Literary Terms and Definitions

These flashcards cover key literary terms and their definitions essential for understanding literature and preparing for examinations.

Hamartia

A tragic flaw, especially a misperception, a lack of important insight, or blindness that results from one’s own strengths and abilities.

Hubris

Arrogant, excessive self-pride or self-confidence in a hero, leading to a lack of important perception due to pride.

Hyperbole

A figure of speech involving great exaggeration.

Iambic pentameter

A line of verse having five metrical feet; Shakespeare’s most frequent writing pattern.

Imagery

Sensory details that provide vividness in a literary work and evoke emotions in a reader.

In medias res

Latin for 'in the middle of things'; describes a plot that begins in the middle of events.

Irony

A contrast between what appears to be and what really is.

Juxtaposition

Placing two ideas, words, or images side by side to create original, ironic, or insightful meaning.

Litotes

A figure of speech in which a positive is stated by negating its opposite.

Metaphor

A figure of speech involving an implied comparison.

Meter (rhythm)

The pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry.

Metonymy

A figure of speech in which a specific term naming an object is substituted for another closely associated word.

Motif

A recurrent word, image, theme, or phrase that unifies a literary work.

Narrator (persona/ point of view)

The teller of the story.

Onomatopoeia

Words whose sound imitates the sound of what is being referred to.

Paradox

A statement that seems self-contradictory but has valid meaning.

Parallelism

Establishing similar patterns of grammatical structure and length in writing.

Parody

A humorous imitation of serious writing, typically to ridicule the author's style.

Persona

The speaker or narrator of a text or poem, which should not be assumed to be the author.

Personification

The representation of abstractions or objects as human beings, endowing them with life-like qualities.

Plot

The series of happenings in a literary work.

Point of view

The relation between the teller of the story and the characters in it.

Polysyndeton

Using many conjunctions to achieve an overwhelming effect in a sentence.

Prosody

The mechanics of verse poetry, including sounds, rhythms, scansions, meter, and rhyme.

Protagonist

The leading character in a literary work.

Pun

A play on words, using humor from a word's multiple meanings.

Rhyme

Exact repetition of sounds in at least the final accented syllables of words.

Rhyme scheme

The pattern of rhyme in a poem, marked by letters of the alphabet.

Satire

Wit employed to ridicule a subject, often to inspire reform.

Setting

The time, place, societal situation, and weather in which the action occurs.

Simile

A figure of speech comparing two unlike things using 'like' or 'as'.