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Tragedy
A literary work, usually a drama, which deals with human themes; several elements are involved: hamartia, hubris, catharsis, nemesis; in a tragedy, a hero will fall due to elements within the personality.
Hubris
Excessive pride, especially found within the tragic hero.
Local color
The interests or flavor of a specific locality as expressed in a story through language.
Narrative
The story of fictional or actual events as told by the teller.
Naturalism
A factual representation, conforming to nature, especially in art and literature.
Realism
A truthful representation, with an inclination toward pragmatism, that is accurate to life’s expression.
Short Story
A fictional prose, dealing essentially with a single conflict, which can be read in a single session and has a single plot line.
Pleasure Principle
The concept that pleasure is the only thing that matters and any manner of attaining it is fine; often this is the role of the Id, the earliest part of the developing personality.
Reality Principle
The function which monitors the Id; the concept that some things are more important than immediate pleasure, namely, the continuation of pleasure after the initial gaining of it.
Denouement
The final part of a play, movie, or narrative in which the strands of the plot are drawn together and matters are explained or resolved.
Drama
A full-length work of fiction that is written in dialogue, meant to be performed upon a stage.
Flashback
Stopping the flow of the narrative to return to a setting or event earlier in the tale, even to events that predate the earliest part of the plot.
Hamartia
The tragic flaw of a tragic hero; that which will make the hero fall; this needs to be a trait that is generally considered a good thing.
Description
The words the author uses to fully detail a place or thing; these words will bring pictures to the mind.
Symbol
Something which stands for and represents itself but also stands for something much greater than itself.
Climax
A moment of great intensity in the plot of a literary work, generally bringing events to a head and leading to the conclusion.
Novel
A full-length prose fiction where narrative is the chief story-telling element and several conflicts, settings, and characters will dwell.
Parallelism
A structural arrangement of parts of a sentence, sentences, paragraphs, and larger units of composition by which one element of equal importance with another is similarly developed and phrased.
Pathetic Fallacy
False emotionalism in writing resulting in a too impassioned description of nature; it is the carrying over to inanimate objects the moods and passions of a human being.
Histrionics
A deliberate display of emotion for effect.
Hagiography
A biography that idealizes or idolizes the person (especially a person who is a saint).
Idiomatic
Of or pertaining to, or conforming to, the mode of expression peculiar to a language.
Metonymy
A figure of speech that substitutes the name of an attribute or adjunct for that of the thing meant, for example suit for business executive, or the track for horseracing.
