Literary Terms

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allegory

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a symbolic narrative created to parallel adn illuminate a seperate set of morl, philosophical, political, religious, or social situations

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allusion

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a reference explicit or indirect to a well known person, place, event, literary work or work of art

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anachronism

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action, scence, object, or character placed where it does not belong in time

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apostrophe

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a direct and explicit address o an abstract person or non-human entity

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archetype

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recurrent narrative designs, patterns of action, character types or images identifiable in a wide variety of works of literature

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blank verse

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poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter lines

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diction

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word-choice

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didactic

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work of literature which has a moral or teaches a lesson

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digression

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the turning aside from the main subject in writing or speaking7

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dilemma

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situation where a person must choose between two equal alternativese.swf

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dimeter

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a line of verse consisting of two metrical feet

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dramatic monolouge

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a type of lyric poem or dramatic speech where a single person, who is patently not
the poet, utters the entire poem in a specific situation at a critical moment

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dramatic technique

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the way in which the author uses dramatic elements or drama

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dramatic persona

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the cast of characters in a play

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elegy

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a formal and sustained poetic lament (and usually consolation) for the death of
a particular personp

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ellipsis

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omission from an expression of a word or phrase clearly implied; marks (... or ***)
used to indicate omissiong

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end-stop line

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poetic line in which the pause in the reading, naturally occurring, coincides with the
end of the line

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emjambment

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run-on lines-- the continuation of a sentence or phrase from one verse line to the next
without end-stopped punctuation

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epigram

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any short poem which is polished, terse, and pointed, which often ends with a
surprising or witty turn of thought

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epigraph

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an inscription on a statue, stone or building; a quotation on the title
page of a book

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esoteric

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understood only by a select few, intended for an inner circle of
disciples or scholars

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euphemism

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an inoffensive expression used in place of a blunt one felt to be disagreeable or harsh

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free verse

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poetry not written a regular, rhythmical pattern, or meter

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gothic

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a story of horror or suspense set in the medieval period or in a gloomy old castle or
monastery –hence the name ‘gothic’ which is an architectural term-- gothic has been
extended to a type of fiction developing a brooding atmosphere, representing events
which are uncanny or macabre or melodramatically violent, and often dealing with
aberrant psychological states

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hamartia

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tragic flaw--”error of judgement” of a tragic hero which leads him to a mistaken act-fla

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heptameter

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verse composed in lines of seven metrical feetys

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heroic couplet

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lines of iambic pentameter which rhyme in pairs (aa, bb, cc, etc.)ge.swf

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iamb

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in poetry, a foot with one weak stress followed by one strong stress.swf

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idiom

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an expression peculiar to a given language whose meaning cannot be derived
from its literal meaning or by someone unfamiliar with the phrase,

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hubris

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pride or overwhelming self-confidence which leads a protagonist to
disregard a divine warning or to violate an important moral law;
hubris is a common form of hamartia in Greek tragedies

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inversion

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changing/reversing the natural word order; sometimes this is an artificial way for
the poet to achieve a rhyme and rhythm

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kunstleroman

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“artist novel” - a subtype of bildungsroman about the formation of an artist’s
personality and talents

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litotes

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a form of understatement that asserts something is true by denying its opposite,

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local color

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the detailed representation in fiction of the setting, dialect, customs, dress, and
ways of thinking and feeling which are distinctive of a particular region,

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lyric

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a poem that expresses the observations and subjective feelings of a single speaker book

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lyrical

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having the qualities of a lyric poem; songlike, musical

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magical realism

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the mingling and juxtaposition of primarily realistic elements with the
fantastic and bizarre. Magical realism expands the category of realism to include
myth, magic, and other marvels of the natural world, while using humor and
irony.

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melodrama

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originally all musical plays, including opera; currently, a debased form of tragedy
with a happy ending, flat characters, and exaggerated emotionscorn5

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metaphor

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a figure of speech in which one thing is spoken of as though it were something
elsears

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dead metaphor

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a metaphor that has been so overused that its original metaphorical impact
has been lost ,

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extended metaphor

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a metaphor that is developed at length and that involves several points of
comparisonh

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sustained metaphor

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a metaphor that does not necessarily develop in meaning but is referred to
several times in a literary workings

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metaphysical

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related to the philosophical studies of the ultimate causes and underlying nature of
thingsman

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meter

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the rhythmical pattern of a poem, determined by the number and types of stresses,
or beats, in each lineetBuffe

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metonymy

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the literal term for one thing is applied to another with which it is closely
associated MS

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motif

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an element--a type of incident, device, reference, or formula--which recurs
frequently in literature.

