114 Literary Terms

Allegory

A prose or poetic narrative in which the characters, behavior, and even the setting demonstrates multiple levels of meaning and significance. Is a universal symbol or personified abstraction such as Death portrayed as a black

Alliteration

The sequential repetition of a similar initial sound, usually applied to consonants, usually heard in closely proximate stressed syllables. A common example is "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers." Edgar Allen Poe's famous poem "The Bells" talks about the clinging and clanging and tintinnabulation of the bells, bells, bells.

Allusion

A reference to a literary or historical event, person, or place. For example, in Jane Smiley's novel 1,000 Acres, the father figure is Larry who attempts to divide his land among three daughters à la Shakespeare's King Lear. Someone who has a great burden may refer to it as an albatross

Anapestic

A metrical foot in poetry that consists of two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed: ^^/^^/^^/^^/. Can be found in "The Night before Christmas": "Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house/ Not a creature was stirring not even a mouse."

Anaphora

The regular repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive phrases or clauses.

Anecdote

A brief story or tale told by a character in a piece of literature. For example, Chaucer's entire Canterbury Tales is a collection of anecdotes related by the Pilgrims on their journey.

Antagonist

Any force that is in opposition to the main character, or protagonist. For example, Pap is against Huck in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and the environment is an opposing force in Jack London's "To Build a Fire."

Antithesis

The juxtaposition of sharply contrasting ideas in balanced or parallel words, phrases, grammatical structure, or ideas. For example, Alexander Pope reminds us that "To err is human, to forgive divine." Ella Wheeler Wilcox's "Solitude" is a poem consisting entirely of opposites. Can best be seen in the first two lines of each stanza.

Apostrophe

An address or invocation to something that is inanimate

Archetype

Recurrent designs, patterns of action, character types, themes, or images which are identifiable in a wide range of literature; for instance, the femme fatale, that female character who is found throughout literature as the one responsible for the downfall of a significant male character.

Assonance

A repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds, usually those found in stressed syllables of close proximity. Ex: "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan..."

Asyndeton

A style in which conjunctions are omitted, usually producing a fast

Attitude

The sense expressed by the tone of voice and/or the mood of a piece of writing; the feelings the author holds toward his subject, the people in his narrative, the events, the setting, or even the theme. It might even be the feeling he holds for the reader.

Ballad

A narrative poem that is, or originally was, meant to be sung. Characterized by repetition and refrain. "Scarborough Fair" is an example. The Scots poet Robert Burns used it in many of his poems, including "Bonny Barbara Allen" and "Get Up and Bar the Door."

Ballad Stanza

A common stanza form, consisting of a quatrain (stanza of four lines) that alternates four

Blank Verse

The verse form that most resembles common speech, blank verse consists of unrhymed lines in iambic pentameter. Many of Shakespeare's plays are in this format, such as is Milton's Paradise Lost.

Caesura

A pause in a line of verse, indicated by natural speech patterns rather than due to specific metrical patterns. Pope was able to keep his heroic couplets interesting by varying the position of the pause.

Caricature

A depiction in which a character's characteristics or features are so deliberately exaggerated as to render them absurd. Political cartoons are visual caricature; writers, such as Charles Dickens, create verbal caricature

Chiasmus

A figure of speech by which the order of the terms in the first of two parallel clauses is reversed in the second. This may involve a repetition of the same words: "Pleasure's a sin, and sometimes sin's a pleasure."

Colloquial

Ordinary language, the vernacular. For example, depending upon where in the United States you live, a large sandwich might be a hero, a sub, or a hoagie.

Conceit

A comparison of two unlikely things that is drawn out within a piece of literature, in particular an extended metaphor within a poem. Might be the idea of tracing a love affair as a flow growing, budding, coming to fruiting, and dying, for example.

Connotation

What is suggested by a word, apart from what it explicitly describes, often referred to as the implied meaning of a word. For example the words awesome or sweet or gay have undergone a series of suggestive alterations in the last couple decades.

Consonance

The repetition of a sequence of two or more consonants, but with a change in the intervening vowels, such as pitter

Couplet

Two rhyming lines of iambic pentameter that together present a single idea or connection. Ex: The last two lines of all of Shakespeare's sonnets, such as XVIII, "So long as men can breathe or eyes can see/So long lives this and this gives life to see."

Dactylic

A metrical foot in poetry that consists of two stressed syllables followed by one unstressed syllable //

Denotation

A direct and specific meaning, often referred to as the dictionary meaning of a word.

