Literary Terms

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Affective fallacy

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The fallacy of wrongly evaluating a literary work by emphasizing only its emotional impact

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Allegory

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A narrative whose characters, symbols, and situations represent elements outside the text. For example, the character christian in the blank pilgrims progress represents the every man who is a christian

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Allusion

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An indirect reference to some literary or historical figure or event.

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Ambiguity

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A literary device in which an author uses words with more than one meaning, deliberately leaving the reader uncertain

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Antagonist

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A competitor or opponent of the main character in a work of literature

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Antihero

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A protagonist in a modern literary work who has none of the noble qualities associated with the traditional hero

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Antithesis

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A phrase that contains words whose meaning harshly contrast with each other and are rhetorical and balance. For example, alexander popes man proposes god disposes is a blank.

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Apostrophe

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A direct, emotional address to an absent character or quality, as if it were a present.

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Archetype

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An image or character representative of some greater, more common element that reoccurs constantly and variously in literature

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Avant Garde

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A term used to describe writing that is strikingly different from the dominant writing of the age in its form, style, content, and attitude

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Character

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A person created by an author for use in a work of fiction, poetry, or drama

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Cliche

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A phrase so overused that it has lost its original punch for example, beating a dead horse

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Climax

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A point at which the events in a play or story reach their crisis, where the maximum emotional reaction of the reader is created

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Colloquialism

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A term used in speech but not acceptable in formal writing

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Colloquy

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A debate or conversation among characters

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Complication

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A part of a plot in which the conflict among the characters or forces is engaged

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Conceit

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A metaphor extended to great lengths in the poem

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Conflict

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A struggle among opposing forces or characters in fiction, poetry, or drama.

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Connotation

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Implications of words or sentences, beyond their literal, or native, meanings

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Denotation

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Literal meaning of a word or sentence

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Denoument

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The final action of a plot in which the conflict is resolved the outcome

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Dialogue

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Conversation between 2 people in fiction drama or poetry

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Diction

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The use of words, good blank is accurate and appropriate to the subject

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Epigram

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A sharp, witty saying, such as oscar wilde I can resist everything but temptation.

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Epigraph

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A short inscription at the start of a literary work

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Essay

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Literally, attempt, a short piece of nonfiction prose that makes specific points and statements about a limited topic

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Euphemism

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A word or phrase substituting indirect for direct statement for example in place of died

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Exposition

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A portion of a narrative or dramatic work that establishes the tone , setting, and basic situation

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Fantasy

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A work that takes place in a world that does not exist

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Figurative language

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Language that deliberately departs from every day phrasing, with dramatic and imagistic effects that move the reader into a fresh mode of perception

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Foil

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A person or thing that contrast with and so emphasizes and enhances the quality of of another

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Foreshadowing

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In a plot, an indication of something yet to happen

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Genre

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A distinct kind of writing, such as mystery, gothic, farce, or black comedy

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Hero/ heroin

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The central character of a literary work, he or she often has great virtues and faults, and his or her trials and successes form the main action of the plot.

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Hyperbole

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Deliberately overstated, exaggerated figurative language, used either for comic or great emotional effect

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Image imagism imagery

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A concrete expression of something perceived by the senses, using simile, metaphor, and figurative language

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Irony

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An effect associated with statements or situations in which something said or done is at odds with how they truly are

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Juxtaposition

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The fact of two things being seen or placed close together with contrasting effects the blank of these 2 images reveals a startling insight

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Litotes

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Ironical, deliberately understated figurative language, used either for a comic or great emotional effect

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Metaphor

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An implicit comparison of an object or feeling with another unlike it, under a blood red sky

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Metonymy

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A figure of speech in which an object or person is not mentioned directly but suggested by an object associated with it , as when a reference to the white house means the president.

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Mood

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The emotional tone or outlook an author brings to a subject

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Motif

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A distinctive feature or prominent idea in an artistic or literary composition

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Myth

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Ancient stories of unknown origin involving the supernatural, have provided cultures and writers with interpretations of the world's events

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Narrative

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A story that consists of an account of a sequence of events

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Novel

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A long fictional narrative that represents human events, characters, and actions.

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Paradox

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A statement that seems contradictory but actually points out a truth

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Parody

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A literary work that deliberately makes fun of another literary work or a social situation

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Personification

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A literary strategy giving non human things human characteristics or attitudes

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Plot

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The sequence of events in a story, poem, or play, the events build upon each other toward a convincing conclusion

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Point of view

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The angle from which a writer tells a story. Of view can either be omniscient, limited coma or through the eyes of one or more characters.

