D-F Flashcards
the metrical pattern in which each foot consists of a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed ones.
dactylic
a direct and specific meaning. See connotation.
denotation
a textual organization determined by the requirements of describing someone or something.
descriptive structure
an authors choice of words
dictation
the first specific event in a story, usually in the form of a specific scene.
discriminated occasion
a textual organization based on the form of a treatise, argument, or essay
discursive structure
a plot device in which a character holds a position or has an expectation that is reversed or fulfilled in a way that the character did not expect but that we, as readers or as audience members, have anticipated because our knowledge of events or individuals is more complete than the char-acter’s
dramatic irony
a monologue set in a specific situation and spoken to an imaginary audience
dramatic monologue
a textual organization based on series of scenes, each which is presented vividly and in detail.
dramatic structure
the list of characters that appears either in the play’s program or at the top of the first page of the written play.
dramatis personae
a verbal reference that recalls a word, phrase, or sound in another text.
echo
in classical times, any poem on any subject written in “elegiac” meter; since the Renaissance, usually a formal lament on the death of a particular person.
elegy
see Shakespearean sonnet.
english sonnet
running over from one line of poetry to the next without stop, as in the following lines by Wordsworth: “My heart leaps up when I behold / A rainbow in the sky.”
enjambment
a poem that celebrates, in a continuous narrative, the achievements of mighty heroes and heroines, usually in founding a nation or developing a culture, and uses elevated language and a grand, high style.
epic
originally any poem carved in stone (on tombstones, buildings, gates, and so forth), but in modern usage a very short, usually witty verse with a quick turn at the end.
epigram
the anticipation of what is to happen next (see curiosity and suspense), what a character is like or how he or she will develop, what the theme or meaning of the story will prove to be, and so on
expectation
that part of the structure that sets the scene, introduces and identifies characters, and establishes the situation at the beginning of a story or play. Additional exposition is often scattered throughout the work.
exposition
a detailed and complex metaphor that stretches through a long section of a work.
extended metaphor
the fourth part of plot structure, in which the complications of the rising action are untangled.
falling action
a play characterized by broad humor, wild antics, and often slapstick, pratfalls, or other physical humor.
farce
usually applied to language that uses figures of speech. Figurative language heightens meaning by implicitly or explicitly representing something in terms of some other thing, the assumption being that the “other thing” will be more familiar to the reader.
figurative
comparisons in which something is pictured or figured in other, more familiar terms.
figures of speech
a character, “I,” who tells the story and necessarily has a limited point of view; may also be an unreliable narrator.
first-person narrator
a plot-structuring device whereby a scene from the fictional past is inserted into the fictional present or dramatized out of order.
flashback
a fictional character, often but not always a minor character, who is relatively simple; who is presented as having few, though sometimes dominant, traits; and who thus does not change much in the course of a story. See round character.
flat character
the point from which people, events, and other details in a story are viewed. See point of view.
focus
one character that serves as a contrast to another.
foil
language that is lofty, dignified, and impersonal. See colloquial diction and informal diction.
formal dictation
poetry characterized by varying line lengths, lack of traditional meter, and nonrhyming lines.
free verse
