Literary Terms

Accent

Different syllables that are given more emphasis than others

Apostrophe

Figure of Speech that address someone absent, dead, or nonhuman as if it were alive

Approximate rime

Term used for words in a riming patter that have some kind of correspondence but are not perfect rimes

Absurd, Drama of

A type of drama, allied to comedy, radically non realistic in both context and presentation, that emphasizes the absurdity, emptiness, or meaninglessness of life

Allegory

A narrative or description having a second meaning beneath the surface one

Alliteration

Ex. Cats can't catch cows

Allusion

A reference, explicit or implicit, to something in previous literature of history

Anapest

un-der-stand

Anapestic Meter

A meter where most of the feet are anapests

Antagonist

Any force in a story that is in conflict with the protagonist

Artistic Unity

Condition of a successful literary work whereby all its elements work together for the achievement of its central purpose

Aside

A brief speech in which a character turns from the person being addressed to speak directly to the audience (breaks 4th wall)

Assonance

The repetition at close intervals of the vowel sounds of accented syllables or important words

Aubade

A poem about dawn

Balled

A fairly short narrative poem written in a song like stanza form

Blank Verse

Unrimed iambic pentameter

Cacophony

A harsh, discordant, unpleasant sounding choice and arrangement of sounds

Caesura

Grammatical pause or Rhetorical pause

Catharsis

Term used by Aristotle to describe some sort of emotional release experienced by the audience at the end of a successful tragedy

Chance

The occurrence of an event that has on apparent cause in antecedent events or in predisposition

Character

Any of the persons involved in a story or play

Dynamic Character

A character who during the story undergoes a permanent change in some aspect of character

Flat Character

A character whose character is summed up in one or two traits

Foil Character

A minor character whose situation or actions parallel those of a major character, and thus by contrast sets off or illuminates the major character

Round Character

A character whose character is complex and many sided

Static Character

A character who is the same sort of person at the end of a story as at the beginning

Stock Character

A stereotyped character

Chorus

A group of actors speaking or chanting in unison

Climax

The turning point or high point in a plot

Coincidence

The chance occurrence of two events having a peculiar correspondence between them

Comedy

A type of drama, opposed to tragedy, having usually a happy ending, and emphasizing human limitation rather than human greatness

Scornful Comedy

A type of comedy whose main purpose is to expose and ridicule human folly, vanity, or hypocrisy

Romantic Comedy

A type of comedy whose likable and sensible main characters are placed in difficulties from which they are rescued at the end of the play and have their happy ever after

Commercial Fiction

Fiction written to meet the taste of a wide popular audience and relying usually on tested formulas for satisfying such taste

Conflict

A clash of actions, desires, ideas, or goals in the plot of a story or drama

Connotation

What a word suggests beyond its basic definition

Consonance

The repetition at close intervals of the final consonant sounds of accented syllables or important words

Continuous Form

That form of a poem in which the lines follow each other without formal grouping, the only breaks being dictated by units of meaning

Couplet

Two successive lines, usually in the same meter, linked by rime

Dactyl

mer-ri-ly

Dactylic Meter

A meter in which a majority of the feet are dactyls

Denotation

Dictionary definition of the word

Denouncement

Portion of the plot that reveals the final outcome of its conflicts or the solution of its mysteries

Deus ex machina

The resolution of a plot by use of a highly improbable chance or coincidence

Didactic Poetry

Poetry having as a primary purpose to teach or preach

Dilemma

A situation in which a character must choose between two courses of action, both undesirable

Dipodic foot

The basic foot of dipodic verse, consisting of an unaccented syllable, a lightly accented syllable, and unaccented syllable, and a heavily accented in that succession

Dipodic Verse

A meter in which there is a perceptible alternation between light and heavy stresses

Direct Presentation of Character

The method of characterization in which the author, by exposition or analysis, tells us directly what a character is like, or has someone else in the story

Octave

Eight-line stanza; first eight lines of a sonnet

Dramatic Convention

Any dramatic device which, though it departs from reality, is implicitly accepted by the author and audience as a means of representing reality

