LITERARY TERMS ENGLISH 11

Character

A person (sometimes a group of people, an animal, or a physical force) invented by an author who has an impact on the outcome of the story. Character motivation must be consistent; the character must be convincing and lifelike.

Protagonist

The hero, chief character, or force in the work which the reader wants to succeed

Antagonist

A force or character opposing the protagonist who tries to stop the protagonist from reaching their desired goal.

Foil

A character who serves by contrast to emphasize qualities of another character.

Conflict

The relationship between the protagonist and antagonist. The conflict can be threefold:1(conflict between individuals), 2 between the character and circumstances intervening between him and goal he has set for himself, and 3 conflict of opposing tendencies within a single individual’s mind.

Man vs. Man

One character in the story has a problem with one or more of the other characters.

Man vs. Society

A character has a conflict or problem with some element of society—the school, the law, the accepted way of doing things, and so on.

Man vs. Himself

A character has trouble deciding what to do in a particular situation.

Man vs. Nature

A character has a problem with some natural happening: A snowstorm, an avalanche, a bitter cold, or any of the other elements common to nature.

Man vs. Fate

A character has to battle what seems to be an uncontrollable problem. Whatever the problem seems to be a strange or unbelievable coincidence, fate can be considered the cause of the conflict

Plot( Unity of Actions )

The plot has unity of it is a single, complete, and ordered action in which none of the parts are necessary. The parts are so closely connected that without one of the parts the work would be disjointed.

Plot

A system of actions in a purposeful sequence represented in the work. Aristotle defines plot as that which has a beginning, middle, and end.

Exposition

Background information on the characters, setting, and situation, usually found at the beginning of the story.

Rising Action

Begins when the conflict between the Protagonist and Antagonist is set in motion and ends with the climax.

Climax

The turning point or moment of highest intensity in the work when either the protagonist or antagonist must succeed.

Falling Action (Denoument)

The action which works out the deck made in the climax— the story unravels.

Resolution

the portion of the play or story where the problem is solved, providing closure.

Suspense

An anxious uncertainty about what is going to happen to characters with whom the reader has established bonds of sympathy.

Surprise

Surprise occurs when the events that occur in a literary work violate the expectations we have formed. The interplay between suspense and surprise is a prime source of the power of plot.

Intrigue

A scheme set up by a character which depends for its success on the ignorance of the person(s) against whom it is directed.

Flashback

The writer interrupts the chronological sequence of the story to relate an incident which occurred prior to the beginning of the story.

Foreshadowing

A writer’s use of hints or clues to indicate events that will occur later in the story. The use of this technique both creates suspense and prepares the reader for what is to come.

Tone

The author’s attitude toward his subject matter. The tone might be solemn, formal, playful, or serious; It is created through word choice and sentence structure.

Mood

It is the feeling a piece of literature of evokes in the reader I’m talking. Happy, sad, peaceful, etc.

Atmosphere

Created by the tone pervading the literary work, atmosphere shapes the reader’s expectations about the plot (whether the events will be happy sad disastrous, etc).

Stream of Consciousness

A style of writing in which the thoughts and feelings of the writer are recorded as they occur.

Verisimilitude

An illusion of reality created in a fictional work.

Point of View

The outlook from which the events in a work are told.

Omniscient Narrator

The third person narrator is all knowing and relates the thoughts, feelings and motivations of all the characters.

Limited Omniscient Narrator

The third person narrator relates the thoughts and feelings of only one character.

First Person Narrator

A character, often the protagonist, narrates the story in the first person.

Objective Narrator(detached observer)

The third person narrator sees and records, the information from a neutral or unemotional viewpoint.

Setting

The time and place in which the action of a literary work occurs.

Local Color

The use of details which are characteristic of a certain region or section of the country.

Theme

It is a statement about life or universal truth that particular work is trying to get across to the reader. In stories written for children, the theme is often spelled out clearly at the end when the author says, “…and so, the moral of the story is”.

Motif

It is a term for an often-repeated character, incident, idea, or image, im literature that is used to convey themes.

Ambiguity

The deliberate use of a word or expression to convey two or more diverse attitudes or feelings.

Nonfiction

A form of writing that is based on fact, in reality; it is not created in the mind of the writer.

Truth

Truth is that which confirms to fact and reality. Truth may be either objective or subjective depending upon the person’s point of view.

Objective Truth

The author presents situations or the characters’ thoughts, feelings, and actions in a detached, noncommittal manner.

Subjective Truth

The author incorporates personal experiences into his writing or projects into the narrative his personal disposition, judgments, values, and feelings.

Bias

When an author prejudices the audience in favor of one side of an issue by not covering the topic fairly. Bias should be avoided in non-fiction writing

Theme

The idea, universal truth, or commentary on life or people emphasize by literary work.

Exposition

Writing intended to make clear or explain something which might otherwise be difficult to understand.

Point of View

Relative position or angle from which a thing is seen or a question is considered.

Tone

The feeling conveyed by the author’s attitude toward his subject and by the particular way in which he writes about it.

Voice

A term used in a discussion of style to identify the person or personality speaking in a literary work.

Analogy

A comparison of two or more similar objects which suggest that if they are alike in certain respects, they will probably be like in other ways as well.

