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35 Cards in this Set

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Abecedarius
an acrostic in which the first letter of every word, strophe or verse follows the order of the alphabet.
Academic drama
a dramatic tradition which arose from the Renaissance, in which the works of Plautus, Terence, and other ancient dramatists were performed in schools and colleges. At first, these dramas were performed in Latin, but later also in vernacular adaptations composed by schoolmasters under the influence of humanism.
Acatalectic
a line of verse is one having the metrically complete number of syllables in the final foot.
Accent
a pronunciation characteristic of a particular group of people relative to another group. In some cases, the term is also used to describe the stress on a syllable.
Accentual Verse
has a fixed number of stresses per line or stanza regardless of the number of syllables that are present.
Acrostic
a poem or other text written in an alphabetic script, in which the first letter, syllable or word of each verse, paragraph or other recurring feature in the text spells out another message.
Act
a short performance that is part of a longer program.
Aestheticism
a loosely defined movement in literature, fine art, the decorative arts, and interior design in later nineteenth-century Britain.
Aesthetics
the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste.
Affective fallacy
a term from literary criticism used to refer to the supposed error of judging or evaluating a text on the basis of its emotional effects on a reader.
Afflatus
a Latin term derived from Cicero (in On Divination) that has been translated as "inspiration."
Agon
In Ancient Greek drama, particularly old comedy (5th century BC) this term refers to the formal convention according to which the struggle between the characters should be scripted in order to supply the basis of the action. The meaning of the term has escaped the circumscriptions of its classical origins to signify, more generally, the conflict on which a literary work turns.
Alazon
in Greek comedy is the opponent of the Eiron.
They are imposters that see themselves as greater than they actually are, and their usual function in a drama is as blocking humors, characters predominated by one trait that block the romance between the hero and heroine.
Alba
is a subgenre of Provençal lyric poetry.
It describes the longing of lovers who, having passed a night together, must separate for fear of being discovered by their respective spouses.
Alexandrine
a line of poetic meter. Alexandrines are common in the German literature of the Baroque period and in French poetry of the early modern and modern periods and much less common in English poetry, which more frequently uses iambic pentameter or 5-foot verse.
Allegory
a figurative mode of representation conveying a meaning other than the literal.
Allegory is generally treated as a figure of rhetoric, but an allegory does not have to be expressed in language: it may be addressed to the eye, and is often found in realistic painting, sculpture or some other form of mimetic, or representative art.
Alliteration
a stylistic device, or literary technique, in which successive words (more strictly, stressed syllables) begin with the same consonant sound or letter. Alliteration is a frequent tool in poetry but it is also common in prose, particularly to highlight short phrases. Especially in poetry, it contributes to euphony of the passage, lending it a musical air. It may add a humorous effect. Related to alliteration are assonance, the repetition of vowel sounds, and consonance, the repetition of consonant sounds.
Allusion
a stylistic device in which one references an object or circumstance that has occurred or existed in an external context. In the most traditional sense, the term is a literary term regarding the use of previous texts, though the word also has come to encompass references to or from any source, including film, art, or real events.
Altar Poem
any type of poetry where the characters, words, and lines have been written in such a way that when looked at as a whole, the poem forms an outline that is easily recognizable to the reader. The object that is outlined must be related to the poetry and usually gives more meaning to the poem itself.
Ambiguity
refers to the property of words, terms, and concepts, (within a particular context) as being in undefined, undefinable, or otherwise vague, and thus having an unclear meaning. A word, phrase, sentence, or other communication is called "(term)" if it can be interpreted in more than one way. The term is distinct from vagueness, which arises when the boundaries of meaning are indistinct. The term is in contrast with definition, and typically refers to an unclear choice between standard definitions, as given by a dictionary, or else understood as common knowledge.
Amphibology
in logic, a verbal fallacy arising from ambiguity in the grammatical structure of a sentence.
For example:
"Teenagers shouldn't be allowed to drive. It's getting too dangerous on the streets."
From the above statement it could be interpreted that teenagers shouldn't drive because they will be in danger, or that they shouldn't drive as they are causing all the danger.
Amphibrach
a metrical foot used in Latin and Greek prosody. It consists of a long syllable between two short syllables.
Anabasis
referred to an expedition from a coastline into the interior of a country. The term katabasis referred to a trip from the interior to the coast.
