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169 Cards in this Set

  • Front
  • Back
Balance
An element of artistry, related to symmetry, that consists of giving equal weights to different aspects of a work
Central focus (theme)
The center of a whole arrangement of something that respeats itself at the center of each part of the whole arrangement
Character
A personality, whether human or non-human, in a story.
Contrast
An element of artistry in which two things in a literary work are contrasted, whether in order to heighten one, or to covey meaning through the stark difference between the two
Image (Imagery)
A literary device that presents an object through concrete, non-literal,informing word picture (based on Mary Oliver, A Poetry Handbook, 93).
Lyric Poem
1)In ancient Greece and Rome, a poem written to be accompanied by the music of a lyre, 2)A poem that has the forum and/or musical quality of a song, being written to be sung or accompanied by music, 3)a short poem expressing the thoughts and feelings of a speaker, 4)some combination of the second and third elements
Metaphor
A device of imagery that identifies an object in reality with an image, though it is understood that the object is not really the image
Pattern
An arrangement of parts in such a way that they form a recognizable unit or series of units.
Play
A story that emphasizes performance as its primary medium of expression.
Plot
The arrangement of events in a story such that they have a beginning, middle, and end (Aristotle's Poetics)
Poetry
Highly compressed language which may be metrical or non-metrical and characteristically uses imagery as its main medium of expression
Recurrence (Rhythm)
An aritistic element in which there is a rhythm to a repeated action- moments of rising and falling intensity
Repetition
An artistic element in which something is repeated for emphasis of to form a pleasing rhythm
Simile
A device of imagery that uses comparison words such as like, as or more than, to explicitly show the reader that an object is being presented as an image that shares some of that object's qualities.
Story
A piece of literature that has at least one character, plot, and setting and uses narrative as its primary medium of expression
Symmetry
An artistic element which occurs when two things in a literary work correspond to each other in size and/or form and/or arrangement
Unity
The quality in a plot in which all of the elements work together to tell one story
Unified Progression
An element of artistry in which everything in a literary work is moving forward together towards one goal, without any stray ends or stragglers
Variety in Unity
An element of artistry in which there are both similarities and differences in a group of literary elements
Courtly Love Lyric
A sub-genre of medieval lyric poetry that deals with the topic of courtly love
Religious Lyric
A sub-genre of lyric poetry that deals primarily with the speaker's religious beliefs
Elegy (Funeral) Lyric
A lyric poem that exalts and mourns a (usually recently) deceased person whom the speaker in the poem knew and loved.
Self-Examination Lyric
A sub-genre of medieval lyric poetry that focuses on the poet himself and the progression of his thoughts or feelings
Experiment in Living
An experiment in living is a choice that a character makes to act and live according to particular beliefs.
Fairy Tale
A sub-genre of Folk Literature that includes fantastic elements such as miraculous events, magical characters, strange creatures and settings, or magical powers.
Folk Literature
A story couched in the language of everyday speech and appealing to the common person.
Plot Frame
A literary technique used to introduce and provide a framework for a story, usually by enveloping it in another story.
Allusion
A reference in a story to something outside the story (usually a historical or literary person or event).
Catalogue
A list (often combines with brief descriptions or ephithets) of persons or things: e.g. wives and daughters of princes in hades (the Odyssey) or nobles in a royal council (Chanson de Roland)
Epic Poem
A long narrative poem, written in a grave and lofty style, which relates significant events in the life of a great hero, a nation, or even all of humanity, and expresses the central beliefs and values of an entire nation.
Epic Simile (Extended Simile)
An elaborate simile that goes on for several lines of poetry or pros.
Epithet: A descriptive title
"King of France" for Charlemagne or "Breaker of Horses" for Diomedes.
High Style
An exalted style of writing that includes such literary devices and techniques as epithets, historical or literary allusions, catalogues, pleonasms, and extended metaphors, similes or images.
Pleonasm
A description that is lengthened beyond necessary as the poet tries "to do justice to the grandness of the subject".
Song of Deeds
A particular kind of epic poem that was popular in ancient times and in the Middle Ages, which celebrates the great deeds of a hero.
Supernatural Machinery
The participation of supernatural beings in the action of the story.
Alliteraion
The repetition of the initial sounds of words in a line or lines of a verse.
Elegiac Mode
A mode in which the main element is a purpose and mood of lament and mourning, which usually focuses on praising a loved one who has died.
Kenning
A compound of two words in a place of another as when sea becomes "whale road" or body is called "life house".
