LIT TERMS 2
🔀 Chiasmus: A sentence where the second half flips the structure or exact words of the first half.
Example: "We do not stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing."
🥱 Cliche: An overused phrase or idea that has lost its original impact and feels unoriginal.
Example: "Saying 'time heals all wounds' is a massive cliche."
🗣 Colloquialism: Casual, everyday slang or spoken language used instead of formal writing.
Example: "Saying 'gonna' instead of 'going to' is a common colloquialism."
😂 Comedy: A lighthearted story intended to make the audience laugh, usually ending happily.
Example: "We watched a romantic comedy about two rivals who accidentally fall in love."
🧩 Conceit: A highly creative, stretched comparison between two completely unrelated things.
Example: "The author used a clever conceit by comparing a broken heart to a shattered smartphone screen."
📓 Confessional Poetry: Highly personal poetry that reveals the author's private, often painful feelings and secrets.
Example: "She wrote confessional poetry to honestly process her struggles with anxiety."
⚔ Conflict: The main problem or struggle in a story.
🥊 External Conflict: A struggle against an outside force, like another character, society, or nature.
Example: "The external conflict of the movie was the hero fighting a giant shark."
🧠 Internal Conflict: A struggle inside a character's own mind, like dealing with guilt or making a tough choice.
Example: "He faced an internal conflict over whether to tell the truth or protect his friend."
💡 Connotation: The emotional feeling or cultural vibe a word gives off, rather than its literal dictionary definition.
Example: "The word 'cheap' has a negative connotation, while 'affordable' sounds positive."
👯 Couplet: Two back-to-back lines of poetry that usually rhyme and share the same rhythm.
Example: "The poem ended with a simple couplet: 'The sun went down behind the hill / The night was dark, the air was still.'"
🤠 Dialect: A version of a language spoken by people in a specific region, capturing their unique words and accents.
Example: "The author wrote the dialogue in a Texas dialect, using words like 'y'all' and 'howdy.'"
📝 Diction: The specific choice of words an author or speaker uses to set a tone.
Example: "The lawyer used highly formal diction in the courtroom to sound professional."
🏫 Didactic: Literature or writing specifically meant to teach a moral lesson or instruct the reader.
Example: "Children's fables are didactic because they always end with a clear lesson about right and wrong."
🕊 Elegy: A sad, mournful poem or speech written to remember someone who has passed away.
Example: "The musician wrote a beautiful elegy in honor of his late grandfather."
🔁 Epanalepsis: Starting and ending a sentence or phrase with the exact same word.
Example: "Next time, there won't be a next time."
🦸 Epic: A long story or poem about a hero's massive, world-saving adventures.
Example: "The sci-fi movie felt like a modern epic because of its huge battles across the galaxy."
📜 Epigraph: A short quote placed at the very beginning of a book or chapter to hint at its overall theme.
Example: "The author used a famous quote from Albert Einstein as the epigraph for her science fiction novel."
🔙 Epistrophe: Repeating the exact same word or phrase at the end of back-to-back sentences or clauses.
Example: "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil."
🏷 Epithet: A descriptive nickname or phrase attached to someone's name to highlight a key trait.
Example: "The medieval king was known by the epithet 'Richard the Lionheart.'"
🏛 Homeric epithet: A specific type of hyphenated nickname repeatedly used in ancient epics to describe a character or object.
Example: "The poet used a Homeric epithet when he repeatedly referred to the ocean as the 'wine-dark sea.'"