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69 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Consonance
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occurs in Poetry when words appearing at the ends of two or more verses have similar final consonant sounds but have final vowel sounds that differ, as with "stuff" and "off.
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Alliteration
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The repetition of consonant sounds, especially at the beginning of words.
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Apostrophe
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A figure of speech wherein the speaker speaks directly to something nonhuman
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Aside
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Words spoken by an actor directly to the audience, which are not "heard" by the other characters on stage during a play.
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Assonance
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The repetition of similar vowel sounds in a sentence or a line of poetry or prose, as in "I rose and told him of my woe."
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Catastrophe
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The action at the end of a tragedy that initiates the denouement or falling action of a play
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Catharsis
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The purging of the feelings of pity and fear that, according to Aristotle, occur in the audience of tragic drama.
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Character
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An imaginary person that inhabits a literary work.
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Characterization
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The means by which writers present and reveal character.
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Chorus
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A group of characters in Greek tragedy (and in later forms of drama), who comment on the action of a play without participation in it
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Climax
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The turning point of the action in the plot of a play or story
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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
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Comic relief
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The use of a comic scene to interrupt a succession of intensely tragic dramatic moments.
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Complication
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An intensification of the conflict in a story or play.
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Conflict
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A struggle between opposing forces in a story or play, usually resolved by the end of the work.
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Connotation
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The associations called up by a word that goes beyond its dictionary meaning.
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Convention
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A customary feature of a literary work, such as the use of a chorus in Greek tragedy, the inclusion of an explicit moral in a fable, or the use of a particular rhyme scheme in a villanelle
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Denouement
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The resolution of the plot of a literary work.
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Deus ex machine
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A god who resolves the entanglements of a play by supernatural intervention.
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Dialogue
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The conversation of characters in a literary work.
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Diction
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The selection of words in a literary work.
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Dramatic monologue
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A type of poem in which a speaker addresses a silent listener
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Dramatis personae
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Latin for the characters or persons in a play
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Exposition
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The first stage of a fictional or dramatic plot, in which necessary background information is provided.
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Falling action
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In the plot of a story or play, the action following the climax of the work that moves it towards its denouement or resolution.
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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
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Flashback
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An interruption of a work's chronology to describe or present an incident that occurred prior to the main time frame of a work's action.
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Foil
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A character who contrasts and parallels the main character in a play or story
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Foot
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A metrical unit composed of stressed and unstressed syllables
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Foreshadowing
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Hints of what is to come in the action of a play or a story
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Fourth wall
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The imaginary wall of the box theater setting, supposedly removed to allow the audience to see the action.
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Satire
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A literary work that criticizes human misconduct and ridicules vices, stupidities, and follies.
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Setting
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The time and place of a literary work that establish its context.
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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.
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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.
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Stage direction
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A playwright's descriptive or interpretive comments that provide readers (and actors) with information about the dialogue, setting, and action of a play.
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Staging
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The spectacle a play presents in performance, including the position of actors on stage, the scenic background, the props and costumes, and the lighting and sound effects.
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Style
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The way an author chooses words, arranges them in sentences or in lines of dialogue or verse, and develops ideas and actions with description, imagery, and other literary techniques.
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Subplot
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A subsidiary or subordinate or parallel plot in a play or story that coexists with the main plot.
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Symbol
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An object or action in a literary work that means more than itself, that stands for something beyond itself.
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Synecdoche
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A figure of speech in which a part is substituted for the whole. An example: "Lend me a hand."
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Synesthesia
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One sensory experience described in terms of another sensory experience.
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Syntax
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The grammatical order of words in a sentence or line of verse or dialogue.
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Theatre of the Absurd
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A drama based on an absurd situation.
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Theme
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The idea of a literary work abstracted from its details of language, character, and action, and cast in the form of a generalization. Tone
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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.
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Tragic flaw
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A weakness or limitation of character, resulting in the fall of the tragic hero.
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Tragic hero
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A privileged, exalted character of high repute, who, by virtue of a tragic flaw and fate, suffers a fall from glory into suffering.
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Unities
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The idea that a play should be limited to a specific time, place, and story line. The events of the plot should occur within a twenty-four hour period, should occur within a give geographic locale, and should tell a single story.
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Parody
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A humorous, mocking imitation of a literary work, sometimes sarcastic, but often playful and even respectful in its playful imitation.
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Pathos
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A quality of a play's action that stimulates the audience to feel pity for a character.
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Personification
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The endowment of inanimate objects or abstract concepts with animate or living qualities.
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Point of view
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The angle of vision from which a story is narrated
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Props
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Articles or objects that appear on stage during a play.
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Protagonist
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The main character of a literary work-
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Pun
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A play on words wherein a word is used to convey two meanings at the same time.
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Recognition
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The point at which a character understands his or her situation as it really is.
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Resolution
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The sorting out or unraveling of a plot at the end of a play, novel, or story.
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Reversal
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The point at which the action of the plot turns in an unexpected direction for the protagonist.
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Rising action
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A set of conflicts and crises that constitute the part of a play's or story's plot leading up to the climax.
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Hyperbole
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A figure of speech involving exaggeration.
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Iamb
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An unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one, as in to-DAY.
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Imagery
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The pattern of related comparative aspects of language, particularly of images, in a literary work. Irony
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Metaphor
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A comparison between essentially unlike things without an explicitly comparative word such as like or as.
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Antagonist
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A character or force against which another character struggles.
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Meter
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The measured pattern of rhythmic accents in poems
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Metonymy
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A figure of speech in which a closely related term is substituted for an object or idea. An example: "We have always remained loyal to the crown."
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Monologue
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A speech by a single character without another character's response.
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Narrator
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The voice and implied speaker of a fictional work, to be distinguished from the actual living author.
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