Literary Terms

0.0(0)
studied byStudied by 22 people
learnLearn
examPractice Test
spaced repetitionSpaced Repetition
heart puzzleMatch
flashcardsFlashcards
Card Sorting

1/123

encourage image

There's no tags or description

Looks like no tags are added yet.

Study Analytics
Name
Mastery
Learn
Test
Matching
Spaced

No study sessions yet.

124 Terms

1
New cards

Allegory

A literary work that portrays abstract ideas concretely.

2
New cards

Alliteration

Repetition of the same initial consonant sounds in a sequence.

3
New cards

Anachronism

An error of chronology or timeline in a literary piece.

4
New cards

Anagnorisis

The startling discovery that produces a change from ignorance to knowledge.

5
New cards

Anapestic

A metrical foot consisting of two unaccented syllables followed by an accented syllable.

6
New cards

Antithesis

A person or thing that is the direct opposite of someone or something else.

7
New cards

Aphorism

A pithy observation that contains a general truth.

8
New cards

Adage

A short, memorable saying based on facts and considered a veritable truth.

9
New cards

Allusion

A reference to another work of literature, art, history, or current events.

10
New cards

Anaphora

Repetition of an initial word or words to add emphasis.

11
New cards

Antagonist

Character who opposes the protagonist and creates or intensifies a conflict.

12
New cards

Apostrophe

A direct address to an abstraction, thing, animal, or absent person.

13
New cards

Archetypal hero

A hero in literature who possesses great qualities and overcomes obstacles.

14
New cards

Archetype

A very typical example of a certain person or thing; universal recurrent symbol or motif.

15
New cards

Aside

A dramatic device in which a character speaks to the audience.

16
New cards

Assonance

Repetition of vowel sounds in a sequence of words.

17
New cards

Ballad

A sung poem that recounts a dramatic story.

18
New cards

Bathos

An effect of anticlimax created by a shift from the sublime to the trivial or ridiculous.

19
New cards

Biblical Free Verse

Biblical poetry without a rhyme scheme or consistent metrical pattern.

20
New cards

Blank Verse

Unrhymed iambic pentameter, closest to natural patterns of speaking in English.

21
New cards

Bombastic

Pretentious, exaggeratedly learned language.

22
New cards

Cacophony

A combination of words or phrases that sound harsh and unpleasant.

23
New cards

Cadence

Quality of spoken text formed from combining rhythm and inflection.

24
New cards

Caesura

A pause within a line of poetry, often mirroring natural speech.

25
New cards

Carpe Diem

A theme meaning 'seize the day' and enjoy the present.

26
New cards

Catastrophe

The action at the end of a tragedy that initiates the falling action.

27
New cards

Catharsis

The emotional release felt by the audience at the end of a tragic drama.

28
New cards

Climax

The point in a story when the conflict reaches its highest intensity.

29
New cards

Comedy

A dramatic work with a light, amusing plot and a happy ending.

30
New cards

Comedy of Manners

A satiric dramatic form that lampoons social conventions.

31
New cards

Conceit

A metaphor that compares two very unlike things in a surprising and clever way.

32
New cards

Conflict

The tension, opposition, or struggle that drives a plot.

33
New cards

Connotation

Meanings or associations readers have with a word beyond its dictionary definition.

34
New cards

Consonance

Identical final consonant sounds in nearby words with different vowel sounds.

35
New cards

Couplet

A two-line, rhyming stanza.

36
New cards

Dactylic Foot

A stressed syllable followed by two unstressed ones.

37
New cards

Denotation

The literal definition of a word.

38
New cards

Denouement

The phase of a story's plot where the conflict has been resolved.

39
New cards

Deus ex Machina

A god who resolves the entanglements of a play by supernatural intervention.

40
New cards

Dirge

A brief hymn or song of lamentation and grief, typically performed at a funeral.

41
New cards

Doggerel

A low, loosely constructed form of verse often used for comedy and satire.

42
New cards

Double Entendre

A phrase or figure of speech with multiple senses or interpretations.

43
New cards

Dramatic monologue

A poem in which the speaker addresses an audience that is present in the poem.

44
New cards

Euphony

Pleasing harmony of sounds achieved through the use of serene imagery.

45
New cards

Elegy

A contemplative poem on death and mortality, often written for someone who has died.

46
New cards

End stopped lines

Lines of poetry that conclude with punctuation, marking a pause.

47
New cards

English sonnet

A fourteen-line poem with three quatrains and a couplet, rhyme scheme abab, cdcd, efef, gg.

