Week 2 Literary Terms

Front 1

Comedy

Back 1

in general, a story that ends with a happy resolution of the conflicts faced by the main character or characters.

Front 2

Conceit

Back 2

an elaborate metaphor that compares two things that are startlingly different. Often an extended metaphor.

Front 3

Confessional Poetry

Back 3

a twentieth century term used to describe poetry that uses intimate material from the poet’s life.

Front 4

Conflict

Back 4

the struggle between opposing forces or characters in a story.

Front 5

External Conflict

Back 5

conflicts can exist between two people, between a person and nature or a machine or between a person a whole society.

Front 6

Internal Conflict

Back 6

a conflict can be internal, involving opposing forces within a person’s mind.

Front 7

Connotation

Back 7

the associations and emotional overtones that have become attached to a word or phrase, in addition to its strict dictionary definition.

Front 8

Couplet

Back 8

two consecutive rhyming lines of poetry.

Front 9

Dialect

Back 9

a way of speaking that is characteristic of a certain social group or of the inhabitants of a certain geographical area.

Front 10

Diction

Back 10

a speaker or writer’s choice of words.

Front 11

Didactic

Back 11

form of fiction or nonfiction that teaches a specific lesson or moral or provides a model of correct behavior or thinking.

Front 12

Elegy

Back 12

a poem of mourning, usually about someone who has died. A Eulogy is great praise or commendation, a laudatory speech, often about someone who has died.

Front 13

Epic

Back 13

a long narrative poem, written in heightened language , which recounts the deeds of a heroic character who embodies the values of a particular society.

Front 14

Epigraph

Back 14

a quotation or aphorism at the beginning of a literary work suggestive of the theme.

Front 15

Explication

Back 15

act of interpreting or discovering the meaning of a text, usually involves close reading and special attention to figurative language.

Front 16

Fable

Back 16

a very short story told in prose or poetry that teaches a practical lesson about how to succeed in life.

Front 17

Farce

Back 17

a type of comedy in which ridiculous and often stereotyped characters are involved in silly, far-fetched situations.

Front 18

Figurative Language

Back 18

Words which are inaccurate if interpreted literally, but are used to describe. Similes and metaphors are common forms.

Front 19

Flashback

Back 19

a scene that interrupts the normal chronological sequence of events in a story to depict something that happened at an earlier time.

Front 20

Foil

Back 20

A character who acts as contrast to another character. Often a funny side kick to the dashing hero, or a villain contrasting the hero.