Lit Terms Flashcards
What is an allegory?
A story or poem in which characters, settings, and events stand for other people or events or for abstract ideas or qualities.
Example: Animal Farm; Dante’s Inferno; Lord of the Flies
What is alliteration?
The repetition of the same or similar consonant or vowel sounds at the beginning of closely positioned words.
Example: Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers
What is an allusion?
A reference to someone or something that is known from history, literature, religion, politics, sports, science, or another branch of culture.
What is ambiguity?
Deliberately suggesting two or more different, and sometimes conflicting, meanings in a work. If done unintentionally, it may lead to vagueness.
What is an analogy?
A comparison made between two things to show how they are alike.
What is an anecdote?
A brief story, told to illustrate a point or serve as an example of something, often showing character of an individual.
What is an antagonist?
An opponent who struggles against or blocks the hero, or protagonist, in a story.
What is an antihero?
The central character who lacks all the qualities traditionally associated with heroes, such as courage, grace, intelligence, or moral scruples.
What is an aphorism?
A brief, cleverly worded statement that makes a wise observation about life, or of a principle or accepted general truth.
What is an apostrophe?
Calling out to an imaginary, dead, or absent person, or to a place or thing, or a personified abstract idea.
What is an archetype?
A recurring symbol, character, landscape, or event found throughout myth and literature across different cultures.
What is anthropomorphism?
A figure of speech in which human specific characteristics are attributed to animals other than humans.
Example: Mickey Mouse dancing.
What is Assonance?
The repetition of similar vowel sounds followed by different consonant sounds, especially in words that are together.
Example: As hard as she might, her tries to light the fire were slight.
What is Asyndeton?
Commas used without conjunction to separate a series of words, thus emphasizing the parts equally.
What does Atmosphere refer to?
The dominant feeling that is created by a particular setting.
What is a Bildungsroman?
A German term for ‘novel of growth and development’, depicting a youth who struggles toward maturity.
Example: Great Expectations.
What is Cacophony?
A harsh, discordant mixture of sounds.
What is Characterization?
The process by which the writer reveals the personality of a character.
What is Direct Characterization?
The author tells us directly what the character is like.
What is Static Character?
A character that does not change much in the course of a story.
What is Dynamic Character?
A character that changes in some important way as a result of the story’s action.
What is Flat Character?
A character that has only one or two personality traits; they are one-dimensional.
What is Indirect Characterization?
The author reveals what the character is like by describing how the character looks and dresses, by letting the character’s private thoughts and feelings show, or by showing the character in action.
What is a Cliché?
A phrase or figure of speech that has become overused.
What is Colloquialism?
A word or phrase in everyday use in conversation and informal writing but inappropriate for formal situations.
Example: ‘He’s out of his head if he thinks I’m gonna go for such a stupid idea.’
What is Conflict?
The struggle between opposing forces or characters in a story.
What is External Conflict?
Conflict that exists between two people, between a person and nature or a machine, or between a person and a whole society.
What is a Round Character?
A character that has more dimensions to their personalities—they are complex, just as real people are
What is internal conflict?
A conflict that involves opposing forces within a person’s mind.
What is connotation?
The associations and emotional overtones that have become attached to a word or phrase, in addition to its strict dictionary definition.
What is consonance?
The repetition of similar consonant sounds anywhere within words that are placed close together.
Example: The mother hen checked on the chick with a click of her beak.
What is comedy in literature?
A story that ends with a happy resolution of the conflicts faced by the main character or characters.
What is dialect?
A more micro level variety of a language that is characteristic of a particular area, community or group, often with relatively minor differences in vocabulary, style, spelling and pronunciation.
Example: A person from the North East might say, ‘hello.’ A Southerner might say, ‘hey y’all.’ A person from Texas might say, ‘howdy.’
What is diction?
A speaker or writer’s choice of words.
What is didactic literature?
A form of fiction or nonfiction that teaches a specific lesson or moral or provides a model of correct behavior or thinking.
What is an epigraph?
A quotation or aphorism at the beginning of a literary work suggestive of the theme.
What is an epithet?
An adjective or adjective phrase applied to a person or thing that is frequently used to emphasize a characteristic quality.
Examples: ‘Father of our country’ and ‘the great Emancipator.’
