lit terms

Allegory

story or poem in which characters, settings, and events stand for other

people or events or for abstract ideas or qualities

Alliteration

repetition of the same or similar consonant sounds in words that are close together.

Allusion

reference to someone or something that is known from history, literature,

religion, politics, sports, science, or another branch of culture.

Ambiguity

deliberately suggesting two or more different, and sometimes conflicting,

meanings in a work.

Analogy

Comparison made between two things to show how they are alike

Anaphora

Repetition of a word, phrase, or clause at the beginning of two or more

sentences in a row.

Anastrophe

Inversion of the usual, normal, or logical order of the parts of a

sentence.

Anecdote

Brief story, told to illustrate a point or serve as an example of something,

often shows character of an individual

Antagonist

Opponent who struggles against or blocks the hero, or protagonist, in a

story.

Antimetabole

Balancing words, phrases, or ideas that are strongly contrasted, often by

means of grammatical structure.

Antithesis

Balancing words, phrases, or ideas that are strongly contrasted, often by

means of grammatical structure.

Antihero

Central character who lacks all the qualities traditionally associated with

heroes. may lack courage, grace, intelligence, or moral scruples.

Anthropomorphism

attributing human characteristics to an animal or inanimate

object

Aphorism

brief, cleverly worded statement that makes a wise observation about life,

or of a principle or accepted general truth.

Apostrophe

calling out to an imaginary, dead, or absent person, or to a place or

thing, or a personified abstract idea.

Apposition

Placing in immediately succeeding order of two or more coordinate

elements, the latter of which is an explanation, qualification, or modification of the first

Assonance

the repetition of similar vowel sounds followed by different consonant

sounds especially in words that are together.

Asyndeton

Commas used without conjunction to separate a series of words, thus

emphasizing the parts equally

Balance

Constructing a sentence so that both halves are about the same length and

importance.

Characterization

the process by which the writer reveals the personality of a

character.

Chiasmus

is a word or phrase, often a figure of speech, that has become lifeless because

of overuse.

Cliche

is a word or phrase, often a figure of speech, that has become lifeless because

of overuse.

Colloquialism

a word or phrase in everyday use in conversation and informal

writing but is inappropriate for formal situations.

Comedy

in general, a story that ends with a happy resolution of the conflicts faced by

the main character or characters.

Conceit

an elaborate metaphor that compares two things that are startlingly different.

Often an extended metaphor.

Confessional Poetry

a twentieth century term used to describe poetry that uses

intimate material from the poet's life.

Conflict

the struggle between opposing forces or characters in a story.

Connotation

the associations and emotional overtones that have become attached

to a word or phrase, in addition to its strict dictionary definition.

Couplet

two consecutive rhyming lines of poetry.

Dialect

a way of speaking that is characteristic of a certain social group or of the

inhabitants of a certain geographical area.

Diction

a speaker or writer's choice of words.

Didactic

form of fiction or nonfiction that teaches a specific lesson or moral or

provides a model of correct behavior or thinking.

Elegy

a poem of mourning, usually about someone who has died.

Epanalepsis

device of repetition in which the same expression (single word or

phrase) is repeated both at the beginning and at the end of the line, clause, or sentence.

Epic

a long narrative poem, written in heightened language , which recounts the deeds

of a heroic character who embodies the values of a particular society.

Epigraph

a quotation or aphorism at the beginning of a literary work suggestive of

the theme.

Epistrophe

Device of repetition in which the same expression phrase is repeated at the end of two or more lines, clauses, or sentences

Epithet

an adjective or adjective phrase applied to a person or thing that is frequently

used to emphasize a characteristic quality.

Essay

a short piece of nonfiction prose in which the writer discusses some aspect of a

subject.

Explication

act of interpreting or discovering the meaning of a text, usually

involves close reading and special attention to figurative language.

Fable

a very short story told in prose or poetry that teaches a practical lesson about

how to succeed in life.

Farce

a type of comedy in which ridiculous and often stereotyped characters are

involved in silly, far-fetched situations.

Figurative Language

Words which are inaccurate if interpreted literally, but

are used to describe.

Flashback

a scene that interrupts the normal chronological sequence of events in a

story to depict something that happened at an earlier time.

Foil

A character who acts as contrast to another character. Often a funny side kick to

the dashing hero, or a villain contrasting the hero.

Foreshadowing

the use of hints and clues to suggest what will happen later in a

plot.

Free Verse

poetry that does not conform to a regular meter or rhyme scheme.

Hyperbole

a figure of speech that uses an incredible exaggeration or overstatement,

for effect.

Hypotactic

sentence marked by the use of connecting words between clauses or

sentences, explicitly showing the logical or other relationships between them.

Imagery

the use of language to evoke a picture or a concrete sensation of a person ,

a thing, a place, or an experience.

Inversion

the reversal of the normal word order in a sentence or phrase.

Irony

a discrepancy between appearances and reality.

Juxtaposition

poetic and rhetorical device in which normally unassociated ideas,

words, or phrases are placed next to one another, creating an effect of surprise and wit.

Litotes

a form of understatement in which the positive form is emphasized through

the negation of a negative form:

Local Color

a term applied to fiction or poetry which tends to place special

emphasis on a particular setting, including its customs, clothing, dialect and landscape.