Basic Literary terms quiz 2

Parallelism

Repetition of words, phrases, or sentences that have the same grammatical structure

Personification

Special kind of metaphor in which a nonhuman thing or quality is talked about as if it were human

Persuasion

Type of writing that is aimed at persuading or convincing the reader

Plot

Series of related event that makes up a story or drama; includes the exposition, climax, and denouement

Poetry

Type of rhythmic, compressed language that uses figures of speech and imagery

Point of view

Vantage point from which the writer tells his or her story

Rhyme

Repetition of accented vowel sounds in poetry

Setting

The time and place of a story or play

Short story

Short, concentrated fictional prose narrative

Simile

A figure of speech that makes a comparison between two unlike things using “like” or “as”

Soliloquy

Applies to Shakespeare; a character speaks on the stage by himself or herself to the audience

Sonnet

A 14-line lyric poem

Speaker

The voice that is talking in a poem

Stanza

A group of consecutive lines in poem

Suspense

The uncertainty or anxiety we feel about what is going to happen next in a story

Symbol

A person, place, thing, or event that represents something else

Synecdoche

A figure of speech for when a part of something is used to symbolize the whole, e.g., “wheels” represents “car”

Theme

The central idea(s) of a work of literature

Tone

The attitude a writer takes toward his or her audience

Tragedy

Play, novel, or other narrative that depicts serious and important events in which a character comes to an unhappy end