english 9 honors vocab

active voice

a sentence that is more effective, it centers on a subject that is doing something, rather than a subject that is being acted upon

allegory

a narrative which has both a literal and a symbolic meaning. There are two types of allegory: (1) historical and political allegory, in which historical persons and events are reffered to

alliteration

repetition of an initial consonant sound in two or more words close together.

allusion

a reference to a person, place, event, or literary work that a writer expects the reader to recognize and respond to. It may be drawn from history, geography, literature, or religion.

analogy

a comparison made between two things to show the similarities between them. They are often used to explain something unfamiliar or to develop an argument.

antagonist

the character of force acting against the main character

antecedent action

everything that happens before the beginning of the story.

antithesis

the balancing of two contrasting ideas, words, phrases, or
sentences.

apostrophe

a figure of speech in which an absent or dead person, an abstract quality, or something non human is addressed directly.

argumentative essay

attempts to lead the reader to share the writer's belief, especially through the use of logic, using such devices as inductive or deductive reasoning, facts, statistics, and so on.

aside

in drama, lines spoken by a character in an undertone or directly to the audience. It is meant to be heard by the audience, but it is supposedly not heard by the other characters onstage.

assonance

the repetition of similar vowel sounds, especially in poetry. ex.

Full fathom five they father lies time ___ thou foster child of silence and slow

atmosphere

the prevailing mood, feeling, or quality of life in a story as conveyed by the author's choices of language and organization in describing the setting in which the action takes place. Atmosphere is important in determining the tone of a work.

audience

is who you are writing for. It will determine your choice of vocabulary, sentence structure, and even the kind of evidence you use to support your thesis

autobigrpahy

a person's account of his or her own life.

ballad

a story told in verse and usually meant to be sung, usually by an impersonal narrator and in a condensed form. Like epics, ballads use formulaic phrases and refrains (repeated words) to help the singer's memory. Ballads are commonly written using a ballad stanza (usually with rhyme scheme abcb).

ballad stanza

a type of four-line stanza. The first and third lines have four stressed words or syllables; the second and fourth lines have three stresses. Rhyme scheme is usually abcb.

bias

an inclination or preference that makes it impossible to judge fairly. In writing, if an audience detects bias, the author's credibility weakens.

biography

a detailed account of a person's life written by another person.

blank verse

verse written in unrhymed iambic pentameter.

ex.

If you can look into the seeds of time,
And say which grain will grow and which will not,
Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear
Your favors nor your hate.

cacophony

deliberate use of harsh, dissonant sounds.

ex.

Their clenched teeth still clench'd, and all their limbs/Locked up like veins of metal, clamped and screwed

caricature

the use of exaggeration or distortion to make a figure appear comic or ridiculous. A physical characteristic, an eccentricity, a personality trait, or an act may be exaggerated.

catharsis

a healthy release or purifying of emotions achieved through the emotions of pity and fear (forms of sympathy or empathy), which are aroused in the audience by the tragedy of a protagonist who suffers unjustly but is not wholly innocent. The protagonist's misfortune therefore inspires pity because it is worse than he or she deserves and fear because the audience sees in it their own potential errors and suffering.

cause and effect

a common strategy in argumentative essays, it is the explaining of the ‘why’ of something. Arguments based on casual relationships work in two directions. One can argue from an effect back to a cause, or one can start with a cause and argue that it will produce a particular effect

character

characters are the persons presented in works of narrative or drama
Who convey their personal qualities through dialogue and action.

characterization

the personality a character displays; also, the means by which a writer reveals that personality.

two types.

\-indirect- reveals a character's personality through dialogue and action -direct- a character's personality is revealed through a direct statement about the character telling what the writer thinks of him or her.

character foil

a character who sets off another character by contrast.

chorus

in Greek drama, the chorus is a group of actors who comment on the action in choral odes separating the play's episodes. In Elizabethan drama, chorus refers to a single character who appears as needed for narrative purposes, for instance speaking the prologue and epilogue. In modern drama, a choral character is someone within the play's action but largely aloof from it, who either views the action in a unique way (often with irony) or represents a particular type of perspective.

chorus

can also be used to refer to the refrain, meaning the repeated lines or
stanzas in a song.

chronological order

arranging events in the order in which they occurred (time order).

cliché

Cliché- all clichés were once clever sayings in which someone encapsulated an idea or feeling. Once a saying becomes overused and tiresome, it becomes cliché; therefore, although they are catchy, writers should avoid using them.

climactic order

when you are developing paragraphs for an essay, you can build from matter-of-fact observation to a grand statement. The effect is a dramatic build toward a climactic moment

climax

the point of greatest intensity, interest, or suspense in a narrative. The
climax usually marks the story's turning point.

