Final Exam and Exam Terms Flashcards
A strongly exaggerated simile or metaphor.
Conceit
A compact statement expressing a truth.
Aphorism
An implied comparison in which one thing is described in terms of another.
Metaphor
The use of words to convey the opposite of their literal meaning, usually with a humorous effect.
Irony
Two rhyming lines which expresses a complete thought.
Couplet
One who tells the story in a work.
Narrator
The one with whom the protagonist comes into conflict within a novel or story; the opposing character. (ex: Moby Dick, from Moby Dick; Roger Chillingworth, from The Scarlet Letter)
Antagonist
Unrhymed iambic pentameter.
Blank Verse
The pattern in a line of poetry consisting of one accented syllable and one or two unaccented syllables.
Foot
The repetition of vowel sounds.
Assonance
A view of life which emphasizes a detached scientific and photographic accuracy which includes everything and selects nothing.
Naturalism
Regional language used by a writer to make his dialogue more realistic.
Dialect
The popular poets of the nineteenth century whose works were read by family and friends around the fireside and were learned and memorized in school.
Fireside and Schoolroom Poets
The suggested meaning or association of a word.
Connotation
A type of realistic, regional writing portraying the life of a particular geographical location by using picturesque details of setting which emphasize the quaint customs and dialect of the region.
Local Color
Three writers from New York (Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, and William Cullen Bryant) who wrote during the first part of the nineteenth century.
Knickerbockers
A group of eight lines.
Octave
The imaginary persons who carry out the action of the plot in a story or novel.
Characters
An approximate rhyme in which initial consonant sounds are the same.
Alliteration
Incorrect spelling often used for humorous effect.
Cacography
Poetry having no metrical pattern. It differs from prose only in that it is written in lines.
Free Verse
One who undergoes some change and is different at the end of the story. (ex: Candace Whitcomb from “The Village Singer”)
Dynamic Character
A prose work of moderate length in which the writer tries to develop his own thoughts on some subject.
Essay
The repetition of final consonant sounds.
Consonance
A long narrative poem in elevated style which presents characters and action of heroic proportions.
Epic
A reference to mythology, history, or literature.
Allusion
Words addressed to an inanimate object as if it were alive or to an absent person as if he were there.
Apostrophe
A type of extended prose fiction (meaning “new”).
Novel
A brief literary piece written as a tribute to a dead person, or an inscription on tombstone or monument in memory in memory of a deceased person.
Epitaph
A poem that tells a story.
Narrative Poem
A short narrative song written in stanzas.
Ballad
Saying the opposite of what is meant.
Verbal Irony
The point of highest intensity in a story or a poem.
Climax
A struggle between opposing forces.
Conflict
A narrative or description in which the characters, places, and other items are symbols. (ex: Pilgrim’s Progress)
Allegory
One who remains essentially the same throughout the story. (ex: Captain Ahab from Moby Dick)
Static Character
The use of words which appeal to out senses.
Imagery
The occurrence of rhythm at regular intervals.
Meter
Contrasting what a character says and what a reader or audience knows to by true.
Dramatic Irony
An imaginative prose narrative written to give the reader entertainment and insight. It is designed to produce a single impression and is short enough to be read in one sitting.
Short Story
The author tells the story from the viewpoint of one character, using either first person or third person.
Limited Point of View
The repetition of ideas in slightly differing form; the construction of two or more thoughts in the same pattern
Parallelism
A group of repeated lines usually containing the same meter and rhyme scheme.
Stanza
Using words which sound like what they mean
Onomatopoeia
The regular recurrence of a sound.
Rhythm
The physical background against which the events of the story take place.
Setting
The ridicule of human folly or vice with a purpose of correction it.
Satire
A comparison to which human qualities are given to an inanimate object or an animal.
Personification
The main character in a novel or story; the hero.
Protagonist
The writer’s or speaker’s attitude toward his subject, and in turn, the response whcih the writer intends for his readers.