The Homeric version is a compound adjective used with a person or thing: ‘swift-footed Achilles’ and ‘rosy-fingered dawn.’
What is an Essay?
a short piece of nonfiction prose in which the writer discusses some aspect of a subject
What is an Argumentative Essay?
one of the four forms of discourse which uses logic, ethics, and emotional appeals (logos, ethos, pathos) to develop a fair and balanced yet effective means to convince the reader to think or act in a certain way
What is Persuasion?
an appeal that relies more on emotionally charged language than on facts
What is an Argument?
an appeal to reason instead of emotion to convince an audience to think or act in a certain way.
What is a Causal Relationship?
a form of argumentation in which the
writer claims that one thing results from another, often used as part of
a logical argument.
What is a Descriptive Essay?
one of the four major forms of discourse that uses language to describe things as vividly as possible.
What is an Expository Essay?
one of the four major forms of discourse, in which something is explained or “set forth.”
What is a Narrative Essay?
one of the four major forms of discourse that tells about a series of events.
What is explication?
The act of interpreting or discovering the meaning of a text, usually involves close reading and special attention to figurative language.
What is a eulogy?
A great praise or commendation, a laudatory speech, often about someone who has died.
What is euphony?
Agreeableness of sound; pleasing effect to the ear, especially a pleasant sounding or harmonious combination or succession of words.
What is a fable?
A very short story told in prose or poetry that uses anthropomorphism and/or personification to teach a practical lesson about how to succeed in life.
What is a farce?
A type of comedy in which ridiculous and often stereotyped characters are involved in silly, exaggerated situations.
What is figurative language?
Words that are inaccurate when interpreted literally. Used to describe
What is a flashback?
A scene that interrupts the normal chronological sequence of events in a story to depict something that happened at an earlier time.
What is a foil?
A character who acts as contrast to another character, often a funny sidekick to the plot.
What is hubris?
A negative term that implies both arrogant, excessive self-pride or self-confidence, and a lack of important perception or insight due to pride in one’s abilities.
What is hyperbole?
A figure of speech that uses an incredible exaggeration or overstatement for effect.
Example: ‘If I told you once, I’ve told you a million times….’
What is imagery?
The use of language to evoke a picture or a concrete sensation of a person, a thing, a place, or an experience.
What is irony?
A discrepancy between appearances and reality.
What is verbal irony?
Occurs when someone says one thing but really means something else.
What is situational irony?
Takes place when there is a discrepancy between what is expected to happen, or what would be appropriate to happen, and what really does happen.
What is dramatic irony?
Is so called because it is often used on stage. A character in the play or story thinks one thing is true, but the audience or reader knows otherwise.
What is foreshadowing?
The use of hints and clues to suggest what will happen later in a story.
What is LITOTES?
A form of understatement in which the positive form is emphasized through the negation of a negative form.
What is LOCAL COLOR?
A term applied to fiction or poetry which tends to place special emphasis on a particular setting, including its customs, clothing, dialect, and landscape.
What is METAPHOR?
A figure of speech that makes a comparison between two unlike things.
What is EXTENDED METAPHOR?
A metaphor that is extended or developed as far as the writer wants to take it.
What is DEAD METAPHOR?
A metaphor that has been used so often that the comparison is no longer vivid.
What is METONYMY?
A figure of speech in which a person, place, or thing is referred to by something closely associated with it.
What is MOOD?
An internal feeling that is created either in the reader or in the characters by a writer’s diction and the details selected.
What is MOTIF?
A recurring image, word, phrase, action, idea, object, or situation used throughout a work, unifying the current situation to previous or new ideas to the theme.
Example: Kurt Vonnegut uses ‘So it goes’ throughout Slaughterhouse-Five to remind the reader of the senselessness of death.
What is MOTIVATION?
The reasons for a character’s behavior.
What is ONOMATOPOEIA?
The use of words whose sounds echo their sense.
What is IMPLIED METAPHOR?
A metaphor that does not state explicitly the two terms of the comparison.
What is MIXED METAPHOR?
A metaphor that has gotten out of control and mixes its terms so that they are visually or imaginatively incompatible.
What is an oxymoron?
A figure of speech that combines opposite or contradictory terms in a brief phrase.
Examples: “Jumbo shrimp,” “Pretty ugly,” “Bitter-sweet”.
What is a parable?
