C List Literary Devices Flashcards
a harsh, discordant, unpleasant-sounding choice and arrangement of sounds
cacophony
quality of spoken text formed from combing the text’s rhythm with the rise and fall in the inflection of a the speaker’s voice
cadence
a pause within a line of poetry, sometimes punctuated, sometimes not, often mirroring natural speech
caesura
a character with features or traits that are exaggerated so that the character seems ridiculous
caricature
the action at the end of a tragedy that initiates the denouncement or falling action of a play
catastrophe
refers to the emotional release felt by the audience at the end of a tragic drama
catharsis
the method by which the author builds or reveals a character; indirect version means that an author shows rather than tells what a character is like through what the character does, says, or thinks, or by what others say about that character; direct version occurs when a narrator tells the reader who a character is by describing the background, motivation, temperament, or appearance of a character
characterization
“crossing;” balanced statement, inverted parallelism to make a point
chiasmus
long, extended metaphor
conceit
a group of characters in Greek tragedy who comment on the action of a play without participation in it; their leader is the choragos
chorus
the turning point of the action in the plot of a story, representing the point of greatest tension in the work
climax
a type of form or structure in poetry characterized by regularity and consistency in such elements as rhyme, line length, and metrical pattern
closed form
the chance occurrence of two events having a peculiar correspondence between them
coincidence
an expression or language construction appropriate only for casual, informal speaking or writing
colloquial language/colloquialism
a type of drama, opposed to tragedy, usually having a happy ending, and emphasizing human limitation rather than human greatness
comedy
a satiric dramatic form that lampoons social conventions
comedy of manners
the use of a comic scene to interrupt a succession of intensely tragic, dramatic moments; the comedy of scenes offering this typically parallels the tragic action that the scenes interrupt
comic relief
fiction written to meet the taste of a wide popular audience and usually relying on tested formulas for satisfying such a taste
commercial fiction
an intensification of the conflict in a story or play; this builds up, accumulates, and develops the primary or central conflict in a literary work
complication
the tension, opposition, or struggle that drives a plot; external version is the opposition or tension between two characters of forces; internal version occurs within a character
conflict
meanings or associations readers have with a word or item beyond its dictionary definition; may reveal another layer of meaning of a piece, affect the tone, or suggest symbolic resonance
connotation
an instance in which identical final consonant sounds in nearby words follow different vowel sounds
consonance
form of a poem in which the lines follow each other without formal grouping, the only breaks being dictated by units of meaning
continuous form
a customary feature of a literary work, such as the use of a chorus in Greek tragedy, the inclusion of an explicit moral in a fable, or the use of a particular rhyme scheme in a villanelle; defining features of a particular literary genres, such as novel, short story, ballad, sonnet, and play
convention
a pair of rhymed lines that may or may not constitute a separate stanza in a poem
couplet
