Spring Honors English Semester 2 Final Exam Vocabulary
Literary Devices
Allegory: A story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one.
Irony: The expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect.
Symbolism: The use of symbols to represent ideas or qualities.
Archetype: A typical character, action, or situation that seems to represent universal patterns of human nature.
Absurdism: The belief that human beings exist in a purposeless, chaotic universe.
Existentialism: A philosophical theory or approach that emphasizes the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent determining their own development through acts of will.
Allusion: An expression designed to call something to mind without mentioning it explicitly; an indirect or passing reference.
Metaphor: A figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable.
Elements of Tragedy
Hamartia: A fatal flaw or error in judgment that leads to the protagonist's downfall.
Peripeteia: A sudden reversal of fortune or change in circumstances.
Hubris: Excessive pride or self-confidence that leads the protagonist to disregard warnings or violate moral codes.
Anagnorisis: A moment of realization or recognition when the protagonist understands their situation or the truth about themselves or others.
Catharsis: The purging or purification of emotions (such as pity and fear) experienced by the audience after witnessing the tragedy.
Rhetorical Devices
Ethos: The appeal to credibility or authority.
Pathos: The appeal to emotions.
Logos: The appeal to logic or reason.
Literary Criticism Lenses
Feminist/Gender Lens: Analyzing literature through the perspective of gender roles and power dynamics.
Marxist Theory: Analyzing literature focusing on class differences, economic systems, and social inequalities.
Historical Lens: Analyzing literature by considering the historical context in which it was written and set.
Psychoanalytical Lens: Analyzing literature through the lens of psychology, particularly Freud’s theories about the unconscious mind.
Id: The primitive and instinctual part of the mind that contains sexual and aggressive drives and hidden memories.
Ego: The realistic part that mediates between the desires of the id and the super-ego.
Super-ego: The moralistic and idealistic part of the mind.
Figures of Speech
Antithesis: A person or thing that is the direct opposite of someone or something else.
Anastrophe: The inversion of the usual order of words or clauses.
Asyndeton: The omission or absence of a conjunction between parts of a sentence.
Apposition: A relationship between two words or phrases in which the second defines or supplements the first.
Antanaclasis: The repetition of a word or phrase in different senses.
Anadiplosis: The repetition of the last word of a preceding clause.
Anaphora: The use of a word referring to or replacing a word used earlier in a sentence.
Climax: The most intense, exciting, or important point of something.
Chiasmus: A rhetorical or literary figure in which words, grammatical constructions, or concepts are repeated in reverse order.
Ellipses: The omission from speech or writing of a word or words that are superfluous or able to be understood from contextual clues.
Epistrophe: The repetition of a word at the end of successive clauses or sentences.
Litotes: Ironic understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by the negative of its contrary
Paradox: A statement or proposition that, despite sound reasoning from acceptable premises, leads to a conclusion that seems senseless, logically unacceptable, or self-contradictory.
Parallelism: The use of successive verbal constructions in poetry or prose that correspond in grammatical structure, sound, meter, meaning, etc.
Polysyndeton: The use of more conjunctions than is necessary or natural.
Parenthesis: A word, clause, or sentence inserted as an explanation or afterthought into a passage.
Personification: The attribution of a personal nature or human qualities to something nonhuman.
Simile: A figure of speech involving the comparison of one thing with another thing of a different kind, used to make a description more emphatic or vivid.
Kafka’s Life
Born in Prague in 1883 to a middle-class Jewish family.
Dealt with a domineering father and feelings of alienation.
Studied law but worked in an insurance office for most of his career.
Suffered from tuberculosis, which eventually led to his death in 1924.
Known for his novels and short stories exploring themes of alienation, existential anxiety, and the absurdity of modern bureaucracy.