Literary Devices, Analytical Lenses, and Literary Concepts

Vocabulary flashcards covering key literary terms, analytical lenses, and concepts from the lecture material.

Imagery

A description or language that engages with the five senses.

Metaphor

A comparison between two things for the purpose of establishing or demonstrating an idea, emotion, or image.

Simile

A comparison between two things using "like" or "as" for the purpose of establishing an idea, emotion, or image; a metaphor that uses "like or as."

Personification

Giving human qualities to inanimate objects or other nonhuman things, or metaphors that use human qualities to describe nonhuman things.

Indeterminate Elements

Parts of a text or portion of a story/poem where what is described is fundamentally unknowable, debatable, or ultimately mysterious due to details intentionally omitted by the author or a limited point of view.

Allusion

Indirect references to cultural artifacts, films, novels, stories, historical figures, or other famous events.

Alliteration

A literary device that involves repeating the same consonant sound at the beginning of two or more neighboring words or syllables.

Symbolism

Something that stands for or suggests something else by reason of relationship, association, convention, or accidental resemblance.

Symbol

An object, idea, or action that represents a deeper, abstract concept.

Colloquial Language

Conversational, informal speech; slang.

Repetition

Intentional repetition of a word or phrase.

Unreliable Narrator

A story narrator who might have an incomplete view of the world, be untrustworthy, or whose perspective distorts actual events.

Theme

The message underneath a work of art, such as literature, film, or poetry.

Othering / To Other

To view or treat a person or group of people as intrinsically different from and alien to oneself.

Diction

Word choice.

Lesko's Characteristics of Adolescence

Defined by Nancy Lesko (a child psychologist and professor of education) as the period between adulthood and childhood where young people show signs of being rebellious, hormonal, peer-oriented, conformist, popularity-driven, and concerned with romantic relationships, arguing age can determine preferences, bodies, behaviors, and disposition.

Characterization / Characterize

The creation or construction of a fictional character.

Social Construct / Socially Constructed

An idea that has been created and accepted by the people in a society.

Intentional Fragment

An incomplete sentence intentionally used by an author instead of a complete sentence.

Vignette

A short, evocative piece of writing that often has some qualities of both poetry and prose.

Lens

A style of analysis or way of reading.

Reader Response Lens

Reading a text and making connections to your own experiences, feelings, memories, and culture.

Formalist Lens

Analyzing how a text is written by noticing literary devices and writing choices, and analyzing how they all work together to make meaning.

Youth Lens

Analyzing what a text, film, or movie says about being young.

Syntax

Structure of sentences, such as the use of intentional fragments or run-ons.