Anachronism
is something that is out of its proper time. For example, if a play set during the Roman Republic portrays a person using an electronic computer, the computer is the term. There are two types of the term, parachronisms and prochronism. Parachronisms are when the assigned date is too late for the appearance of the term, for instance horse drawn carriages on a freeway. Prochronisms are when the assigned date is too early for the appearance of the term--George Washington wearing a digital watch, for example. Also the term can be real or fictional and if fictional it can be intentional or accidental.
Anacoluthon
a rhetorical device that can be loosely defined as a change of syntax within a sentence. More specifically, the terms are created when a sentence abruptly changes from one structure to another. Grammatically, the term is an error; however, in rhetoric it is a figure that shows excitement, confusion, or laziness. In poetics it is sometimes used in dramatic monologues and in verse drama. In prose, the term is often used in stream of consciousness writing, such as that of James Joyce, because it is characteristic of informal human thought.
Anacreontics
the title given to short lyrical pieces, of an easy kind, dealing with love and wine.
Anacrusis
In poetry, the lead-in syllables that precede the first full measure, while, similarly, in music, it is the note or notes (even a phrase) which precede the first downbeat in a group. The latter sense is synonymous with upbeat and is often called the pickup or the pickup note. The term is similar to the wind-up a pitcher takes before the ball is thrown; it sets a melody into motion.
Anagnorisis
also known as discovery, originally meant recognition in its Greek context, not only of a person but also of what that person stood for, what he or she represented; it was the hero's suddenly becoming aware of a real situation and therefore the realisation of things as they stood; and finally it was a perception that resulted in an insight the hero had into his relationship with often antagonistic characters within Aristotelian tragedy.
Anagoge (Anigogical)
a Greek word suggesting a "climb" or "ascent" upwards. The term is a method of spiritual interpretation of literal statements or events, especially the Scriptures.
Anagram
a type of word play, the result of rearranging the letters of a word or phrase to produce other words, using all the original letters exactly once. The terms are often expressed in the form of an equation, with the equals symbol (=) separating the original subject and the resulting term. ‘Earth = heart’ is an example of a simple term expressed in that way. In a more advanced, sophisticated form of the term, the aim is to ‘discover’ a result that has a linguistic meaning that defines or comments on the original subject in a humorous or ironic way; e.g., Roll in the hay = Thrill a honey (discovered by Tony Crafter). When the subject and the resulting term form a complete sentence, a tilde (~) is commonly used instead of an equal sign; e.g., Semolina ~ is no meal.
Analects
a record of the words and acts of the central Chinese thinker and philosopher Confucius and his disciples, as well as the discussions they held. The Chinese title literally means "discussion over [Confucius'] words."
Analogy
both the cognitive process of transferring information from a particular subject to another particular subject (the target), and a linguistic expression corresponding to such a process. In a narrower sense, the term is an inference or an argument from a particular to another particular, as opposed to deduction, induction, and abduction, where at least one of the premises or the conclusion is general. The term can also refer to the relation between the source and the target themselves, which is often, though not necessarily, a similarity, as in the biological notion of the term.
Niels Bohr's model of the atom made the term between the atom and the solar system.
Niels Bohr's model of the atom made the term between the atom and the solar system.

The term plays a significant role in problem solving, decision making, perception, memory, creativity, emotion, explanation and communication. It lies behind basic tasks such as the identification of places, objects and people, for example, in face perception and facial recognition systems. It has been argued that the term is "the core of cognition"
Anapaest or Anapest
a metrical foot used in formal poetry. In classical quantitative meters it consists of two short syllables followed by a long one (as in a-na-paest); in accentual stress meters it consists of two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed syllable. It may be seen as a reversed dactyl.
Anaphora
In rhetoric, the term is the repetition of the same word or group of words at the beginning of several consecutive sentences or verses to emphasize an image or a concept.
Anastrophe
a figure of speech involving an inversion of the natural order of words; for example, saying "echoed the hills" to mean "the hills echoed." In English, with its settled word order, departure from the expected word order emphasizes the displaced word or phrase: "beautiful" is emphasized in the City Beautiful urbanist movement; "primeval" comes to the fore in Longfellow's line "This is the forest primeval." Where the emphasis that comes from anastrophe is not an issue, "inversion" is a perfectly suitable synonym.