List 11 & 51-55 Flashcards
dirge
n
a slow, mourning piece of mysic; a funeral hymn
ominous
adj
threatening; menacing
divining
adj
finding our through intuition; guessing from incomplete evidence.
respite
n
a brief period of rest or relief from pain or labor
tempest
n
a violent storm
Falling Action
the events that occur after the literary climax (turning point) and before the resolution (end) of the story. Falling action tells how things “fall” into place after the literary climax.
ex: The falling action of Romeo and Juliet begins following rising action and climax, which is reached when the lovers are killed. Then the parents and Prince discover the bodies of two lovers, and they agree to put aside their animosity in the best interest of peace.
Figurative Language
language that communicates ideas beyond the literal meaning of the words. Figurative language can make a description or unfamiliar or difficult ideas easier to understand.
ex: I’m so hungry I could eat a horse
Figures of Speech
A device used to produce figurative language. Many compare dissimilar things. Figures of speech include, for example, apostrophe, hyperbole, irony, metaphor, metonymy, oxymoron, paradox, personification, simile, synecdoche, and understatement.
ex: I’ve told you a million times to clean your room.
Flashback
In a literary work, a flashback is an interruption of the current section to present a scene that took place at an earlier time.
ex: “When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.”
Harper Lee’s masterpiece To Kill a Mockingbird is told entirely in flashback from the main character Scout’s perspective. Lee opens the novel with this flashback example and immediately sets the reader in the mindset of a child, especially Jem’s worries about being able to play football or not.
Foot
A metrical unit of poetry composed of stressed and unstressed syllables.
ex: This stanza is taken from William Shakespeare’s well known play, Twelfth Night. It has been composed in iambic pentameter.
