ELA Final exam flash cards
Literary term: Tragedy
branch of drama that treats in a serious and dignified style the sorrowful or terrible events encountered or caused by a heroic individual.
Literary term: Tragic flaw
inherent defect or shortcoming in the hero of a tragedy, who is in other respects a superior being favoured by fortune.
Literary term: Catharsis
the purification or purgation of the emotions (especially pity and fear) primarily through art. Renawal/Release
Literary term: Chiasmus
literary device in which words, grammatical constructions, or concepts are repeated in reverse order. (Fair is foul and foul is fair)
Literary term: Paradox
A paradox in writing is a statement that appears to contradict itself but upon further inspection reveals a deeper truth or meaning.
Literary term: Allusion
brief but purposeful references, within a literary text, to a person, place, event, or to another work of literature. EX. “Chocolate cake is my Achilles heel.”
Literary term: Soliloquy
A monologue that is delivered when the character is alone. In Shakespeare’s plays, for example, there are many speeches that begin with a character saying something like “Now I am alone.”
Literary term: An Aside
when a character in a work of fiction addresses the audience directly for a moment to either express a truth, reveal a feeling, or comment on the events of the story.
Literary term: Foil Character
a character who is presented as a contrast to a second character so as to point to or show to advantage some aspect of the second character
Literary term: Comic relief
funny asl
Terza Rima
an arrangement of triplets, especially in iambs, that rhyme aba bcb cdc, etc., as in Dante’s Divine Comedy.
The number 3 (Dante)
The number three represents the Christian Holy Trinity– the union of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit in one God.
medias res
Starting in the middle of the story
Virgil
Roman poet who wrote The Aeneid, guides and instructs Dante through Hell and Purgatory
contrapasso
contrapasso is thepunishment of souls “by a process either resembling or contrasting with the sin itself.”