Denouement

The final resolution of the main conflict in a play or story. It generally follows the climax.

Dialect

The language and speech idiosyncrasies of a specific area, region, or group of people. For example Minnesotans say "you betcha"; Southerners say "y'all."

Diction

The specific word choice an author uses to persuade or convey tone, purpose, or effect. For example, Edgar A. Poe said, "I hadn't so much forgot as I couldn't bring myself to remember." This has far more impact on the reader than his just saying "I chose not to remember."

Dramatic Monologue

A monologue set in a specific situation and spoken to an imaginary audience. Also known as soliloquy. Two speeches are "To be or to not to be" in Hamlet and "Is this a dagger I see before me" in Macbeth.

Elegy

A poetic lament upon the death of a particular person, usually ending in consolation. Perhaps the most famous one is Thomas Gray's poem "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard."

Enjambment

The continuation of a sentence from one line or couplet of a poem to the next.

Epic

A poem that celebrates, in a continuous narrative, the achievements of mighty heroes and heroines, often concerned with the founding of a nation or developing of a culture, it uses elevated language and grand, high style.

Exposition

The part of the structure that sets the scene, introduces and identifies characters, and establishes the situation at the beginning of a story or play.

Extended Metaphor

A detailed and complex metaphor that extends over a long section of a work, also known as a conceit.

Fable

A legend or a short moral story often using animals as characters. Aesop is the best

Falling Action

That part of plot structure in which the complications of the rising actions are untangled. This is also known as denouement.

Farce

A play or scene in a play or book that is characterized by broad humor, wild antics, and often slapstick and physical humor.

Flashback

Retrospection, where an earlier event is inserted into the normal chronology of the narrative. Harper Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird is written as a flashback to specific events that took place in the adult narrator's childhood.

Foreshadowing

To hint at or to present an indication of the future beforehand.

Formal Diction

Language that is lofty, dignified, and impersonal. Such diction is often used in narrative epic poetry.

Free Verse

Poetry that is characterized by varying line lengths, lack of traditional meter, and non rhyming lines.

Genre

A type or class of literature such as epic or narrative or poetry or belles lettres.

Hyperbole

Overstatement characterized by exaggerated language.

Iambic

A metrical foot in poetry that consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable:

Idyll

A short poem describing a country or pastoral scene, praising the simplicity and peace of rustic life.

Imagery

Broadly defined, any sensory detail or evocation in a work; more narrowly, the use of figurative language to evoke a feeling, to call to mind an idea, or to describe an object. Involves any or all five of the senses.

Informal Diction

Language that is not as lofty or impersonal as formal diction; similar to everyday speech.

In Medias Res

"In the midst of things:" Refers to opening a story in the middle of an action, necessitating filling in past details by exposition or flashback.

Irony

A situation or statement characterized by significant difference between what is expected or understood and what actually happens or is meant. Often humorous, and sometimes sarcastic when it uses words to imply the opposite of what they normally mean. A form of humor in which the outcome is the opposite of what was expected

Jargon

Specialized or technical language of a trade, profession, or similar group. The computer industry, for example, has introduced much jargon into our vocabulary. Words such as geek, crash, interface are all examples.

Juxtaposition

The location of one thing as being adjacent or juxtaposed with another. This placing of two items side by side creates a certain effect, reveals an attitude, or accomplishes some purpose of the writer.

Limited Point of View

A perspective confined to a single character, whether a first person or a third person; the reader cannot know for sure what is going on in the minds of other characters.

Litote

A figure of speech that emphasized its subject by conscious understatement. For example, the understated "not bad" as a comment about something especially well done.

Loose Sentence

A sentence grammatically complete and usually stating its main idea before the end. For example, "The child ran as if being chased by demons."

Lyric

Originally designated poems meant to be sung to the accompaniment of a lyre; now any short poem in which the speaker expresses intense personal emotion rather than describing a narrative or dramatic situation.

Message

A misleading term for theme; the central idea or statement of a story, or area of inquiry or explanation; misleading because it suggests a simple, packaged statement that pre

Metaphor

One thing pictured as if it were something else, suggesting a likeness or analogy between them. Does not use like or as.

Meter

The more or less regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry. This is determined by the king of "foot" and by the number of feet per line.

Metonymy

A figure of speech in which an attribute or commonly associated feature is used to name or designate something

Mood

A feeling or ambiance resulting from the tone of a piece as well as the writer/narrator's attitude and point of view. This effect is fabricated through descriptions of feelings or objects that establish a sense of fear, patriotism, sanctity, hope, etc.

