Literary Terms 1St Semester

Front 1

epic

Back 1

a quest story on a grand scale

Front 2

paraphrase

Back 2

put into your own words

Front 3

explicate

Back 3

explain

Front 4

tragic hero

Back 4

Aristotle's idea of a good, even great person who brings his own destruction through a flaw in his character

Front 5

tragic scene of recognition

Back 5

Aristotle's concept: the hero comes to understand something the audience has long understood

Front 6

blank verse

Back 6

unrhymed iambic pentameter
(a form of poetry that comes close to imitating the natural rhythms of Enlish speech)

Hint 6

(pg. 318)

Front 7

iambic

Back 7

a metrical foot that has one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable.

Hint 7

(pg. 318)

Front 8

pentameter

Back 8

each line of verse has five feet, so one line of iambic pentameter has five iambs

Hint 8

(pg. 318)

Front 9

soliloquy

Back 9

a meditative kind of speech in which a character, usually alone on stage and pretending that the audience is not present, thinks out loud

Hint 9

(pg. 383)

Front 10

aside

Back 10

lines unheard by the other characters on stage, esp. in Shakespeare

Front 11

tragic reversal

Back 11

Aristotle's concept in which the effect gained is the opposite of the effect intended

Front 12

exposition

Back 12

the introduction

Front 13

denouement

Back 13

the falling action (Act IV in a Shakespearean play)

Front 14

resolution

Back 14

conclusion

Front 15

protagonist

Back 15

the main character in a fiction, drama, or narrative poetry. Most protagonists are rounded, dynamic characters who change in some important way by end of the story.

Hint 15

(p. 1195)

Front 16

climax

Back 16

the point of the greatest emotional intensity or suspence in a plot. (usually where the conflict is decided)

Hint 16

(pg. 1191)

Front 17

antagonist

Back 17

the character or force that opposes or blocks the protagonist, or main character, in a narrative

Hint 17

(p. 1189)

Front 18

comic relief

Back 18

a comic scene coming before or after a scene of high dramatic tension to relieve the emotions of the audience

Front 19

foil

Back 19

a character who sets off another character by strong contrast

Hint 19

(p. 1195)

Front 20

motif

Back 20

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

Hint 20

(p. 1197)

Front 21

tone

Back 21

The attitude a writer takes toward the reader, a subject, or a character.

Hint 21

p. 1203

Front 22

verbal irony

Back 22

occurs when a writer or speaker says one thing but really means something quite different-often the opposite of what he or she said
("oh, i just love waiting in the rain")

Hint 22

p. 1196

Front 23

situational irony

Back 23

occurs when what actually happens is the opposite of what is expected or appropriate
(expect palace, when u get there it is a dump)

Hint 23

p. 1196

Front 24

satire

Back 24

A kind of writing that ridicules human weakness, vice, or folly in order to bring about social reform

Hint 24

p. 1201

Front 25

ballad

Back 25

a song or songlike poem that tells a story; most have a regular pattern of rhythm and rhyme, and generally have a refrain

Hint 25

p. 1190

Front 26

caesura

Back 26

a pause or break within a line of poetry, usually indicated by the natural rhythm of the language

Hint 26

p. 1190

Front 27

foreshadowing

Back 27

the use of clues to hint at what is going to happen later in the plot; builds suspense

Hint 27

p. 1195

Front 28

persona

Back 28

the "I" or first person narrator that is not necessarily the author

Front 29

kenning

Back 29

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

Hint 29

p. 1196

Front 30

allegory

Back 30

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

Hint 30

p. 1189

Front 31

alliteration

Back 31

repetition of consonant sounds in non-rhythming words, especially at the beginning of words duch as "rough" and
"ready."

Hint 31

p. 1189

Front 32

consonance

Back 32

The repetition of final consonant sounds in non-rhythming words (i.e. "struts" and "frets");
can also mean repetition of consonant sounds in the middle of words such as in "solemn stillness."

Hint 32

p. 1192

Front 33

assonance

Back 33

the repetition of similar vowel sounds followed by different consonant sounds in words that are close together. Assonance differs from exact rhyme because it doesn't repeat the consonant sound following the vowel.
(i.e. face and fade, NOT face and base)

Hint 33

p. 1190

Front 34

oxymoron

Back 34

a figure of speech that combines apparently contradictory or incongruous ideas

Hint 34

p. 1198

Front 35

sonnet

Back 35

a fourteen-line lyric poem, usually written in iambic pentameter, that has one of several rhyme schemes
(two types: Italian, Patrarchan)

Hint 35

p. 1201

Front 36

quatrain

Back 36

a four-line stanza or poem or a group of four lines unified by a rhyme scheme.
(most common verse in Eng. poetry)

Hint 36

p. 1200

Front 37

couplet

Back 37

two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme.

Hint 37

p. 1192

Front 38

octave

Back 38

an eight-line stanza or poem or the first eight lines of an Italian, or Petrarchan, sonnet
(rhyme scheme abbaabba)

Hint 38

p. 1198

Front 39

sestet

Back 39

a six-line stanza or poem or the last six lines of an Italian, or Petrarchan, sonnet
(rhyme scheme cdcdcd)

Hint 39

p. 1201

Front 40

conceit

Back 40

a fanciful and elaborate figure or speech that makes a surprising connection between two seemingly dissimilar things

Hint 40

p. 1192