literary terms #1

absurd - a state of being nonsensical and illogical; used in literature to show the meaningless of life and unknowability of the universe

accent (stress) - the emphasis of a specific syllable in a word 

aesthetics - principles concerned with the nature and appreciation of beauty, especially in art and literature

affective - relating to emotions and feelings

alexandrine - a line of poetry containing six iambic feet

allegory - a literary or visual work that can be interpreted to have a hidden meaning 

alliteration - the repetition of a letter or sound at the beginning of consecutive words

allusion - referencing a separate literary work as an artistic device in a literary work

anachronism - a thing belonging to a separate time than it is depicted

anadiplosis- a literary device where the ending word or phrase of one sentence is repeated at the beginning of the next sentence, adding emphasis and a connection of ideas

anaphora- the repetition of a word or phrase in consecutive clauses which adds emphasis to the phrase or idea

analogy - a descriptive comparison between two things 

anapest - a foot of poetry consisting of two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed syllable

antithesis - one object or subject being the direct opposite of another object or subject

aphorism - a concise observation that contains a universal truth

apostrophe - addressing an inanimate object or a person who is deceased

archaism - the use of old-fashioned or archaic styles in literature 

archetype - a recurrent symbol or motif that is portrayed across literature

Aporia – An expression of doubt (real or pretended) for rhetorical effect—an indeterminacy of meaning.

Asyndeton – Omission of the usual conjunctions between words or clauses.

Auxesis – Listing things in order of importance. The list starts from the least important to the most important.

Brachylogia – Leaving out words to shorten an expression.

Dialogical – When writing is characterized by the use of dialogue--or a conversation between two or more parties.

Diction – The words or phrases an author chooses to use in speech or writing.

Didactic – Designed or intended for teaching, typically involving moral commentary and/or lessons.

Dimeter – A single line of verse containing two metrical feet.

Diphthong – A gliding speech sound between two vowels in the same syllable. (Ex: The "oy" sound in toy.)

Dirge – A solemn, mournful piece of music, often accompanying a funeral or memorial.

Dissonance – An inharmonious or discordant grouping of sounds that is harsh to the ear.

Doggerel – When a text is more free in style and irregular in measure to emphasize comic or satirical effect.

Double Entendre – A word or phrase with two possible interpretations, often sexual in nature.

Dramatic Monologue – In which a character has a monologue that reveals their character or situation through their own words, often to a second person.

Eclogue – A short poem containing dialogue between shepherds.

Elegy – A song or poem expressing sorrow or lamentation, usually toward the dead.

Elision – The omission of or slurring over of a vowel or syllable in pronunciation, often to preserve a poem's meter.

Ellipsis – The omission of one or more words necessary for proper grammar, but are understood without. (Ex: "If it is possible" changes to "If possible.")

Encomium – A reference to a person, event, or idea. This is usually used in prose poems.

End-stopped – The end of a line where a pause is intended. It must be a complete phrase to be end-stopped.

English (Shakespearean) Sonnet – A sonnet that has three quatrains ending in a couplet.

Enjambment – A line ending and running on to the next. There is no use of a pause or punctuation.

Enlightenment, The – A period of an increase of intellect in the late 17th to early 19th centuries. Often called the Age of Reason. It centered around the need to separate from superstition, prejudice, and injustice.

Epideictic – Poems used for the public. This type of poem was used for funerals and special occasions.

Epigram – A short poem with wit and expression. Commonly used to insult.

Epigraph – A quote to tell the theme of the writing, usually set in the beginning.

Epitaph – Writing that usually describes a dead person’s life or writing that goes on a tomb—usually written in prose or verse.

Epithalamion – A poem or song that is usually sung for the bride on the wedding night.

Epithet – A phrase describing a person or phrase. (Ex: Elvis Presley – The King of Rock and Roll.)

Eponymous – A term for a person when something is named after them. The person could be real or fictional. (Ex: Huckleberry Finn.)

Euphemism – Figurative language designed to replace phrasing that would be considered harsh or unpleasant.

Euphony – Words of importance that also create a pleasing sound with their use of long vowels, liquid consonants, and semi-vowels.

Exordium – An introduction section of a piece of work.

Explication – A close reading or analysis of written work. Analyzing the form and meaning of the work.

Homophone – Words that are pronounced the same way but have different meanings and usually different spelling. Used to make rhythmic effects and to put emphasis on something.

Hyperbaton – A rhetorical device in which the typical, natural order of words is changed by certain words being moved out of order.

Hyperbole – Exaggeration for the sake of emphasis in a figure of speech not meant literally.

Iamb – A two-syllable metrical pattern that consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.

Idiom – A saying or expression that has a figurative meaning different from the literal meaning.

