literary terms

  1. Allegory: 

    1. narration/description that has single meaning

      1. Author intends one interpretation

    2. Characters, events, settings represent specific ideas

    3. Hope, Pride, Youth, Charity have few personal qualities beyond abstract meanings 

  2. Allusion

    1. Brief reference to smth in history or literature

    2. Bible, Shakespear, history, wars, love stories

  3. Ambiguity 

    1. Allows for two or more simultaneous interpretations of a word, phrase, action, or situation, all of which can be supported by the context of a work

    2. Open ended conclusion of hawthornes young goodman brown

  4. Anagram

    1. word/phrase made from letters of another word or phrase used to conceal names, messages, or suggest important connections between words

    2. Ex:

      1. Evil → vile

  5. Archetype

    1. Universal symbols that evoke deep and sometimes unconscious responses in a reader

  6. Cacophony

    1. Bad sound

    2. Lang that is discordant and difficult to pronounce

    3. John updikes player piano “never my numb plunker fumbles”

  7. Canon

    1. Works considered most important to read and study

    2. Mostly work by white male writers

  8. Cliché

    1. idea/expression that becomes tired and trite from overuse 

    2. Freshness and clarity worn off

  9. Colloquial

    1. Type of informal diction that reflects casual, conversational lang and includes slang expressions

  10. Connotation

    1. Associations and implications that go beyond literal meaning of a word 

    2. Eagle connotes liberty and freedom

    3. Word eagle connotes ideas of liberty and freedom

  11. Convention

    1. Characteristic of literary genre understood and accepted by audiences 

    2. Division of play into acts and scenes

  12. Denotation

    1. Dictionary meaning of a word

  13. Denouement

    1. French term meaning “unravelling”

    2. Describes plot following climax

  14. Dialect

    1. Type of informational diction that is spoken by definable groups of ppl from particular areas or social classes

  15. Dialogue

    1. Verbal exchanges between characters

  16. diction 

    1. Writers choice of words, phrases, sentence structures

  17. formal diction 

    1. Dignified, impersonal, and elevated use of language 

    2. Follows rules of syntax

    3. Complex words and lofty tone

  18. informal diction

    1. Plain lang of everyday use 

    2. Idiomatic expressions, slang, contractions

  19. middle diction

    1. Lang that maintains correct usage, but is less elevated than formal diction

  20. Doggerel

    1. Derogatory term used to describe poetry whose subj is trite and whose rhythm and sounds are monotonously heavy-handed

    2. Intentionally crude, silly, poorly constructed

  21. Epiphany

    1. Character suddenly experiences a deep realization about themselves

  22. Euphony

    1. Means good sound

    2. Lang that is smooth and musically pleasant to the ear

  23. Exposition

    1. Narrative device, often used at beginning of a work, that provides necessary background info abt characters and their circumstances

  24. Farce

    1. Form of humor based on exaggerated improbable incongruities

    2. Rapid shifts in action and emotion

    3. Slapstick comedy and extravagant dialogue

    4. Malvolio in shakespeare twelfth night

  25. figures of speech

    1. Ways of using lang that deviate from lit meanings of words in order to suggest additional meanings or effects

  26. Flashback

    1. Narrated scene that marks a break in the narrative in order to inform reader or audience member about events that took place before opening scene

  27. Foreshadowing

    1. Intro early in story of verbal and dramatic hints that suggest what is to come later

  28. Form

    1. Overall structure or shape of work, which frequently follows established design

  29. formula literature- escape literature

    1. Form of literature follows a pattern of conventional reader expectation

    2. Romance novels, westerns, science fiction

  30. Genre

    1. French word meaning kind or type 

    2. Major genres in literature are poetry, fiction, drama, essays

  31. hyperbole (overstatement)

    1. Boldly exaggerated statement that adds emphasis without intending to be literally true

  32. Image

    1. Word, phrase, or figure of speech that addresses the senses in order to suggest mental pictures of the story

  33. Melodrama

    1. Lit work that relies on implausible events and sensational action for its effect

    2. Exciting action while still conforming ot traditional sense of justice

  34. Metafiction

    1. Describe work that explores nature, structure, logic, status, func of storytelling

  35. Metaphor

    1. Makes a comparison between two unlike things 

    2. When Macbeth asserts that life is a “brief candle”

  36.  controlling metaphor

    1. Metaphor that runs through an entire work and determines the form or nature of that work

  37. extended metaphor

    1. Sustained comparison in which part or all of a poem consists of a series of related metaphors

    2. Robert Francis’s poem “Catch” compares poetry to playing catch throughout its entirety

  38. implied metaphor

    1. Subtle comparison where terms being compared are not explicitly explained 

    2. “The man brayed his refusal to leave”

