English Final Study Guide

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90 Terms

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Alliteration

The repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of a word.

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Allusion

A reference to an historical or a literary person, place, or event with which the reader is assumed to be familiar.

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Anaphora

The repetition of a word or word group at the beginning of successive sentences, clauses, paragraphs, or poetic lines.

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Anecdote

A short written or oral account of an interesting event or an episode. A(n) _ can serve many purposes: reveal character, illustrate a theme support an opinion, clarify an idea, grab the reader's attention, or simply entertain.

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Antagonist

A person or a force in society or nature that opposes the protagonist, or central character, in a story or drama.

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Antithesis

Figure of speech in which sharply contrasting words, phrases, clauses, or sentences are juxtaposed. ____ is used to emphasize a point.

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Apostrophe

Figure of speech in which a thing, an abstract quality, or an absent or imaginary person is addressed as if present and able to understand.

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Assonance

The repetition of a vowel sound within words.

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Aside

In a play, a comment that a character makes to the audience or another character onstage, a comment that the others onstage do not hear.

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Blank verse

Unrhymed poetry in iambic pentameter.

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Caesura

A pause placed in the middle of a line for effect.

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Character

An individual in a literary work.

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Round Character

A character who shows varied and sometimes contradictory traits.

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Flat Character

A character who reveals only one personality trait.

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Dynamic Character

This character undergoes a change during the story.

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Static Character

This character remains the same throughout the story.

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Characterization

The techniques employed by writers to develop characters.

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Direct Characterization

When the author clearly tells the reader what we need to know about a character.

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Indirect Characterization

When the reader must use hints to understand a character by: 1) Narrator's description of a character's physical appearance or personal traits, 2) Character's thoughts, 3) Character's actions, 4) Character's speech, 5) Other characters' thoughts, comments, and actions

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Confidante

A character in a drama or fiction, such as a trusted friend or servant, who serves as a device for revealing the inner thoughts or intentions of a main character.

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Conflict

A struggle between two opposing forces or characters.

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Internal Conflict

A struggle that takes place within the mind of the character

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External Conflict

takes place between the character and an outside force (Person vs. Person, Person vs. Society, Person vs. Nature, Person vs. Machine, Person vs. Self)

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Consonance

The repetition of consonant sounds within and at the end of words.

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Diction

A writer's choice of words.

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Enjambment

The continuation of the sense and grammatical construction of a line of poetry onto the next line or of a couplet or stanza into the succeeding couplet or stanza.

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Epic hero

of high rank, strong, courageous, clever, cunning; the hero's qualities represent those valuable to his society; the hero struggles to overcome human character flaws; he faces supernatural forces; the story takes places over large, vast areas and locations; the story is told in a formal and grand style; the epic hero WINS!

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Epic Simile

A long, elaborate comparison that continues for several lines.

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Epithet

A brief phrase used to characterize a person, place, or thing.

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Figurative Language

Language that uses figures of speech, or expressions that are not literally true but express some truth beyond the literal level.

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Flashback

An interruption in the chronological order of a narrative to describe an event that happened earlier.

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Foil

A character who provides a striking contrast to another character.

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Foreshadowing

An author's use of hints or clues to prepare readers for events that will happen later in a story.

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Free Verse

Poetry that has no fixed pattern of meter, rhyme, length, or stanza arrangement.

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Heroic Couplet

Two consecutive lines of rhyming iambic pentameter.

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Hubris

Excessive pride or self-confidence

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Hyperbole

Figure of speech in which the truth is exaggerated for emphasis or humorous effect.

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Imagery

Words or phrases that create pictures, or images, in the reader's mind.

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In Medias Res

Latin phrase meaning "in the middle of things." A work of literature is said to start like this when the story begins in the middle of the action.

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Irony

The contrast between appearance and actuality, or between expectation and reality.

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Situational irony

When something happens that is entirely different than what is expected.

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Verbal irony

a writer/character says one thing, but means something entirely different.

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Dramatic irony

The reader or audience understands meanings that one or more characters do not.

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Metaphor

An implied comparison.

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Meter

The repetition of a regular rhythmic unit in a line of poetry.

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Iamb

unstressed, stressed

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Trochee

stressed, unstressed

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Anapest

unstressed, unstressed, stressed

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Dactyl

stressed, unstressed, unstressed

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Spondee

stressed, stressed

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Pyrrhic

unstressed, unstressed

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Dimeter

two rhythmic feet

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Trimeter

three rhythmic feet

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Tetrameter

four rhythmic feet

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Pentameter

five rhythmic feet

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Monologue

A long speech or expression of thoughts by a character in a literary work.

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Mood

The emotional quality of a literary work.

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Motif

A recurring feature (such as a name, an image, or a phrase) in a work of literature.

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Onomatopoeia

Refers to the use of echoic words whose pronunciations suggest their specific meanings.

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Oxymoron

A figure of speech that combines opposite or contradictory ideas or terms.

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Parallelism

The use of phrases, clauses, or sentences that are similar or complementary in structure or in meaning.

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Persona

A mask or voice that the author uses in a poem. Note that the author and the voice in the poem are not the same.

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Personification

Figure of speech in which human qualities are attributed to an object, an animal, or an idea.

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Plot

The sequence of events or actions in a narrative work.

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Exposition

Information essential to understanding the situation is introduced.

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Inciting Incident

The event or decision that begins a story's problem.

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Rising Action

The action rises to the moment of crises.

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Climax

The point of greatest intensity, interest, or suspense

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Falling Action

After the climax, there is a reversal of fortune for the protagonist.

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Resolution

The moment when the conflict ends and the outcome is clear.

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Point of View

The vantage point from which a narrative is told.

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First-Person

The story is told by one of the characters in his/her own words.

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Third-Person Omniscient

The narrator is not in the story. This "all-knowing" observer can describe and comment on all the characters in the story.

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Third-Person Limited

The narrator is not a character in the story. However, rather than tell the story from each character's vantage point, this "limited" narrator tells the story from the viewpoint of only one character.

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Protagonist

The central character in a literary work, around whom the main conflict revolves.

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Pun

A humorous play on words.

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Rhyme

Words __ when sound of accented vowels and all succeeding sounds are identical.

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Masculine rhyme

Only final accented syllables rhyme. (pursue/renew)

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Feminine (or Double) rhyme

Rhyme occurs in two or three consecutive syllables, the first of which is stressed. (remember/December; waken/shaken)

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End rhyme

Rhyme comes at end of line.

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Internal rhyme

Rhyme occurs within a line. ("The splendor falls on castle walls")

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Off (or Slant or Near) rhyme

The sounds are closely related but not identical. (fear/care)

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Setting

The time and place in which events in a literary work occur.

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Simile

A comparison between two unlike things using "like" or "as."

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Soliloquy

A dramatic device in which a character alone on stage reveals his or her private thoughts aloud to the audience.

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Sonnet

A verse form consisting of 14 lines in iambic pentameter with rhyme arranged according to a fixed scheme, usually divided either into an octave (eight lines) and a sestet (six lines) or into three quatrains and a couplet.

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Symbol

Any person, animal, place, object, or event that exists on a literal level within a work but also represents something on figurative level.

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Theme

The main idea or message of a story, poem, novel, or play often expressed as a general statement about life.

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Tone

The attitude that a writer takes toward his or her subject.

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Understatement

The technique of creating emphasis by saying less than is actually or literally true.