Literary Terms For Wl Final

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act

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A major division in a play. Often, individual acts are divided into smaller units ("scenes") that all take place in a specific location. EX: Midsummer night dreams

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allegory

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The term loosely describes any writing in verse or prose that has a double meaning. This narrative 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. An allegorical reading usually involves moral or spiritual concepts that may be more significant than the actual, literal events described in a narrative. EX: Dante's Inferno and MidSummer Night Dreams

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alliteration

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The repetition of initial consonant sounds in neighboring words. Example: In clichés: sweet smell of success, a dime a dozen, bigger and better, jump for joy "She sells seashells by the seashore" . "buckets of big blue berries"

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allusion

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A casual reference in literature to a person, place, event, or another passage of literature, often without explicit identification. Allusions can originate in mythology, biblical references, historical events, legends, geography, or earlier literary works.

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assonance

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The repetition of vowel sounds in sequence of nearby words. "The monster spoke in a low mellow tone" has assonance in its repetition of the "o" sound.

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blank verse

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Unrhymed lines of ten syllables each with the even-numbered syllables bearing the accents. Blank verse has been called the most "natural" verse form for dramatic works, since it supposedly is the verse form most close to natural rhythms of English speech, and it has been the primary verse form of English drama and narrative poetry.

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canto

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A sub-division of an epic or narrative poem comparable to a chapter in a novel. Examples include the divisions in Dante's Divine Comedy

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central and supporting ideas

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Ae the main ideas and concepts of the book

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characterization

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how the writers present the characters. Writers typically reveal characters through their speech, actions, their description, dialogue, dialect.

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Comedy

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A type of drama in which the characters experience reversals of fortune, usually for the better. In comedy, things work out happily in the end. the word comedy came to mean any play or narrative poem in which the main characters manage to avert an impending disaster and have a happy ending. EX: Divine Comedy and Midsummer NIght Dreams

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consonance

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A special type of alliteration in which the repeated pattern of consonants is marked by changes in the intervening vowels. examples include linger, longer, and languor or rider, reader, raider, and ruder. Or A repetition those after a stressed vowel ( march, lurch). ( you use the same consonant with different vowels)

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couplet

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Two lines--the second line immediately following the first--of the same metrical length that end in a rhyme to form a complete unit. (Two rhyming lines of the same length)

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critical reading

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Careful analysis of an essay's or books structure and logic

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deduction

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when you have a set of information, and base of logic, and you can reach a further conclusion (inference)

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dialogue

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The conversation of characters in a literary work. In fiction, dialogue is typically enclosed within quotation marks. In plays, characters' speech is preceded by their names.

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dramatic tension

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Conflict between or among elements in a story, characters in conflict with each other (dramatic conflict creates, narrative). EX: most of the short stories

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effectiveness of the text

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did the reading make an impact on the reader. Did the reader fully understand the text? - EX: books that have a moral EX: Dissapearing

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epilogue

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The concluding section of a poem or literary work

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extended simile

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"An extended simile is where you, basically, go on about it more, making more links and comparisons.

unable to extract column 2 from: EX: life is like a river. It starts off young and full of energy like a babbling brook. In the end it snakes lazily and slowly along like the mighty Mississippi until eventually, like emptying into the sea, our body once again becomes one with nature."

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figurative language

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A form of language use in which writers and speakers convey something other than the literal meaning of their words.Writing that is not meant to be taken literally.Examples include hyperbole or exaggeration, metaphors

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foreshadow

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"when the author hints about what is going to happen late on in the book or story - EX:

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frame story

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A narrative structure containing or connecting a series of otherwise unrelated tales or stories. is a narrative technique whereby an introductory main story is composed, at least in part, for the purpose of setting the stage for a fictive narrative or organizing a set of shorter stories, each of which is a story within a story. The frame story leads readers from the first story into the smaller one within it.

