Lit terms

1. Allegory – A story in which events, settings, characters, etc. stand for abstract or moral concepts

2. Analogy – A comparison to show similarities between disparate ideas, issues, etc.

3. Anaphora - the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses.

4. Antithesis - Contrasting ideas

5. Aphorism – A witty or concise saying that expresses a truth or principle

6. Apostrophe - A writer or speaker, using apostrophe, speaks directly to someone who is not present

or is dead, or speaks to an inanimate object.

7. Canto – A subdivision of a long poem

8. Conceit - An elaborate figure of speech, makes a surprising connection between dissimilar items

9. Deus Ex Machina – A contrived device used to inexplicably resolve a plot point, unexpected resolution

10. Elegy – A text, poem or narrative that laments or mourns a loss of someone or something

11. Enjambment - the continuation of a sentence without a pause beyond the end of a line, couplet,

or stanza.

12. Epigram – A clever, usually memorable statement, meaningful to the following text

13. Epilogue - a section or speech at the end of a book or play that serves as a comment on or a conclusion

to what has happened.

14. Epiphany – Sudden insight or awareness, often experienced by a character after a dramatic situation

15. Epitaph - Commemorative poem, inscription for a deceased (dead) individual

16. Epithet - A descriptive phrase or adjective used to characterize a person

17. Farce – A narrative that stereotypes characters as ridiculous, includes far-fetched events

18. In Media Res – Beginning a narrative in the middle

19. Kenning – A type of Anglo-Saxon metaphor used to name a person, place, or thing directly

20. Lament - A poem or song expressing grief.

21. Litotes - ironic understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by the negative of its

contrary (e.g., you won't be sorry, meaning you'll be glad)

22. Lyric – Emotional, music-like poetry or narrative

23. Motif – Refers to a word, object, image, character, etc. that repeatedly occurs within a text

24. Neoclassicism – a revival of classical standards and forms during the late 17 th and 18 th centuries

25. Ode – Lyrical stanza, poem, text in praise of, or dedicated to, someone or something

26. Onomatopoeia - the formation of a word from a sound associated with what is named

(e.g. cuckoo, sizzle )

27. Oxymoron – A figure of speech combining contradictory ideas or terms

28. Parable – An allegorical, usually short, text that teaches a moral or religious lesson

29. Parody – Imitation of music, literature, etc. for amusement or to make a point

30. Pun – A joke exploiting the different possible meanings of words that sound alike but are different

31. Realism – The attempt to depict people and things as they really are, without idealizations

32. Refrain - A repetition of a phrase or series of phrases for emphasis

33. Romance – Historically, a medieval verse narrative chronicling the adventures of brave knights or other

heroes who must overcome grave danger for the love of a noble lady or a high ideal

34. Satire – Texts that criticize or ridicule human actions, weaknesses

35. Stream of Consciousness – A narrative device that reflects the inner thoughts of the narrator

1. Alliteration – A repetition of beginning consonant sounds

2. Allusion – A Biblical, historical, literary, mythological, etc. reference

3. Antagonist – The character or issue that creates conflict for the protagonist

4. Aside – Words spoken by a character to the audience, not to be overheard by other characters

5. Assonance - the repetition of vowel sounds in nearby words. It is used to reinforce the meanings of words or

to set the mood

6. Atmosphere – The mood or feeling in a literary work

7. Autobiography - An individual’s account of his or her life

8. Biography – An account of a person’s life as told by another writer

9. Climax - The highest point of the plot arc, the height of emotion or drama, the point of no return

10. Conflict – Internal or external struggles faced by characters in a narrative

11. Connotations – emotions, meanings, associations associated with a specific word

12. Couplet - two lines of verse, usually in the same meter and joined by rhyme, that form a unit.

13. Denotation – the definition of a term as determined by a dictionary

14. Denouement – The resolution or conclusion of a narrative, issues and problems are resolved

15. Dialect - Type of speaking characteristic to a specific region or environment, a group of people

16. Diction – Word choices made by an author, a device to establish purpose for a writer

17. Epic – A particular poem, lengthy in form, reflecting the values of a society through the hero’s actions

18. Essay – A text reflecting the ideas, values, research, etc. of a writer

19. Fable – A narrative that features animals to reflect a moral message

20. Flashback – A portion of a text that flashes back to a previous event

21. Foil – One character developed as a contrast to another to highlight specifics characteristics

22. Foreshadowing – Clues included in a text to hint at future events

23. Irony – A discrepancy between the expected and the reality

24. Novel – A long narrative, fictional, generally more than 50,000 words

25. Paradox – Terms or ideas that appear contradictory but are actually both true

26. Parallelism – Repetition of structure, phrases, words

27. Personification – A figure of speech that gives human qualities to inhuman objects

28. Plot – The development of a narrative, sequence of events over a period of time

29. Point of view – Narrator’s perspective (1 st , 2 nd , 3 rd – Limited, omniscient, subjective)

30. Protagonist – The main character in a text, generally involved in conflict

31. Soliloquy – Usually seen in plays, a long speech spoken by a character alone on the stage

32. Suspense – The uncertainty or anxiety we feel about what is going to happen next in a story.

33. Symbol - A figure of speech where an object, person, or situation has another meaning other than its literal

meaning

34. Theme - The central topic a text treats thematic concept is what readers "think the work is about"and its thematic statement being "what the work says about the subject.