Literary Terms: Fiction, Drama, and Poetry

Comprehensive list of literary terms covering fiction, drama, and poetic language based on the provided guide.

IRONY

The use of words to convey the opposite of their literal meaning.

DIALOGUE

The parts of a story in which the words of the characters are directly stated.

ROMANCE/ROMANTIC

A story that is neither wildly fantastic nor bound by the conventions of realism, but offers a heightened version of reality.

STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS

A fictional technique in which the thoughts of a character are entirely opened to the reader, usually being presented as a flow of ideas and feelings, apparently without logical organization.

ALLEGORY

A story in which the events and characters are symbolic of another order of meaning, the way killing a dragon may symbolize defeating the devil.

PARABLE

A story that takes the form of a simple allegory, using humble characters and situations as a way of suggesting more important moral and religious concerns.

SYMBOL

An extension of metaphor whereby something (an object for instance) stands for an abstract idea.

CODE HERO

Protagonist who stoically faces all odds, even though (s)he knows that death will always win.

CHARACTER

A name or a title and a set of qualities that make a fictional person (or animal, etc.).

PLOT

The order of events in a story as an ongoing process.

MYTH

A story that expresses a deep human concern, often involving the actions of gods or other super human figures.

REALISM

A mode of fiction that is not specifically factual but presents a world recognizably bound by the same laws as the world of the author.

CONFLICT

The opposition that the protagonist faces against the antagonist.

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE

The way rich and complex thoughts can be conveyed by linking unlike images and ideas.

SATIRE

A story that exposes and attacks human vice or folly through irony, derision, or wit.

ANTAGONIST

The "who" or "that" which opposes the protagonist.

POINT OF VIEW

The voice and vision through which the events of a story reach the reader, usually in $1st$ or $3rd$ person.

THEME

The ideas, values, or feelings that are developed or questioned by a work of fiction.

NARRATOR

The person who tells the story.

TONE

The way in which attitudes are conveyed through language without being presented directly as statements, as in sarcasm.

ATMOSPHERE

The mood or feeling evoked by a work of art.

DICTION

Particular choice and use of vocabulary used by a writer.

PARADOX

An apparently self-contradictory statement, which is found to contain a truth reconciling the conflicting opposites.

VERISIMILITUDE

Likeness to the truth/reality; language that sounds real when read.

CHIAROSCURO

The technique using light and dark in a setting to highlight a visual image.

POLYSYNDETON

The repetition of conjunctions, such as "and."

PROSE

The direct form of language written or spoken in ordinary usage; it is not restricted in rhythm, measure, or rhyme: the opposite of poetic verse; created in sentences and paragraphs.

CLIMAX

The portion of the plot where a "crisis" is reached; the highest point.

FORESHADOWING

Creates a structure and thematic unity by providing hints of what is to come later in the plot.

PROTAGONIST

The principle character; opposed by the antagonist.

ECHOIC SCENES

Scenes that repeat themselves in a work of literature.

DENOUEMENT

The unraveling of the plot's complications; the falling action after the climax.

MOTIF

One of the dominant ideas in a work of literature; part of the main theme.

SYNTAX

The way in which words are put together to form phrases and sentences.

VOICE

The speaker or narrator's interjecting judgments and opinions into the narration.

STRUCTURE

The sum of the relationship of the parts of the poem (story, play) to each other; thus, the whole: its form of organization and style.

SONNET

A verse form featuring intricate rhyming, usually employing $14$ iambic pentameter lines.

ACCENT

The rhythmical alternation of light and heavy (soft and loud) sounds in verse.

ENJAMBMENT

The use of run-on lines in verse; no end-line punctuation.

BLANK VERSE

Unrhymed iambic pentameter lines.

LINE

A unit of verse made up of a certain number of metrical feet.

STRESS

The ways in which verse sounds are accented; the regular rhythm established in metrical verse.

ALLITERATION

The use of the same sound at the beginning of two or more words in the same line (or two adjacent lines) of verse.

CONCEIT

An elaborately developed and sometimes far fetched metaphor.

FREE VERSE

Unrhymed lines in which no particular meter is maintained.

PERSONIFICATION

The endowment of human qualities on non-human things.

SCANSION

To determine the metrical structure and rhyme scheme of a poem.

BALLAD

A poem that tells a story, usually meant to be sung.

RHYME

A sound pattern in which both vowel and consonant sounds at the end of words match.

STANZA

A regularly repeated metrical pattern of the same number of lines.

OXYMORON

Yoking two terms which are ordinarily contradictory.

FOOT

A unit of meter or rhythm, of which five ($5$) kinds are normally recognized: iamb, anapest, trochee, dactyl, spondee.