Motif

A recurrent device, formula, or situation that often serves as a signal for the appearance of a character or event.

Narrative Structure

A textual organization based on sequences of connected events, usually presented in a straightforward, chronological framework.

Narrator

The character who tells the story, or in poetry, the persona.

Occasional Poem

A poem written about or for a specific occasion, public or private. An epithalamium is a wedding poem, for example.

Ode

A lyric poem that is somewhat serious in subject and treatment, is elevated in style, and sometimes uses elaborate stanza structure, which is often patterned in sets of three.

Omniscient Point of View

Also called unlimited focus: a perspective that can be seen from one character's view, then another's, then another's, or can be moved in or out of the mind of any character at any time. The reader has access to the perceptions and thoughts of all the characters in the story.

Onomatopoeia

A word capturing or approximating the sound of what it describes: Buzz, bang, smash, bing, boom.

Overstatement

Exaggerated language; also called hyperbole.

Oxymoron

A figure of speech that combines two apparently contradictory elements, sometimes resulting in a humorous image or statement: "tight slacks," "jumbo shrimp," "deafening silence," and "baggy tights" are just a few examples.

Parable

A short fiction that illustrates an explicit moral lesson through the use of analogy. Many can be found in the Bible.

Paradox

A statement that seems contradictory but may actually be true. A popular example from the 1960s was "fight for peace."

Parallel Structure

The use of similar forms in writing for nouns, verbs, phrases, or thoughts. Good writers rely on parallel structure to maintain balance and symmetry

Parody

A work that imitates another work for comic effect by exaggerating the style and changing the content of the original.

Pastoral

A work that describes the simple life of country folk, usually shepherds who live a timeless, painless life in a world full of beauty, music, and love.

Periodic Sentence

A sentence that is not grammatically complete until the end. For example, "The child, who looked as if she were being chased by demons, ran."

Persona

The voice or figure of the author who tells and structures the story and who may or may not share the values of the actual author.

Personification

Treating an abstraction or nonhuman object as if it were a person by endowing it with human qualities.

Petrachan Sonnet

Also called Italian sonnet: A sonnet form that divides the poem into one section of eight lines (octave) and a second section of six lines (sestet), usually following the abba abba cde cde rhyme scheme, though the sestet's rhyme varies.

Plot

The arrangement of the narration based on the cause

Protagonist

The main character in a work, who may or may not be heroic.

Quatrain

A poetic stanza of four lines.

Realism

The practice in literature of attempting to describe nature and life without idealization and with attention to detail. Henry James and Mark Twain are examples of authors in this school.

Refrain

A repeated stanza or line in a poem or song.

Rhetorical Question

A question that is asked simply for stylistic effect and is not expected to be answered.

Rhyme

The repetition of the same or similar sounds, most often at the ends of lines.

Rhythm

The modulation of weak and strong elements in the flow of speech.

Rising Action

The development of action in a work, usually at the beginning. The first part of plot structure.

Sarcasm

A form of verbal irony in which apparent praise is actually harshly or bitterly critical.

Satire

A literary work that holds up human failings to ridicule and censure. Johnathan Swift and George Orwell both were masters.

Scansion

The analysis of verse to show its meter.

Setting

The time and place of the action in a story, poem, or play.

Shakespearean Sonnet

Also called an English sonnet: A sonnet form that divides the poem into three units of four lines each and a final unit of two lines, usually abab cdcd efef gg.

Shaped Verse

Another name for concrete poetry: poetry that is shaped to look like an object.

Simile

A direct, explicit comparison of one thing to another, usually using the words like or as to draw the connection.

Soliloquy

A monologue in which the character in a play is alone and speaking only to himself or herself.

Speaker

The person, not necessarily the author, who is the voice of a poem.

Stanza

A section of a poem demarcated by extra line spacing. Some distinguish a stanza, a division marked by a single pattern of meter or rhyme, from a verse paragraph, a division marked by thought rather than pattern, not unlike a paragraph in prose writing. Stanzas can be identified by the number of their lines: Couplet, Tercet, Quatrain, Cinquain, Sestet, Heptatich, Octave.

Stereotype

A characterization based on conscious or unconscious assumptions that some aspect, such as gender, age, ethnic, or national identity, religion, occupation, marital status, and so on, are predictably accompanies by certain character traits, actions, even values.

Stock Character

One who appears in a number of stories or plays such as the cruel stepmother, the femme fatale, etc.