LA Lit Terms

Absolute

a word free from limitations or qualifications (best, unique, all, perfect)

Adage

familiar proverb or wise saying

Allegory

a literary work in which characters, objects, or actions represent abstractions.

Alliteration

the repetition of initial sounds in successive or neighboring words

The big ball bounced by Bob’s bakery.

Just another Alaskan attempt at answers.

Juxtaposition

placing two elements side by side to present a comparison or contrast. 

-A picture of a fluffy kitten sitting on a pile of broken glass.

-An old woman holding a newborn baby.

-Big guy on a small bike.

-An innocent and pure character being thrust into a dark and twisted world.

Allusion

a reference to something literary, mythological, or historical that the author assumes the reader will recognize.

In Led Zeppelin’s Misty Mountain Hop, the final verse contains the lines: “So I'm packing my bags for the Misty Mountains / where the spirits go now/ over the hills where the spirits fly.” This (as well as the actual title of the song itself) is a direct reference to the “Misty Mountains” of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Analogy

a comparison of two different things that are similar in some way

Metaphors and similes are both types of analogies. For example:

Diego entered the room like a cat stalking its prey.

Madison is the sole daisy among the field of wilted poppies.

Anaphora

the repetition of words or phrases at the beginning of consecutive lines or sentences

Here’s an example from Lord Byron’s Marino Faliero:

Strike as I would

Have struck those tyrants!

Strike deep as my curse!

Strike! and but once

Anecdote

a brief narrative that focuses on a particular incident or event

Antecendent

the word, phrase, or clause to which a pronoun refers.

He=Doug

She=Nancy

Assonance

the repetition of identical or similar vowels—especially in stressed syllables—in a sequence of nearby words.

The early bird gets the worm

Euphony

term applied to language that strikes the ear as smooth, pleasant, and musical

China Cat Sunflower                                (The Grateful Dead, Lyrics by Robert Hunter)

Comic book colors on a violin river cryin leonardo,

Words from out a silk trombone.

I rang a silent bell, beneath a shower of pearls,

In the eagle-winged palace of the queen chinee.

Rhythm

A recognizable though varying pattern in the beat of stresses or accents, in the stream of speech sounds 

Cacophony

Language which is perceived as harsh, rough, and unmusical. Note: the discordancy/harshness is the effect of not only the sound of the words, but also of their significance.

Pied Piper                                Robert Browning

 

Rats!

They fought the dogs and killed the cats…

Split open the kegs of salted sprats,

Made nests inside men’s Sunday hats;

Repition

Recurring/repeated language which deliberately used in order to achieve a specific emphasis or certain effect.

Personificiation

Where either an inanimate object or abstract concept is spoken of as though it were endowed with life or human attributes or feelings.

Aphorism

a concise statement that expresses succinctly a general truth or idea, often using rhyme or balance.    

“A picture is worth a thousand words.”

Apostrophe

a figure of speech in which one directly addresses an absent or imaginary person, or some abstraction

Archetype

a detail, image, or character type that occurs frequently in literature and myth and is thought to appeal in a universal way to the unconscious and to evoke a response

Argument

a statement of the meaning or main point of a literary work

To Kill a Mockingbird shows how one's true character is too often overlooked due to the stereotypes and        

prejudices of society.

Asyndeton

a construction in which elements are presented in a series without conjunctions

She ran, jumped, swung, flew.

Connotation

the implied or associative meaning of a word

Denotation

the literal meaning of a word

"Jackass" literally means donkey....

Didatic

having the primary purpose of teaching or instructing

Cliche

an expression that has been overused to the extent that its freshness has worn off

They lived happily ever after.

Once upon a time...

Loves long walks on the beach

Elegy

a formal poem presenting a meditation on death or another solemn theme

 Any poem about death, loss, or mourning. 

Eulogy

a speech of praise, typically for someone who has recently died

Ellipsis

Indicate the omission of words from a sentence

Ellipsis

the omission of a word or phrase which is grammatically necessary but can be deduced from the context ("Some people prefer cats; others, dogs").

 

Jake smelled like roses; Olivia, cheese.

Epigram

a brief, pithy, and often paradoxical saying

"I can resist everything except temptation." --Oscar Wilde

Epigraph

a saying or statement on the title page of a work, or used as a heading for a chapter or other section of a work

Colloquialism

informal words or expressions not usually acceptable in formal writing

 

Dude,

man,

sweet.

Y'all.

OMFG.

Conceit

a fanciful, particularly clever extended metaphor

Epitaph

an inscription on a tombstone or burial place

Prose

is the most typical form of language. Both non-fiction writing as well as fictional writing is considered……

Verse

refers to writing that is not prose.

Euphemism

an indirect, less offensive way of saying something that is considered unpleasant

Saying Kennedy is "no longer with us" instead of saying Kennedy is dead.

Expletive

an interjection to lend emphasis; sometimes (often), a profanity

Figurative Language

any language employing one or more figures of speech (simile, metaphor, imagery, etc.)

Julio stared at the bleeding sunset as the waves peeled back from the sticky fingers of the humiliated beach.

Flat Character

a character who embodies a single quality and who does not develop in the course of a story.

Frame Device

a story within a story.

Genre

a major category or type of literature

Examples of different genres:

Sci-Fi

Fantasy

Romance

Mystery

Adventure

Hubris

excessive pride or arrogance that results in the downfall of the protagonist of a tragedy

often the tragic flaw that leads to a character’s downfall.

Inference

a conclusion one draws based on premises or evidence

Implication

a suggestion an author or speaker makes without stating it directly.

Hyperbole

intentional exaggeration to create an effect

It is going to take a bazillion years to get through Medical School.

