

Front 17

dialect

Back 17

a provincial, rural, or socially distinct variety of a language that differs from the standard language, esp. when considered a substandard

Front 18

diction

Back 18

style of speaking or writing as dependent upon choice of words

Front 19

ethos

Back 19

the moral element in dramatic literature that determines a character's action rather than his or her thought or emotion

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evaluation

Back 20

to examine and judge carefully

Front 21

evidence

Back 21

that which tends to prove or disprove something

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frame narrative

Back 22

a secondary story or stories embedded in the main story

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freudian criticism

Back 23

literary criticism that uses the psychoanalytic theory of Sigmund Freud to interpret a work in terms of the known psychological conflicts of its author or, conversely, to construct the author's psychic life from unconscious revelations in his work

Front 24

genre

Back 24

a class or category of artistic endeavor having a particular form, content, technique, or the like

Front 25

imagery

Back 25

the formation of mental images, figures, or likenesses of things, or of such images collectively

Front 26

irony

Back 26

the use of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning

Front 27

juvenile literature

Back 27

writing whose primary audience is children

Front 28

juxtaposition

Back 28

an act or instance of placing close together or side by side, esp. for comparison or contrast

Front 29

MLA

Back 29

most commonly used method to write papers and cite sources

Front 30

metaphor

Back 30

the comparison of two things without using "like" or "as"

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meter

Back 31

poetic measure; arrangement or words in regularly measured, patterned, or rhythmic lines or verses

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metonymy

Back 32

a figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for another with which it is closely associated

Front 33

motif

Back 33

a recurring subject, theme, idea

Front 34

narrative

Back 34

a story or account of events, experiences, or the like, whether true or fictitious

Front 35

open poetic form

Back 35

poetry that does not follow established patterns and is free to establish its own design

Front 36

pidgin

Back 36

any simplified or broken form of a language, esp. when used for communication between speakers or different languages

Front 37

plot

Back 37

the plan, scheme, or main story of a literary or dramatic work

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point of view

Back 38

the position of the narrator in relation to the story, as indicated by the narrator's outlook from which the events are depicted and by the attitude toward the characters

Front 39

regional literature

Back 39

the entire body of writings of a specific language, period, people, etc. pertaining to a particular region

Front 40

rhyme scheme

Back 40

the pattern of rhymes used in a poem, usually marked by letters to symbolize correspondences

Front 41

simile

Back 41

the comparison of two things using "like" or "as"

Front 42

slave narrative

Back 42

literary form which grew out of the experience of enslaved Africans giving an account of their lives during the 18th and 19th centuries

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slang

Back 43

very informal usage in vocabulary and idiom that is characteristically more metaphorical, playful, elliptical, and vivid than ordinary language

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symbolism

Back 44

the practice of representing things by symbols, or of investing things with a symbolic meaning or character

Front 45

synecdoche

Back 45

a figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole or the whole for a part

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theme

Back 46

a unifying or dominant idea or motif

Front 47

tone

Back 47

a particular style or manner, as of writing speech; mood