48
New cards

Enjambment

A poetic technique in which one line continues to the next without a pause.

49
New cards

Epigram/epigraph

A brief witty poem, often satirical.

50
New cards

Epiphany

A character's transformative moment of realization.

51
New cards

Exposition

Contextual and background information about characters, plot, setting, and situation.

52
New cards

Fable

A brief story with an explicit moral provided by the author.

53
New cards

Falling action

The phase of a plot that follows the climax and resolves the conflict.

54
New cards

Farce

A dramatic form marked by absurd situations, slapstick, and raucous wordplay.

55
New cards

Foil

A character who contrasts and parallels the main character.

56
New cards

Foreshadowing

Hints of what is to come in the action of a play or story.

57
New cards

Free Verse

Poetry without a regular rhythm or rhyme scheme.

58
New cards

Hamartia

A concept used to describe tragedy.

59
New cards

Heroic Couplet

Rhyming pairs of verse in iambic pentameter.

60
New cards

Homily

A sermon or speech that offers a moral change in direction.

61
New cards

Hubris

An extreme expression of pride or self-confidence in a character.

62
New cards

Hyperbole

Deliberate exaggeration used for emphasis or to produce a comic or ironic effect.

63
New cards

Iambic

A metrical foot made up of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one.

64
New cards

Imagery

A description of how something looks, feels, tastes, smells, or sounds.

65
New cards

Implied Author

The source of a work's design and meaning inferred by readers from the text.

66
New cards

Implied Reader

The author's image of the recipient fixed and objectified in the text.

67
New cards

In Media Res

A technique in which a narrative begins in the middle of the action.

68
New cards

Irony - Verbal

A figure of speech where what is said is the opposite of what is meant.

69
New cards

Irony - situational

A discrepancy between what is expected and what actually happens.

70
New cards

Irony - Dramatic

Tension created by the contrast between what a character says or thinks and what the audience knows to be true.

71
New cards

Irony - cosmic

Irony involving fate and destiny controlling human hopes and desires.

72
New cards

Italian Sonnet

A fourteen-line poem with an octave and a sestet, rhyme scheme abba, abba, cdecde.

73
New cards

Juxtapose (Juxtaposition)

Placing two things side by side for comparison or contrast.

74
New cards

Litote

A form of understatement in which a sentiment is expressed ironically by negating its contrary.

75
New cards

Lyric poetry

Poetry with a musical rhythm that explores romantic feelings or strong emotions.

76
New cards

Malapropism

The mistaken use of an incorrect word resulting in a nonsensical or humorous utterance.

77
New cards

Meiosis

A figure of speech that intentionally understates something or implies it is lesser in significance or size.

78
New cards

Melodrama

Plays with stereotyped villains and heroes representing extremes of good and evil.

79
New cards

Metaphor

A figure of speech that compares or equates two things without using like or as.

80
New cards

Metaphysical conceit

A striking analogy between two entities that would not usually invite comparison.

81
New cards

Metonymy

A figure of speech in which something is represented by another thing related to it.

82
New cards

Metrics

The pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in each line.

83
New cards

Miracle and morality plays

Allegorical dramas that personify moral values and abstract ideas to teach lessons.

84
New cards

Mock Heroic

Poems that use a grand and formal style to describe a common or trivial subject.

85
New cards

Motif

A recurring pattern of images, words, or symbols that reveals a theme.

86
New cards

Octave

An eight-line unit or section of a poem.

87
New cards

Ode

A form of poetry used to meditate on or address a single object or condition.

88
New cards

Omniscient point of view

A narrator who is privy to the thoughts and actions of all characters.

89
New cards

Onomatopoeia

Use of words that refer to sound and mimic those sounds.

90
New cards

Parable

A tale told explicitly to illustrate a moral lesson or conclusion.

91
New cards

Pastoral

Literature that romanticizes farm or rural life.

92
New cards

Pathos

A quality of a play's action that stimulates pity for a character.

93
New cards

Personification

A figure of speech in which an animal or object is imbued with human qualities.

94
New cards

Picaresque Novel

A novel that relates the adventures of a rogue or adventurer as they drift from place to place.

95
New cards

Plot vs. story

The arrangement of events in a narrative and the events themselves.

96
New cards

Point of view

The perspective from which a work is told.

97
New cards

Pun

A play on words that derives its humor from the replacement of one word with another.

98
New cards

Quatrain

A four-line stanza.

99
New cards

Resolution

The working out of a plot's conflicts following the climax.

100
New cards

Reversal

When the protagonist's fortunes take an unforeseen turn.