English 10 Provincial - Terms And Devices

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Alliteration

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The repetition of similar sounds, usually consonants or consonant clusters, in a group of words

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Allusion

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A reference to a person, a place, an event, or a literary work that the writer expects the reader to recognize and respond to

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Antagonist

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the major force or character that opposes the protagonist; the major force may be an aspect of the physical or social environment, or a destructive element, for instance, in the protagonist's own nature

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Aside

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a speech directed to the audience but, by dramatic convention, apparently unheard by the other characters in the play, who continue in their roles without the knowledge thus given the spectators

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Atmosphere

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the prevailing feeling created by the story

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Audience

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the person or people gathered to hear, see, or read a work

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Ballad

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a narrative folk song

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Bias

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an author prejudices the audience in favor of one side of an issue by not covering the topic fairly

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Blank verse

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unrhymed iambic pentameter

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Character

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refers to both a fictional person in a story, and the moral, dispositional, and behavioral qualities of that fictional person

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Chronological Order

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arranging events in the order in which the events occurred

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Cliché

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an overused expression, once clever or metaphorical, but now trite and timeworn

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Climax

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it is the point of greatest intensity, interest, or suspense in a narrative; the climax usually marks a story's turning point

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Colloquial

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of or relating to conversation

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Comedy

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a literary work that ends happily with a healthy, amicable armistice between the protagonist and society

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Compare

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a consideration of separate things in the light of their similarities

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External conflict

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refers to conflict that arise from outside of the character

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Internal conflict

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refers to conflict arising from within a character

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Connotation

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all of the emotions and associations that a word or phrase may arouse

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Contrast

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the juxtaposition of disparate or opposed images, ideas, or both, to heighten or clarify a scene, theme, or episode

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Denotation

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the literary or "dictionary" meaning of a word

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Description

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any careful detailing of a person, place, thing, or event

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Dialogue

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conversation between two or more persons

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Direct presentation

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the author tells the readers straight out, by exposition or analysis

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Drama

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a form of fiction, distinguished from poetry and from prose fictions like the short story and novel by being acted in front of an audience

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Dynamic character

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a character who undergoes an important and basic change in personality or outlook

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Exposition

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the unfolding of events necessary to understand later plot development or the kind of writing that is intending primarily to present information

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Falling action

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all of the action in a play that follows the turning point

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Figurative language

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language that is not intended to be interpreted in a literal sense

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First person point of view

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the narrator is a character in the story and tells the reader his/her story using the pronoun "I"; the narrator can comment only on what he/she sees and hears, and cannot comment on other characters' thoughts and feelings

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Flashback

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a switch in the plot from the present of the story to the past

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Flat character

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a limited, usually minor character with only one or two apparent qualities

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Foil

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a character who sets off another character by contrast

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Foreshadowing

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a device which hints or warns of events to happen later in the story

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Free verse

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verse that lacks regular meter and line length

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Genre

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the larger forms of literary convention

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Hyperbole

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the use of exaggeration for emphasis or to make a point

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Image

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concrete picture, either literally descriptive

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Imagery

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the images of a literary work

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Indirect presentation

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the authors show us the characters in action

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Irony

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contrast between two elements

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Jargon

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Language peculiar to a trade or calling; it is useful for communication among those within the group

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Limited omniscient point of view

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he narrator is outside of the story and tells the story from the perspective of only one character

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Lyric

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fairly short, not often longer than fifty or sixty lines, and it usually expresses the feelings and thoughts of a single speaker

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Metaphor

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a comparison between two unlike things with the intent of giving added meaning to one of them

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Mood

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the feeling or atmosphere that a writer creates for the reader

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Narration

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the telling of a story

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Narrative

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a story

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Narrator

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one who tells a story

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Objective point of view

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presents only action and dialogue; readers do not get into the thoughts of any characters

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Omniscient point of view

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the narrator is outside of the story and is all-knowing because he/she knows everything that occurs and everything that each character thinks and feels

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Onomatopoeia

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the use of words formed or sounding like what they signify

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Oxymoron

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a figure of speech in which two contradictory words or phrases are combined to produce a rhetorical effect by means of a concise paradox

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Paradox

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an apparently untrue or self-contradictory statement or circumstance that proves true upon reflection or when examined in another light

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Personification

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treating abstractions, things, or animals as persons; something nonhuman is given human qualities

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Persuasion

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convince an audience of a thesis

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Plot

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the sequence of incidents or events of which a story is composed, presented in a significant order

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Point of view

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the perspective from which a story is seen or told

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Propaganda

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refers to information, rumors, ideas, and artwork spread deliberately to help or harm another specific group, movement, belief, institution, or government

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Protagonist

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the main character or lead figure in a novel, play, story, or poem

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Refrain

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a phrase or verse recurring at intervals in a poem or song, usually at the end of a stanza, which may help to establish the meter of a poem, indicate its tone, or reestablish its atmosphere

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Resolution

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the part of the story's plot line in which the problem of the story is resolved or worked out

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Rhyme

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repetition of an identical or similarly accented sound or sounds in a work

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Rhyme scheme

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the arrangement of rhymes in a poem or stanza

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Rhythm

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the arrangement of stressed an unstressed syllables into a pattern

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Rising action

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those events in a play that lead to a turning point in the action

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Round character

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a major character in a work of fiction who encounters conflict and is changed by it

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Sarcasm

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a form of sneering criticism in which disapproval is often expressed as ironic praise

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Satire

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a literary mode based on criticism of people and society through ridicule

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Setting

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the total environment for the action of a fictional work

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Simile

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a figure of speech in which two things, essentially different but thought to be alike in one or more respects, are compared using “like,” “as,” “as if,” or “such” for the purpose of explanation, allusion, or ornament

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Slang

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informal diction or the use of vocabulary considered inconsistent with the preferred formal wording common among the educated or elite in a culture

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Sonnet

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a fourteen line poem, usually in iambic pentameter, with a varied rhyme scheme

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Speaker

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the voice in a poem

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Stanza

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an arrangement of lines of verse in a pattern usually repeated throughout the poem

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Static character

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a character who remains the same throughout a narrative

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Stereotyped character

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character in a literary work or film who thinks or acts according to certain unvarying patterns simply because of his or her racial, ethnic, religious, or social background

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Style

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the manner of expression of a particular writer, produced by choice of words, grammatical structures, use of literary devices, and all the possible parts of language use

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Suspense

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that quality of a literary work that makes the reader or audience uncertain or tense about the outcome of events

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Symbol

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something that on the surface is its literal self but which also has another meaning or even several meanings

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Theme

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the central and dominating idea in a literary work

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Tone

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the writer's attitude toward his readers and his subject; his mood or moral view

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Tragedy

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a serious play in which the chief figures, by some peculiarity of character, pass through a series of misfortunes leading to the final catastrophe

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Understatement

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a form of irony in which something is intentionally represented as less than it is in fact