Commin Literary Terms List #1

Question 1

Allegory

Answer 1

a narrative or description having a second meeting the needs the surface one. A story, fictional or nonfiction, in which things, characters, and events represent qualities or concepts. The interaction of these characters, things, events is meant to review and obstruction of the truth. These characters may be symbolic of the ideas referred to.

Question 2

Alliteration

Answer 2

The repetition at close intervals of initial and identical consonant sounds. or vowel sounds in successive words or syllables that repeat.

Question 3

Allusion

Answer 3

An indirect reference to someone (usually a literary text) with which the reader is expected to be familiar. Allusions are usually literary, historical, biblical, or mythological

Question 4

Ambiguity

Answer 4

An event Or situation that may be interpreted in more than one way. Also, the manner of expression such an event or situation may be ambiguous. Artful language may be ambiguous. unintentional ambiguity is usually vagueness

Question 5

Anachronism

Answer 5

when something isn’t of its time

Question 6

Analogy

Answer 6

A comparison to a direct parallel case.

Question 7

Anecdote

Answer 7

a brief recounting of a relevant episode. anecdotes are often inserted into fictional or nonfiction texts as a way of developing a point or injecting humor.

Question 8

Angst

Answer 8

used in existential criticism to describe both the individual and the collective anxiety-neurosis of the period following WWII

Question 9

Annotation

Answer 9

taking notes while reading

Question 10

Anthesis

Answer 10

a balancing of 2 opposite or contrasting words, phrases, or clauses

Question 11

apostrophe

Answer 11

to address the dead as if living, inanimate as animate

Question 12

archetype

Answer 12

images of character, plot pattern, symbols recur in literature and evoke profound emotional responses in the reader because they resonate with an image already existing in our unconscious mind ex: death, birth

Question 13

aside

Answer 13

dramatic convention when actor addresses the audience

Question 14

Assonance

Answer 14

repetition of vowel sounds

Question 15

bandwagon

Answer 15

trying to establish something is true bc everyone else says so

Question 16

catharsis

Answer 16

process by which an unhealthy emotional state produced by an imbalance of feelings is corrected and emotional heath is restored

Question 17

characterization

Answer 17

the method an author uses to develop characters in work

Question 18

concrete language

Answer 18

describes specific, observable things, people or places rather than ideas or qualities

Question 19

connotation

Answer 19

associations of the word

Question 20

consonance

Answer 20

repetition of consonant sounds

Question 21

deduction

Answer 21

a form of reasoning that begins with a generalization then applies the generalization to a specific case or cases

Question 22

diction

Answer 22

word choice

Question 23

didactic

Answer 23

describes fiction or nonfiction that teaches a specific lesson

Question 24

dramatic irony

Answer 24

when reader is aware of an inconsistency btwn a fictional characters perception of the situation

Question 25

elegy

Answer 25

a formal sustained poem lamenting the death of a particular person

Question 26

emotional appeal

Answer 26

writer appeals to readers emotions (pathos)

Question 27

ennui

Answer 27

feeling of tiredness or weakness which often afflicts existential man often manifesting as boredom

Question 28

epigraph

Answer 28

quote suggestive of the theme

Question 29

epiphany

Answer 29

characters major moment of realization or awareness