      1. Subject never overtly identified as a mule, but with the characteristics of a mule

        1. stubborn

  39. Metonymy

    1. Something closely associated with a subject is substituted for it

    2. Silver screen

      1. Motion pictures

    3. Crown

      1. King

    4. White house

      1. Activities of president

  40.  Synechdoche

    1. Part of smth is used to signify whole

    2. Whole is used to signify part

    3. Gossip called a wagging tongue

    4. Ten ships called ten sails

    5. Boston won the baseball game

  41. Narrator

    1. Voice of the person telling the story

  42.  editorial omniscience

    1. Intrusion by the narrator in order to evaluate a character for a reader

    2. Narrator of Scarlet Letter describes hester’s relationship with Puritan community

  43.  first-person narrator

    1. The I in the story that presents the point of view of only one character

    2. In Melville’s Bartleby, the Scrivener

      1. Lawyer is first person narrator of the story

  44. limited omniscience

    1. When author restricts narrator to single perspective of either a major or minor character

    2. The way everything appears to the character is how they appear to reader

    3. Sometimes narrator can see into more than one character

  45. naïve narrator

    1. Narrators characterized by youthful innocence 

    2. Mark Twain’s Huck Finn or JD Salingers Holden Caufield

  46. neutral omniscience

    1. Narraction that allows the characters actions and thoughts to speak for themselves

    2. Most modern writers use this so readers can make own conclusions

  47. omniscient narrator

    1. All knowing narrator who is not a character in the story and who can switch places, times, and characters perspectives 

    2. Report thoughts and feelings of characters as well as their words and actions

    3. Narrator of Scarlet Letter is an omniscient narrator

  48. unreliable narrator

    1. Narrator whose interpretation of events is somehow diff from the authors

    2. Lack of self knowledge, inexperience, insanity

  49. Onomatopoeia

    1. Use of a word or multiple words that resemble the sound it denotes

    2. Buzz, rattle, bang, sizzle

  50. Oxymoron

    1. Condensed form of a paradox

    2. 2 contradictory words are used together

    3. Sweet sorrow

    4. Original copy

  51. Paradox

    1. Statement that initially appears to be contradictory but then, on closer inspection, turns out to make sense

    2. John Donne, Death Be not Proud, with the statement Death, thou shalt die

  52. Parody

    1. Humorous imitation of another, usually serious, work in order to deflate subject matter, making original work seem absurd

    2. Anthony Hecht’s poem “Dover Bitch” is a famous parody of Mathew Arnold’s “Dover Beach”

  53. persona 

    1. A mask, or a speaker created to tell a story, who is not a character in or a direct reflection of the authors personal choice

    2. Separate self, created by and distinct from the author, through which he or she speaks

  54. Personification

    1. Attribution of human characteristics to nonhuman things, giving hte world life and motion

    2. Keats’s Ode on Grecian Urn refers to the urn as an unravished bride of quietness

  55. point of view 

    1. Who tells the story and how it is told, shapes what we know and how we feel abou the events in the work

    2. Third person narrator uses he, she, they

    3. First person uses I and is a major or minor participant in the action

    4. Second person is you

  56. objective point of view

    1. Third person narrator who does not see into the mind of any character

    2. Detached, impersonal perspective

    3. No analysis or interpretation is provided 

  57. Satire

    1. Literary art of ridiculing a folly or vice in order to expose or correct it

    2. Evokes attitudes of amusement, contempt, scorn, or indignation toward its faulty subject in hope of somehow improving it

  58. Sentimentality

    1. Effort by author to induce emotional responses in the reader that exceed what situation warrants

  59. Setting

    1. Physical and social context in which the action of a story occurs

  60. Simile

    1. Comaprison between two things using like or as

    2. A sip of Mrs Cooks coffee is like punch in the stomach

  61. stream-of-consciousness technique

    1. Takes reader inside a characters mind to reveal perceptions, thoughts, and feeligsn on a conscious or unconscious level

  62. Style

    1. Distinctive and unique manner in which a writer arranged words to achieve particular effects

  63. Suspense

    1. Anxious anticipate of a reader or an audience as to the outcome of a story, especially concerning the character or characters with whom sympathetic attachments are formed

  64. Symbol

    1. Person, object, image, word, events that evokes additional meaning beyond and usually more abstract than its literal significance

  65.  contextual/literary symbol

    1. Setting, character, action, object, name, or anything else in a work that maintains its literal significance while suggesting other meanings 

    2. Gain symbolic meaning within context of story

    3. White whale in melvilles moby dick takes on multiple meanings

      1. Meanigns dont carry over into other stories of whales

  66. conventional symbol

    1. Sybomes that have meanings widely recognized by a society or culture

    2. Christian cross

    3. Star of david

    4. Swastika

    5. Nations flag

    6. Kate chopin emphasized spring setting in the story of an hour as a way to suggest the renewed sense of life that mrs mallar feels when thinking of being free from her husband

  67. Syntax

    1. Ordering of words into meanignfyl verbal patterns such as phrases, clauses, sentences 

    2. Emily dickinson writes about being surprised by a snake in A narrow fellow in the grass

      1. His notice sudden is

      2. Alliteratio nand syntax is manipulated 

  68. Theme

    1. Central meaning or dominant idea in a literary work

    2. Unifying point around plot and everything else are orgnaized 

  69. thesis 

    1. Central idea of essay

    2. Complegte sentence that establisehs topic of essay

  70. Tone

    1. Authors implicity attitude towards reader of people, places, and events revealed by elements of the authors style

  71. Understatement

    1. Figure of speech that says less than is intended

    2. Opposite of hyperbole

    3. Usually has an ironic effect

    4. Mark twains sttemetn the reports of my death are greatly exaggerated