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112 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
- 3rd side (hint)
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Arête |
a humble and constant striving for perfection and self-improvement combined with a realistic awareness that such perfection cannot be reached |
(opposite of hubris) |
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Allegory |
any writing in verse or prose that has a double meaning that acts as an extended metaphor in which persons, abstract ideas, or events represent not only themselves on the literal level, but they also stand for something else on the symbolic level |
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Alliteration |
Repeating a consonant sound in close proximity to others, or beginning several words with the same vowel sound. |
She sells sea shells |
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Allusion |
A casual reference in literature to a person, place, event, or another passage of literature, often without explicit identification. |
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Ambiguity |
a negative term applied to a vague or equivocal expression when precision would be more useful |
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Anachronism |
Placing an event, person, item, or verbal expression in the wrong historical period |
Clock in Julius Caesar |
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Analogy |
a comparison between two things. |
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Anaphora |
The intentional repetition of beginning clauses in order to create an artistic effect |
I said hello to you I said hello to him I said hello to all the world But not to Jim |
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Anastrophe |
Inverted order of words or events as a rhetorical scheme. |
I went up the stairs, across the hall, through my door, into my room and into bed, all because you said hello to me. |
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Anthropomorphism |
a technique in which a writer ascribes human traits, ambitions, emotions or entire behavior to animals, non-human beings, natural phenomena or objects. |
The sun rose jolly in the sky |
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Antithesis |
Using opposite phrases in close conjunction. |
"I burn and I freeze," |
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Aphorism |
a statement of truth or opinion expressed in a concise and witty manner. |
Men never make passes at girls who wear glasses |
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Aporia |
a figure of speech wherein a speaker purports or expresses to be in doubt or in perplexity regarding a question (often feigned) and asks the audience how he/she ought to proceed. The doubts may appear as rhetorical questions often in the beginning of the text. |
to be or not to be? That is the question. |
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Apostrophe |
a figure of speech sometimes represented by exclamation “O”. |
“Is this a dagger which I see before me,The handle toward my hand?Come, let me clutch thee!I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.” |
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Archetype |
a typical character, an action or a situation that seems to represent such universal patterns of human nature. |
hero, villain etc. |
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Assonance |
Repeating identical or similar vowels (especially in stressed syllables) in nearby words |
Bind up, bind up your NECK; And see you look as maiden-like As the day that first we MET. |
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Asyndeton |
The artistic elimination of conjunctions in a sentence to create a particular effect |
Julius Caesar saying "I came I saw I conquered" with no "and" in between |
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Bildungsroman |
The German term for a coming-of-age story. |
Catcher in the Rye |
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Blank Verse |
unrhymed iambic pentameter |
Shakespeare when unrhymed. |
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Cacophony |
the use of words with sharp, harsh, hissing and unmelodious sounds primarily those of consonants to achieve desired effect. |
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Canto |
A sub-division of an epic or narrative poem |
A canto is to a poem what a chapter is to a novel |
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Caesura |
A pause separating phrases within lines of poetry--an important part of poetic rhythm |
(represented by / when a poem is written out on one line) |
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Circumlocution |
Roundabout or indirect speech or writing, rather than short, brief, clear writing |
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Cogito Ergo Sum |
I think therefore I am (Descartes) |
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Conflict |
The opposition between two characters, between two large groups of people, or between the protagonist and a larger problem such as forces of nature, ideas, public mores, and so on. |
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Connotation |
The extra tinge or taint of meaning each word carries beyond the minimal, strict definition found in a dictionary. |
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Consonance |
A special type of alliteration in which the repeated pattern of consonants is marked by changes in the intervening vowels--i.e., the final consonants of the stressed syllables match each other but the vowels differ. |
Soft and sift |
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Denotation |
Dictionary meaning |
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. Deus ex Machina |
God from Machine - An unrealistic or unexpected intervention to rescue the protagonists or resolve the story's conflict. |
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Didactic |
Writing that is "preachy" or seeks overtly to convince a reader of a particular point or lesson. |
Sinners in the hands of an angry God. |
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Denouement |
"unknotting" or "unwinding," the outcome or result of a complex situation or sequence of events, an aftermath or resolution that usually occurs near the final stages of the plot. |
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Digression |
sudden interruptions in the main action of the story, which provides him background information, establish his interest, describe character’s motivation and build suspense, etc |
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Double Entendre |
The deliberate use of ambiguity in a phrase or image--especially involving sexual or humorous meanings. |
