1st Trimester Midterm Flashcards
The fallacy of wrongly evaluating a literary work by emphasizing only its
emotional impact.
Affective fallacy
An indirect reference to some literary or historical figure or event. For
example, the line in T.S. Eliot’s Love song of J. Alfred Prufrock, “No! I am
not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be,” is an allusion.
Allusion
A literary device in which an author uses words with more than one
meaning, deliberately leaves the reader uncertain.
Ambiguity
A competitor or opponent of the main character (protagonist) in a work of
literature
Antagonist
A protagonist in a modern literary work who has none of the noble
qualities associated with a traditional hero
Antihero
An image or character representative of some greater, more common
element that recurs constantly and variously in literature.
Archetype
A person created by an author for use in a work of fiction, poetry, or
drama.
Character
A point at which the events in a play or story reach their crisis, where the
maximum emotional reaction of the reader is created. This might also be
the turning point in which an important decision is made.
Climax
A debate or conversation among characters—e.g., Tom and Gatsby.
Colloquy
A part of a plot in which the conflict among the characters or
forces is engaged.
Complication
A struggle among opposing forces or characters in fiction, poetry, or
drama.
Conflict
Implications of words or sentences, beyond their literal, or denotative,
meanings.
Connotation
Literal meaning of a word or sentences.
Denotation
The final action of a plot, in which the conflict is resolved; the outcome.
Denouement
Conversation between two people in fiction, drama, or poetry
Dialogue
The use of words; word choice that is accurate and appropriate to the
subject
Diction
A sharp, witty saying, such as Oscar Wilde’s “I can resist everything but
temptation.”
Epigram
A short inscription at the start of a literary work.
Epigraph
A concluding portion of a literary work, occurring after the main action
has been completed.
Epilogue
Literally, “attempt”-any short piece of nonfiction prose that makes specific
points and statements about a limited topic.
Essay
A portion of a narrative or dramatic work that establishes the tone, setting,
and basic situation.
Exposition
A work that takes place in a world that does not exist.
Fantasy
Language that deliberately departs from everyday phrasing, with
dramatic and imagistic effects that move the reader into a fresh
mode of perception.
Figurative language
A person or thing that contrasts with and so emphasizes and enhances the
qualities of another.
Foil
In a plot, an indication of something yet to happen.
Foreshadowing
The central character of a literary work; he or she often has great
virtues and faults, and his or her trials and successes form the main
action of the plot.
Hero/heroine
Deliberately overstated, exaggerated figurative language, used either for
comic or great emotional effect
Hyperbole
A concrete expression of something perceived by the senses, using simile,
metaphor, and figurative language
Image/imagism/imagry
An effect associated with statements or situations in which something said
or done is at odds with how things truly are
Irony
The fact of two things being seen or placed close together with contrasting
effect; e.g., the juxtaposition of these two images reveals a startling
insight.
Juxtaposition
An implicit comparison of an object or feeling with another unlike it—e.g.,
“under a blood red sky.”
Metaphor
The emotional tone or outlook an author brings to a subject.
Mood/atmosphere
A distinctive feature or prominent idea in an artistic or literary composition.
Example: His latest novel has a nautical motif.
Motif
A story that consists of an account of a sequence of events.
Narrative
A long fictional narrative that represents human events, characters, and actions.
Novel
A short novel or tale.
Novella
A speaker or implied speaker of a work of fiction who can tell the
story, shift into the minds of one or more characters, be in various
places, and comment on the meaning of what is happening in the
story.
Omniscient narrator
A statement that seems contradictory but actually points out a truth (for
example, Wordsworth’s “The Child is the father of the Man”)
Paradox
The sequence of events in a story, poem, or play; the events build upon
each other toward a convincing conclusion.
Plot
Any form of writing that does not have the rhythmic patterns of metrical
verse or free verse. Good prose is characterized by tightness, specificity,
and a sense of style.
Prose
The leading character; the protagonist engages the main concern of readers
or audience.
Protagonist
The background of a literary work-the time, the place, the era, the
geography, and the overall culture.
Setting
A comparison of two things via the word “like” or “as.”
Simile
Widely believed and oversimplified attitudes toward a person, an issue, and so on.
Stereotype
Significant communication, especially in dialogue, that gives motivation for the
words being said.
Subtext
Something that represents something else, the way a flag represents a country or a
rose may stand for love-implying not only another physical thing but an
associated meaning
Symbol
The main idea of a literary work created by its treatment of its immediate subject
Theme
The expression of a writer’s attitudes toward a subject; the mood the author has
chosen for a piece.
Tone
A kind of metaphor in which the mention of a part stands for the whole (for
example, “head” refers not only to the heads of cattle but to each animal as a
whole).
Syndochyd
A figure of speech in which an object or person is not mentioned directly but
suggested by an object associated with it, as when a reference to “the
white house” means “the president.”
Metonymy