coincidence

the chance occurrence of two events having a peculiar correspondence between them.

colloquialism

an informal expression characteristic of speech and acceptable in formal writing.

colloquial language

the casual diction of everyday speech and writing, and may even include slang. It is too informal for a formal essay.

comedy

in general, a literary work that ends happily with a healthy, amicable
armistice between the protagonist and society.

comic relief

there are often comic episodes in an otherwise tragic work. These
episodes are often referred to as comic relief, but the actual effect of these
passages is more often suspenseful or ironical.

compare and contrast

compare means to examine the similarities between two things while contrast means to examine the differences between two things

comparison

the similarities between two things.

complication

a series of difficulties forming the central action in a narrative.

conflict

a struggle between two opposing forces or characters in a short story,
novel, play, or narrative poem.

connotation

all the emotions and associations that a given word or phrase may arouse. The word springtime literally means the season between the vernal equinox and the summer solstice, but the word can make people think of such things as youth, rebirth, and innocence.

consonance

the repetition of similar consonant sounds in a group of words

contrast

the differences between two things.

couplet

two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme.

denotation

the literal or dictionary definition of a word.

denouement

the outcome of a plot

descriptive essay

events are portrayed so as to paint an image in the reader's mind. Many sensory details are used.

dialect

a variety of language belonging to a particular time, place, or social group, as, for example, an eighteenth-century cockney dialect, a New England dialect, or Robert Burns's Scottish dialect. A language other than one's own is for the most part unintelligible without study or translation; a dialect other than one's own can generally be understood, although pronunciation, vocabulary, and syntax seems strange.

dialogue

conversation between two or more characters.

diary

is distinct from an autobiography. A diary is not a unified life story written for publication

diction

a writer's choice of words, particularly for clarity, effectiveness, and precision. A writer's diction can be formal or informal, abstract or concrete, simple or ornate. A writer must think of their audience and purpose for writing when choosing "the right word."

didactic

intended for instruction; any literature that is meant to instruct or teach.

dilemma

when a character must make a choice between two equally undesirable options.

Direct presentation/characterization

a character's personality is revealed through a direct statement about the character telling what the writer thinks of him or her.

drama

is literature written either for theatre performance or in a similar style
intended for reading ("closet drama").

dramatic irony

a reader or an audience perceives something that a character in the story or play does not know.

dramatic monologue

a kind of narrative poem in which one character speaks to one listener or more whose replies are not given in the poem.

dramatic form

a drama may be a tragedy, comedy, farce, and so on. A typical form, or structure, focuses on a simple narrative outline of a protagonist, or hero, in conflict with an antagonist, or opposing character. One dramatic structure is Freytag's pyramid, a diagrammatic way of presenting the action in five units: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, denouement.

dynamic character

a character who changes as a result of the conflict of the story.

elegy

a poem of mourning, usually over the death of an individual. It may also be a lament over the passing of life and beauty or a meditation over the nature of death. It is a type of Iyric poem, usually formal in language and structure, and solemn or even melancholy in tone.

emotional appeal

is a strategy of persuasion that stirs an audience's emotions in the hope of moving people to action. Emotion can effectively be roused if the writer understands his or her audience. The writer can then tap into things such as humour, anger, sadness, patriotism, sense of justice, etc.

epic

a long narrative poem telling about the deeds of a great hero and
reflecting the values of the society from which it originated.

epilogue

a short addition or conclusion at the end of a literary work.

epiphany

a moment of significant realization or illumination experienced by the
protagonist, usually occurring at or near the end of a work.

epigram

a short, witty, pointed statement often in the form of a poem.

epitaph

an inscription on a gravestone or a short poem written in memory of someone who has died. Many epitaphs are actually epigrams, short witty sayings.

euphony

the opposite of cacophony. Means melodious sound. Euphony results from smooth-flowing meter or sentence rhythm as well as sounds with an emphasis on vowels and liquid consonants and semi-vowels (l,m,n,r,w,y) as opposed to harsher sounds of stops (b,d,g,k,p,t) and fricatives (f,s,v,z)

exposition

that part of a narrative or drama in which important background information is revealed

expository essay

is explanatory writing. Most essays require some element of exposition, and such strategies as cause and effect, compare and contrast, definition, and logic, etc. all contribute in the necessary explaining of something.

extended metaphor

a metaphor that extends throughout a poem or literary work.

external conflict

conflicts that arise from outside of the character (character
VS. character, character vs. environment, and character vs. society).

fable

a brief story that is told to present a moral, or practical lesson. The
characters of fables are often animals who speak and act like human beings.