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naturalism

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grew out of realism and like realism attempted to depict life truthfully and
accurately, but naturalists believed that a person’s fate was determined by
heredity, chance and the elements of his or her environment; by forces of nature
and society a person could not control or understand

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paradox

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a statement that seems to be contradictory but that actually presents the truth

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pentameter

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verse written in lines of five metrical feetrge.

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personification

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a type of figurative language in which a non-human subject is given
human characteristics

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phonetic intensive

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word whose sound, by an obscure process, to some degree suggests its meaning
flicker, slippery, glisten

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poetic justice

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the distribution, at the end of a literary work, of earthly rewards and punishments
in proportion to the virtue or vice of the various characters

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precis

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an abstract or concise summary that maintains the tone of the longer piece

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prose

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direct, unadorned form of language, written or spoken in ordinary usage. It is
not restricted in rhythm, measure or rhyme.

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pyrrhic

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a foot composed of two successive syllables with approximately equal light
stresses-fla

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quatrain

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four-line stanza; the most common in English versification, and is employed
with various meters and rhyme schemes

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realism

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(1) a nineteenth-century movement in writing of novels; (2) a recurrent mode, in
various eras and literary forms of representing human life and experience in
literature—‘life as it really is’=referr

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refrain

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a phrase, verse or group of verses repeated at intervals throughout a song or poem,
especially at the end of each stanza

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rhetoric

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use of language for persuasion in speaking or writing; especially in oratoryN

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rhyme cheme

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the pattern of a poem’s rhyme, usually indicated by assigning a letter of the
alphabet to each rhyming sound
rime variant spelling of rhyme
rising action Aristotle’s complication--an element of plot following the exposition and before
the climax. The events after the introduction of setting and characters that lead up
to the turning point—or point of most interest---in the narrative.
romance a narrative form concerned with a courtly and chivalric age, often one of highly
developed manners and civility; standard plot = a quest undertaken by a single
knight in order to gain a lady’s favor
romanticism a literary movement (as in that of 19th century England--1785 to 1830), marked
especially by emphasis on the imagination and the emotions. In Romanticism the
emotional and intellectual freedom of the individual is elevated above the
traditional norms and confines of society. Nature is often seen as a source of
inspiration.

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sarcasm

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crude and taunting use of apparent praise for dispraise

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satire

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the literary art ridiculing a subject by making it ridiculous and evoking
attitudes of amusement or contempt

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direct satire

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author clearly show that the work is a satirege.

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indirect satire

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the satire is not stated directly but impliedge.

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scansion

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the act of determining the prevailing rhythm of a poem

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seset

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six line stanza

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simile

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a figure of comparison using “like” with nouns and “as” with clauses.swf

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soliloquy

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a form of discourse in which a character reveals his or her thoughts when alone or
unaware of the presence of other characters

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sonnet

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a lyric poem consisting of a single stanza of fourteen iambic pentameter lines
linked by an intricate rhyme scheme; Elizabethan and Petrarchan being the
predominant formss

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spondee

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a foot of two successive syllables with approximately equal strong stressesge/gi

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stanza

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a grouping of the verse-lines in a poem, set off by a space in the printed text

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theme

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a general concept or doctrine which an imaginative work is designed to
incorporate and make persuasive to the reader; a significant idea in a literary texth

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thesis

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the argument or proposition one attempts to prove or defend in a scholarly essay

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tone

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the techniques and modes of presentation an author uses to reveal or create
attitudes in a literary piece; the author's attitude toward his subject and audiencemsword,

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tragedy

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literary, particularly dramatic, representations of serious and important actions
which culminate in a disastrous conclusion for the protagonist

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terza rima

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poetry written in tercets which are interlinked in that each is linked to the one
following by a common rhyme: aba, bcb, cdc, and so on

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trochee

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a two-syllable foot consisting of a heavy stress followed by a light stress:

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tropes

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figures of speech, most of which are used to compare dissimilar objects to achieve
effects beyond the range of literal language; tropes include simile, metaphor,
hyperbole, personification, etc.ferr

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verisimilitude

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the achievement of an illusion of reality in the audience

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vernacular

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common everyday speech, slang2

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verse

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compositions written in meter, a line of poetry; can refer to poetry in general

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zeugma

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expressions in which a single word stands in the same grammatical relation to two
or more other words, but with an obvious shift in its significance.