Pattern Plot
A kind of plot in which the events are aranged on patterns, whih often means that they are repeated or grouped in threefold arrangements.
Allegorical Mode
A mode in which the author embodies abstract or spiritual realities in a concrete and physical story, in such a way that there is a clear correspondence between the abstract or spiritual and the concrete or physical.
Dramatic Story
This kind of irony occurs when a speaker or character in a literary work does things that he would not do if he knew what the audience knows.
Irony
A kind of artistic contrast that occurs when things should match but don't, or when they are exactly the opposite of what is intended or expected.
Poetic Justice
A literary device whereby virtue is rewarded and vice punished in appropiate (and often ironic) ways.
Situational Irony
This kind of irony occurs when the situation in which a speaker or character finds himself is different from and usually the opposite of what would be suitable.
Symbol
Any detail in a work of literature that in addition to its literal meaning stands for something else (Ryken 517).
Symbolism
A literary technique whereby the author represents things through symbols, often to the extent that the symbols form sets or systems which become part of the story or poem's narrative structure and a primary means of communicationg themes.
Terza Rima
A metrical pattern consisting of tercets (three-line stanzas) which follow the rythme scheme aba, bcb, cdc.
Verbal Irony
This kind of irony occurs when a speaker or character, unintentionally, says one thing when another is really the case. Commonly, verbal irony takes the form of sarcasm.
Couplet
A pair of poetic lines that may or may not share the same meter and rhyme with each other, thus: aa bb cc.
Elision
The poetic technique whereby a syllable is dropped or rolled into the next syllable. This is often done so that the number of syllables and (or) stresses in the line will match the poem's established meter.
Iambic Pentameter
A metrical line composed of five iambic feet.
Suspense
A plot device whereby the author leaves something in doubt, do that the reader is strongly motivated to see how things will turn out.
Dream Vision
A genre in which "the author presents the story under the guise of having dreamed it".
Estates Satire
A sub-genre of satire in which the objects of the satire are the three medieval estates (nobility, clergy, and workmen). This form duscusses "the ills of society and how they can be cured".
Personification
A literary device whereby human attributes are given to something nonhuman, such as animals, objects, or abstract qualities.
Satirical Mode
A mode in which the purpose is to expose, through ridicule or rebuke, human vice or folly.
Bob ann Wheel
Five lines rhyming ababa. The first of these rhyming lines contains only one stress and is called the bob. The four lines that follow have each three stresses and are together called the wheel.
Lay
A short tale of knights and ladies, or at least of love and adventure, which includes supernatural beings and events.
Couplet
1) A stanza composed of two lines or 2) a rhyme scheme in which one immediately after it. If there are several couplets, this rhyme scheme will form a pattern like this: aabbccddeeff.
Octave
A stanza composed of eight lines, sometimes rhyming: abbaabba.
Petrarchan (or Italian) sonnet
A poem of fourteen lines in iambic pentameter, following the rhyme scheme: abbaabba, cdecde (or cdcdcd), divided into an octave and a sestet, popularized by Italian poet Francesco Petrarch.
Quatrain
A stanza composed of four lines, commonly rhyming either: abab, abba, or abcb.
Rhyme Scheme
A pattern of end rhymes that occurs consistently throughout a stanza or poem.
Sestet
A stanza composed of six lines, often rhyming: ababab or sometimes rhyming: ababcc.
Shakespearean (or English) sonnet
A poem of fourteen lines in iambic pentameter, following the rhyme scheme: abab, cdcd, efef, gg divided into three quatrains and a couplet, made famous (though not invented) by Shakespeare.
Sonnet
A short poem of fourteen lines in iambic pentameter, typically in continuous stanza form and typically rhyming either 1) abbaabba, cdcdcd (or cdecde), or 2) abab, cdcd, efef, gg. Content varies but is usually abour private, not public, concerns.
Word Play
A literary technique in which a word is used in more than one way.
Envoi
A short stanza at the end of a poem, used to address the reader or to comment on the body of the poem. The word "envoi", derived from French, means a sending away or a farewell.
Pastoral Mode
A mode of poetry most often characterized by a mood of rustic pleasure or sometimes longing or melancholy and by certain settings and subjects: normally, an idyllic countryside wherein lovers almost always sherpherds and shepherdesses) enjoy a healthy, simple, natural lifestyle in small cottages or even in the open.