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Doppelganger |
a person that is a look-alike of another person. |
originally meant a ghost or shadow of a person b |
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Elegy |
any poem dealing withcomplaints about love, sustained formal lamentation, or somber meditations |
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Ekphrastic |
a graphic, often dramatic, description of a visual work of art |
Example: My Last Duchess poem |
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Enjambment |
A line having no pause or end punctuation but having uninterrupted grammatical meaning continuing into the next line |
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Emulation |
imitation |
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Epigram |
1.An inscription in verse or prose on a building, tomb, or coin. 2. a short verse or motto appearing at the beginning of a longer poem or the title page of a novel, at the heading of a new section or paragraph of an essay or other literary work to establish mood or raise thematic concerns. |
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Eponym |
A word that is derived from the proper name of a person or place. |
sANDWICH, NAMED AFTER EARL OF sANDWICH |
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Epiphany |
a revelation of such power and insight that it alters the entire world-view of the thinker who experiences it |
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Epistle |
A poem addressed to a patron, friend, or family member, thus a kind of "letter" in verse. An actual prose letter sent to another. |
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Epithet |
A short, poetic nickname- |
Charles the Bald |
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Etymology |
The origin of a word. |
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Euphemism |
Using a mild or gentle phrase instead of a blunt, embarrassing, or painful one. |
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Euphony |
Attempting to group words together harmoniously, so that the consonants permit an easy and pleasing flow of sound when spoken, |
Opposite of cacophony |
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Fable |
A brief story illustrating human tendencies through animal characters. |
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Flashback |
A method of narration in which present action is temporarily interrupted so that the reader can witness past events |
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Foil |
A character that serves by contrast to highlight or emphasize opposing traits in another character. |
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foreshadowing |
Suggesting, hinting, indicating, or showing what will occur later in a narrative. |
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Free Verse |
Poetry based on the natural rhythms of phrases and normal pauses rather than the artificial constraints of metrical feet |
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Grotesque |
a stone carving of a monstrous or mythical creature either in two dimensions or full-relief |
Anything peculiar and slightly frightening or eerie (Edger Allen Poe wrote grotesque stories) |
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Hamartia |
a tragic flaw |
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Heroic Couplet |
Two successive rhyming lines of iambic pentameter. |
Last two lines of a sonnet are a heroic couplet |
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Homily |
A sermon, or a short, exhortatory work to be read before a group of listeners in order to instruct them spiritually or morally. |
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Hubris |
arrogant, excessive self-pride or self-confidence |
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Hyperbole |
exaggeration |
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Iamb |
A unit or foot of poetry that consists of a lightly stressed syllable followed by a heavily stressed syllable. |
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Imagery |
the "mental pictures" that readers experience with a passage of literature. Includes all senses evoked in literature/poetry |
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Internal Rhyme |
A poetic device in which a word in the middle of a line rhymes with a word at the end of the same metrical line |
Like a child from the womb, I escape from my tomb. |
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Invective |
Speech or writing that attacks, insults, or denounces a person, topic, or institution, usually involving negative emotional language. |
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Dramatic Irony |
a situation in a narrative in which the reader knows something about present or future circumstances that the character does not know |
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25. Situational Irony |
accidental events occur that seem oddly appropriate, |
such as the poetic justice of a pickpocket getting his own pocket picked. |
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Juxtaposition |
The arrangement of two or more ideas, characters, actions, settings, phrases, or words side-by-side or in similar narrative moments for the purpose of comparison, contrast, rhetorical effect, suspense, or character development. |
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Lyrical |
a literary or creative work that can be sung, or is a literary work that is the author's feelings or emotions in an enthusiastic way. |
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Malapropism |
Misusing words to create a comic effect or characterize the speaker as being too confused, ignorant, or flustered to use correct diction. |
The pineapple of perfection |
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Metaphor |
A comparison or analogy stated in such a way as to imply that one object is another one, figuratively speaking. |
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Metonymy |
Using a vaguely suggestive, physical object to embody a more general idea. |
the pen is mightier than the sword |
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Motif |
A conspicuous recurring element, such as a type of incident, a device, a reference, or verbal formula, which appears frequently in works of literature. |
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Mood |
a feeling, emotional state, or disposition of mind--especially the predominating atmosphere or tone of a literary work. |
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Nemesis |
a literary device that refers to a situation of poetic justice where the good characters are rewarded for their virtues and the evil characters are punished |
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Neologism |