Onomatopoeia

the use of words that supposedly mimic their meaning in their sound

Overstatement

A figure of speech in which exaggeration is used in the service of truth

Paradox

A statement or situation containing apparently contradictory or incompatible elements

Paradoxical situation

A situation containing apparently but not actually incompatible elements. like a leap year birthday

Paradoxal Statement

A figure of speech in which an apparently self-contradictory statement is never the less found to be true

Paraphrase

A restatement of the content of a poem designed to make its prose meaning as clear as possible

Pentameter

A metrical line containing five feet

Personification

A figure of speech in which human attributes are given to an animal, an object, or a concept

Petrarchan sonnet

sonnet riming abbabbaa (Italian)

Phonetic Intensive

A word whose sound, by an obscure process, to some degree suggests its meaning

playwright

Makers of plays

Plot

Sequence of incidents or events of which a story is composed

Dramatic Exposition

The presentation through dialogue of information about events that occurred before the action or a play, or that occur off stage or between the staged actions

Editorializing

Writing that departs from the narrative or dramatic mode and instructs the reader how to think or feel about the events of a story or the behavior of a character

End Rime

Rimes that occur at the ends of lines

Duple Meter

A meter in which a majority of the feet contain two syllables

Dramatization

The presentation of character or of emotion through the speech or action of characters rather than through exposition, analysis, or description by the author

Dramatic Framework

The situation whether actual or fictional realist or fanciful, in which an author places his or her characters in order to express theme

Omniscient point of view

The author tells the story, using third person, but is limited to a complete knowledge of one character in the story and tells us only what that one character thinks, feels , sees or hears

English Sonnet

A sonnet riming ababcdcdefefgg

Escape Literature

Literature written purely for entertainment with little or no attempt to provide insights into the true nature of human life or behavior

Expected Rhythm

The metrical expectation set up by the basic meter of a poem

Feminine Rime

A rime in which the repeated accented vowel is in either the second or third last syllable of the words involved

Figurative Language

Language employing figures of speech; language that cannot be taken literally or only literally

Figure of Speech

Broadly, any way of saying something other than the ordinary way/saying one thing and meaning another

First Person Point of View

Told from a character's point of view and is biased

Fixed Form

A form of poem in which the length and pattern are prescribed by previous usage or tradition

Folk Ballad

A narrative poem designed to be sung, composed by an anonymous author, and transmitted orally for years or generations before being written down

Foot

The basic unit used in the scansion or measurement of verse

Form

The external pattern or shape of a poem, describable without reference to its content

Free Verse

Poetry that doesn't have a fixed metrical pattern or expectation

Grammatical Pause

A pause introduced into the reading of a line by a mark of punctuation

Haiku

Three-line poem, Japanese in origin. Lines contain 5-7-5 syllables

Happy Ending

An ending in which events turn out well for a sympathetic protagonist

Heard Rhythm

Actual rhythm of a metrical poem as we hear it when it is read naturally

Heptameter

a line of verse consisting of seven metrical feet.

Farce

A type of drama related to comedy but emphasizing improbable situations, violent conflicts, physical action, and coarse wit over characterization or articulated plot

Fantasy

A kind of fiction that pictures creatures or events beyond the boundaries of known reality

Extended Figure

A figure of speech, sustained or developed through a considerable number of lines or through a whole poem

Falling Action

That segment of the plot that comes between the climax and the conclusion

Prose Meaning

Part of the poem's total meaning that can be separated out and expressed through paraphrase

Prose

Non-metrical language (opposite of verse)

Euphony

A smooth, pleasant-sounding choice and arrangement of sounds

Point of view

Angle of vision from which a story is told

End-Stopped line

A line that ends with a natural speech pause, usually marked by punctuation

Double Rime

A rime in which the repeated vowel is in the second last syllable of the words involved

Hyperbole

An over exaggeration

Iamb

a metrical foot consisting of one unaccented syllable followed by one accented syllable

Iambic Meter

A meter in which the majority of feet are iambs