IMAGERY

The use of sensory details: sounds, scents, tastes, textures, and especially sights.

METRICS

The part of poetry that has to do with the measurement of lines.

CAESURA

The point or points within a line of verse where a pause is noticeable.

METAPHOR

A figure of speech that is an implicit comparison between unlike things; no like or as is employed.

RUN-ON

A line of verse that ends where one would not normally pause in a speech or punctuate in writing.

SIMILE

A kind of figurative language in which the likeness of two things is made explicit by such words as like or as.

ANAPHORA

Repetition of a word or a group of words in successive clauses.

CONSONANCE

Repetition of similar consonant sounds following different vowel sounds.

HYPERBOLE

Figurative language that employs extreme exaggeration for emphasis.

LYRIC

A fairly short poem that expresses feelings or emotions, musical.

PARALLELISM

Verse or prose phrases or sentences of similar construction and meaning, placed one after another, balancing each other.

PROSODY

The study of verse (versification) and every aspect of it.

ANASTROPHE

The inversion of the normal order of words for a particular effect.

ELLIPSES

An omission of a word or words.

QUATRAIN

A stanza of four ($4$) lines of verse, rhymed or unrhymed.

COUPLET

Two ($2$) successive rhyming lines forming one complete thought.

ONOMATOPOEIA

The formation and use of words to imitate sounds.

EPIC

A long narrative poem on a grand scale.

IAMBIC PENTAMETER

A line of five ($5$) iambic feet.

POLYPTOTON

The repetition of a word in a different form.

ASSONANCE

Repetition of similar vowel sounds.

SUBSTITUTE FOOT

A change in the pervading meter in a line of verse for the purpose of creating subtle modulations or to reinforce a meaning.

PUN

A play on words.

ANTANACLASIS

Repetition of a word in two ($2$) different senses.

METONOMY

Substitution of some attributive or suggestive word for what is actually meant.

SYNECHDOCHE (SIN-EK-DOH-KEY)

Figure of speech in which a part stands for the whole.

MORALITY PLAY

A drama whose sole purpose is to teach the audience a moral lesson; i.e., good vs evil, etc.

CHORUS

A group of characters who comment on the action of a play but do not take part in the action.

SET

Physical construction placed on a stage to represent an interior or exterior location in the imaginative world of the play.

REPORTED ACTION***

Action taking place during the time of the play which is reported by one or more of the characters rather than being directly presented.

TRAGICOMEDY

A mode of drama that does not embody a clear-cut pattern of catastrophe or rebirth, (as in tragedy or comedy), or present clear-cut images of good or evil (as in romance or satire), and thus presents an ambiguous and problematic view of human experience.

COMEDY

Dramatization of a hero's and heroine's change in fortune (from frustration to satisfaction) brought about not only by the effort of the hero and heroine themselves but also by some element of chance, coincidence, or luck.

EXPOSITION

Dialogue at the beginning of a play that includes background information about characters and events in the imaginative world of a play.

RETROSPECTION***

Post-expository dialogue in which characters survey, explore, and seek to understand action which took place well before the time of the play.

SPECTACLE

Sights and sounds of performance by means of which the imaginative world of the play is brought to life in the theater.

SOLILOQUY

Lines spoken by a character that are meant to represent the unspoken thoughts and feelings of the character.

TRAGEDY

The story of a character's fall from a high position through some flaw of personality.

ASIDE

A few words or a short passage spoken in an undertone or to the audience.

FOIL

A contrasting character to the protagonist, whose behavior, attitudes, and opinions, serve to define and emphasize by means of contrast.

TRAGIC FLAW***

Traditionally the defect in a tragic hero or heroine, which leads to their downfall.

COMIC RELIEF

Comic episodes usually in a tragedy aimed to relieve the tension and heighten the tragic element.

CATHARSIS

A purging and therapeutic effect after a tragedy's climax and resolution; a sense of release from tension.

TRAGIC HERO***

The highly esteemed protagonist who brings misfortune upon himself through some error of judgment.

DRAMATIC IRONY

The audience knows, but the character does not, the truth, heightening its importance to the plot.

DISCOVERY***

The revelation of facts hitherto unknown to one of the principle characters; a crucial element to the tragic experience.

OFF-STAGE ACTION***

That part of the action which does not occur on stage but is important enough to be reported later by a narrator because its impact is key to the progression of the play's plot.

REVERSAL***

Discovery recognized; an incident or sequence of incidents that go contrary to the protagonist's expectation; a crucial element to the tragic experience.

CRISIS***

The point of uncertainty and tension, the turning point that results from the conflicts and difficulties brought about through the complications of the plot. It leads to the climax—that is, to the decision made by the protagonist to resolve the conflict.