A made-up word that is not a part of normal, everyday vocabulary. |
I held her as a thing enskied |
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Novella |
An extended fictional prose narrative that is longer than a short story, but not quite as long as a novel. |
20,000-50,000 words |
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Onomatopoeia |
The use of sounds that are similar to the noise they represent for a rhetorical or artistic effect. |
clang, cluck, moo |
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Oxymoron |
Using contradiction in a manner that oddly makes sense on a deeper level |
military intelligence |
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Parable |
A story or short narrative designed to reveal allegorically some religious principle, moral lesson, psychological reality, or general truth |
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Parody |
imitation of the serious manner and characteristic features of a particular literary work in order to make fun of those same features. |
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. Paradox |
Using contradiction in a manner that oddly makes sense on a deeper level. |
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Pentameter |
meter of five feet |
-/ -/ -/ -/ -/ |
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primogeniture |
system in which first born inherited all |
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. Personification |
abstractions, animals, ideas, and inanimate objects are given human character, traits, abilities, or reactions |
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Point Of View |
The way a story gets told and who tells it. |
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Polysyndeton |
Using many conjunctions to achieve an overwhelming effect in a sentence. |
"This term, I am taking biology and English and history and math and music and physics and sociology." |
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Portmanteau |
linguistic blending |
infotainment, webinar |
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Prologue |
a section of any introductory material before the first chapter or the main material of a prose work, or any such material before the first stanza of a poetic work. |
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Prosody |
The study of aspects of poetry; versification |
the mechanics of verse poetry--its sounds, rhythms, scansion and meter, stanzaic form, alliteration, assonance, euphony, onomatopoeia, and rhyme. |
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Quatrain |
a stanza of four lines, often rhyming in an ABAB pattern. |
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Repartee |
banter |
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Roman a Clef |
A narrative that represents actual historical characters and events in the form of fiction. |
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Rhetorical Question |
Question to which no answer is expected |
DO you think I'm an idiot? |
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Reliability |
A quality of some fictional narrators whose word the reader can trust. |
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Syllogism |
a rhetorical device that starts an argument with a reference to something general and from this it draws conclusion about something more specific |
All men are mortal. John is a man. Therefore, Jon is mortal |
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Satire |
An attack on or criticism of any stupidity or vice in the form of scathing humor, or a critique of what the author sees as dangerous religious, political, moral, or social standards. |
Satire is to society what parody is to a work of literature |
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Setting |
The general locale, historical time, and social circumstances in which the action of a fictional or dramatic work occurs |
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Simile |
An analogy or comparison implied by using an adverbial preposition such as like or as, in contrast with a metaphor |
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Sonnet |
Poem in iambic pentameter, 14 lines, abab CDCD efef with heroic couplet for last 2 lines (gg) |
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Stanza |
An arrangement of lines of verse in a pattern usually repeated throughout the poem. |
like a paragraph but for a poem |
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Stream of Consciousness |
Writing in which a character's perceptions, thoughts, and memories are presented in an apparently random form, without regard for logical sequence, chronology, or syntax. |
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Sublime |
The sublime caused the reader to experience elestasis ("transport") |
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synecdoche |
A rhetorical trope involving a part of an object representing the whole, or the whole of an object representing a part. |
"Twenty eyes watched our every move." |
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Synesthesia |
A rhetorical trope involving shifts in imagery or sensory metaphors |
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Syntax |
the orderly arrangement of words into sentences to express ideas |
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Tabula Rasa |
The term used in Enlightenment philosophy for the idea that humanity is born completely innocent, without any initial predispositions, attitudes, or beliefs. |
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Terza Rima |
A three-line stanza form with interlocking rhymes that move from one stanza to the next. |
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Tetrameter |
meter of three feet |
-/ -/ -/ |
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Triplet |
stanza of three lines |
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Theme |
A central idea or statement that unifies and controls an entire literary work |
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Tone |
the means of creating a relationship or conveying an attitude or mood |
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Tragedy |
A serious play in which the chief character, by some peculiarity of psychology, passes through a series of misfortunes leading to a final, devastating catastrophe |
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Understatement |
the opposite of exaggeration |
"I was somewhat worried when the psychopath ran toward me with a chainsaw." |
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verisimilitude |
State of being true to life |
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Versification |
writing poetry, studying the mechanics of poetry |
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