Literary Terms

Allegory

Story or poem with characters, settings, events representing other people, events, or abstract ideas.

Alliteration

Repetition of similar consonant sounds in close words.

Allusion

Reference to known people, events, or things from history, literature, religion, etc.

Ambiguity

Deliberate suggestion of multiple conflicting meanings in a work.

Analogy

Comparison between two things to show their similarity.

Anaphora

Repetition of a word, phrase, or clause at the beginning of consecutive sentences.

Anastrophe

Inversion of the usual order of sentence parts for rhythm, emphasis, or euphony.

Anecdote

Brief story illustrating a point or character's traits.

Antagonist

Opponent who struggles against the hero in a story.

Antimetabole

Repetition of words in reverse grammatical order for emphasis.

Antithesis

Balancing strongly contrasted words, phrases, or ideas.

Antihero

Central character lacking traditional hero qualities.

Anthropomorphism

Attributing human characteristics to animals or objects.

Aphorism

Cleverly worded statement making a wise observation about life or a general truth.

Apostrophe

Calling out to an imaginary, dead, or absent person, place, thing, or abstract idea.

Apposition

Placing immediately succeeding coordinate elements, the latter explaining the first.

Assonance

Repetition of similar vowel sounds followed by different consonant sounds in words together.

Asyndeton

Using commas without conjunction to emphasize parts equally.

Balance

Constructing a sentence with equally important halves.

Characterization

Process of revealing a character's personality.

Indirect Characterization

Revealing character's traits through actions, thoughts, and effects on others.

Direct Characterization

Telling the reader directly what the character is like.

Static Character

Character not changing much in a story.

Dynamic Character

Character changing in an important way due to the story's action.

Flat Character

Character with one or two personality traits, one-dimensional.

Round Character

Character with complex, multidimensional personality.

Chiasmus

Rhetorical balance in which the second part is syntactically balanced against the first, but with the parts reversed.

Cliché

Overused word or phrase, often a figure of speech.

Colloquialism

Everyday word or phrase inappropriate for formal situations.

Comedy

Story ending with a happy resolution for the main character.

Conceit

Elaborate metaphor comparing startlingly different things.

Confessional Poetry

Poetry using intimate material from the poet's life.

Conflict

Struggle between opposing forces or characters in a story.

External Conflict

Conflict between individuals, nature, or society.

Internal Conflict

Conflict within a person's mind.

Connotation

Emotional overtones attached to a word, beyond its dictionary definition.

Couplet

Two consecutive rhyming lines of poetry.

Dialect

Characteristic way of speaking of a social group or geographical area.

Diction

Speaker or writer's choice of words.

Didactic

Fiction or nonfiction teaching a specific lesson or moral.

Elegy

Poem of mourning, usually about someone who has died.

Epanalepsis

Repetition of the same expression at the beginning and end of a line, clause, or sentence.

Epic

Long narrative poem recounting the deeds of a heroic character.

Epigraph

Quotation at the beginning of a literary work suggestive of the theme.

Epistrophe

Repetition of the same expression at the end of two or more lines, clauses, or sentences.

Epithet

Adjective or phrase emphasizing a characteristic quality of a person or thing.

Essay

Short piece of nonfiction prose discussing some aspect of a subject.

Argumentation

Form of discourse using logic, ethics, and emotional appeals to convince the reader.

Persuasion

Relying more on emotional appeals than on facts to convince the reader.

Argument

Form of persuasion appealing to reason instead of emotion.

Causal Relationship

Claiming one thing results from another, often used as part of a logical argument.

Description

Discourse using language to create a mood or emotion.

Exposition

Form of discourse explaining or 'setting forth' something.

Narrative

Discourse telling about a series of events.

Explication

Interpreting or discovering the meaning of a text, often involving close reading and attention to figurative language.

Fable

Very short story teaching a practical life lesson.

Farce

Comedy involving ridiculous, often stereotyped characters in silly situations.

Figurative Language

Words describing something inaccurately if interpreted literally.

Flashback

Scene interrupting the normal chronological sequence to depict something from an earlier time.

Foil

Character acting as a contrast to another character.

Foreshadowing

Use of hints and clues to suggest future plot events.

Free Verse

Poetry not conforming to a regular meter or rhyme scheme.

Hyperbole

Incredible exaggeration or overstatement for effect.

Hypotactic

Sentence marked by the use of connecting words between clauses or sentences, explicitly showing their logical relationships.

Imagery

Use of language to evoke a concrete sensation or picture of a person, thing, place, or experience.

Inversion

Reversal of the normal word order in a sentence or phrase.

Irony

Discrepancy between appearances and reality.

Verbal Irony

Saying one thing but meaning another.

Situational Irony

Discrepancy between expected and actual events.

Dramatic Irony

Audience knowing something a character does not.

Juxtaposition

Placing unassociated ideas, words, or phrases next to each other for surprise and contrast.

Litotes

Form of understatement emphasizing the positive through negation of the negative.

Local Color

Literature emphasizing a specific setting's customs, clothing, dialect, and landscape.

Loose Sentence

Sentence with the main clause first, followed by dependent grammatical units.

Lyric Poem

Poem expressing personal feelings or thoughts of the speaker.

Metaphor

Comparison between two unlike things without using specific comparison words.

Implied Metaphor

Metaphor not explicitly stating the comparison terms.

Extended Metaphor

Metaphor developed extensively throughout a work.

Dead Metaphor

Overused metaphor no longer vivid in its comparison.

Mixed Metaphor

Metaphor mixing incompatible terms.

Metonymy

Referring to a person, place, or thing by something closely associated with it.

Mood

Atmosphere created by a writer's diction and selected details.

Motif

Recurring image, word, phrase, or idea unifying a work.

Motivation

Reasons for a character's behavior.

Onomatopoeia

Use of words whose sounds echo their sense.

Oxymoron

Combining opposite or contradictory terms in a brief phrase.

Parable

Relatively short story teaching a moral lesson.

Paradox

Statement appearing self-contradictory but revealing a kind of truth.

Koan

Paradox used in Zen Buddhism to gain intuitive knowledge.

Parallel Structure

Repetition of words or phrases with similar grammatical structures.

Paratactic Sentence

Simply juxtaposing clauses or sentences.

Parody

Work making fun of another work by imitating its style.

Periodic

Sentence placing the main idea at the end after introductory elements.

Personification

Attributing human feelings or attitudes to objects or animals.

Plot

Series of related events in a story or play.

Point of View

Vantage point from which the writer tells the story.

First Person Point of View

Story told by one of the characters.

Third Person Point of View

Story told by an unknown narrator focusing on the thoughts and feelings of one character.

Omniscient Point of View

Story told by an all-knowing narrator focusing on many characters.

Objective Point of View

Impersonal and objective narrator with no comment on characters or events.