first test Flashcards
fairytale
a fictional story that may feature folkloric characters and enchantments often involving a far-fetched sequence of events
Patriarchy
1) a system of society, government, etc. ruled by men with decent through the male line 2) the attitudes structure, etc. of a society seen as ensuring male dominance.
Feminism
1) the advocacy of equality between the sexes especially through the establishment of the political, social, and economic right of women 2) the movement associated with this
Mythology
A system of hereditary stories of ancient origin which were once believed to be true by a particular cultural group, and which served to explain why the world is as it is and thing happen as they do. These stories also establish the sanctions for the rules by which people conduct their lives.
Myth
A story in a mythology. (today “myth” means any widely held fallacy, any falsely held belief)
Allusion
A brief, sometimes indirect, reference in a text to a person, place, or thing. (Allusions imply a common body of knowledge between reader and writer and act as a literary shorthand to enrich the meaning of a text).
Alliteration
The repetition of a consonant sound in a line of verse or prose. (Example: the cool cats kill).
Assonance
The repetition of two or more vowel sounds in successive words, which creates a kind of rhyme (Example: awful alligators).
Rhyme
Two or more words that contain an identical or similar vowel sound, with following consonant sounds identical. (Example: almost any song lyrics).
Diction
Word choice or vocabulary. (Diction refers to the class of words that an author decides is appropriate to use in a particular work).
Connotation
The overtones or suggestions of additional meaning that a word gains from all the contexts in which we have met it in the past.
(Example: The word ‘skeleton’ denotes “the bony framework of a human being or other vertebrate animal, which supports the flesh and protects the organs,” but it connotes death, Halloween, maybe even war and disease, etc.)
Imagery
The collective set of images in a poem.
Image
A word or series of words that refers to any sensory experience (usually sight, although also sound, smell, touch or taste). An image is direct or literal re-creation of physical experience and adds immediacy to literary language.
(Example: “The ocean, with nowhere else to go, / Makes its bed in the hills, / Pulling its coverlet over bare summits.” The image is one of the ocean going to sleep in the mountains and pulling waters over itself like a duvet).
Personification
The endowing of a thing, an animal, or an abstract term with human characteristics.
(Example: “The wind stood up and gave a shout. / He whistled on his fingers and / Kicked the withered leaves about).
Simile
A comparison of two things indicated usually by ‘like’, ‘as’, or ‘than.’ (A simile usually compares two things that initially seem unlike, but are shown to have a significant resemblance. (Example: my love is like the sunshine)).
