Literary Terms Master List

Allegory

a narrative either in verse or prose, in which characters, action, and sometimes setting represent abstract concepts apart from the literal meaning of the story. (ex. Everyman)

Alliteration

the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words.

Allusion

a brief reference to a person, event, or place in history, or to a work of art/ literature.

Analogy

a comparison made between two items, situations, or ideas that are somewhat alike but unlike in most respects.

Anaphora

figure of repetition that occurs when the first word or set of words in one sentence, clause, or phrase is/are repeated at or very near the beginning of successive sentences, clauses, or phrases.

Antagonist

a character in a story or play who opposes the chief character or protagonist.

Apostrophe

a figure of speech in which a speaker directly addresses an absent person or a personified quality, object, or idea.

Archetype

a character, an action, or situation that seems to represent common patterns of human life. Often include a symbol, a theme, a setting, or a character that have a common meaning in an entire culture, or even the entire human race.

Aside

in drama, a few words or a short passage spoken by one character to the audience while the other actors on stage pretend their characters cannot hear the speaker’s words.

Assonance

the repetition of similar vowel sounds followed by different consonant sounds in stressed syllables or words.

Asyndeton

the omission of conjunctions from constructions in which they would normally be used

Atmosphere (mood)

the mood/ feeling of the literary work created for the reader by the writer

Ballad

 a narrative poem that usually includes a repeated refrain

Blank verse

unrhymed iambic pentameter, a line of five feet

Cacophony

the use of words in poetry that combine sharp, harsh, hissing, or unmelodious sounds

Caesura

a pause within a line of poetry.

Carpe diem

Latin for “seize the day,” the name applied to a theme frequently found in lyric poetry: enjoy life’s pleasures while you are able.

Catharsis

purification or purging of emotions (pity or fear).

Character

an imaginary person represented in a work of fiction (described as a round/flat, protagonist/antagonist, etc.

Characterization

the method an author uses to acquaint the reader with his or her characters.

Chiasmus

A scheme in which the author introduces words or concepts in a particular order then later repeats those terms or similar ones in reversed or backwards order. It involves taking parallelism and deliberately turning it inside out, creating a “crisscross” pattern.

Cliché

an expression or phrase that is overused as to become trite and meaningless.

Climax

as a term of dramatic structure, the decisive or turning point in a story or play when the action changes course and, as a result, begins to resolve itself.

Conceit

elaborate figure of speech combining possible metaphor, simile, hyperbole, or oxymoron

Conflict

the struggle between two opposing forces (man v. man, man v. nature, man v. self, man v. society).

Connotation

the emotional associations surrounding a word, as opposed to its literal meaning or denotation.

Couplet

a pair of rhyming lines with identical meter.

Denotation

the strict, literal meaning of a word.

Denouement

the resolution of the plot

Dialouge

the conversation between two or more people in a literary work.