Literary Terms F-J

Front 1

Fable

Back 1

story that teaches a lesson or rule of living

Front 2

Fabliau

Back 2

short verse tale with coarse humor and earthy, realistic, sometimes obscene descriptions

Front 3

Fair Copy

Back 3

A play manuscript after its been edited

Front 4

Farce

Back 4

type of comedy that relies on exaggeration, horseplay, and unrealistic or improbably situations

Front 5

Figure of speech

Back 5

word, phrase or sentence that presents a figure to the mind of the reader

Front 6

Flashback

Back 6

device in which a writer describes significant events of an earlier time

Front 7

Flourish

Back 7

stage direction in a play manuscript for music introducing the entrance or exit of a king or another important person

Front 8

Foil

Back 8

a secondary or minor character in a literary work who contrasts or clashes with the main character

Front 9

Folio

Back 9

a sheet of printing paper folded once to form four separate pages for a printing a book

Front 10

Folklore

Back 10

stories, songs, and sayings transmitted by memory

Front 11

Fool

Back 11

in the courts of England in Shakespeare's time, a fool was a comic figure with a quick tongue who entertained the king, queen, and guests

Front 12

Foreshadowing

Back 12

device a writer uses to hint at a future course of action

Front 13

Foul Papers

Back 13

In shakespeare's time, the original manuscript of a playwright which was later edited

Front 14

Frame tale

Back 14

story with a plot structure in which an author uses two or three more narrators to present the action

Front 15

Gasconade

Back 15

excessive boasting, incessant bragging

Front 16

Genre

Back 16

type or kind, as applied to literature and film

Front 17

Gleeman

Back 17

Anglo-Saxon minstrel who sang or recited poetry

Front 18

Gnomic

Back 18

Adjective describing writing that contains wise, witty sayings

Front 19

Goliard

Back 19

wandering student of Medieval Europe who made merry and wrote earthy or satiric verses in latin

Front 20

Gothic Fiction

Back 20

literary genre focusing on dark, mysterious, terrifying events

Front 21

Hagiography

Back 21

book on the lives of saints

Front 22

Hamartia

Back 22

serious character flaw of the main character

Front 23

Hautboys

Back 23

stage direction in a play manuscript indicating the entering characters are playing oboes

Front 24

Heroic couplet

Back 24

unit of two rhyming lines in iambic pentameter

Front 25

High Comedy

Back 25

comedy that relies on wit and subtle iron or sarcasm

Front 26

Homily

Back 26

A clergyman's talk that usually presents practical moral advice rather than a lesson on a scriptural passage

Front 27

Hubris

Back 27

Great pride that brings about the downfall of a character in a Greek drama

Front 28

Huitain

Back 28

eight-line stanza

Front 29

Hyperbole

Back 29

exaggeration, overstatement

Front 30

Idyll

Back 30

poem focusing on the simplicity and tranquility of rural life

Front 31

Introduction

Back 31

an introductory event that precedes Act I

Front 32

In Medias Res

Back 32

in the middle of things

Front 33

Ipse Dixit

Back 33

dogmatic or arbitrary statement made without supporting evidence

Front 34

Irony

Back 34

saying the opposite of what is meant

Front 35

jargon

Back 35

vocab understood by members of a profession or trade but not members of the general public

Front 36

Jeu d'esprit

Back 36

witty writing, clever wording, jest, pun

Front 37

Jeu de mots

Back 37

pun, play on words

Front 38

Jongleur

Back 38

minstrel in medieval England and France who sang songs and told stories