Idyll – A short poem or prose work that depicts rural life or a natural, pastoral scene.

Imagery – Use of figurative language to evoke a sensory experience or create a picture in the reader's mind.

Invocation – Involves addressing a deity, muse, or higher power to seek inspiration, assistance, or guidance.

Invective – Involves the use of abusive and negative language to attack, insult, or denounce a topic, institution, or person. Used in poetry to convey intense disapproval.

Irony – A contradiction between appearance and reality.

Isocolon – Repeats grammatical structures in phrases, clauses, or sentences.

Jeremiad – A form of literary work that expresses a deep lamentation or mourning, often used to criticize societal decline and call for a return to moral righteousness.

Kitsch – Literary device that is often used to convey irony. Often characterized by vulgarity and bad taste.

Lacuna – Refers to an absent part in a piece of writing.

Lai – A medieval lyric poem written in couplets, usually written in French.

Lampoon – A form of satire in which the writer makes fun of someone or something by imitating them in a funny way.

Latinate – English words or phrases that are derived from or influenced by Latin.

Leitmotif – A recurring phrase, theme, or symbol that holds symbolic significance.

Limerick – A poem that consists of five lines in a single stanza with a rhyme scheme of ABBA. Most are intended to be funny and are considered bawdy or suggestive.

Literature – A body of written works related by subject matter, language or place of origin, or prevailing cultural standards of merit.

Lyric – A short poem expressing the personal mood, feeling, or meditation of a single speaker.

Madrigal -  short lyric poem, usually of love or pastoral life, often set to music as a song for several voices without instrumental accompaniment 

Malapropism – A confused, comically inaccurate use of a long word or words.

Masculine Rhyme - commonest kind of rhyme, between single stressed syllables at the ends of verse lines (ex: delay)

Masque or Mask - indoor performance combining poetic drama, music, dance, song, lavish costume, and costly stage effects, which was favored by the European royalty in the 16th and early 17th centuries, especially to celebrate royal weddings, birthdays, and other special occasions

Maxim – A short and memorable statement of a general principle, especially one that imparts advice or guidance.

Meditation: expresses author’s reflections

Metaphor: when something is referred to by a word or expression normally denoting another thing, idea, or action, so as to suggest some common quality shared by the two

Metaphysical Poets: diverse group of 17th century English poets whose work is notable for its ingenious use of intellectual and theological concepts in surprising conceits, strange paradoxes, and far-fetched imagery

Meter – The pattern of measured sound-units recurring more or less regularly in lines of verse.

Mnemonic Device – A form of words or letters that assist the memory.

Mock-epic: A poem employing the lofty style and the conventions of epic poetry to describe a trivial or undignified series of events; thus a kind of satire that mocks its subject by treating it in an inappropriate grandiose manner

Modernism: a general term applied retrospectively to the wide range of experimental and avant-garde trends in the literature of the early 20th century, including symbolism, futurism, expressionism, etc.

Monologue: An extended speech uttered by one speaker, either to others or as if alone

Motif – A situation, incident, idea, image, or character-type that is found in many different literary works, folktales, or myths; or any element of a work that is elaborated into a more general theme.

Muse = A muse, in literature, is an inspiration, typically a personified one among the nine Greek goddesses in charge of arts and sciences.

Narrator = A narrator is the voice narrating the story within a work of literature, the point of view from which action is described.

Negative capability = A term coined by poet John Keats, referring to an artist who can tolerate uncertainty and ambiguity without demanding logical explanations.

Neoclassicism = An 18th-century literary movement that used classical art and culture as their models, requiring order, restraint, and decorum.

Neologism = A recently coined word or phrase that can arise due to new circumstances or technological progress.

Objective correlative = A literary technique whereby an object, a situation, or a series of events is used to evoke a particular feeling in the reader.

Occasional poem = A poem written to commemorate or remark on a specific occasion or event, often public or ceremonial in theme.

Octave/octet = A stanza or poem consisting of eight lines; in sonnets, the first eight-line section is an octave.

Ode = An earnest, often formal lyric poem either addressed to and often praising a person, place, thing, or idea.

Oeuvre = An artist's, writer's, or musician's entire body of work, taken collectively as their oeuvre.

Onomatopoeic = Words that phonetically imitate or resemble the actual sound of the thing described, such as "buzz" or "murmur."

Ottava rima = A type of poetry composed of stanzas having eight lines, a rhyme scheme of abababcc, and a tradition beginning in Italian.

Paean = A lyric poem or song employed to praise victory or thanksgiving and which is usually directed to a god.

Panegyric = A public speech or written composition offering elevated encomium to a person or thing.

Parable = A short, simple story that conveys a moral or religious truth, featuring human characters.