A relatively short story that teaches a moral or lesson without the use of anthropomorphism or personification.
What is a paradox?
A statement that appears self-contradictory, but that reveals a kind of truth.
What is a parody?
A work that makes fun of another work by imitating some aspect of the writer’s style.
What is personification?
A figure of speech in which human specific characteristics are attributed to inanimate objects.
Example: “The lightning danced across the sky.”
What is a plot?
The series of related events in a story or play, sometimes called the storyline.
What is the exposition?
Introduces characters, situation, and setting
What is the rising action?
complications in conflict and situations (may introduce new ones as well)
What is the climax?
that point in a plot that creates the greatest intensity, suspense, or
interest. Also called “turning point”
What is the falling action?
the point in the plot where the conflicts begin to resolve
What is the resolution?
the conclusion of a story, when all or most of the conflicts have been settled; often called the denouement.
What is the point of view?
the vantage point from which the writer tells the story.
What is first person point of view?
one of the characters tells the
story. (typically uses first person pronouns: I, me, my, us, we,…)
What is second person point of view?
the narrator instructs the reader as if they are telling the reader what they are to experience. (typically uses 2nd
person pronoun: you)
What is third person point of view?
an unknown narrator, tells the story, but this narrator usually zooms in to focus on the thoughts and feelings of only one character (limited). (typically uses 3rd
it, they, them…)
What is Omniscient Point of View?
an omniscient or all-knowing
narrator tells the story, also using the third person pronouns. This narrator,
instead of focusing on one character only, often tells us everything about
many characters.
What is objective point of view?
A narrator who is totally impersonal and objective tells the story, with no comment on any characters or events.
What is a protagonist?
The central character in a story, the one who initiates or drives the action. Usually the hero or anti-hero.
In a tragic hero, like John Proctor of The Crucible, there is always a hamartia, or tragic flaw in his character which will lead to his downfall.
What is a pun?
A ‘play on words’ based on the multiple meanings of a single word or on words that sound alike but mean different things.
What is rhetoric?
The art of effective communication, especially persuasive discourse.
What is a rhetorical question?
A question asked for an effect, and not actually requiring an answer.
What is romance in literature?
A story in which an idealized hero or heroine undertakes a quest and is successful.
What is satire?
A type of writing that ridicules the shortcomings of people or institutions in an attempt to bring about a change.
What is sibilance?
A specific type of alliteration that is characterized by a hissing sound.
What is a simile?
A figure of speech that makes an explicit comparison between two unlike things, using words such as like, as, than, or resembles.
What is a stereotype?
A fixed idea or conception of a character or an idea which does not allow for any individuality, often based on religious, social, or racial prejudices.
What is stream of consciousness?
A style of writing that portrays the inner (often chaotic) workings of a character’s mind.
What is style in writing?
The distinctive way in which a writer uses language: a writer’s distinctive use of diction, tone, and syntax.
What is suspense?
A feeling of uncertainty and curiosity about what will happen next in a story.
What is a symbol?
A person, place, thing, or event that has meaning in itself and for something more than itself.
What is synecdoche?
A figure of speech in which a part represents the whole.
‘If you don’t drive properly, you will lose your wheels.’ The wheels represent the entire car.
What is a tall tale?
An outrageously exaggerated, humorous story that is obviously unbelievable.
What is a theme in literature?
The insight about human life that is revealed in a literary work.
What is tone in writing?
The attitude a writer takes toward the subject of a work, the characters in it, or the audience, revealed through diction, figurative language, and organization.
What is a tragedy?
A story in which a heroic character either dies or comes to some other unhappy end.
What is a tragic flaw?
A fatal weakness or ignorance in a character that brings them to their end. Also known as hamartia.
What is an understatement?
A statement that says less than what is meant.
Example: During the second war with Iraq, American troops faced a sandstorm that made even the night-vision equipment useless. A British commando commented about the storm: “It’s a bit breezy.”
What is an unreliable narrator?
A narrator who, intentionally or unintentionally, relates events of a story in a subjective and distorted manner.
What is vernacular?
The macro level language spoken by the people who live in a particular locality. The vernacular of the United States is English.
What is zoomorphism?
A figure of speech in which animal-specific characteristics are attributed to humans.
Example: I can’t help myself, I always wolf-down my pizza.
What is anaphora?
