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Untitled Flashcards Set

  1. Rhetorical question – A question asked for effect rather than an actual answer, often used to persuade or emphasize a point.
    Example: “Do you think money grows on trees?”

  2. Rhythm – The pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry or prose, creating a musical flow.
    Example: Shakespeare's iambic pentameter: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”

  3. Round character – A complex and well-developed character with depth, emotions, and change throughout the story.
    Example: Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby.

  4. Satire – A literary technique that criticizes human foolishness, politics, or society through humor, irony, or exaggeration.
    Example: George Orwell’s Animal Farm satirizes totalitarianism.

  5. Scrim – A thin, semi-transparent curtain used in theater to create visual effects, such as making actors appear or disappear.

  6. Sestet – A six-line stanza or the final six lines of a Petrarchan sonnet, often resolving a problem.

  7. Setting – The time and place where a story occurs, including cultural and historical context.
    Example: 1920s America in The Great Gatsby.

  8. Sight rhyme – Words that look like they should rhyme but don’t when spoken aloud.
    Example: “love” and “move.”

  9. Simile – A comparison using “like” or “as” to create imagery.
    Example: “Her smile was as bright as the sun.”

  10. Situational irony – When the opposite of what is expected happens.
    Example: A fire station burns down.

  11. Slant rhyme – A near rhyme where words have similar but not identical sounds.
    Example: “hope” and “cup.”

  12. Soliloquy – A long speech in a play where a character speaks their thoughts aloud, usually alone on stage.
    Example: Hamlet’s “To be or not to be.”

  13. Sonnet – A 14-line poem, often in iambic pentameter, with specific rhyme schemes.
    Example: Shakespearean sonnet: ABABCDCDEFEFGG.

  14. Stanza – A group of lines in a poem, like a paragraph in prose.

  15. Static character – A character who does not change throughout the story.
    Example: Sherlock Holmes.

  16. Stock character – A stereotypical or repeated character type found across literature.
    Example: The “wise mentor” like Dumbledore or Yoda.

  17. Symbol – An object, person, or event that represents a deeper meaning beyond its literal sense.
    Example: The green light in The Great Gatsby symbolizes hope and dreams.

  18. Synecdoche – A figure of speech where a part represents the whole or vice versa.
    Example: “All hands on deck” (hands = sailors).

  19. Synonyms – Words with similar meanings but different spellings.
    Example: “Happy” and “joyful.”

  20. Syntax – The structure and order of words in a sentence.
    Example: “The cat sat on the mat” (correct) vs. “Sat the cat on mat the” (incorrect).

  21. Theme – The central idea or message of a literary work.
    Example: The theme of “power and corruption” in Macbeth.

  22. Tone – The author’s attitude toward the subject, shown through word choice and style.
    Example: Humorous, serious, sarcastic, melancholic.

  23. Unreliable narrator – A narrator whose perspective cannot be fully trusted, often due to bias, deception, or limited knowledge.
    Example: Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye.

  24. Verbal irony – When a character says one thing but means another, often sarcastic.
    Example: Saying “Great weather!” during a thunderstorm.

  25. Verisimilitude – The appearance of reality in fiction, making a story feel believable.
    Example: Historical details in War and Peace create verisimilitude.