Lit/Comp 9 Vocabulary

Allegory

A symbolic story

Allusion

Reference to something in literature, history, or religion (outside the text; a traditional reference would be inside the text)

Anaphora

A figure of speech in which words repeat at the beginning of successive clauses, phrases, or sentences.

Apostrophe

An address to an unseen person or an inanimate object. Elegies and odes frequently use this.

Characterization

An author’s representation of the personality of a character

Direct: Stated
e.g. Dr. Evil is mean.

Indirect: demonstrated through appearance, speech, and/or actions
e.g. A disfigured Dr. Evil fed his enemies to the piranhas, cackling maniacally as he stroked a hairless cat. 

Clincher

The purposeful final 1-2 sentences of a text that give cohesion to the text by referencing earlier ideas or words. 

Diction

Word choice

Denotation- The dictionary definition of a word
Connotation- The thoughts and feelings associated with a word
e.g. house vs. home

Enjambment

Purposeful division of a sentence across two lines of a poem. This “pregnant pause” is space for multiple, sometimes unexpected meanings to occur.

Epic

Long narrative poem that features a hero who embodies the values of his/her society.

Figurative Language

Simile, metaphor, personification

Foil

A character mainly similar to a primary character, whose key difference reveals an important personality trait of the primary character

Humor

Three tools of humor:

• Irony

• Understatement (saying less than what you mean)

• Hyperbole (saying more than what you mean, exaggeration)

Imagery

Descriptions that appeal to your five senses. Sensory details.

Irony

A contradiction between appearance and reality or between expectation and reality.

Verbal Irony

When you say one thing and mean the opposite.  Sarcasm is form of this that has a wounding intent/hurtful tone.

Situational Irony

The outcome of a situation is opposite to what you would expect, e.g. police chief’s son is a mafia boss

Dramatic Irony

Audience is aware of a contradiction that the characters are not, e.g. Odysseus’ wife telling a disguised Odysseus that she wished he were there.

Meter

The rhythmic pattern in a poem

Metonymy

Object associated with a thing represents the thing e.g. The White House, which  is associated with the president, represents the president

Compare to synecdoche.

Moment-Movement-Meaning

Concrete moment -> moves by virtue of the effect of stylistic devices -> Deeper meaning

Mood

The general atmosphere of a work
e.g. Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” has a macabre (creepy fascination with death) mood. 

Compare to “tone.”

Motif

Repeating image, object or idea

Onomatopoeia

Words evoke the actual sound of the thing they refer to or describe
e.g. “zoom”

Narrative Structure

The order in which events are told. Telling events in an order different from the one in which they happen can build suspense or a sense of mystery.

Plot Structure

The order in which events happen:
Exposition, conflict, rising action, climax, resolution

• Five types of conflict- person v. self (internal); person v. person, society, nature, supernatural

• Climax- highest point of tension; turning point towards resolution

• Resolution- Open (conflict not resolved); Closed (conflict is resolved)

Paradox

A seeming contradiction that reveals a truth (compare to irony)

Oxymoron is a two-word paradox
e.g. jumbo shrimp

Parallelism

A figure of speech in which two or more elements of a sentence have the same grammatical structure
e.g. Their daughter loved playing chess, video games and soccer.

Antithesis

A figure of speech that juxtaposes two contrasting ideas in a parallel structure
e.g. To err is human; to forgive is divine. 

Poetry

A literary work that uses condensed, multidimensional language, rich with stylistic devices to communicate experience with heightened intensity.
This is typically organized into stanzas.

Lyric poetry

Communicates the emotions of a speaker
e.g. sonnet, haiku

Sonnet (lyric poetry)

14-line lyric poem with quatrains and a rhyming couplet or with an octave and a sestet. It has a volta (turn) in the poem. 

Elegy (lyric poetry)

Commemorates a person who has died.

Ode

Addresses (talks to) a subject in a praising way

Narrative poetry

Tells a story
e.g. ballads and epics

Point of view

1st- I, Me
2nd- You
3rd- He, She, They, It

Pun

A play on words that sound alike (son, sun) or a play on the multiple meanings of a word (light [weight, illumination])

Rhetorical Device

Rhetoric is persuasive speech.

These are tools that help convince the audience of a particular idea.

Rhetorical Triangle

A visual representation of how persuasive speech is accomplished through the interaction of speaker, message, and audience.

Rhyme

• _______ scheme

• Exact rhyme

• Near/slant rhyme

Satire

Using humor to urge correction of a problem in society or in an individual.

Sensationalism

The use of shocking or exciting language at the expense of accuracy to provoke public interest.

Setting

The time and place in which the text occurs.

Sound Devices

• Alliteration

• Assonance

• Consonance

Structure

Poetic

• Fixed Form: the meter and rhyme scheme have a prescribed pattern, e.g. sonnet, haiku, limerick

• Free Form (aka Free Verse): poetry that does not use a fixed meter or rhyme scheme

Symbol

A concrete object that represents itself and an abstract idea at the same time.
e.g.The American Eagle is a symbol of freedom and strength.

Synedoche

A part of something is used to refer to the whole
e.g. The captain commands 1000 sails.

Compare to metonymy.

Syntax

Sentence Structure (long, short, subject-verb-direct object, inverted)

Tone

The author’s or speaker’s attitude toward a subject. Poe’s “Raven” has a tone of mournful longing.

Tragedy

A story in which a person of high or noble standing suffers a downfall as the result of one or more of the following reasons: an error in judgment, a character flaw (e.g. tragic flaw); or fate. The audience experiences catharsis (a cleansing of anger, fear, frustration at seeing this downfall. They may also feel empathy in recognizing similar characteristics and actions within themselves.) This catharsis highlights that a just order has been re-established.

Turning Point

The event that sparks change or growth in a character/person.
Consider the initiation and culmination (emphasis here) of the turning point.

Voice/Style

The personality that comes through a piece of writing.

Zeugma

A literary term for using one word to modify two other words, in two different ways.
e.g. “She wrecked his car and his heart.”