I am so hungry I could eat a horse

He's like 900 years old.

Idiom

an expression in a given language that cannot be understood from the literal meaning of the words in the expression; or, a regional speech or dialect

It’s raining cats and dogs.

That was a blessing in disguise

Anachronism

something or someone that is not in its correct historical or chronological time

-A movie set in the old west where a character forgets to move their digital watch

-An airplane visible in a movie sent in Biblical times

Rhetoric

The study of rhetoric is all about analyzing and understanding how writers/speakers/poets/authors/etc get their point across.

can often be broken down into 3 different approaches: LOGOS, ETHOS, and PATHOS.

Logos

appeal based on logic or reason. argument is often backed by data, research, and concrete detail.

 

Ethos

appeal based on the character of the speaker. argument relies on the reputation of the arguer.

Pathos

 appeal based emotion. argument is often dependent on the audience’s expected reaction or the ability to connect on a personal level.

Invective

an intensely vehement, highly emotional verbal attack

EXAMPLE:

"This is just the sort of blinkered philistine pig-ignorance I've come to expect from you non-creative garbage. You sit there on your loathsome spotty behinds squeezing blackheads, not caring a tinker's cuss for the struggling artist. You excrement, you whining hypocritical toadies with your colour TV sets and your Tony Jacklin golf clubs and your bleeding masonic secret handshakes. You wouldn't let me join, would you, you blackballing bastards."

Jargon

specialized language, terminology, or acronyms used by specific professions, groups, or organizations to communicate complex ideas efficiently.

Gigabyte, RAM, CPU, memory, terabyte, jpeg, pdf

Legend

a narrative handed down from the past, containing historical elements and usually supernatural elements

Limited Narrator

presents the story as it is seen and understood by a single character and restricts information to what is seen, heard, thought, or felt by that one character

Literary License

deviating from normal rules or methods in order to achieve a certain effect (intentional sentence fragments, run-ons, misspellings, etc.)

Pretty much any time an author breaks the normal rules.

Maxim

a concise statement, often offering advice; an adage.

short, catchy statement. typically tends to be one of those phrases that people latch onto--sometimes considered “words to live by.”

Mood

the emotional atmosphere of a work

Malapropism

the mistaken substitution of one word for another word that sounds similar

-The doctor wrote a subscription

-I did my geography report on the Soviet Onion

Motif

a standard theme, element, or dramatic situation that recurs in various works or throughout a specific work.

Narrative

a story or narrated account

Non Sequitur

an inference that does not follow logically from the premises (literally, "does not follow").

A statement that has little or no relation to what preceded it; illogical inference;

Oxymoron

an expression in which two words that contradict each other are joined

Bittersweet

Controlled variable

Parable

a simple story that illustrates a moral or religious lesson

Here’s another solid definition:

A story or short narrative designed to reveal allegorically some religious principle, moral lesson, psychological reality, or general truth.

Paradox

is a statement that initially appears to be contradictory but then, on closer inspection, turns out to make sense.

John Donne’s “Death, thou shalt not die.”

Ad Hominem Argument

is a statement that initially appears to be contradictory but then, on closer inspection, turns out to make sense.

John Donne’s “Death, thou shalt not die.”

Oscar Wilde: “I can resist everything except temptation.”

Parody

a humorous imitation of a serious work

“remake” of a movie, a song, or an event...if they make fun of it

Philippic

a bitter, passionate, or violent speech of denunciation and public condemnation against someone or something. aka a harsh rant

Polysyndeton

the use, for rhetorical effect, of more conjunctions than is necessary or natural

We ran, and jumped, and flew, and swam, and lived, and laughed, and loved.

Situational Irony

What happens is different from what’s expected to happen.  

-It is ironic that Romeo and Juliet, the only children of bitter enemies, meet serendipitously and fall in love.  

Onomatopoeia

a word that imitates the sound it represents.

Dramatic Irony

When the audience or reader is aware of critical information of which the characters are unaware

Verbal Irony

When a character says one thing but means another

deus ex machina

a plot device whereby a seemingly inextricable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new character, ability, or object.

Metonymy

a figure of speech where something is referred to by the name of something closely associated with it. think of it as a kind of conceptual swapping. It’s about association, not likeness.

Ex: “The crown” to refer to the monarchy or royal power.

• “The pen” to represent writing or authorship.

Pedantic

characterized by an excessive display of learning or scholarship

saying that “you are dim-witted fool,” could be:  “you are an individual with a cerebral cortex of limited function.”

Romantic

a term describing a character or literary work that reflects the characteristics beginning in the late 18th century that stressed emotion, imagination, and individualism

Ex: The idea that soldiers who go to war will all return home as happy heroes has been challenged by many anti-war novels and films which attempt to offer a more realistic view of both the physical and emotional damage war can cause.

Surreal

in its simplest form, means: bizarre or dreamlike. Stems from an artistic movement emphasizing the imagination and characterized by incongruous juxtapositions and lack of conscious control

Tautology

needless repetition which adds no meaning or understanding

EX:

Free gift

Those ones

Short summary

New innovation

The reason why

Syllepsis

One word connects to two ideas, but the meaning shifts a bit

Foreshadowing

a literary device in which an author gives an advance hint of events that will occur later in the story. It’s like planting seeds of information that bloom into significant plot points.

Stream of Consciousness

a narrative style that tries to depict the multitude of thoughts and feelings which pass through the mind. It’s like peeking inside someone’s head. Instead of a neat, orderly story, you get a flow of ideas, sensations, memories, associations

Synecdoche

a figure of speech in which a part is used to represent the whole, or conversely, the whole is used to represent a part.

ex: "Check out my new wheels" (Wheels = the entire car).