Repetition of a word, phrase, or clause at the beginning of two or more sentences in a row.
What is anastrophe?
A fancy word for inversion in sentence structure.
What is antimetabole?
Repetition of words in successive clauses in reverse grammatical order.
What is antithesis?
Balancing words, phrases, or ideas that are strongly contrasted, often by means of grammatical structure.
What is apposition?
Placing in immediately succeeding order of two or more coordinate elements, the latter of which is an explanation, qualification, or modification of the first.
Example: “These are the times that try men’s souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”
What is balance in writing?
Constructing a sentence so that both halves are about the same length and importance.
What is Epanelepsis?
A device of repetition in which the same expression (single word or phrase) is repeated both at the beginning and at the end of the line, clause, or sentence.
Example: Voltaire: “Common sense is not so common.”
What is Epistrophe?
A device of repetition in which the same expression (single word or phrase) is repeated at the end of two or more lines, clauses, or sentences (it is the opposite of anaphora).
What is Hypotactic Sentence?
A sentence marked by the use of connecting words between clauses or sentences, explicitly showing the logical or other relationships between them.
Example: I am tired because it is hot.
What is Sentence Inversion?
The reversal of the normal word order in a sentence or phrase.
What is Juxtaposition?
A poetic and rhetorical device in which normally unassociated ideas, words, or phrases are placed next to one another, creating an effect of surprise and wit.
Example: Martin Luther King: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
What is Parallel Structure?
The repetition of words or phrases that have similar grammatical structures.
What is Paratactic Sentence?
A sentence that simply juxtaposes clauses or sentences.
What is a Periodic Sentence?
A sentence that places the main idea or central complete thought at the end of the sentence, after all introductory elements.
What is Polysyndeton?
A sentence which uses a conjunction with NO commas to separate the items in a series. Instead of X, Y, and Z… Polysyndeton results in X and Y and Z…
What is Syntactic Fluency?
Ability to create a variety of sentence structures, appropriately complex and/or simple and varied in length.
What is Syntax?
The manner in which words are arranged to form sentences.
What is Syntactic Perturbation?
Sentence structures that are extraordinarily complex and involved. Often difficult for a reader to follow.
What is a Telegraphic Sentence?
A sentence shorter than five words in length.
What is a Tricolon?
A sentence of three parts of equal importance and length, usually three independent clauses.
What is Unity in writing?
Unified parts of the writing are related to one central idea or organizing principle. Unity is dependent on coherence
What is an ACT (drama)?
The major structural division in a drama. They are divided into scenes. They may contain shifts in time and place.
What is an Aside?
In drama, a few words or short passage spoke in an undertone or
to the audience. By convention, other characters onstage are
deaf to it.
What is Catharsis?
The purging of the feelings of pity and fear. According to Aristotle the audience should experience this catharsis at the end of a tragedy.
What is the Chorus?
In a classical drama, this is a group of characters placed on stage to comment upon the action and express traditional wisdom. It is employed most often in traditional Greek drama.
What is the Fourth Wall?
The imaginary wall that separates the spectator/audience from the action taking place on stage. In a traditional theatre setting (as opposed to a theatre in the round) this imaginary wall has been removed so that the spectator can “peep” into the fictional world and see what is going on. If the audience is addressed directly, this is referred to as “breaking the ________.”
What is a Monologue?
A speech by a single character without another character’s response. The character however, is speaking to someone else or even a group of people.
What is a Scene?
A traditional segment in a play. They are used to indicate (1) a change in time, (2) a change in location, (3) provides a jump from one subplot to another, (4) introduces new characters (5) rearrange the actors on the stage.
Traditionally plays are composed of acts, broken down into these.
What is a monologue?
a long speech made by a character in a play while no other characters are on stage.
What is Stage Direction?
A playwright’s descriptive or interpretive comments that provide readers (as well as actors and directors) with information about the dialogue, setting, and action of a play. Modern playwrights tend to include substantial amounts of these, while earlier playwrights typically use them more sparsely, implicitly, or not at all.
What is Theatre of the Absurd?
A postwar European genre of drama that depicts the grotesque common plight of human beings thrown by accident into an irrational and meaningless world.
**Footnote
Ex. Waiting for Godot
What is a Caesura?
A pause within a line of poetry. They usually appear in the middle of a line with the use of a comma or period.
