Wicks Test 9/16/24\

Allegory

A narrative or description having a second or symbolic meaning beneath the surface one

Allusion

A reference, explicit or implicit, to something in previous literature or history

Anecdote

A short account of an interesting or humorous incident

Artistic unity

That condition of a successful literary work whereby all its elements work together for the achievement of its central purpose

Cacophony

A harsh, discordant, unpleasant-sounding choice and arrangement of sounds

Euphony

A smooth, pleasant-sounding choice and arrangement of sounds

Genre

A type or class, as poetry, drama, etc.

Imagery

The representation through language of sensory experience

Mood

The pervading impression of a work

Moral

A rule of conduct or maxim for living expressed or implied as the "point" of a literary work. Compare Theme.

Prose

Non-metrical language; the opposite of verse

Theme

The main idea, or message, of a literary work. Themes often explore timeless and universal ideas and may be implied rather than stated explicitly.

Tone

The writer's or speaker's attitude toward the subject, the audience, or herself or himself; the emotional coloring, or emotional meaning, of a work

Topic

The subject matter or area of a literary work. Not to be confused with theme.

Setting

The context in time and place in which the action of a story occurs

Symbol (literary)

Something that means more than what it is; an object, person, situation, or action that in addition to its literal meaning suggests other meanings as well, a figure of speech which may be read both literally and figuratively.

Verse

Metrical language; the opposite of prose

Voice

The distinctive style or manner of expression of an author or a character in a book

Limited omniscient point of view

The author tells the story, using the third person, but is limited to a complete knowledge of one character in the story and tells us only what that one character thinks, feels, sees, or hears.

Linear structure

A plot that follows a straight-moving, cause and effect, chronological order.

Objective point of view

The author tells the story, using the third person, but is limited to reporting what the characters say or do; the author does not interpret their behavior or tell us their private thoughts or feelings.

Omniscient point of view

The author tells the story, using the third person, knowing all and free to tell us anything, including what the characters are thinking or feeling and why they act as they do.

Narrator

The speaker or the "voice" of an oral or written work. The narrator is one of three types of characters in a given work: participant, observer, or non-participant.

Nonlinear structure

When the plot is presented in a non-causal order, with events presented in a random series jumping to and from the main plot with flashbacks or flashforwards; or in any other manner that is either not chronological or not cause and effect.

Point of View

The angle of vision from which a story is told.

Stream of consciousness

Narrative which presents the private thoughts of a character without commentary or interpretation by the author.

Unreliable narrator

A narrator whose credibility has been seriously compromised. Unreliable narrators are usually first-person narrators.

Plot

The sequence of incidents or events of which a story is composed.

Anticlimax

A sudden descent from the impressive or significant to the ludicrous or inconsequential.

Catastrophe

The concluding action of a classical tragedy containing the resolution of the plot.

Comic Relief

A humorous incident introduced into a serious literary work in order to relieve dramatic tension or heighten emotional impact.

Dilemma

A situation in which a character must choose between two courses of action, both undesirable.

Deus ex machina

The resolution of a plot by use of a highly improbable chance or coincidence.

Indeterminate ending

An ending in which the central problem or conflict is left unresolved.

Inversion

A reversal in order, nature, or effect.

Motivation

An emotion, desire, physiological need, or similar impulse that acts as an incitement to action.

Mystery

An unusual set of circumstances for which the reader craves an explanation; used to create suspense.

Paradox

A statement or situation containing apparently contradictory or incompatible elements.

Plot manipulation

A situation in which an author gives the plot a twist or turn unjustified by preceding action or by the characters involved.

Plot device

An object, character, or event whose only reason for existing is to advance the story.

Prologue

An introduction or a preface, especially a poem recited to introduce a play.

Red herring

A literary tactic of diverting attention away from an item or person of significance.

Scene

A subdivision of an act in a dramatic presentation in which the setting is fixed and the time continuous.

Suspense

That quality in a story that makes the reader eager to discover what happens next and how it will end.