Generalization

A general principle or conclusion which is drawn from an examination of details.

Autobiography

An account of a person‘s life written by himself.

Biography

An account of a person’s life written by someone else.

Diary

A personal, daily account of an individual’s experiences and feelings.

Documentary

An authoritative and artistic (usually film) presentation which depicts the facts about an event or social, historical or cultural phenomenon.

Essay

A fairly short non-fiction selection in which the author expresses his thoughts and feelings on any subject he chooses to discuss.

Formal Essay

A relatively impersonal essay in which the author writes as an authority and expounds on the subject in an orderly way.

Personal Essay

The author assumes a tone of intimacy with his audience, tends to deal with every day things rather than with public affairs or specialized topics, and writes in a relaxed, self revelatory, and often whimsical fashion.

History

A recording of past events, persons and places.

Journal

A record of experiences, ideas or reflections kept regularly for private use.

Journalism

Journalism records and presents topics of current interest to the public through news media; journalists present facts and describe situations without attempting to interpret them.

News Story

It is a factual recording of current events, persons and places and appears in the newspaper or magazine; it answers the questions, “Who? What? When? Why? Where? How?”

Editorial

An article in a newspaper or magazine that gives the editor’s or author’s point of view.

Memoir

Taken from a private diary or journal, it is the day-to-day record of events in a person’s life, written for personal use and pleasure. It tells the story of the people and events that the author has known or witnessed.

Figure of Speech

An expression in which the words are used in a non-literal sense to present a figure, picture or image.

Allusion

A reference to some person, place or event that has literary, historical or geographical significance.

Antithesis

Opposing words or ideas written in grammatical parallels.

Apostrophe

Addressing someone (dead) or something (an idea), not present, as though present.

Conceit

A far-fetched and ingenuous comparison between two unlike things.

Hyperbole (Overstatement)

An exaggeration for the sake of emphasis which is not to be taken literally.

Litotes

An understatement conveyed by stating the opposite of what one means or by stating a fact in the negative.

Metaphor

An implied comparison between two usually unrelated things that suggest one thing is the other, a linking verb is often used to connect the ideas.

Metonymy

The substitution of a word naming an object for another word closely associated with it.

Onomatopoeia

The use of a word to represent or imitate natural sounds.

Paradox

A statement, often metaphorical, that seems to be self-contradictory but has valid meaning.

Personification

The giving of human characteristics to inanimate objects, ideas, or animals.

Pun

A play on words that are identical or similar but have diverse meanings.

Simile

A different comparison between two usually unrelated things using like or as.

Oxymoron

A type of paradox in which two linked words contradict each other (e.g., jumbo-shrimp).

Symbol

A word or image that signifies something other than what is literally represented; it has both a literal and figurative meaning.

Synecdoche

A substitution in which a part is used to represent the whole.

Understatement

Saying less than one means or saying what one means with less force than the occasion warrants.

Ballad

A narrative poem which tells a story, frequently in four-lines stanzas.

Folk

A sung ballad of unknown origin which is part of oral tradition.

Literary

A ballad by known author who imitates the folk ballad style.

Elegy

A poem that deals with the subject of death.

Fable

A short tale that teaches a moral lesson in which the characters (are usually, but not always) animals with human qualities and speech.

Lyric

Any short, musical poem which expresses the poet’s clearly revealed thoughts and feelings.

Ode

A lyric poem written in elevated tone about a serious topic.

Pastoral

A poem that idealizes rural living and nature.

Fixed Form

A traditional pattern that applies to a whole poem.

Haiku

It is a three-line Japanese poem, usually about nature. The first line has five syllables, the second line has seven syllables, and the third line has five syllables.

Limerick

A five-line nonsense poem with anapestic meter.

Sestina

A sestina is composed of six six-line stanzas followed by a tercet (three-line stanza). The end words used in each line of the first stanza repeat in a rolling pattern in the following stanzas; these same words are used two-to-a-line in the tercet.

Elizabethan Sonnet (English or Shakespearean)

Structure: Fourteen lines. Iambic pentameter

Three quatrains. One couplet

Rhyme scheme: ababcdcdefefgg

Usually a question or theme is posed in the quatrains and answered or resolved in the couplet.

Italian Sonnet (Petrarchan)

Structure: Fourteen lines, iambic pentameter

Octave and sestet

Ryhme scheme: abbaabbacdcdcd or abbaabbacdecde

Often a question is raised in the octave and answered in the sestet.

Villanelle

It consist of five tercet an and a quatrain rhyming “aba” (with a variation in the quadrant). The first and third lines of the first tercet alternate as their final lines of the other stanzas; these lines are again repeated as the final two lines of the poem.

Drama

1. A form of literature consisting of plays.

2. A serious play which focuses on the main character’s relationship to society rather than some tragic flaw in his personality.

Act

An act is a major division of the action of a play. Earlier plays were frequently divided into five acts. Modern players are commonly divided into three acts.

Scene

Within acts, another division frequently occurs when there is a change of time or setting. These divisions are called scenes.

Three Unities

Unity of action, unity of place, and unity of time.

Plot

The system of action organized in terms of the play’s beginning, middle and end.