What is a Chiasmus?
In poetry, a type of rhetorical balance in which the second part is syntactically balanced against the first, but with the parts reversed. In prose this is called antimetabole.
What is Conceit?
an elaborate metaphor that compares two things that are startlingly different. Often an extended metaphor.
What is Confessional Poetry?
a twentieth century term used to describe poetry that uses intimate material from the poet’s life.
What is a Closed Couplet?
Two rhymed lines that contain and independent and complete thought or statement.
**Footnote
EX. “I should have been a pair of ragged claws/ Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.” (Eliot)
What is a couplet?
two consecutive rhyming lines of poetry.
**Footnote
EX. “This day, whate’er
the fates decree./ Shall still be kept with joy by me…” (Swift)
What is a dramatic monologue?
A poem written as a speech made by a character. Typically the persona will reveal private desires, weaknesses, crimes, or maybe in wrongdoings.
What is an Elegy?
a poem of mourning, usually about someone who has died.
What is an end stopped line?
A line of poetry or verse that ends in a full pause usually
indicated by a mark of punctuation.
What is an enjambment?
A line of poetry that does not end will a full pause (punctuation) which should then be read in conjunction with the next line of poetry without pausing.
What is an epic?
a long narrative poem, written in heightened language , which recounts the deeds of a heroic character who embodies the values of a particular society.
What is free verse?
poetry that does not conform to a regular meter or rhyme
scheme.
What is a lyric poem?
a poem that does not tell a story but expresses the personal feelings or thoughts of the speaker. A ballad tells a story.
What is a Meter?
The count of rhythmic patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry
What is a Monometer?
A meter consisting of one metrical foot per line
What is Dimeter?
A meter consisting of two metrical feet per line
What is a Trimeter?
A meter consisting of three metrical feet per line
What is a Tetrameter?
A meter consisting of four metrical feet per line
What is a pentameter?
A meter consisting of five metrical feet per line
What is a Hexameter?
A meter consisting of six metrical feet per line
What is a Heptameter?
A meter consisting of seven metrical feet per line
What is the octameter?
A meter consisting of eight metrical feet per line
What is a Metrical Foot?
The basic unit of measurement of metrical poetry that counts
the stressed and unstressed syllables in a poem. This is
combined with meter.
What is an ANAPEST?
A metrical foot that contains two unstressed syllables
followed by a stressed syllable- “on a boat”
What is a DACTYL?
A metrical foot that contains one stressed syllable
followed by two unstressed syllables- “Bat-ter-y
What is an IAMB?
A metrical foot that contains one unstressed syllable
followed by one stressed syllable- “ex-it and be-long”
What is a SPONDEE?
A metrical foot that contains two stressed syllables and is used generally for emphasis- “good men”
What is a TROCHEE?
A metrical foot that contains one stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable- “sum-mer and chor-us”
What is a QUATRAIN?
four lines of a poem that can be considered as a stanza or a
poem consisting of four lines.
What is a REFRAIN?
a word, phrase, line, or group of lines that is repeated, for effect,
several times in a poem.
What is RHYTHM?
a rise and fall of the voice produced by the alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables in language. If this is fixed in a poem it is considered a meter.
What is a RHYME?
Two or more words that contain an identical or similar sounds that are repeated.
What is an End Rhyme?
Rhyme that occurs at the ends of lines of poetry rather than within.
What is an Exact Rhyme?
Rhyme that consists of words that are identical
in sound- go/slow
What is a Feminine Rhyme?
A rhyme of two or more syllables with a stress on a syllable other than the last: tur-tle and fer-tle
What is an Internal Rhyme?
Rhyme that occurs within lines of poetry rather than at the end
What is a Masculine Rhyme?
Rhyme that consists of stressed syllables- either one syllable words “fox and socks” or words whose final
syllable is stressed “con-trive and sur-vive”
What is a Slant Rhyme?
A rhyme in which the final consonant sounds are the same but the vowels are slightly different- “letter and litter”
or “bone and bean”
What is Scansion?
The method used to determine the rhythm or meter in a poem. This is done by
counting meter and metrical feet.
What is a Sestet?
Six lines of a poem that can be considered as a stanza or a poem consisting of six
lines
What is a Tercet?
Three lines of a poem that are formed into one stanza that usually rhymes.
