World Literature Literary Terms

Front 1

repetition of initial sounds in several words

Back 1

Alliteration

Front 2

a reference to some event, piece of art, or other well-known thing that exists outside of the world or focus of the text

Back 2

Allusion

Front 3

repetition of word or phrase at the beginning of two or more lines of poetry or two or more sentences in prose

Back 3

Anaphora

Front 4

a form of direct address in poetry: "O Sun!" or "Beauty, you goddess"

Back 4

Apostrophe

Front 5

an interruption of a line of poetry using punctation (dash, period, etc.)

Back 5

Caesura

Front 6

a listing of several items or ideas in a poem or prose sentence

Back 6

Catalog

Front 7

emotions associated with words

Back 7

Connotation

Front 8

the dictionary definitions of words

Back 8

Denotation

Front 9

a character who changes significantly over the course of a literary work

Back 9

Dynamic Character

Front 10

when the audience or reader knows more than the characters

Back 10

Dramatic Irony

Front 11

when a thought or sentence is continued from one line to the next, or from one stanza to the next, in poetry

Back 11

Enjambment

Front 12

an extreme exaggeration: "I'm STARVING" or "I'll DIE if I fail this quiz"

Back 12

Hyperbole

Front 13

a rhyme where both rhyming words occur in one line of poetry

Back 13

Internal Rhyme

Front 14

stated -- direct comparison of two unlike things ("her eyes are stars")
implied -- direct comparison of two unlike things without saying "is"
extended -- the metaphor occurs over several lines of poetry

Back 14

Metaphor (3 types)

Front 15

object, image, word, or phrase repeated as a pattern in a work of literature; THEME

Back 15

Motif

Front 16

words that sound like the sounds they represent (buzz, hiss, gurgle)

Back 16

Onomatopoeia

Front 17

an expression using contradictory words

Back 17

Oxymoron

Front 18

repetition of syntax for a literary effect (anaphora is a form of parallelism, though parallelism usually means a whole sentence's structure is repeated, not just an initial word or phrase)

Back 18

Parallelism

Front 19

the technique of giving human qualities to non-human things

Back 19

Personification

Front 20

comparison of two unlike things using "like" or "as"

Back 20

Simile

Front 21

rhyme that occurs when the ending consonant sounds in pairs or groups of words rhyme, but the vowel sounds of the words do not

Back 21

Slant Rhyme

Front 22

a character who does not change over the course of a text

Back 22

Static Character

Front 23

something that sounds for something else (usually an abstract idea)

Back 23

Symbol

Front 24

the use of one sense to describe another sensory experience ("a blue note of jazz" or "the basement smelled of darkness"

Back 24

Synaesthesia