Literature terminology

Openings/beginnings 

Crucial for immediately engaging the reader by introducing a distinctive voice.

Characterization

Creates and develops a character in a story by describing their personality, motivations, and traits. Explicitly tells the reader, implicitly = reader infers traits from characters' actions, dialogue, appearance.

Characters 

Any person, animal, or figure represented in a story; novel, play, film. Essential to the plot. Performs actions, speaks, influenced by the story's events.

Context

The surrounding circumstances or background information that provides meaning and helps a reader understand a work. Internal context: backstories, setting, plot points. External context: historical period, author's life, cultural movements.

Endings

The concluding part of a narrative where the central conflict is resolved and loose ends are tied up. Provides closure for the reader by revealing the final outcome; the resolution can itself be happy, tragic, or ambiguous.

Focalization 

The perspective or point of view through which a story is told. Filters the narrative determining what information is seen, perceived, restricted by a particular character/entity in the story.

Imagery

A literary device that uses descriptive language to create a mental picture or sensation in the reader's mind. Appeals to the five senses: sight, smell, sound, taste, touch.

Literal meaning 

The straightforward, dictionary definition of words. The most direct/explicit meaning of a word, phrase, sentence, based on standard definition.

Figurative meaning

Goes beyond the literal words to convey deeper ideas/emotions through non-literal language, creating a richer, more vivid experience for the reader.

Metaphor

A figure of speech that directly compares two unlike things to create a deeper meaning, express complex ideas, evoke imagery without use of 'like' or 'as'.

Motif 

A recurring element, such as an image, idea, or object, that appears throughout a story to help develop its larger meaning, mood, or theme.

Narration

The act of telling a story, recounting a sequence of events, either real or imagined, through the voice of a narrator.

Point of view

The perspective/narrator through which a story is told. Affects tone and intimacy of a narrative. 1st => I, me; 2nd => you; 3rd => he, she, they.

Point of View (POV)

The perspective from which people, events, and other details in a work of fiction are viewed; also called focus, which usually includes both focus and voice.

Rhyme 

Repeating identical/similar sounds at the end of words. Often occurs at the end of lines. Most common = end rhyme, occurs when the last words in two or more lines of a poem rhyme with each other.

Internal Rhyme 

When a word within a line of poetry rhymes with another word in the same or adjacent lines.

Eye Rhyme

Words that don't rhyme but look like they do because of similar spelling, e.g. 'cough, bough.'

Setting

The time and place for a story, including the physical environment, historical period, and social/cultural context.

Spatial Setting

The place(s) in which action unfolds.

Temporal Setting

The time in which the narrative takes place.

General Setting 

The general time and place in which all action unfolds.

Particular Settings

The time and place of individual episodes/scenes.

Simile

A figure of speech that directly compares two unlike things, using 'like' or 'as'.

Stanza

A group of lines in a poem, similar to a paragraph in prose, that forms a basic unit of verse.

Foundation

The vertical, unifying idea or underlying message in a literary work.

Title

A distinctive name given to a work/book/story that identifies, provides context, and piques readers' interest.

Antagonist

A character or force that opposes the protagonist and creates a conflict in a story.

Protagonist

The main character of a work around whom the story is centered.

Genre

A category of literature that is classified by its shared characteristics, such as content, style, and form.

Subgenre 

A smaller division within a genre, such as gothic fiction or epic poetry.

Close reading

Method of analyzing, involves carefully examining a text’s details: specific words, syntax, structure. Uncovers deeper meaning. How and why the author uses certain language, imagery = create particular effect. A close reading explores the maning of the poem by looking at it closely. Use literary terms to analyse the meaning. Don’t list, instead ask: what’s their point? How do they help the author/poet express meaning?

Scene 

A unit of a story that takes place in a specific time and location, featuring chracters engaged in action/dialogue. “Mini-story” with own beginning, middle & end, which serves to develop characters and advance the plot. Typically begins when significant change in P.O.V, setting, time. A section or subdivision of a play/narrative that presents continuous action in one specific setting. 

Narrator

The voice that tells a story in literature , guiding the reader through the plot, characters, setting. Within the story (1st person) or outside voice, can be all knowing observer limited to the perspective of one/few characters (3rd person limited). Someone who recounts a narrative. Usually term “speaker” in poetry.

Paragraph

A series of sentences that are organized and coherent. are all related to a single topic. Every piece of writing that is longer than a few sentences =should be paragraphs. Flashes out a single idea.

Line

A single row of words in a poem, Play, other verse. Unit of poetic form, length and break points are chosen for rhythm, rhyme, meaning or emotional emphasis. Strategic placement of line break: (of a grammatical unit) At the end => end stopped & In middle of one => enjambment. Can influence a readers pacing & interpretation.

In a poem, a discrete organization of words, the length/shape of a line can communicate meaning of a poem, and can be a formal element characterization of a poem, such as the fourteen lines that make up a Sonnet.

Speaker

The voice/persona that delivers the words in a poem, monologue. Not necessarily the author. The person who is the voice of a poem, anyone who speaks dialogue in a work of fiction poetry or drama.

Personification

A literary device that gives humans qualities, characteristics, or actions to non-human Things like objects, animals or abstract Ideas. This figurative language is creating vivid Imagery -make an idea relatable, evoke emotions Ex. "the wind whispered", "the sun smiled down at us”. Figure of speech that involves treating something non-human, such as an abstraction, as if it were a person by endowing it with humanlike qualities, as "death entered the room".

Plot

a sequence of events that make up a story, arcanged in a specific, causual order rather than just a chronological one answers "what happened + why”Involving the conflict, the characters' motivations and the cause and effect relationship between events. Traditional plot structure: beginning, (exposition) middle (rising action) and end (resolution)

The arrangement of the action. 5 main pasts/phases: expo, rising, climax, Falling action & conclusion/resolution.

theme

the central, unifying idea/underlying message in a literary work. Main topic/idea that author explores. Message about life, society, human condition. Broadly, commonly a topic exploring in a literary work ("the value of all life”) Narrowly, the insights about a topic communicated in a work. Works have orter multiple themes, some => main insight.

Drama

The literary genre of works intended for the theater.

Poem

Fiction