List 21-40

Question 1

Asyndeton

Answer 1

The omission of conjunctions that coordinate words and phrases
Ex. Without looking, breathing, making a sound

Question 2

Audience

Answer 2

The group of people who participate in a show or encounter a work of art

Question 3

Balanced Sentence

Answer 3

A sentence that uses parallel structure and has clauses that are equally long and equally important
Ex. Light is faster, but we are safer

Question 4

Ballad

Answer 4

A story in poetic form, often tragic love
Ex. “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, “Sir Patrick Spens”, “Casey at the Bat”, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitgerald”

Question 5

Bathos

Answer 5

An abrupt turn from serious and poetic to regular and silly in literature
Ex. Mary: John - we once had something that was pure, and wonderful, and good. What’s happened to it?
John: You spent it all

Question 6

Blank Verse

Answer 6

Poetry without rhyme but usually has iambic pentameter rhythm, often resembles ordinary speech
Ex. “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulder in the sun;”

Question 7

Caesura

Answer 7

A pause in mid-verse, often marked by punctuation
Ex. I’m nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there’s a pair of us - don’t tell!
They’d banish - you know!

Question 8

Chiasmus

Answer 8

A statement consisting of two parallel parts in which the second part is structurally reversed
Ex. Never let a fool kiss you or a kiss fool you

Question 9

Cliche

Answer 9

Overused, worn-out word or phrase, not literal
Ex. Time will tell, a diamond in the rough, lost my train of thought

Question 10

Climax

Answer 10

Structural part of the plot, often referred to as the crisis or high point
Ex. When Romeo and Juliet die

Question 11

Colloquialism

Answer 11

Use of slang words or phrases in literature
Ex. y’all, sus

Question 12

Conceit

Answer 12

A kind of metaphor that compares two very unlikely things in a surprising and clever way
Ex. “If they be two, they are two so As stiff Twin compasses are two; Thy soul, the fix’d foot, makes no show To move, but doth, if th’ other do.” or “A heart is like a broken clock”

Question 13

Concrete Poetry

Answer 13

Poem that visually resembles something it discusses
Ex. “Swan and Shadow”

Question 14

Conduplicatio

Answer 14

Repetition in which the key word(s) in a phrase, clause, or sentence repeats at or near the beginning of successive sentences.
Ex. She fed the goldfish every day with the new pellets brought from Japan. Gradually the goldfish began to turn a brighter orange than before.

Question 15

Connotation

Answer 15

A word’s emotional or social content, not actual definition
Ex. Group, Clique, Club

Question 16

Consonance

Answer 16

Recurrence of similar sounds, especially consonants, in close proximity
Ex. He struck a streak of bad luck

Question 17

Convention

Answer 17

A characteristic of a literary genre that is understood and accepted by audiences; a defining feature of a genre
Ex. “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…”, Fables have a moral

Question 18

Couplet

Answer 18

A pair of rhyming lines in a poem (only 2)
Ex. Hear the honking of the goose
I think he’s angry at the moose

Question 19

Denotation

Answer 19

The literal meaning of a word
Ex. Blue = a color (connotation = sadness)

Question 20

Deux ex Machina

Answer 20

An unexpected power or event saving a seemingly hopeless situation, especially as a contrived plot device in a play or novel
Ex. a solution that is too easy