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Archetype

A symbol, theme, setting, or character-type that recurs in different times and places in myth, literature, folklore, dreams, and rituals so frequently or prominently as to suggest that it embodies some essential element of universal human experience.

Allusion

A direct or indirect reference to something which is presumably commonly known, such as an event, book, myth, place, or work of art.

Ambiguity

The multiple meanings, either intentional or unintentional, of a word, phrase, sentence, or passage.

Anachronism

The misplacing of any person, thing, custom or event outside its proper historical time.

Animal Imagery

A specialized type of comparison that employs animal characteristics or language to describe something.

Antagonist

The most prominent of the characters who oppose the protagonist or heroine or hero in a dramatic or narrative work.

Apostrophe

A figure of speech that directly addresses an absent or imaginary person or a personified abstraction, such as liberty or love.

Aside

A short speech or remark spoken by a character in a drama, directed either to the audience or to another character, which by convention is supposed to be inaudible to the other characters on stage.

Direct Characterization

Attributes the qualities of a character in a description or commentary.

Indirect Characterization

Inviting readers to infer a character's qualities from characters' actions, speech or appearance.

Social Commentary

A criticism or discussion by the act of using rhetorical means to provide commentary on issues in a society.

Dramatic Structure

The organization of conflict between characters in their world. The form of a play or film usually containing a beginning, middle and end.

Epithet

A short, poetic nickname, often in the form of an adjective or adjectival phrase-attached to the normal name.

Figurative Language

Writing or speech that is not intended to carry literal meaning and is usually meant to be imaginative and vivid.

Foil Character

A character that serves by contrast to highlight or emphasize opposing traits in another character.

Framing

Using the same features, wording, setting, situation, or topic at both the beginning and end of a literary work.

Genre

The major category into which a literary work fits. The basic divisions of literature are prose, poetry, and drama.

Hyperbole

A figure of speech using deliberate exaggeration or overstatement.

Imagery

The sensory details or figurative language used to describe, arouse emotion, or represent abstractions.

Dramatic Irony

When facts or events are unknown to a character in a play or piece of fiction but known to the reader, audience, or other characters in the work.

Situational Irony

When events turn out the opposite of what was expected; when what the characters and readers think ought to happen is not what does happen.

Verbal Irony

When the words literally state the opposite of the writer's (or speaker's) meaning.

Juxtaposition

The arrangement of two or more ideas, characters, actions, settings, phrases, or words side-by-side or in similar narrative moments for the purpose of comparison, contrast, rhetorical effect, suspense, or character development.

Antithesis

The opposition or contrast of ideas; the direct opposite.

Oxymoron

A figure of speech wherein the author groups apparently contradictory terms.

Paradox

A statement that appears to be self-contradictory or opposed to common sense but upon closer inspection contains some degree of truth or validity.

Litotes

A form of understatement that involves making an affirmative point by denying its opposite.

Metaphor

A figure of speech using implied comparison of seemingly unlike things or the substitution of one for the other, suggesting some similarity.

Mood

The prevailing atmosphere or emotional aura of a work.

Motif

A conspicuous recurring element, such as a type of incident, a device, a reference, or verbal formula, which appears frequently in works of literature.

Persona

The speaker or voice of a literary work, i.e., who is doing the talking.

Personification

A figure of speech in which the author presents or describes concepts, animals, or inanimate objects by endowing them with human attributes or emotions.

Ethos

Authority. It also includes something of charisma and individual character. It is whatever inspires trust in an audience.

Pathos

Emotion. A writer or speaker's attempt to inspire an emotional reaction in an audience.

Logos

Logic. A rhetorical or persuasive appeal to the audience's logic and rationality.

Plot

The structure in which the story is told.

First Person POV

Tells the story with the first person pronoun, "I", and is a character in the story.

Limited Third Person POV

The narrator presents the feelings and thoughts of only one character, presenting only the actions of all the remaining characters.

Third Person Omniscient POV

An 'all-knowing' kind of narrator who has a full knowledge of the story's events and of the motives and unspoken thoughts of the various characters.

Protagonist

The chief character in a play or story, who may also be opposed by an antagonist.

Satire

A work that targets human vices and follies or social institutions and conventions for reform or ridicule.

Setting

The time, place, physical details, and circumstances in which a situation occurs.

Simile

An analogy or comparison implied by using an adverb such as like or as.

Soliloquy

A talking to oneself; the discourse of a person speaking to himself, whether alone or in the presence of others.

Symbol

Generally, anything that represents itself and stands for something else.

Synecdoche

A figure of speech in which a part of something is used to represent the whole or, occasionally, the whole is used to represent a part.

Synesthesia

When one kind of sensory stimulus evokes the subjective experience of another.

Theme

The central idea or message of a work, the insight it offers into life.

Tone

Describes the author's attitude toward his material, the audience, or both.

Tragic Hero

Typically an admirable character who appears as the focus in a tragic play, but one who is undone by a hamartia - a tragic mistake, misconception, or flaw.

Political Commentary

An author's way of conveying an opinion or judgment about a specific political time period.

External Conflict

The opposition between two characters, between two large groups of people, or between the protagonist and a larger problem such as forces of nature, ideas, public mores, and so on.

Internal Conflict

A protagonist struggling with his psychological tendencies.