Paradigm = An ordinary case or example of something; in writing, it could be a normal model or pattern.

Parataxis – The placing of clauses or phrases one after another, without words to indicate coordination or subordination.

Personification – When animals, abstract ideas, or inanimate objects are given human characteristics.

Poetic justice- the morally reassuring allocation of happy and unhappy fates to the virtuous and vicious characters respectively, usually at the end of a narrative or dramatic work

Poetic license- the imaginative and linguistic freedom granted to poets allowing them to depart from normal prose standards of factual and accuracy

Poetics- the general principles or of literature in general, or the theoretic studies of the principles 

Polemic- a thorough written attack on some opinion or policy usually in a theological or political dispute 

Polysyndeton - repetition of a conjunction in a sentence (and, for, nor, yet, but, or, so) example: we did X and Y and Z and R and A and B and C. (repetition of “and”)

Polyphonic- literally 'many voiced', a term, found in works but a Russian theorist, when many voices or points of view are in one story

Polysemy- a literary term for a words capacity to carry two or more distinct meanings

Pornography- a fictional writing composed so as to arouse sexual excitement in it's readers

Proem- a preface or introduction to a work

Prologue- an introductory section of a speech, play or other literary work

Prosody- the systematic study of versification, covering the principles of metre, rhythm rhyme and stanza

Proverb- a short popular saying of unknown authorship expressing some general truth or superstition 

Psalm- a sacred song or hymn, usually refers to biblical versus 

Pun- an expression that that achieves emphasis or humor by contriving an ambiguity, two distinct meanings being suggested by either the same two words or by two similar sounding words

Pyrrhic- a hypothetical metrical unit sometimes invoked in traditional scansion, consisting of two unstressed syllables

Quatrain- a verse stanza of four lines rhymed or unrhymed

Renaissance  - 14th-17th Century period of literature named from the French word for “rebirth;” this literary period follows the Dark Ages and the rediscovery and interest in past Greek and Roman texts which inspired writers and other artists of the time. 

Restoration - mid 1600s to 1700, literary period following the restoration of the monarchy with King Charles II, worked began and flourished at this time due to the celebration of the restoration

Rhyme royal - a stanza of seven 10-syllable lines, rhyme scheme of ABABBCC; used by Chaucer, but named after Scottish King James 1 because he had used it for his own verse

Rhyme scheme - the rhyming pattern that is found at the end of each line, written out using letters example: abba

Rhythm - the use of stressed and unstressed syllables in the way a work is read

Romanticism - late 18th century to mid 19th century literary period characterized by its emphasis on the individual, the irrational, the subjective, and the emotional. Often a rejection of Enlightenment ideals and the concepts of order, calmness, and unity.

Satire - literary genre characterized by its ridicule, censure, and attention to human failing

Scansion - the process of analyzing verse to determine the meter (can also include annotation)

Semantics -  the meaning and interpretation of words, signs, and sentence structure; the study of linguistic meaning (how words get their meaning and how meanings in an expression can change depending on its parts)

Sestet - 6 lines of verse linked by a pattern of rhyme

Sestina - six stanzas of six lines each each followed by a three line stanza. The final words of the first stanza appear in variable order in the following five stanzas and are repeated in the middle and at the end of the three lines in the final stanza.

Setting - time (historical/fictional context) and place (physical location) a works takes place in

Sign - word(s) without intrinsic meaning(s) that have been given meaning by the author, things such as words, smells, sounds, flavors, acts, objects, etc.

Simile - a direct comparison between two things using like or as

Sonnet - a short poem, consisting of fourteen lines in iambic pentameter that follow a certain rhyme scheme

Speaker - the voice or narrator

Spondee - a metrical unit or foot that consists of two stressed syllables

Stanza - a group of lines that make up a section of a poem, which shares the same structure as all or some of the other sections of the poem

Stress (accent) - the emphasis in pronunciation of a syllable

Style - a specific way an author uses language which can be defined by its linguistic features

Sublime, the - the quality or feeling of impressiveness in art or nature

Syllepsis - when a word is understood differently in relation to two or more words which it modifies example: She lost her wallet and her dignity

Symbolists - an important group of French poets who pushed back against realism and naturalism in the modern tradition of Western poetry in the 1870s and 1890s

Synonym - a word that has similar meaning to another word and can substitute for certain contexts

Synopsis - a brief summary of a works plot or argument

Syntax - the way words, clauses, and grammar rules are formed together to create a meaningful sentence 

Synthesis - the use of multiple sources to better understand a text

Synecdoche – Referring to something indirectly by only naming part of it.

Tautology – Repeats the same idea by using different synonyms or synonymous phrases to refer to the idea.

Tercet - unit of three lines in a poem, rhyming with each other or neighboring lines