Sestina
A form of lyric poetry made up of six stanzas of six lines each, with a concluding three-line envoi. A sestina uses the repetition of end words instead of rhyme to create its distinctive effect.
Blocking
An actor's positions and movements on stage, including entrances and exits.
Business
A character's activities on stage, which he uses to make his character more lifelike or his lines more vivid.
Climax
The moment(s) or event(s) towards which the plot of the story have been building and from which it falls away into lesser signifcance.
Denouement ("dey-noo-MAH")
Literally, the "tying up of loose ends," this phase of the story follows the climax and resolves any leftover concerns into a final conclusion.
Exposition
The opening phase of a story in which the writer presents the background information that the reader needs in order to understand the plot that will subsequently unfold. (Ryken, Words of Delight 514).
Further Complication
The part of the plot that falls between the turning point and the climax, often with increasing suspense, and advances the action towards its conclusion.
Inciting Moment
The part of the plot in which an inciting force triggers a reaction (usually from a character) that changes the original situation into one that is moving towards a climax and resolution.
Lighting Scheme
The type and arrangement of lighting used to illuminate a dramatic production.
Liturfical Drama
A type of medieval drama developed by the Roman Catholic church to dramatize scenes from Scripture as sermon illustrations.
Miracle Play
A type of medieval play that retells stories from the lives of Roman Catholic saints.
Morality Play
A type of medieval play that presents the moral and spiritual struggles in the Christian life in order to encourage and teach Christians to deal with them succeddfully.
Mystery Play
A type of medieval play that retells the stories from the Bible and is typically performed as part of a cycle of such play which dramatize key episodes from the whole story of the Bible.
Progression Plot
A type of plot structure which arranges events into a roughly bell-shaped curve which peaks at a climax. This type of plot is made up of several distinct phases through which a story or play progresses.
Properties (Props)
Any object that an actor uses on stage, other than sets and costumes.
Rising Action
The part of a plot in which the action is progressing from the inciting moment towards the turning point, usually with increasing suspense and complexity.
Special Effects
A visual or auditory effect that is produced using special machinery.
Stage Directions
Directions written into the script that indicate the actors where to enter and exit and what to do.
Turning Point
The point in the plot at which the story turns towards what will be its final conclusion.
Ad-lib
In drama, unscripted lines spontaneously added by the actor in performance.
Blank verse
Unrhymed iambic pentameter.
Enjambment
A poetic technique in which the thought being communicated in a line of poetry does not end with that line but continues with the next one.
Farcical Mode
A mood of buffoonery, characterized by horseplay or even violence, a crude physical trickery or crude verbal wit, ludicrous situations, and overbearing or impudent characters.
High (Poetic) Diction
Language that has been developed specifically to be used in poetry. Such language is intense and vivid and is often considered elevated or lofty. The term may also indicate language that was once vivid but has become stale through much use.
Repartee (Wit)
Conversation consisting of witty exchanges.
Tragedy
A genre that depicts wrong human choices with cause or compound suffering. The genre is organized in a formal pattern that progresses form dilemma, to choice, to catastrophe, and usually ends in death.
Word Play
A literary technique in which a word is used in more that one way.
Comedy
A genre that depicts flawed human beings who are nevertheless capable of growth and recieve blessings (earned or not), in a formal pattern that usually progresses form a comfortable or hopeful situation through difficulties to a happy ending for the sympathetic character (s).
Malapropism
The act or habit of confusing a word or words in a ludicrous way, especially by substituting for the right word one which is similar in sound, but different in meaning.
History play
A play written to dramatize the life of a historical person, or a historical event, or both.
Soliloquy
From the Latin sololoquium (meaning "to speak alone"), a speech that an actor delivers as if musing aloud himself, which no one else in the drama overhears.
Realistic Mode
An attitude ehich emphasizes a view of the world as it usually appears to our earthly senses.
Romance
A long story, either in prose or verse, which 1) includes and emphasizes magical or supernatural events, settings, and characters, and 2) usually involves adventure, quests, and lovers.
Romantic Mode (pre-Enlightenment)
An attitude which emphasizes the truth that reality consists of both the natural and the supernatural and focuses on the influence of the natural. It often includes themes of redemption, poetic justice, heroism, and love.
Spenserian stanza
A nine-line stanza invented by Edmund Soenser, consisting of eight lines of iambic pentameter and one line of iambic hexameter (an alexandrine), which altogether rhyme ababbcbcc.
