3 - Literary Terms

Question 1

Pathos

Answer 1

A strategy in which a writer tries to generate specific emotions (such as fear, envy, anger, or pity) in an audience to dispose it to accept a claim.

TL; DR: Emotion

Question 2

Logos

Answer 2

A strategy in which a writer uses facts, evidence, and reason to make audience members accept a claim.

TL; DR: Logic

Question 3

Plain Style

Answer 3

A way of writing that stresses simplicity and clarity of expression.

Question 4

Inversion

Answer 4

The reversal of the normal word order in a sentence or phrase.

Question 5

Allusion

Answer 5

A reference to someone of something that is known from history, literature, religion, politics, sports, science, or some other branch of culture.

Question 6

Couplet

Answer 6

Two consecutive rhyming lines of poetry.

Question 7

Metaphor

Answer 7

A figure of speech that makes a comparison between two unlike things WITHOUT using like, as, than, or resembles.

Question 8

Periodic Sentence

Answer 8

• Phrase upon phrase upon phrase, then subject/verb.

* A sentence that, by leaving the completion of its main clause to the end, produces an effect of suspense.

Question 9

Anaphora

Answer 9

A figure of speech involving repetition, particularly of the same word at the beginning of several clauses.

Question 10

Jeremiad

Answer 10

A long, mournful complaint, or lamentation; a list of woes.

Question 11

Persuasion

Answer 11

One of the four forms of discourse, which uses reason and emotional appeals to convince a reader to think or act in a certain way.

Question 12

Alliteration

Answer 12

A repetition of the same of similar constant sounds in words that are class together.

Question 13

Meter

Answer 13

A pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry.

Question 14

Iamb

Answer 14

A metrical foot in poetry that had an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.

Example: protect

Question 15

Aphorism

Answer 15

A brief, cleverly worded statement that makes a wise observation about life.

Question 16

Paradox

Answer 16

A statement that appears self-contradictory but reveals a kind of truth.

Question 17

Symbol

Answer 17

A person, a place, a thing, or an event that has meaning in itself and also stands for something more than itself.

Question 18

Free Verse

Answer 18

Poetry that does not conform to a regular meter or rhyme scheme.

Question 19

Archetype

Answer 19

A very old imaginative pattern that appears in literature across cultures and is repeated through the ages. An archetype can be a character, a plot, an image, a theme, or a setting.

Question 20

Apostrophe

Answer 20

A direct address to someone or something that is not present.

Question 21

Parallelism

Answer 21

The repetition of grammatically similar words, phrases, clauses, or sentences.

Question 22

Third Person Limited Point of View

Answer 22

Unknown narrator who focuses on one character.

Question 23

Omniscient Point of View

Answer 23

All-knowing narrator who uses 3rd person and can zoom in on all characters.

Question 24

First Person Point of View

Answer 24

One of the characters in the story tells the story, using first-person pronouns such as I and we.

Question 25

Realism

Answer 25

A style of writing, developed in the nineteenth century, that attempts to depict life accurately, as it really is, without idealizing or romanticizing it.

Question 26

Colloquial Language

Answer 26

Characteristic of or appropriate to ordinary or familiar conversation rather than formal speech or writing; informal.

Question 27

Catalog

Answer 27

A list of things, people, or events.

Question 28

Naturalism

Answer 28

A nineteenth-century literary movement that was an extension of realism and that claimed to portray life exactly as if it were being examined through a scientists’s microscope.

Question 29

Regionalism

Answer 29

Literature that emphasizes a specific geographic setting and that reproduces speech, behavior, and attitudes of the people who live in that region.

Question 30

Antihero

Answer 30

Contracts with the hero archetype, or model.

Question 31

Internal Conflict

Answer 31

Involving opposing forces within a person’s mind.

Question 32

External Conflict

Answer 32

Can exist between two people, between a person and force of nature or machine or a whole society.

Question 33

Motivation

Answer 33

The reasons for a character’s behavior.

Question 34

Connotation

Answer 34

The associations and emotional undertones that have become attached to a word or phrase, in addition to its strict dictionary definition.

Question 35

Stream of Consciousness

Answer 35

A style of writing that portrays the inner (often chaotic) workings of a character’s mind.

Question 36

Blank Verse

Answer 36

Poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter.

Question 37

Ethos

Answer 37

The self-image a writer creates to define a relationship with readers. In arguments, most writers try to establish this to suggest authority and credibility.

TL; DR: Knowledge