Tone
A retelling of a work in one’s own words.
Paraphrase
The reader’s feeling of uncertainty regarding the action or outcome of a story. (It is an element that keeps the reader’s interest.)
Suspense
The repeating of words, phrases, sounds, or ideas for emphasis or particular effect.
Repetition
The correspondence of sounds.
Rhyme
The controlling idea or insight into life which the author seeks to impart through characters, plot, and all the elements working together.
Theme
A truth expressed in the form of an apparent contradiction
Paradox
A group of six lines.
Sestet
A group of four lines.
Quatrain
The arrangement of incidents or events in a story or novel; the sequence of related actions. (It can usually be divided into a beginning, a middle, and an end.)
Plot
A fourteen-line poem written in iambic pentameter with a definite pattern of two basic varieties, English or Italian.
Sonnet
An expressed comparison of unlike things in which the words like, as, resembles, or similar to are used.
Simile
Something which has meaning in itself but also represents something beyond itself.
Symbol
The method of presenting the reader with the material of the story; the perspective from which the story is told.
Point of View
Authors included in the Colonial Period:
• Anne Bradstreet• Benjamin Franklin• Edward Taylor• John Smith• John Winthrop• Michael Wigglesworth• Phillis (“Njambi”) Wheatley• Roger Williams• William Bradford
First poet to write verse in America (looks as if the girls win this one)
Anne Bradstreet
Wrote [Autobiography] and [Poor Richard’s Almanac] (he’s also a character in Assassin’s Creed: Rouge, AC: 3, and AC: Unity 😎)
Benjamin Franklin
Best Puritan poet, not published until 1939, and used metaphysical conceits
Edward Taylor
Affiliated with Pocahontas and Jamestown; wrote slightly exaggerated stories of his encounters; kissed Pocahontas in the historically inaccurate Disney movie (no, he wasn’t an ephebophile, and Pocahontas was only around 16 years old when he came to America. Screw Disney 😋)
John Smith
Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (M to W or W to M if you’re looking upside down)
John Winthrop
Most widely read Puritan poet (no, he is not affiliated with The WIGGLES in any way. He wrote about the apocolypse, guys. He wasn’t a fun dude)
Michael Wigglesworth
Second American woman to publish poetry, wrote “On Being Brought from Africa to America”, is Njambi’s ancestor (not really 👩🏿)
Philips Wheatley
Governor of Rhode Island; worked with Indians (because he wasn’t racist like everyone else 👦🏾)
Roger Williams
Father of American history; wrote [Of Plymouth Plantation]; the butthole who invented history 😒
William Bradford
Period characterized by derivations from myths and legends (because people were idiotically superstitious back then)
Romantic Era
Authors included in Romantic Era:
• Herman Melville• Washington Irving (I thought he was black!)• Edgar Allan Poe (the Kung-Fu Panda! No?)• William Cullen Bryant• Harriet Beecher Stowe• James Fenimore Cooper• Emily Dickinson (REALLY IN HER OWN CATEGORY - what Mrs. Ellis said)• Nathaniel Hawthorne
Wrote about Moby’s D-…I mean, wrote [Moby Dick]
Herman Melville
First American author to be international famous; stories were based of Dutch legends (that thieving, racist son of a Baptist preacher!); wrote Rip Van Winkle (he is the dude I thought was black but was white)
Washington Irving
Wrote “The Pit and the Pendulum” and the criteria for short stories; (got his name from a certain panda who knows Kung-Fu and was extremely depressing and a weirdo)
Edgar Allan Poe
Wrote “Thanatopsis” (because he was a weirdo who meditated on Death)
William Cullen Bryant
Wrote the [Leatherstocking Tales] (probably got that name from looking at men wearing leather stockings, I mean, who else comes up with the name Natty BUMPOO?)
