Literary Terms

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Allegory

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A narrative in verse or prose in which the literal events consistently point to a parallel sequence of symbolic ideas

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Allusion

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A brief reference in a text to a person, place or thing- fictious or actu

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Antagonist

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the most siginificant force or character that opposes the protagonist

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Antihero

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a progtagonist who is lacking in one or more of the conventional qualties attributed to a hero

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Character (dynamic and static; round and flat; stock

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An imagined figure inhabiting a narrative or drama

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Climax

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the moment of greatest intensity in a story

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Complication

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the introduction of a significant development in the central conflict of a narrative between characters.

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conflict

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The central struggle between two or more characters in a story

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Convention

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Any established feature or technique in literature that is commonly understood by bothe authors and readers

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crisis

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The point in a story when the crucial action, decision, or realication must be made, marking the turning point or reversal of the protagonists fortunes

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Denouement

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The resolution or conclison of a literary work as plot complications are unraveled after the climax

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Diction

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word choice or vocabulary

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Editorial Omniscience

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When an omniscience narrator goes beyond repoorting the thoughts of his or her characters to make a critical judgment or commentary, making explicit the narrators own thoughts or philosophies.

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Epiphany

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A moment of insight discovery or revelation by which a characters life is greatly altere

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Exposition-

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The opening portion of a narrative

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Fable

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A brief often humorous narrative told to illustrate a moral

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Fairy Tale

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A traditional form of short narrative folklore, originally transmitted orally, which features supernatural characters such as witches, giants, fairies, or animals with human personality traits.

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Falling Action

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the events in a story that happen after the climax and lead toward the conclusion

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Fiction

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not bound by factual accuracy, and created out of the writers imigination

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Foreshadowing

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the way or orginaizing events so that later events are prepared for , or shadowed beforehand.

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Gothic Story

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genre that creates terror and suspence usualy set in islotated castle, creeppy mansion etc

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Impartial Omniscience

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A narrator who presents the thoughts and actons of the characters but does not judge them or comment on them

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Initiation Story

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sotry in which the main character(normally child) undergoes the right of passage the prepares them for their adulthood

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n Medias Res

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Beginning a story midway in the events it depicts

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Interior Monologue

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An extenede presentation of a characters thoughts in a narrative

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Irony (verbal, cosmic, of situation, dramatic, of point of view

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A literary device in which a discreoancy of meaning is maked beneath the surface of the language

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Minimalist

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contemporayr fictcion written in a deliberatly flat, unemotional tone and an appropriately unadorned style

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Moral-

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A message or lesson implied or directly stated in a literary work

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Motivation

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what a character in a story wants

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Locale

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the location where the story takes place

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Narrator (innocent; unreliable)

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A voice or charactrer that provides the reader with information and insifght about the characters and incidents in a narrative

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Parable

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A brief, usually allegorical narratice that teaches a narative

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Plot

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That particular arrangement of actions events and situations that unfold in a narrative

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Point of View (1st person; limited omniscient; omniscient; objective)

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the perspectve from which a story is told

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Protagonist

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main character in a story

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Rising Action

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Part of a sotry where events start rising toward a climax

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Sentimentality

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A usuallly pejorative descriptuoion of the quality of a literary work that tries to convey great emotion but fails to give the reader sufficeient grounds for sharing it.

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Setting-

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The time and place of a literary work

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Short Story

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a prose narrative too brief to be published in a separate volume

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Stream of Consciousness

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not a specific technique, but a type of modern narration that uses various literary devices especially interiror monologue in an attempt to duplicate the subjective and associative nature of human consciousness

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Style

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All the distinctive ways in which an author, genre, movenemt or historiucal perioud uses language to create a literary work.

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Suspense

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Enjoyable anxiety created in the reader

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Tale

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short narrative without a complex plot

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short narrative without a complex plot

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a humorous short narrative the provides a wildly exaggerated version of events

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Theme

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A generally recurring subject or idea conspicuously evident in a literary work

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Tone

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he attitude toward a subject conveyed in a literary work