Romance PLay
A sub-genre of drama that combines characteristics of comedy and tragedy, joy and sorrow. The romance play usually ends joyfully, but includes dark potentially tragic elements. It focuses on redemption and recounciliation, and often includes supernatural elements.
Aside
In drama, a line delivered either directly to the audience or to oneself in such a way that the audience "over-hears" it. In either case, other characters usually do not hear the line.
Masque
A court play of an allegorical or symbolic type, often including mythological elements, in which courtiers & participate. Masques tend to require elaborate, expensive scenery and sometimes complex machinery for staging. Frequently given to commemorate public celebrations (royal births, marriages, coronations, etc.), also performed as ordinary court entertainment.
Commedia dell' arte
Literally "comedy of professional artists," a type of Italian comedy that combines stock characters and situations with improvised action and dialogue. It originated in Italy during the late southern Renaissance. Plays in this genre were performed by small wondering troupes of ten to twelve actors (both male and female), most of whom wore masks.
Tableau
A motionless, usually temorary grouping of persons (or sometimes objects) in various attitudes. The persons in a tableau are normally in full costume and are meant to be symbolic.
Prose
Language which is relatively uncompressed , does not follow any metrical rules, and is measured in the basic units of sentences and paragraphs.
Novel
A fictional story that is long, written in prose, and uses special techniques, of which the most essential is its tendency to give a detailed revelation of the beliefs, feelings, thoughts, and affairs of human beings in everyday life.
Allegory
A story, poem, or play in the allegorical mode.
Apology
An author's explanation and justification for the ideas expressed in a literary work, or for the form through which he expresses them, usually written in a preface to the work.
Conceit
1) Defined in the Middle Ages and any literary device or means of expressing an idea (the word originally mean "concept"). 2) Later used to demote a complex or extended metaphor figure.
Dark Conceit (Dark Figure)
A term invented by Edmund Spenser to describe the literary device of allegory, whereby an invisible reality is figuratively expressed through a concrete story.
Descriptive Style
The characteristic manner in which a storyteller describes everything in a given story, including characters, objects, ideas, and places.
Sentence Structure
The characteristic length (or shortness) of sentences, the way they are usually constructed, and the characters elements included in them, in the style of a given author.
Style
The unique rhythm, techniques, and qualities that a characterize a particular author's craftmanship.
Symbolic Character
A character who, in addition to his role in the story, stands for another event in the story or to a greater reality outside the story.
Symbolic Place
A symbolic place is at once a setting in the story and a representation of something else, often an ideal or greater reality.
Tone
The emotional color or disposition of a story. Tone includes the author's attitudes and emotions as expressed in the story, and the consistent emotional mood(s) of characters (particulary dominant caracters) in the story.
Metaphysical Conceit
An extended comparison (metaphor or simile) that may govern part or all of a poem and is more notable for the intellectual ingeniousness or audacity of the connection drawn between two things than for the natural strength of the connection itself.
Verse Epistle
A letter written in verse, as opposed to a letter written in prose.
Verse Satire
A satire in verse, as opposed to a satire written in prose.
Epigram
A brief and frequently biting or satirical poem, often including a twist at the end; it can also be used for sincere praise, compliments, or even mourning.
Ode
An exalted lyric poem that celebrates a dignified subject in a lofty style.
Elegy (Funeral)
A lyric poem about, often addressed to, and usually exalting a particular person with whom the speaker in the poem shares a close relationship.
Elegy (Love)
A lyric poem about the speaker's beloved; the poem may exalt, satirize, plead with, admonish, or otherwise directly address the beloved.
Emblem Poem
A (usually brief) poem in which the arrangement of the lines themselves forms a pictorial image (or "emblem") of the topic on which it is written.
Country-House Poem
A lyric poem written in praise of a country house.
Meditative Religious Lyric
A brief non-narrative poem in a variety of forms, whose chief characteristic is that it presents religious thoughts and (or) feelings of the speaker and is often addressed to God.
Carpe Diem Poem
From Latin "seize the day," a poem that emphasizes the shortness of life and the need to seize pleasures while living.
Song
A brief lyric poem which is (in theory at least) written to be sung.
Hymn
A brief lyric poem which is (in theory at least) written to be sing and is religious in content.
Literati
Since ancient times, the term has come to have several meanings: those who can read and write, those who read widely and write skillfully, and those who consider themselves literary experts, but are viewed as conceited (if also expert) by everybody else. (The latter sense of the term is usually used as an insult.)
Syllabic verse
Poetry in which the meter is measured by the number of syllables per line.