Suspension of Disbelief

An unspoken agreement between writer and reader: "I agree to believe your make-believe if it entertains me."

Subplot

A plot subordinate to the main plot of a literary work.

Surprise

An unexpected turn in the development of a plot.

Comedy

A type of drama, opposed to tragedy, having usually a happy ending, and emphasizing human limitation rather than human greatness.

Escapist literature

Literature written purely for entertainment, with little or no attempt to provide insights into the true nature of human life or behavior.

Fable

A short narrative making an edifying or cautionary point and often employing animal characters that act like human beings.

Fantasy

A kind of fiction that pictures creatures or events beyond the boundaries of known reality.

Interpretive literature

Literature that provides valid insights into the nature of human life or behavior.

Myth

Any story that attempts to explain how the world was created or why the world is the way that it is.

Novel

A book of long narrative in literary prose.

Novella

A written, fictional, prose narrative longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel.

Parable

A simple story illustrating a moral or religious lesson.

Tragedy

Drama in which a noble protagonist falls to ruin during a struggle caused by a tragic flaw in his character or an error in his judgments.

Style

Apostrophe, Connotation, Denotation, Ekphrasis, Epigram, Extended figure, Figurative language, Figure of speech, Juxtaposition, Metaphor, Metonymy, Onomatopoeia.

Personification

A figure of speech in which human attributes are given to an animal, an object, or a concept

Rhythm

Any wavelike recurrence of motion or sound

Sentimentality

Unmerited or contrived tender feeling; that quality in a story that elicits or seeks to elicit tears through an oversimplification or falsification of reality

Simile

A figure of speech in which an explicit comparison is made between two things essentially unlike. The comparison is made explicit by the use of some such word or phrase as like, as, than, similar to, resembles, or seems

Synecdoche

A figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole. In this class it is subsumed under the term Metonymy

Syntax

Word organization and order. Structure

Alliteration

The repetition at close intervals of the initial consonant sounds of accented syllables or important words

Anapest

A metrical foot consisting of two unaccented syllables followed by one accented syllable

Approximate rhyme

A term used for words in a rhyming pattern that have some kind of sound correspondence but are not perfect rhymes

Assonance

The repetition at close intervals of the vowel sounds of accented syllables or important words

Ballad meter

Stanzas formed of quatrains of iambs in which the first and third lines have four stresses (tetrameter) and the second and fourth lines have three stresses (trimeter)

Blank verse

Poetry with a meter, but not rhymed, usually in iambic pentameter

Consonance

The repetition at close intervals of the final consonant sounds of accented syllables or important words

Couplet

Two successive lines, usually in the same meter, linked by rhyme

Dactyl

A metrical foot consisting of one accented syllable followed by two unaccented syllables

End rhyme

Rhymes that occur at the ends of lines

End-stopped line

A line that ends with a natural speech pause, usually marked by punctuation — the opposite of enjambment

Enjambment

Or run-on line, a line which has no natural speech pause at its end, allowing the sense to flow uninterruptedly into the succeeding line — the opposite of an end-stopped line

English (or Shakespearean) sonnet

A sonnet rhyming ababcdcdefefgg. Its content or structure ideally parallels the rhyme scheme, falling into three coordinate quatrains and a concluding couplet; but it is often structured, like the Italian sonnet, into octave and sestet, the principal break in thought coming at the end of the eighth line

Feminine rhyme

A rhyme in which the stress is on the penultimate (second from last) syllable of the words

Foot

The basic unit used in the scansion or measurement of verse. A foot usually contains one accented syllable and one or two unaccented syllables

Free verse

Nonmetrical verse. Poetry written in free verse is arranged in lines, may be more or less rhythmical, but has no fixed metrical pattern or expectation

Half rhyme

Consonance on the final consonants of the words involved

Heroic couplet

Poems constructed by a sequence of two lines of (usually rhyming) verse in iambic pentameter. If these couplets do not rhyme, they are usually separated by extra white space

Iamb

A metrical foot consisting of one unaccented syllable followed by one accented syllable