English Final: Literary Terms

Climax

highest point of interest or suspense in a story

Theme

central message of a story 

Dramatic irony

a contradiction between what a character thinks and what the reader or audience knows to be true

Soliloquy

 a long speech expressing the thoughts of a character alone on stage

Situational irony

an event occurs that directly contradicts the expectations of the characters, reader, or audience

Mood

the feeling created in the reader by a literary work or passage

Biography

a form of nonfiction in which a writer tells the life story of another person. 

Resolution

part of a narrative in which the plot is unraveled 

Memoir

a written account of one aspect of an author's life 

Oxymoron

 a combination of words, or parts or words, that contradict each other. 

Analogy

a comparison between two or more things that are similar in some ways but otherwise unalike

Personification

a type of figurative language in which a nonhuman subject is given human characteristics

Restatement

a statement that repeats or rephrases something previously said or written, often in a slightly different way 

Monologue

a speech in a play by one character addressed to another character or characters 

Foreshadowing

 the use in a literary work of clues that suggest events that have yet to occur 

Tone

the writer's attitude towards his or her audience and subject 

Hyperbole

a deliberate exaggeration or overstatement

Irony

a general term for literary techniques that portray differences between appearance and reality or expectation and result. 

Autobiography

a form of nonfiction in which a writer tells his or her own life story 

Parallelism

repetition of a grammatical structure in order to create a rhythm and make words memorable 

Metaphor

a figure of speech in which one thing is spoken of as though it were something else 

Fictional prose

narrative written without a metrical pattern that tells an imaginary story 

Allusion

a reference to a well-known person, place, event, literary work, or work of art

Simile

 a figure of speech in which the words like or as are used to compare two apparently dissimilar items 

Persuasive Purpose

writing or speech that attempts to convince the reader to adopt a particular opinion or course of action

Point of view

type and amount of information the writer reveals based on who is narrating it

Verbal irony

 words are used to suggest the opposite of what is meant 

Symbol

anything that stands for something else 

Rhetorical

said or asked without the intention of receiving an answer 

Contradicts

to the contrary or opposite of 

Waiflike

thin or looking unhealthy or uncared for 

Pride

be especially proud of 

Contentious

causing or likely to cause an argument: controversial 

Detached

not attached: separated 

Petty

showing or caused by meanness of spirit 

Awry

 turn or twist to ones side/away from expected direction 

Grim

stern and admitting of no appeasement or compromise