An Awesome Compendium of Literary Terms

Practice flashcards in fill-in-the-blank style covering literary terms 25 through 52 from the compendium.

The author's feelings toward the topic being written about, often used interchangeably with "tone" and revealed through word choice, is known as __________.

attitude

A morning love song (as opposed to an evening serenade) or a poem about lovers separating at dawn is called an __________.

aubade

A ballad is a folk song or poem passed down orally that tells a story, usually composed in four-line stanzas (quatrains) with the rhyme scheme __________.

abcb

A folk song or poem passed down orally that tells a story, often containing a refrain and derived from folklore or legend, is a __________.

ballad

A coming of age novel whose principal subject is the moral, psychological, and intellectual development of a youthful main character is called a __________.

bildungsroman

The term bildungsroman is derived from the German word "bildung" meaning education and "roman" meaning __________.

novel

Unrhymed poetry written in __________ (five feet of two syllables each—unstressed and stressed) is blank verse.

iambic pentameter

Harsh, discordant sounds that are unpleasant to the ear and used by poets for effect are known as __________.

cacophony

A pause occurring within a line of poetry is referred to as a __________.

caesura

The Latin phrase __________ translates to "seize the day" and was a frequent concept in 16th and 17th century court poetry.

carpe diem

Robert Herrick's lines "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may/ Old time is still a-flying" from "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time" exemplify the concept of __________.

carpe diem

In his Poetics, Aristotle wrote that tragedy should arouse pity and fear in order to accomplish an emotional cleansing or feeling of relief known as __________.

catharsis

In characterization, when a character's traits are revealed through action and speech rather than direct authorial description, it is called __________ presentation.

indirect

The technique of inverting the second of two phrases that would otherwise be in parallel form (such as "Never let a fool kiss you or a kiss fool you") is called __________.

chiasmus

The term chiasmus comes from the Greek word meaning __________, referring to its criss-cross structure.

crossed

Words or phrases of or relating to slang or regional dialect, used in familiar everyday conversation, are described as __________.

colloquial

A far-fetched comparison between two seemingly unlike things, such as John Donne comparing lovers to a mathematical compass in "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning," is a __________.

conceit

While denotation is the dictionary meaning of a word, the feelings or associations a word calls to mind are known as its __________.

connotation

The repetition of the same consonant sound with different vowel sounds (e.g., "work, stack, ark, belong, among") is called __________.

consonance

Two successive rhyming lines of the same number of syllables, with matching cadence, form a __________.

couplet

A poetic foot with three syllables consisting of one stressed and two short or unstressed syllables (resembling waltz rhythm) is a __________.

dactyl

The dictionary or literal meaning of a word or phrase is its __________.

denotation

The outcome or clarification at the end of a story or play, marking the winding down from climax to ending, is the __________.

denouement

When the gods intervene at a story's end to resolve a seemingly impossible conflict, or when an improbable coincidence resolves a plot, it is known as __________.

deus ex machina

The deliberate choice of a style of language (such as formal, informal, or colloquial) for a desired effect or tone is called __________.

diction

A story, speech, essay, or play in which the author's primary purpose is to instruct, teach, or moralize is termed __________.

didactic

An exaggeration or stretching of the truth to achieve a desired effect, such as Gregor Samsa waking up as a vermin in Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis, is called __________.

distortion

A type of literature, often a poem or song, that expresses sorrow or lamentation usually for someone who has died is an __________.

elegy

The elegy stemmed from a Greek work known as an "elegus," which was a song of mourning accompanied by the __________.

flute

In poetry, the running over of a sentence from one verse or stanza into the next without stopping at the end of the first is called __________.

enjambment

A short, clever poem with a witty turn of thought, or a pithy saying expressing an idea in an amusing way, is an __________.

epigram