D-F

Question 1

the metrical pattern in which each foot consists of a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed ones.

Answer 1

dactylic

Question 2

a direct and specific meaning. See connotation.

Answer 2

denotation

Question 3

a textual organization determined by the requirements of describing someone or something.

Answer 3

descriptive structure

Question 4

an authors choice of words

Answer 4

dictation

Question 5

the first specific event in a story, usually in the form of a specific scene.

Answer 5

discriminated occasion

Question 6

a textual organization based on the form of a treatise, argument, or essay

Answer 6

discursive structure

Question 7

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

Answer 7

dramatic irony

Question 8

a monologue set in a specific situation and spoken to an imaginary audience

Answer 8

dramatic monologue

Question 9

a textual organization based on series of scenes, each which is presented vividly and in detail.

Answer 9

dramatic structure

Question 10

the list of characters that appears either in the play’s program or at the top of the first page of the written play.

Answer 10

dramatis personae

Question 11

a verbal reference that recalls a word, phrase, or sound in another text.

Answer 11

echo

Question 12

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.

Answer 12

elegy

Question 13

see Shakespearean sonnet.

Answer 13

english sonnet

Question 14

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.”

Answer 14

enjambment

Question 15

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.

Answer 15

epic

Question 16

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.

Answer 16

epigram

Question 17

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

Answer 17

expectation

Question 18

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.

Answer 18

exposition

Question 19

a detailed and complex metaphor that stretches through a long section of a work.

Answer 19

extended metaphor

Question 20

the fourth part of plot structure, in which the complications of the rising action are untangled.

Answer 20

falling action

Question 21

a play characterized by broad humor, wild antics, and often slapstick, pratfalls, or other physical humor.

Answer 21

farce

Question 22

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.

Answer 22

figurative

Question 23

comparisons in which something is pictured or figured in other, more familiar terms.

Answer 23

figures of speech

Question 24

a character, “I,” who tells the story and necessarily has a limited point of view; may also be an unreliable narrator.

Answer 24

first-person narrator

Question 25

a plot-structuring device whereby a scene from the fictional past is inserted into the fictional present or dramatized out of order.

Answer 25

flashback

Question 26

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.

Answer 26

flat character

Question 27

the point from which people, events, and other details in a story are viewed. See point of view.

Answer 27

focus

Question 28

one character that serves as a contrast to another.

Answer 28

foil

Question 29

language that is lofty, dignified, and impersonal. See colloquial diction and informal diction.

Answer 29

formal dictation

Question 30

poetry characterized by varying line lengths, lack of traditional meter, and nonrhyming lines.

Answer 30

free verse