Literary Terms 1

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Allegory

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A story in which the characters, settings, and events stand for abstract or moral concepts.

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Alliteration

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The repetition of consonant sounds in words that are close to one another.

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Archetype

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A pattern that appears in literature across cultures and is repeated through the ages.
An archetype can be a character, a plot, an image, or a setting.

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atmosphere/mood

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The mood or feeling in a literary work.

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ballad

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A song or songlike poem that tells a story.

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refrain

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lines or words that are repeated at regular intervals.

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incremental repitition

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A device widely use in balladswhereby a line or lines are repeated with slight variations from stanza to stanza.

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caesura

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A pause or break within a line of poetry

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character

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An individual in a story or play

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characterization

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The process by which the writer reveals the personality of a character

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direct characterization

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writer tells us directly what the character is like

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indirect characterization

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writer describes what the character is like through speech, private thoughts, showing character's actions, ect.

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flat character

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One or two personality traits; one dimensional

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round character

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Characters who are complex, solid, and multifaceted

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static character

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one who does not change much in the course of a story

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dynamic character

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character changes in some important way as result of an action

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dialectc

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A way of speaking that is characteristic of a particular region or group of people.

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elegy/elegiac

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a poem that mourns the death of a person or laments something lost

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epic

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A long narrative poem that relates the great deeds of a larger than life hero who embodies the values of a particular society

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epic hero

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character that undertakes quests to achieve something of tremendous value to themselves or their society

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figure of speech

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a word or phrase that describes one thing in terms of another, dissimilar thing, and is not meant to be understood on a literal level

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simile

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comparision between like and unlike things that uses 'like' or 'as'

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metaphor

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comparison between like and unlike things that does not use 'like' or 'as'

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kenning

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In Anglo-Saxon poetry, a metaphorical phrase or compound word used to name a person, place, thing, or event indirectly.

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personification

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A kind of metaphor in which a nonhuman or nonliving thing or quality is talked about as if it were human or had life

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symbol

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A person, place, thing, or event that stands both for itself and for something beyond itself.

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imagery

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language that appeals to the senses

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motif

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In literature, a word, a character, an object, an image, a metaphor, or an idea that recurs in a work or in several works

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setting

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The time and place of a story or play

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theme

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The central idea or insight about human experience revealed in a work of literature

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tone

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An attitude a writer takes toward the reader, a subject, or a character