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hyperbaton

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a change or deviation from the usual arrangement of words , often inverted word order EX: about suffering, they were never wrong, the old masters

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hyperbole

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An exaggerated statement used for effect and not to be taken literally EX:: "We have packed a million things for our vacation"

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iambic pentameter

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a common meter in poetry consisting of an unrhymed line with five feet (5 GROUPS OF SMALL SYLLABLES)

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imagery (sensory detail)

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when writers use a lot of descriptive language to create an image in the readers head that will create an image ex: Ĭn sóoth,/Ĭ knów/nŏt whý/Ĭ ám/sŏ sád. - USED BY Shakespeare

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in media res

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in the middle of things.It usually describes a narrative that begins, not at the beginning of a story, but somewhere in the middle — usually at some crucial point in the action.

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line

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a row of words

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links to prior learning

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connections of the book with other things in our present lives

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literal language

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Literal language refers to words that do not deviate from their meaning in the dictionary

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Masque

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is a form of festive courtly entertainment which flourished in sixteenth and seventeenth century Europe. Masque Often involved music and dancing, singing and acting, the framing and costumes might be designed by a renowned architect

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Melpomene

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"Muse of Tragedy" In Greek mythology, She was the muse of tragedy, despite her joyous singing. She is often represented with a tragic mask.

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metaphor

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A comparison between two unlike things without using like or as, usually using the verb "to be". Shakespeare employs a wide range of metaphor in his sonnets and his plays, EX:"The jungle was a nest of octopi" promise made is a debt unpaid" You are faster than a cheeta.

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morality

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moral conduct that dictates right and wrong

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narrative

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writing that tells a story

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narrative tension

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suspense between characters and the elements of the story, and curiosity (which the reader feels).

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personification

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A nonhuman thing or quality is talked about as if it were human EX: The Sun smiles at earth.

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plot

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The sequence of events in a literary work. The arrangement of events in a story is called the _______.

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poetic depth

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when a written work has a lot of figurative language and multiple meanings

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point of view

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The way in which a story is told. The choice of point of view determines the type and amount of information the author reveals. There are three main types of narrators: First person, Third person Omniscient, and Third person limited.

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prologue

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the introduction of a story

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prose

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Prose is writing that resembles everyday speech. Prose generally lacks the formal structure of meter or rhyme which is typical of poetry; instead it is composed of full sentences, usually divided into paragraphs, and then smaller segments known as meta-paragraphs. A

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rhetorical situation

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historical context and the genre of the book

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rhythm

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a series of sounds that form a pattern

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scene

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stage in the story, unity of time, place, actions. (same time and place)

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second person familiar

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the use of thou / thee/ thy / thine

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setting

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the time and place an action occurs

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simile

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A figure of speech involving a comparison between unlike things using "like", "as", or "as though". An example: "My love is like a red, red rose." "He is as quick as a cat"

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soliloquy

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A speech in a play that is meant to be heard by the audience but not by other characters on the stage. If there are no other characters present, the soliloquy represents the character thinking aloud.

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stanza

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A division or unit of a poem that is repeated in the same form--either with similar or identical patterns or rhyme and meter, or with variations from one stanza to another. (the equivalent of a paragraph in a poem)

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story cycle

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"a collection of short stories that go together to have a bigger meaning

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story within a story

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EX: Midsummer Nights - there is a play within the play (at the wedding) -"ox and donkey" "fisherman and jinee", more of a connection in terms of theme or idea.

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tenor

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a general meaning or underlying idea of a metaphor

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terza rima

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is a rhyming verse stanza form that consists of an interlocking three line rhyme scheme. It was first used by the Italian poet Dante Alighieri.

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Thalia

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muse of Comedy

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the five narrative modes

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description, dialogue, thought, action, summar

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tragedy

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A type of drama in which the characters experience reversals of fortune, usually for the worse. In tragedy, catastrophe and suffering await many of the characters, especially the hero. Examples include Shakespeare's Othello and Hamlet; Sophocles' Antigone and Oedipus the King, and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. See Tragic flaw and Tragic hero.

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types of reasoning, evidence, and technique

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"ways to prove your points about the book: EX: page #, line# when so and so said this… or when this happened…

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unique

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something that is not ordinary or common -

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unity of place, time, action

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- every scene has these, unlimited by these

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universal

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something big that affects everyone

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vehicle

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part of the mataphor that embodies the image (what is used to do the comparison - ie My heart is a withering rose (rose is the vehicle) - in Midsummer Nights comparing Helena to a rose

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vulgate

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the "Devine Comedy"