Literary Terms

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repetition of consonant sounds in words that are close together.

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Alliteration

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reference to a statement, person, place, event, from lit, history, religion, pop culture, ect.

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Allusion

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character who presents an obstacle to the protagonist or who is involved in the most important conflict with the protagonist.

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Antagonist

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word spoken by a character in a play to the audience or to another character (words, which supposedly, are not overheard by the others on the stage).

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Aside

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repetition of vowel sounds in words.

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Assonance

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unrhymed iambic pentameter.

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Blank Verse

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emotional release brings renewal of the self or welcome relief from anxiety, tension, ect.

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Catharsis

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a person in a story.

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Character

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realistic character that has different character traits; fully developed; three-dimensional.

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Round

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character that, having only one or two traits, is easily described and one-dimensional.

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Flat

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character who remains the same or changes very little from beginning to end.

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Static

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character who changes in some important way as a result of what happens in the story.

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Dynamic

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how we know a character (what the narrator tells, char's speech/thought, char's actions/behaviors, other character's reactions).

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Characterization

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author explains directly what the character is like (kind, evil, ect.).

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Direct

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author shows what the character is like by presenting the character's manner of speech, actions, dress (appearance), by indication what others think or say about the character and by revealing what the character himself or herself thinks.

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Indirect

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significant and exciting moments, turning points, decisions are made.

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Climactic Moments

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story that ends happily (trad.w/a marriage).

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Comedy

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struggle or clash between opposing characters or forces.

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Conflict

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char vs. char; char vs. society; char vs. nature/environment; char vs. MST(machine science technology).

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External

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char vs. self.

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Internal

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repetition of consonant sounds in middle or end of words (at beginning would be alliteration).

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Consonance

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two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme.

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Couplet

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Untying the knot of complications; part of plot when the story's problems are resolved.

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Denouement

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lines of a conversation or speech included in a literary work.

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Dialogue

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story written to be acted out in front of an audience.

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Drama

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long poem relating deeds of a larger-than-life hero who embodies values of his society.

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Epic

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short piece of nonfiction prose that examines a single subject.

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Essay

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first part of fiction; introduces or exposes characters, setting and situation.

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Exposition (in plot)

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complications and conflicts are diminishing; leads to the resolution.

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Falling Action

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literary work (story, novel, play) portraying imaginary characters and events.

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Fiction

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clues which hint at events to come in a play or story.

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Foreshadowing

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writing that presents mannerisms, dress, speech, customs of paricular geographical region.

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Local Color

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kind of literature/type of literature (poetry, drama, fiction, other.)

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Genre

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arrogance; excessive self-pride and self-confidence, especially in reference to Greek tragic heroes whose pride led them to ignore warnings from the gods and thus invite catastrophe.

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Hubris

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line of poetry that contains five iambs (units of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one, as in the word, arise).

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Iambic Pentameter

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language that appeals to any of the senses.

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Imagery

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the point in a story, play, ect., when conflict is introduced or initiated.

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Initial or Inciting Incident

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a contrast or discrepancy between expectation and reality.

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Irony

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words simply the opposite of what they literally mean.

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Verbal Irony

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outcome of events or the state of affairs is the opposite of what one would expect.

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Situational Irony

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the reader perceives something significant that the character misses.

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Dramatic Irony

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figure of speech that compares two unlike things directly in which one thing becomes another thing (or is another thing) without the use of comparing words (ex., like, as, than, or resembles).

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Metaphor

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regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry.

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Meter

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extended speech given by one speaker w/ other chars. present and listening (see soliloquy).

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Monologue

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atmosphere; feeling created in the reader by a literary work or passage.

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Mood

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story involving fantasy to express ideas avout life not easily expressed in realistic terms.

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Myth

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one who tells a story

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Narrator

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prose writing that deals with real people, events and places.

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Nonfiction

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long fiction, uses all elements of storytelling (plot, character, setting, point of view, theme, other).

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Novel

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use of a word whose sound imitates or suggestsits meaning (e.g., fizz, crackle).

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Onomatopoeia

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a statement that appears contradictory but which may be shown to contain a truth

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Paradox

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a metaphor in which a non-human thing or quality is talked about as if it were human.

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Personification

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the series of related events that make up a story.

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Plot

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the vantage point from which the writer has chosen to tell the story.

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Point of View (P.O.V)

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one of the characters tells the story ("I")

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1st Person Narrator

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narrator (NOT a character) focuses on thoughts/feelings of one character.

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3rd Person Limited

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the narrator knows everything about the characters and various situations.

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3rd Omniscient

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the main character, the one who drives the action.

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Protagonist

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literary expression not marked by rhyme or metrical regularity. Opposite of verse.

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Prose

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the final part of the story (see denouement)

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Resolution

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generally, sounds repeated through stressed syllables (exception: see eye rhyme).

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Rhyme

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repetition of accented vowel sounds and all sounds following them in words that are close together in a poem.

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Exact

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words that repeat some sounds but do not have exact rhyme

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Slant/Half/Approximate

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rhyme inside (within) a line of poetry, rather than at the end of the line

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Internal

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words creating visual alikeness without sounding at all alike(as in "cough" and " through"

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Eye

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the pattern of rhymes in a poem. to indicate the rhyme scheme of a poem, we use a separate letter of the alphabet for each rhyme.

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Rhyme Scheme

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device producedby repetition of stressed & unstressed syllavles or other sound patterns.

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Rhythm

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complications are developing; conflict intesifies, leading to the climax

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Rising Action

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writing which ridicules society, a group, a social institution, etc., in order to reveal a weakness.

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Satire

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fiction of a highly imaginative or fantastic kind generally involving some actual or projected scientific phenomenon.

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Science Fiction

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feeling of growing uncertainty about outcome of events (what will happen next).

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Suspense

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time,place, and mood of a story or play

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Setting

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makes a comparison between unlike things, using comparing terms (ex.like,as,resembles,than).

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Simile

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an extended comparison that explains heroic or epic events in terms of everyday happenings.

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Simile (Homeric/Heroic)

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an unusually long speech in which a character on stage alone expresses his or her thoughts

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Soliloquy

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14 lines of iambic pentameter w/ a set rhyme scheme: shadespearean: three quatrains and one couplet/reversal/comment); Petrarchan:8/6 thesis/antithesis

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Sonnet

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in a poem, a group of consecutive lines that form a single unit

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Stanza

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

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Symbol

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the central ideas of a literary work; themes are often universal

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Theme

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The author's attitude toward his or her subject, character or audience

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Tone

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literature depicting serious events; main character comes to an unhappy end, usu. death.

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Tragedy

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Character's sudden insight to a conflict or situation.

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Epiphany

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assumption reader can make about a characer is some way.

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Inference