Accentual verse
Poetry in which the meter in measured by the number of accents or stresses per line.
Comedy
A dramatic genre containing many sub-genres, in which the unifying characteristic is the play ends happily for the sympathetic protagonist(s). Comedy is perhaps best identified by contrast with tragedy, in which the sympathetic protagonist(s) customarily end on death (or some other form of utter ruin).
Satiric Comedy
A sub-genre of comedy in which the author's main purpose is to satirize. Because this sub-genre is a type of comedy, the satirical elements in it do not customarily lead to death, ruin, or lasting harm for the sympathetic protagonist (s). However the play may end quite unhappily for the main character in the story, if that character is the object of the satirical attack (in which case he is an unsympathetic protagonist).
Normative Character
A character in a story, play, or narrative poem who represents the author's point of view and often his themes as well, either 1) by interpreting all that is and goes on in the story as the author wishes the reader to do, or 2) by embodying and exemplifying the author's perspective and (or) themes, or 3) both.
Direct Exposition of Characters (Dramatic Exposition)
Occurs when an author allows hos readers or audience to learn about a character by letting them observe the character's actions and words directly, rather than hearing about that character from a narrator or from other characters (called "indirect" exposition).
Indirect Exposition of Characters
Occurs when an author gives his readers or audience information about a character either 1) through a narrator (sometimes the author himself) or 2) through other characters. This type of exposition is the opposite of "direct" exposition, in which the reader or audience gains information by observing the character's actions and words directly.
Tragedy
A narrative form built around an exceptional calamity stemming from the protagonist's wrong choice.
Accentual-Syllabic Verse
Poetry in which the meter is measured by the number of accents or stresses per line.
Acrostic Hebrew Poem
A poem in which the successive units begin with the consecutive letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
Actions
Things a character in a story does or says that are significant in the story.
Alexandrine (French)
A line of poetry consisting of twelve syllables.
Anapest
A metrical foot consisting of two un-emphasized syllables followed by one emphasized syllable. Marked as
Antagonist
The force(s) of character(s) with which the protagonist of a story is in the conflict.
Antithesis
A figure of speech in which two directly opposite ideas (such as life and death or light and darkness) are placed near one another.
Antithetical Parallelism (in Hebrew Poetry)
A two-line poetic unit in which the second line states the truth of the first in the opposite way or introduces a contrast.
Aphorism (Proverb)
A short, memorable statement if truth.
Apostrophe
A figure of speech in which the writer addresses someone absent or something non-human as if it were present or human and could respond to the address.
Archetype
A person, place, thing, or idea that recurs universally in literature and in life and had come to a particular meaning or significance for readers.
Arrangement
The artistic principle which states that the sequence in which elements of the story are arranged is meaningful and works in support of the author's perspective. "Arrangement" is a device of disclosure.
Artistry
The arrangement of parts in such a way that the artist's purposes for the whole are fulfilled.
Assonance
Repetition of vowel sounds within words in a line or lines of a verse.
Authorial Assertion
A technique by which the author enters the story and comments on characters and events in his own voice. Authorial assertion is a device of disclosure.
Climatic Parallelism (in Hebrew Poetry)
A form of parallelism in which the first line is left incomplete until the second line repeats part of it and than makes it a whole statement by adding to it.
Romantic Fiction
A work of fiction which focuses on the topic of courtship, love, and marriage.
Descriptive Style
The characteristic manner in which a storyteller describes everything in a given story, including characters, objects, ideas, and places.
Protagonist (also called main character)
Originally a Greek theatrical term meaning "first struggler", now applied to the most central character in a story; the character whom a story is about, especially if that story is a novel or play.
Style
The unique rhythm, techniques, and qualities that characterize a particular author's craftsmanship.
Sentence Structure
The characteristic length (of shortness) of sentences, the way they are usually constructed, and the characteristic elements included in them, in the style of a given author.
Texture
The "feel" of a literary work, which is made up of specific techniques and devices, and a particular style.
Tone
The emotional color or disposition of a story. Tone includes the author's attitudes and emotions as expressed in the story, and the consistent emotional mood(s) of characters (particulary dominant characters) in the story.
Omniscient Point of View
A point of view in which the narrator knows everything about what is going on and can reveal the thoughts and feelings, as well as actions and speeches, of every character. When the omniscient point of view is used, the narrator is uaually the author, and the story is usually told in the third person voice (e.g., "She was suprised").
Point of View (Presentation of characters)
The perspective from which a story is told.