James Fenimore Cooper
Recluse who dressed in white (that’s totally not racist); ahead of her time (also the person that Mrs. Ellis screamed, “REALLY IN HER OWN CATEGORY!!!” like a maniac)
Emily Dickinson
Wrote the (SECOND CRAPPIEST BOOK IN HUMAN HISTORY aside from [Silas Marner]) [Scarlet Letter]; constantly used themes of sin a guilt (probably because he knew his book sucked and doomed a generation of Rosedale Baptist juniors to suffer)
Nathaniel Hawkthorne
Period involving the Over-soul (😂) and stems from Unitarianism.
Transcendentalist Era
Authors of the Transcendentalist Era (because they wanted to be primitive monkeys so bad):
• Ralph (“Where’s Waldo?!”) Waldo Emerson• Henry David Thoreau (get it? ‘Cause he’s thorough? OK, shutting up)• Walt (“Disney”) Whitman
Era characterized by traditional themes and the Schoolroom Poets (even if they probably never went to school):
Fireside
Authors of the Fireside Era (should’ve just burned them and their books 😈):
• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (he was one “long” fellow)• John Greenleaf (really? He couldn’t think of something better like Grayrock or Browntrunk?) Whittier (that has hints of racism…)• Oliver (“Sherlock”) Wendell Holmes • James Russell Lowell (pronounced “LOL”)
Wrote “Self-Reliance”; founder of (the brain-dead cult) of Transcendentalism; wrote [Nature] (also the guy we have to look for in “Where’s Waldo?”)
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Wrote [Walden]; believed in civil disobedience (this system is broke yo!)
Henry David Thoreau
Said, “I was simmering…” (was probably in a hot tub when thinking this); wrote “Leaves of Grass” (funny, grass doesn’t HAVE leaves); wrote “O Captain, My Captain!” (because he was part of the Lincoln Fanclub for Gay Fanboys)
Walt Whitman
Wrote “Song of Hiawatha”; only American to have a bust in Westminster Abbey (probably because his bust was bigger than any man ever….probably because he was actually a woman)
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Was a Quaker (made oatmeal); wrote “Snowbound”; threw “Leaves of Grass” into the fire (my man!)
John Greenleaf Whittier
Known as Mr. Boston; wrote “Old Ironsides”
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Wrote “A Fable for Critics” (name sounds like “LOL”)
James Russell Lowell
Authors of the Realism Era (my kind of people!):
• Hamlin Garland• Mary E. Wilkins Freeman • Bret Harte
Author who exposed the land speculation system (down with the system! 👎🏼)
Hamlin Garland
Wrote about New England spinsters (like Mrs. Ellis)
Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
Wrote of the West
Bret Harte
Era characterized by drastic experimentalism:
Modern Era
Authors of the Modern Era:
• e. e. cummings (obviously, this guy couldn’t spell• Ernest Hemingway• F. Scott Fitzgerald• Joyce Kilmer• Paul Lawrence Dunbar• Pearl S. Buck• Ray Bradbury• Robert Frost (“cool” LAST name)• Carl Sandburg(er)
Experimented with capitalism and punctuation (also couldn’t spell)
e. e. cummings
Was an ambulance driver in WWII
Ernest Hemingway
Wrote about the emptiness of the Roaring 20s; wrote [The Great Gatsby] (that was a boring movie)
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Wrote “Trees” (which I would like to point out to Mrs. Ellis that no one even quotes the stupid thing)
Joyce Kilmer
First black poet to use black dialect (seriously? No other black poet used “yo dawg” or “but I’m notta rappah”? That’s racist)
Paul Lawrence Dunbar
Wrote “Missionary Child to China”
Pearl S. Buck
Wrote “The Pedestrian” (when the government turned into the biggest buttholes in the world)
Ray Bradbury
Most popular poet in the 20th century
Robert Frost
Poet from Chicago; wrote “Fog”
Carl Sandburg
Time period characterized by a simple, plain, and direct style; genres included journals and diaries; theme was God’s providence
Colonial Era
