Literary Terms

Alliteration

The repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words./The repetition of initial consonant sounds in adjacent words.

Analogy

A comparison made between two items, situations, or ideas that are somewhat alike but unlike in most respects.

Antagonist

A character in a story or play who opposes the chief character or protagonist.

Archetype

A character, an action, or a situation that seems to represent common patterns of human life. Often, they include a symbol, a theme, a setting, or a character that has a common meaning within an entire culture, or even the human race./A recurring plot pattern, image, detail, or character that expresses itself in stories, dreams, or religions.

Assonance

The repetition of similar vowel sounds followed by different consonant sounds in stressed syllables or words.

Atmosphere

The mood/feeling of the literary work is created for the reader by the writer.

Blank Verse

Unrhymed iambic pentameter, a line of five feet. 

Allegory

A narrative, either in verse or prose, in which characters, actions, and sometimes setting represent abstract concepts apart from the literal meaning of the story.

Allusion

A brief reference to a person, event, or place in history, or to a work of art/literature.

Anaphora

A figure of repetition that occurs when the first word or set of words in one sentence, clause, or phrase is/are repeated at or very near the beginning of successive sentences, clauses, or phrases.

Apostrophe

A figure of speech in which a speaker directly addresses an absent person or a personified quality, object, or idea.

Aside

In drama, a few words or a short passage spoken by one character to the audience while the other actors on stage pretend their characters cannot hear the speaker’s words.

Asyndeton

The omission of conjunctions from constructions in which they would normally be used.

Ballad

A narrative poem that usually includes a repeated refrain.

Cacophony

The use of words in poetry that combine sharp, harsh, hissing, or unmelodious sounds.

Caesura

A pause within a line of poetry.

Carpe diem

Latin for “seize the day,” the name applied to a theme frequently found in lyric poetry: enjoy life’s pleasures while you are able.

Catharsis

Purification or purging of emotions (pity or fear).

Character

An imaginary person represented in a work of fiction (described as a round/flat, protagonist/antagonist, etc.)

Characterization

The method an author uses to acquaint the reader with his or her characters.

Chiasmus

A scheme in which the author introduces words or concepts in a particular order, then later repeats those terms or similar ones in reversed or backwards order. It involves taking parallelism and deliberately inverting it, creating a “crisscross” pattern.

Cliché

An expression or phrase that is overused to become trite and meaningless.

Climax

As a term of dramatic structure, the decisive or turning point in a story or play is when the action changes course and, as a result, begins to resolve itself.

Conceit

Elaborate figure of speech combining possible metaphor, simile, hyperbole, or oxymoron.

Conflict

The struggle between two opposing forces (man v. man, man v. nature, man v. self, man v. society).

Connotation

The emotional associations surrounding a word, as opposed to its literal meaning or denotation.

Couplet

A pair of rhyming lines with identical meters.

Denotation

The strict, literal meaning of a word.

Denouement

The resolution of the plot.

Dialogue

The conversation between two or more people in a literary work.