Literary Terms Flashcards

Literary Devices

Alliteration

  • The repetition of initial consonant sounds in adjacent words.

Allusion

  • A reference to something outside a text.
  • Examples: events or people from history, mythology, pop culture, etc.

Assonance

  • The repetition of vowel sounds in adjacent words.

Caesura

  • A pause within a line of poetry.
  • Indicated by punctuation.

Catharsis

  • The cleansing or purging of emotion in or caused by a literary work.

Closed Form Poetry

  • Poetry that adheres to predictable patterns and structures.

Connotation

  • Associated feelings or ideas that a word evokes.

Diction

  • The author's choice of words.
  • Analysis involves using precise adjectives to describe the type of diction.

Dramatic Irony

  • When the reader or audience knows something a character does not.

Dynamic Character

  • A character who undergoes significant change throughout a narrative.

Enjambment

  • When a line of poetry continues onto the next line without punctuation.

Epiphany

  • A sudden realization or discovery of truth or meaning.

Flashback

  • A scene that interrupts the linear narrative.
  • Often introduces character backgrounds and other important details.

Foil

  • A character who contrasts with the protagonist.
  • Shares similarities but has a major contrast, highlighting aspects of the protagonist.

Hyperbole

  • Extravagant exaggeration for figurative effect.

Imagery

  • Sensory images contained in or evoked by a text.
  • Can be figurative or directly described.

In Medias Res

  • Latin for "in the midst of things."
  • A narrative that starts in the middle of the plot.

Juxtaposition

  • Contrasting two objects or images side by side.
  • Studying the effects of this contrast.

Metaphor

  • A subtle or implied comparison between two unlike things.

Narrator

  • The voice or persona telling a story.

Open Form Poetry

  • Poetry that does not follow expected or predictable patterns.

Paradox

  • A statement that contradicts itself, or that must be both true and untrue at the same time.

Personification

  • Giving human qualities to a non-human object, emotion, or entity.

Perspective

  • How narrators, characters, or speakers understand their circumstances.
  • Informed by background, personality traits, biases, and relationships.

Point of View

  • The perspective used in a text, which affects how a story is told.

Setting

  • Includes the time and place of a story.
  • Can also include the historical and cultural background.

Simile

  • A direct comparison between two unlike things.
  • Identified by the use of words like "like," "as," "than," or "resembles."

Situational Irony

  • When the expected action is inverted and the opposite happens.

Static Character

  • A character who remains unchanged throughout the narrative.

Symbol

  • A tangible object that represents something intangible or abstract.

Syntax

  • The arrangement of words in a line of poetry or in a sentence of prose.