Vocab Quiz 1

characterization

the sort of personality a character displays; also the means by which the author reveals these characteristics.

climax

the crisis or turning point in a play or story: the greatest intensity or interest

conflict

a clash of purposes in a story, a novel, and especially in play.  Usually the whole action of a play is built up from basic conflict.

 

epiphany          

a sudden perception (moment of understanding) that causes

a character to change or act in a certain way.

figure of speech

a device that permits the author to say one thing and mean

another. (simile, metaphor, hyperbole- exaggeration,

personification, understatement)

foil

someone who serves as a contrast or challenge to another

character.

foreshadow

to suggest what will come later in a story, novel or play by

means of hints or by showing events of similar nature.

image

a picture aroused in the mind; words that summon up the

picture or that appeal to the senses.

imagery

the words or phrases that summon up the image in the

mind

irony

using a word or phrase to mean the exact opposite of its

literal or normal meaning.

- dramatic, verbal, and situational(action/result)

metaphor

a figure of speech that suggests a resemblance between two

different things without using any word of comparison

(such as like or as).  Two examples: "laughing daffodils"

and "The ship plowed through the waves."motive the reasons, either revealed or hidden, for a character acting

as he or she does.

pathos

a feeling of sympathetic pity, also the qualities in a literary

work that cause such a feeling.

plot

everything that happens in a story, novel or play

point of view

that vantage point from which a story or novel is told.  A

work of fiction may use a first-person point of view told by

one of the characters ("I locked the door and went up the

stairs.") or it may be told from a third-person point of  view

("He locked the doors and went up the stairs.")

protagonist

the main character or hero of the story

antagonist

the person working against the hero in the work.

romanticism

romanticism favors the imagination, the emotions and

individual originality.

satire

a literary tone used to make fun of human vice or

weakness, often with the intent of correcting or changing

the subject of the attack.

setting

the place and time of a story, poem, novel or play.

simile

a comparison between two things in which a word of comparison (such as like or as is used). stream of consciousness is a style of writing in which the thoughts and feelings of

the writer are recorded as they occur.

style

the manner of writing rather than the content (how rather

than what is said); an author's characteristic way of writing,

which is determined by his or her choice of words,

arrangement of words in sentences, and the relationship

of the sentences to each other.

symbol

something specific that is used to stand for an idea.  A

literary symbol, for example, may be a thing (an old tower)

or an action (climbing stairs), and is so used that it becomes

highly suggestive.  (Climbing stairs, for example, may

symbolize that struggle to gain wisdom.)

theme

the underlying idea or ideas of a work.  The statement

about life that the author is trying to get across in a piece of

writing.

tone

the attitude of the author as this attitude is revealed through

his written words.

total effect

the final, overall impression that a story, novel, poem, or

play leaves on the reader.

Xenia

the Ancient Greek belief in guest friendship

hubris

excessive pride

hamartia

tragic flaw

Allusion

belief reference to history, literature, music, art, etc in a work of literature