falling action

action fallows the climax

fantasy

a fantasy transcends the bounds of known reality. It conjures up a strange and marvelous world, which one enters by falling down a rabbit hole or climbing up a beanstalk. Fables, ghost stories, science fiction are types of fantasy.

figurative language

language that is not intended to be interpreted in a literal sense. It consists of such figures of speech as hyperbole, metaphor, metonymy, oxymoron, personification, simile, and synecdoche.

first person point of view

the story is told by one of the characters in his, her, or their own words. The first-person point of view is limited, since the reader is told only what this character knows and observes.

flashback

a scene in a short story, novel, play, or narrative poem that interrupts the action to show an event that happened earlier. Often a flashback takes the form of a character's recollection.

flat character

when the reader is shown only one side of a character's
personality.

foil

a character who sets off another character by contrast. In Macbeth, Banquo is a foil for Macbeth. Banquo is present when the Witches deliver their prophecy to Macbeth, and he is told that his descendants will be kings. Yet. unlike Macbeth, his ambitions are not stirred and he remains loyal to the king.

foreshadowing

the use of hints or clues in a narrative to suggest what will
happen later. Writers use foreshadowing to create interest and build suspense.

formal essay

an essay dealing seriously with a subject, characterized by careful organization and formal diction and sentence structure. Many essays on literature are formal, keeping the focus on the literature discussed rather than on the writer's personal response.

formal language

refers to level of language. Much academic writing is formal. It is serious and carefully organized. There are no contractions, no colloquialisms; sentences are complete and paragraphs are well-developed. First person point of view is generally not used.

frame story

the result of inserting one or more small stories within the body of
a larger story that encompasses the smaller ones.

free verse

verse that has either no metrical pattern or an irregular pattern, relying upon the natural speech rhythms of the language. Although most free verse belongs to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it can be found in earlier literature

genre

is a particular type of literature, a literary form. The major classical genres were epic or narrative (combining a first person narrator with dialogue by characters), lyric (spoken entirely by a first person narrator), and drama (spoken entirely by characters).

graphic text

a work told in pictures; it may be based on drawings, paintings, Photographs, etchings, and so on. Reading the visual text of the work becomes as important as the written text. The graphic novel Maus: A Survivor's Tale by Art Spiegelman, an exploration of Nazi Germany and the holocaust, is told in comic strip style.

hero or heroine

is, in classical mythology, a person of superhuman powers, sometimes a demigod, perhaps attaining immortality. Later the term came to mean a brave leader or a person of great physical or moral strength, a sense it often still carries today. Used in reference to literature today, the term can simply mean the "leading character," carrying with it no sense of superiority to others.

hyperbole

a figure of speech using exaggeration, or overstatement, for special effect. Shakespeare uses hyperbole in these lines from Macbeth: Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood/Clean from my hand?

idiom

an expression peculiar to a language, not literally translatable. For
example, "It's raining cats and dogs," "My nose is running," or "Let's do lunch."

image

Words or phrases that create pictures, or images, in the reader's mind. Images are primarily visual, as in these lines from William Wordsworth's Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey":

Once again I see
These hedgerows, hardly hedgerows, little lines
Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms,
Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke
Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!

imagery

Words or phrases that create pictures, or images, in the reader's mind. Images are primarily visual, as in these lines from William Wordsworth's Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey":

Once again I see These hedgerows, hardly hedgerows, little lines Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms, Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!

inciting incident

the event that starts the conflict in the story.

indeterminate ending

a plot term for an ending in which no definitive conclusion is reached. The story does not simply stop, but the conclusion need not be in terms of a resolved conflict, a tidy finish. A story may be much more effective without a resolution as it may force the reader to ponder the possibilities.

indirect presentation - see characterization

Authors present their characters either directly or indirectly. In indirect presentation, the authors show us the characters in action; we infer what they like from what they think or say or do This is an effective way of dramatizing a character as readers are more likely to believe a character is, say, greedy, if they see the character behaving in a selfish manner.

informal essay

a level of language that is usually less serious in tone and purpose than formal expression. It may have colloquialism, jargon, slang, contractions, and conversational tone, and so on.

informal language

a level of language that is usually less serious in tone and purpose than formal expression. It may have colloquialism, jargon, slang, contractions, and conversational tone, and so on.

internal conflict

it is the conflict arising from within a character's consciousness. It may arise from the character's moral conscience, a dilemma, a desire to conform, peer pressure, an opposition of ideas, fear, and so on.

internal rhyme

rhyme within a line, rather than at the beginning (initial rhyme)
and end (end rhyme). An example is "the wedding guest here beat his breast.