english vocab 1

• Allegory: A story in which characters, events, settings, or objects have a literal meaning and a second symbolic meaning. The different symbols work together to represent a larger idea or message.

• Alliteration: The repetition of the initial consonant sound in several nearby words. Example: “Peter Piper picked…”

• Allusion: An indirect reference to a well-known person, event, book, song, or other work. It relies on the reader recognizing the reference and connecting it to the text.

• Antagonist: The force opposing the protagonist and creating conflict. It can be a person, group, environment, or even the protagonist’s own choices.

• Archetype: A universal character, symbol, image, or situation that appears repeatedly across cultures and literature. Examples include the hero, the wise mentor, or a journey.

• Aside: A brief remark made by a character that is meant to be heard by the audience or another character but not by the other characters on stage. It often reveals a character’s private thoughts.

• Assonance: The repetition of similar vowel sounds in nearby words. Example: “The rain in Spain stays mainly…”

• Conflict: The opposition or struggle that drives a story’s plot. It can occur between characters, between a character and their environment, or within a character.

• Consonance: The repetition of similar consonant sounds in nearby words, including sounds in the middle or at the end of words. Unlike alliteration, it does not have to occur at the beginning.

• Direct characterization: When the author or narrator directly tells the reader what a character is like physically, emotionally, or psychologically.

• Dramatic irony: When the audience knows something that one or more characters do not know. This creates tension because the audience understands more than the characters.

• Elegiac tone (elegy): An elegy is a poem about grief, mourning, or loss, often following someone’s death. Elegiac describes a sad, mournful, or nostalgic tone.

• Epic Hero: A larger-than-life hero who represents the values of their society and often determines the fate of a nation. Epic heroes are usually warriors who face extraordinary challenges.

• Epic Poem: A long narrative poem about the adventures and achievements of an epic hero. It often includes supernatural elements, a wide setting, a quest or war, and themes important to a culture.

• Foil: A character who contrasts with another character, usually the protagonist, in order to highlight that character’s traits.

• Foreshadowing: Hints or clues that suggest what will happen later in a story.

• Imagery: Descriptive language that appeals to the five senses and other physical sensations, helping readers create mental pictures or experiences of what is happening.

• Indirect characterization: When the reader must figure out what a character is like based on the character’s actions, words, thoughts, or how others respond to them.

• The intention of tragedy: Tragedy shows that people may be destined to suffer, fail, or die because of their flaws, choices, or fate.

• Irony: A contrast between what is expected or seems appropriate and what actually happens.

• Kenning: A two-word descriptive phrase used instead of a noun, especially in Anglo-Saxon poetry. Example: “whale-road” = sea.

• Metaphor: A comparison that says or implies that one thing is another thing in a figurative sense. Example: “Time is a thief.”

• Mood: The feeling or emotion a text creates in the reader. Remember: “Mood is in me.”

• Narrator: The voice that tells a story. The narrator may be a character in the story or an outside voice.

• Personification: Giving human qualities, actions, or emotions to something nonhuman. Example: “The wind whispered.”

• Plot: The arrangement and sequence of events in a narrative.

• POV (Point of View): The perspective from which a story is told. Common types include first person, third-person limited, and third-person omniscient.

• Protagonist: The central character who experiences the main conflict of a story.

• Rhyme: The repetition of similar sounds, usually at the ends of lines in poetry.

• Setting: The time, place, and social circumstances in which a story takes place.

• Simile: A comparison between two things using “like” or “as.” Example: “He was as brave as a lion.”

• Soliloquy: A speech given by a character while alone on stage that reveals their private thoughts to the audience.

• Speaker: The voice speaking in a poem. The speaker is not necessarily the same person as the poet.

• Stage Directions: Instructions in a play that describe characters’ actions, movements, expressions, or how their lines should be delivered.

• Stanza: A group of lines in a poem, similar to a paragraph in prose. A stanza usually develops a particular thought or idea.

• Structure (of a poem): The way a poem is organized into lines and stanzas, including the number of lines, number of stanzas, and what each section focuses on.

• Symbol: A person, place, object, event, or word that represents an idea beyond its literal meaning.

• Theme: The central message or insight about life that a literary work communicates. It is more specific than a general topic, such as love, loss, or good vs. evil.

• Tone: The author’s attitude toward the subject, characters, or audience, shown through word choice and writing style. Remember: “Tone is not my own.”

• Tragedy: A literary work in which the protagonist experiences a serious downfall or unhappy ending.

• Tragic Flaw: A weakness or error in judgment that contributes directly to a tragic hero’s downfall.

• Tragic Hero: The important protagonist of a tragedy who has great abilities but also a tragic flaw that contributes to their downfall.

• Motif: A recurring element, idea, image, event, or pattern in a literary work that helps develop its meaning.

• Paradox: A statement that seems contradictory but reveals a deeper truth when examined carefully. Example: “The only constant is change.”