Key Term Summer Vocab

Question 1

Allegory

Answer 1

a prose or poetic narrative in which the characters, behavior, and even the setting demonstrates multiple levels of meaning and significance

Question 2

Alliteration

Answer 2

The sequential repetition of a similar initial sound, usually applied to consonants, usually heard in closely proximate stressed syllables.

Question 3

Allusion

Answer 3

A reference to a literary or historical event, person, or place.

Question 4

Anapestic

Answer 4

A metrical foot in poetry that consists of two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed

Question 5

Anaphora

Answer 5

The regular repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive phrases or clauses

Question 6

Anecdote

Answer 6

A brief story or tale told by a character in a piece of literature

Question 7

Antagonist

Answer 7

Any force that is in opposition to the main character or protagonist

Question 8

Antithesis

Answer 8

the juxtaposition of sharply contrasting ideas in balanced or parallel words, phrases, grammatical structures, or ideas

Question 9

Apostrophe

Answer 9

an address or invocation to something that is inanimate- such as an angry lover who might scream at the ocean in their despair

Question 10

Archetype

Answer 10

recurrent designs, patterns of action, character types, themes, or images which are identifiable in a wide range of literature Ex: femme fatale

Question 11

Assonance

Answer 11

a repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds, usually those found in stressed syllables of close proximity

Question 12

Asyndeton

Answer 12

a style in which conjunctions are omitted, usually producing a fast paced, more rapid prose

Question 13

Attitude

Answer 13

the sense expressed by the tone of voice and/or the mood of a piece of writing; the feelings the author holds towards his subject, the people in his narrative, the events, the setting, or even the theme

Question 14

Ballad

Answer 14

A narrative poem that is, or originally was, meant to be sung. Repetition and refrain characterize the ballad

Question 15

Ballad Stanza

Answer 15

a common stanza form consisting of a quatrain that alternates 4 beat and 3 beat lines: 1 and 3 are unrhymed and 2 and 4 are rhymed

Question 16

Blank Verse

Answer 16

the verse form that most resembles common speech, blank Verse consists of unrhymed lines in iambic pentameter

Question 17

Juxtaposition

Answer 17

the location of one thing as being adjacent or juxtaposed with another. This placing of 2 items side by side creates a certain effect, reveals an attitude, or accomplishes, some purpose of the writer

Question 18

Limited point of view

Answer 18

a perspective confined to a single character.

Question 19

Litote

Answer 19

a figure of speech that emphasizes its subject by conscious understatement`

Question 20

loose sentence

Answer 20

a sentence grammatically complete, and usually stating its main idea, before the end

Question 21

lyric

Answer 21

originally designated poems meant to be sung to the accompaniment of a lyre; now any short poem in which the speaker expresses intense personal emotion

Question 22

message

Answer 22

a misleading term for theme; the central idea or statement of a story, or area of inquiry or explanation

Question 23

metaphor

Answer 23

one thing pictured as if it were something else, suggesting a likeness or analogy between them. It is an implicit comparison or identification of one thing with another unlike itself without using like or as

Question 24

meter

Answer 24

the more or less regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry. Determined by the kind of “foot” and by the number of feet per line

Question 25

metonymy

Answer 25

a figure of speech in which an attribute or commonly associated feature is used to name or designate something

Question 26

mood

Answer 26

a feeling or ambiance resulting from the tone of a piece as well as the author’s attitude and point of view. Created through descriptions of feelings or objects that establish an emotion

Question 27

motif

Answer 27

a recurrent device, formula, or situation that often serves as a signal for the appearance of a character or event

Question 28

Narrative structure

Answer 28

a textual organization based on sequences of connected events, usually present in a straightforward, chronological framework

Question 29

narrator

Answer 29

the “character” who “tells” the story

Question 30

occasional poem

Answer 30

a poem written about or for a specific occasion, public or private

Question 31

ode

Answer 31

a lyric poem that is somewhat serious in subject and treatment, elevated in style and sometimes uses elaborate stanza structure, often patterned in sets of 3, to praise/exalt a person, characteristic, quality, or object

Question 32

omniscient point of view

Answer 32

a perspective that can be seen from one character;s view, then another’s, then another’s, or can be moved in or out of the mind of any character at any time

Question 33

onomatopoeia

Answer 33

a word capturing or approximating the sound of what it describes, like “buzz”

Question 34

style

Answer 34

a distinctive manner of expression, expressed through diction, rhythm, imagery, and so on. includes word choice, tone, figurative language, rhythm, etc.

Question 35

symbolism

Answer 35

a person, place, thing, event, or pattern in a literary work that designates itself and at the same time figuratively “represents” something else

Question 36

synecdoche

Answer 36

when a part is used to signify a whole

Question 37

syntax

Answer 37

the way words are put together to form phrases, clauses, and sentences

Question 38

Terza rima

Answer 38

a verse form consisting of 3 line stanzas in which the second line of each rhymes with the first and third of the next

Question 39

theme

Answer 39

a generalized, abstract, paraphrase of the central or dominant idea or concern of a work

Question 40

tone

Answer 40

the attitude a literary work takes toward its subject and theme

Question 41

tragedy

Answer 41

a drama in which a character is brought to a disastrous end in their confrontation with a superior force

Question 42

trochaic

Answer 42

a metrical foot in poetry that is the opposite of iambic. the first syllable is stressed, the second is not

Question 43

turning point

Answer 43

the 3rd part of plot structure, the point at which the action stops rising and begins falling or reversing

Question 44

villanelle

Answer 44

a verse form consisting of 19 lines divided into 6 stanzas- five tercets and one quatrain

Question 45

voice

Answer 45

acknowledged or unacknowledged source of the words of the story