Expected Vocabulary Flashcards
Allegory
A story / poem / picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning (typically moral / political)
Alliteration
The occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words
Allusion
An expression designed to call something to mind without mentioning it explicitly; an indirect or passing reference
Aside
A remark or passage in a play, intended to be heard by the audience but not by other characters
Assonance
Resemblance of sound between syllables of nearby words, particularly from the rhyming of two or more stressed vowels, but not consonants (eg sonnet, porridge) but also use of identical consonants with different vowels (eg killed, cold, culled)
Blank verse
Verse without rhyme, typically uses iambic pentameter
Caesura
A pause in the middle of a line of poetry, typically marked by some kind of punctuation
Dialogue
A conversation between 2 or more people as a feature of a book / play / film
Dramatic irony
The significance of a character’s words or actions is clear to the audience or reader but unknown to the character(s)
Enjambment
The continuation of a sentence without a pause beyond the end of a line / couplet / stanza
Extended metaphor
A metaphor that unfolds across multiple lines or paragraphs of a text, making use of multiple interrelated metaphors
Analepsis
Flashback; a move to a scene in a film / novel / etc that is set before the main story
Prolepsis
Flashforward; a move to a scene in a film / novel / etc that is set later than the main story
Form
A way of categorising literature based on its structure or purpose
Foreshadowing
Where warnings about events to come are planted in the text
Genre
A style or category of art, music or literature
Hyperbole
Exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally
Iambic pentameter
A line of verse with five metrical feet, each consisting of one short / unstressed syllable followed by one long / stressed sylllable
Imagery
Visually descriptive or figurative language
Irony
Expression of one’s meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect
Juxtaposition
Where two things seen or placed close together have contrasting effect
Metaphor
A figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable
Monologue
A long speech by one actor in a play or film
Narrative
A spoken or written account of connected events; a story
Narrator
The voice an author takes on to tell a story (this can have a personality different to the author’s)
Oxymoron
A figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction
Pathetic fallacy
Giving emotions to something non-human, often used to describe the environment. Weather and season can be described with human emotions to reflect a mood or create a tone
Personification
Giving any human attribute to an object
Protagonist
The main character; they drive the story by pursuing a goal
Pun
A figure of speech that plays with words that have multiple meanings, or with homophones (words that sound the same but mean different things)
Semantic field
A group of words or expressions related in meaning, used by writers to keep a certain image persistent in their readers’ minds
Sibilance
A hissing sound created in a group of words through the repetition of “s” sounds
Simile
A figure of speech comparing two unlike things, often introduced by “like” or “as”
Soliloquy
Where a character speaks their thoughts aloud, alone or regardless of hearers, especially by a character in a play
Sonnet
A fourteen-line poem, using any formal rhyme scheme; in English typically has ten syllables per line. Often about love
Stage directions
Instruction in the text of a play indicating movement, position or tone of an actor, or sound effects and lighting
Symbol
A thing that represents or stands for something else, especially a material object representing something abstract
Stanza
A group of lines forming the basic recurring metrical unit in a poem; a verse
Symbolism
The use of symbols to represent ideas or qualities
Verse
Writing arranged with a metrical rhythm, typically having a rhyme
