English 1301 test

flashcards

Round character

A well-developed character who is closely involved in and responsive to the action of the story.

Flat character

A character that is barely developed and often stereotypes.

Foil character

A supporting character who contrasts with a major character to highlight particular traits.

Stock character

An easily identifiable type of character who behaves predictably.

Dynamic character

A character who grows and changes throughout the story in response to events and other characters.

Static character

A character who may face similar challenges as dynamic characters but remains essentially unchanged.

Motivation

The reasons behind a character's behavior.

Irony

A literary device that involves contrasting levels of meaning or experience.

Situational irony

When what happens is contrary to what readers expect to happen.

Dramatic irony

When the audience knows something the protagonist does not.

Verbal irony

When what is said contrasts with what is meant; this can be expressed through understatement, hyperbole, or sarcasm.

First person narrator

A narrator who speaks using 'I' or sometimes 'we'.

Third person narrator

A narrator who speaks using 'he' or 'she'.

Unreliable narrator

A narrator who misrepresents events and misdirects the reader, intentionally or unintentionally.

Omniscient narrator

A narrator who knows the thoughts of all characters involved.

Limited omniscient narrator

A narrator who only knows the thoughts of one character.

Epiphany

A moment of clarity in which something hidden becomes understood or clear.

Plot

The sequence of events in a story, including rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution.

Setting

The time and place where the story unfolds.

Characters

Individuals who drive the story forward; typically includes a protagonist and antagonist.

Conflict

The central problem or challenge that characters face, which drives the plot.

Theme

The central idea of the story that explores the significance of the events and characters.

Denotation

The most direct or specific meaning of a word or expression.

Connotation

An idea that is implied or suggested by a word or expression.

Ode

A lyric poem with complex stanza forms.

Epic

A long narrative poem telling of a hero's deeds.

Sonnet

A verse form of 14 lines with a fixed rhyme scheme.

Elegy

A mournful poem, often lamenting for the dead.

Haiku

A Japanese verse form consisting of three short lines.

Limerick

A humorous rhymed verse form of five lines.

Acrostic

A form of verse in which the first letter of each line forms a message.

Verse

A piece of poetry.

Prose

Ordinary writing as distinguished from verse.

Stanza

A fixed number of lines of verse forming a unit of a poem.

Free verse

Poetry that does not rhyme or have a regular meter.

Blank verse

Unrhymed poetry, usually in iambic pentameter.

Elision

A deliberate act of omission.

End-stopped (verse)

A verse having a rhetorical pause at the end of each line.

Enjambment

Continuation from one line of verse to the next.

Caesura

A break or pause in the middle of a verse line.

Point of view

The mental position from which things are perceived.

Speaker

Someone who expresses themselves in language.

Poet

A writer of verse.

Attitude

A complex mental state involving beliefs and feelings.

Antithesis

The juxtaposition of contrasting words or ideas for balance.

Tone

A quality that reveals the attitudes of the author.

Alliteration

The use of the same consonant at the beginning of each word.

Assonance

The repetition of similar vowels in successive words.

Consonance

The repetition of sounds, especially at the ends of words.

Onomatopoeia

Using words that imitate the sound they denote.

Repetition

The continued use of the same word or word pattern.

Allusion

A passing reference or indirect mention.

Apostrophe

An address to an absent or imaginary person.

Simile

A figure of speech that expresses a resemblance between things using 'like' or 'as'.

Metaphor

A figure of speech suggesting a non-literal similarity.

Conceit

An elaborate poetic image comparing very dissimilar things.

Hyperbole

Extravagant exaggeration.

Symbol

Something visible that represents something invisible.

Allegory

A short moral story.

Paradox

A statement that contradicts itself.

Oxymoron

Conjoined contradictory terms.

Personification

Representing an abstract quality or idea as a human.

Metonymy

Substituting the name of a feature for the name of the thing.

Synecdoche

Using part of something to refer to the whole.

Ambiguous

Having more than one possible meaning.