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Prose

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Any form of writing that does not have the rhythmic pattern of metrical verse or free verse. Good blank is characterized by tightness specificity and sense of style

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protagonist

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The leading character, the blank engages the main concern of readers or the audience.

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Repetition

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The action of repeating words and phrases that have already been said or written for emphasis or literary effect.

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Satire

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A literary work using wit, irony, anger and parity to criticize human foibles and social institutions

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Setting

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The background of a literary work the time the era the geography and the overall culture

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Simile

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A comparison of 2 things via the word like or as

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Stereotype

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Widely believed and over simplified attitudes towards a person an issue and so on

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Stream of consciousness

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Writing that attempts to imitate and follow a character's thought process

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Style

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The property of writing that gives form expression and individuality to the content

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Subject

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The person place, idea situation or thing with which some piece of literature most immediately concern themselves with

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Subtext

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Significant communication, especially in dialogue, that gives motivation for the words being said

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Suspense

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Those literary qualities that leave a reader breathlessly awaiting further developments with no clear idea of what those developments will be

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Synecdoche

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A kind of metaphor in which the mention of a part stands for the whole refers not only to the heads of the cattle but to each animal as a whole

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Synopsis

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A summary of the main points of a plot

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Syntax

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The arrangement of words to form sentences

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Theme

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The main idea of a literary work created by its treatment its immediate subject

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Tone

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The expression of a writer's attitude toward a subject the mood the author was chosen for peace

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Verbal irony

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The discrepancy between things as they are stated and as they really are

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Wit

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Originally a word that meant intelligence which now refers to a facility for quick, writing that usually employs humor to make its

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Alliteration

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The repetition of consonant or vowel sounds at the beginning of words.

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Assonance

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The use of similar vowel sounds in adjacent or close by words for example slide and mind

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Anapest

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A metrical foot consisting of 2 unaccented syllables followed by an accented one(--\) as in tge phrasr on the ship

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Blank verse

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Unrhymed lines of iambic pentameter

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Caesura

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A pause within a line of poetry, often created through punctuation

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Carpe Diem

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Latin for seas the day used in literature to describe poetry that examines temporary human pleasures. Against the backdrop of eternity, as in Marcels to his coy mistress.

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Consonance

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Repetition of consonant sounds within words

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Couplet

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2 lines of verse that have unity within themselves, often because they rhyme.

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Dactyl

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A metrical foot containing an accented syllable followed by 2 unaccented syllables.(\--) as in the word craziness

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Foot

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A metrical unit of a line of poetry that contains at least one stressed and one or more unstressed syllables.

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Free verse.

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Poetry that relies more on rhythm than on regular meter for its effectiveness, also known as open form.

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Haiku.

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A form of Japanese poetry now also practiced by westerners, which in 3 lines of 5. 7. And the 5 syllable presents. A sharp picture and a corresponding emotion or insight.

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Heroic couplet

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2 lines of rhyming iambic pentameter.

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Iamb

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A metrical foot composed of one accented syllable, followed by one stressed syllable(-/) as in the word undone

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Internal rhyme

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Rhyme that occurs within a single line of poetry.

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Line.

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The fundamental element of a poem, a set of words that end at a specific point on the page And has a unity independent of what goes before and after

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Meter

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A rhythmic pattern in a poem created by the alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables.

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Off, near, slant, partial, imperfect rhyme

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A form of rhyme employing not quite identical sounds such as slip and slap.

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Onomatopoeia.

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An effect in which a word or phrase sounds like its sebnse for example, Tennisons murmuring of innumerable bees.

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Quatrain

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A four line stanza

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Rhyme

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A repetition of similar sounds or the same sound in 2 or more words most often in the final syllable of lines of poems and songs.

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Rythm

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In poetry, the regular recurrence of stress syllables in literature in general, the overall flow of language having a sensory effect on the reader.

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Scansion.

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The act of counting out the meter of a poem

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Sonnet

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A poem of 14 lines using some kind of metrical form and rhyme scheme and always unified with a concentrated expression of a large subject.

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Stanza

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A portion of a poem set off by blank space before and after more formally it stands and may have rhythm and metrical regularity matching that stanza as before and after.

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Trochee

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A metrical foot consisting of an accented syllable followed by an unaccented one.(/-) as in the word salty

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Octave

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An 8 line stanza of poetry, often part of a sonnet.