Literary Terms

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Allegory

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A story illustrating a moral principle or idea.

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Antagonist

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A person or force which opposes the protagonist in a literary work.

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Aphorism

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A breif statement which expresses an observation on life, usually intended as a wise observation.

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Character

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A person, or any thing presented as a person, e.g., a spirit, object, animal, or natural force, in a literary work.

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Characterization

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The method a writer uses to reveal the personality of a character.

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Climax

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The decisive moment in a drama, the climax is the turning point of the play to which the rising action leads.

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Conciet

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A far-fetched smilie or metaphor, a literary conciet occurs when the speaker compares two highly dissimilar things

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Dialouge

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A conversation between two characters.

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Diction

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An author's choice of words.

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Epic

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In literature generally, a major work dealing with an important theme.

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Epigraph

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A breif quotation which appears at the beginning of a literary work.

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Euphemism

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A mild word of phrase which substitutes for another which would be undesireable because it is too direct, unpleasant or offensive.

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Denotation

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The exact meaning of a word, without the feelings or suggestions that the word may imply.

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Denouement

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Litterally meaning the action of untying, a denouement is the final outcome of the main complication in a play or story. Usually the climax (the turning point or "crisis") of the work has already occured by the time the denoument occurs.

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Didactic

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Refers to literature or other types of art that are instructional or informative.

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Figerative language

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Uses "figures of speech" -a way of saying something other than the literal meaning of the words.

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First-Person narrative

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A literary technique in which the story is narrated by one character, who explicitly refers to him or herself in the first person, that is, "I."

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Flashback

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A narrative techinique that allows a writer to present past events during current events, in order to provide background for the current information.

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Gothic

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A literary style popular during the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th. This style usually portrayed fantastic tales dealing with horror, despair, the grotesque and other "dark" subjects.

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Hyperbole

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An extravagant exaggeration. From the Greek word for "overcasting", hyperbole is a figure of speech that is grossly exaggerated description or statement. In literature, such exaggeration is used for emphaisi or vivid descriptions.