List of Definitions Flashcards

Flashcards for literary terms and definitions.

Alliteration

The repetition of initial consonant sounds in adjacent words.

Allusion

A reference to something outside a text, such as an event or person from history, mythology, pop culture, or something else.

Assonance

The repetition of vowel sounds in adjacent words.

Caesura

A pause within a line of poetry, indicated by punctuation.

Catharsis

The cleansing or purging of emotion in or caused by a literary work.

Closed Form Poetry

Poetry that sticks to predictable patterns and structures.

Connotation

The associated feelings or ideas that a particular word evokes.

Diction

The author's choice of words; analyzed using precise adjectives to clarify the type of diction used.

Dramatic Irony

When the reader or audience member knows something that a character does not.

Dynamic Character

A character who undergoes a significant change throughout a narrative.

Enjambment

When a line of poetry continues onto the next line without any punctuation.

Epiphany

A sudden realization or discovery of the truth or meaning of things.

Flashback

A scene that interrupts the established linear narrative of a text, often introducing character backgrounds and other important details.

Foil

A character who contrasts with the protagonist, highlighting a major contrast from which we can learn about the protagonist.

Hyperbole

The use of extravagant exaggeration for a figurative effect.

Imagery

Sensory images contained in or evoked by a text; can be figurative or directly described.

In Medias Res

Latin for 'in the midst of things;' a narrative that starts in the middle of the plot as opposed to its exposition.

Juxtaposition

The act of contrasting two objects or images side by side and studying the effects of this contrast.

Metaphor

A subtle or implied comparison between two unlike things.

Narrator

The voice or persona telling a story.

Open Form Poetry

Poetry that does not follow expected or predictable patterns.

Paradox

A statement that contradicts itself, or that must be both true and untrue at the same time.

Personification

The act of giving human qualities to a non-human object, emotion, or entity.

Perspective

How narrators, characters, or speakers understand their circumstances, informed by background, personality traits, biases, and relationships.

Point of View

The perspective used in a text, which affects how a story is told.

Setting

The time and place of a story, including the historical and cultural background.

Simile

A direct comparison between two unlike things, using words like 'like,' 'as,' 'than,' or 'resembles.'

Situational Irony

When the expected action is turned on its head and the opposite happens instead.

Static Character

A character who remains unchanged throughout the course of a narrative.

Symbol

A tangible object that represents something intangible or abstract.

Syntax

The arrangement of words in a line of poetry or in a sentence of prose.

1st Person POV

The narrator is a character in the story and uses 'I' and 'my' language, showing their thoughts and feelings.

2nd Person POV

The narrator speaks directly to the reader and gives directions, with little focus on the narrator.

3rd Person Limited POV

The narrator is outside of the story but has insight into a main character, presenting their thoughts and feelings.

3rd Person Omniscient POV

The narrator is outside of the story and has insight into multiple characters' thoughts and feelings.

Archetype

A commonly used character type, which often acts as a symbol.

Dialect

A change of diction to reflect a character's particular place of origin or community of origin.

Conceit

A startling or extended metaphor that is stretched over several lines or an entire work.

Free Verse

Poems that do not have any organizational patterns.

Implied Metaphor

A metaphor that is not as directly stated as a regular metaphor.

Line

A unit of poem that the poet decides when to move onto the next line and closed form poems are often very constricting in these choices.

Meter

A pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables that makes a poem sound more rhythmic.

Rhyme

When a vowel and consonant sound is repeated in different words.

Speaker

The voice in a poem; the equivalent of a narrator in poetry.

Stanza

A group of lines in a poem.

Understatement

A remark that deliberately minimizes in a figurative way.