Lit Terms Flashcards
Climax
Most intense part of story
Denotation
Dictionary definition
Character
Person in story
Couplet
2 lines of poetry that rhyme
Carpe diem
seize the day, theme of lots of literature
Connotation
Feeling a word invokes
Caesura
Natural break in poetry (To be-Or not to be)
Conflict
Struggle between opposing forces
Catharsis
Tragedy, cleansing of emotions, radical change/reinvention
Denouement
Outcome/solution of story
Chiasms
Parts of a sentence are reversed (we forget what we want to remember and remember what we want to forget)
Conceit
Surprising analogy (Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?)
Characterization
Writer reveals personality of character (She is kind/She performed a kind act)
Dialogue
Conversation between characters
Cliche
Overused expression (diamond in the rough)
Allegory
Story interpreted to reveal a moral/political meaning (Tortoise and the Hare)
Cacophony
Harsh/discordant mixture of sound (cold chasm is deep and dry)
Blank Verse
Unrhymed iambic pentameter
Ballad
Poem/song narrating a story
Atmosphere
Feeling created by environment
Asyndeton
Taking out a conjunction (dog bound, lept, raced through town)