Lit Terms

Question 1

Allegory

Answer 1

Prose or poetic narrative where the characters, behaviors, and setting demonstrates multiple levels of meanings and significance

Question 2

Alliteration

Answer 2

Repetition of an initial sounds usually heard through consonants

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

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

“This”
“This”

Question 6

Antagonist

Answer 6

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

Question 7

Anecdote

Answer 7

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

Question 8

Antithesis

Answer 8

The juxtaposition of sharply contrasting ideas in balanced or parallel words, phrases, grammatical structure, or ideas

Question 9

Apostrophe

Answer 9

An address or invocation to something that is inanimate

Question 10

Archetype

Answer 10

Recurrent designs, patterns of action, character types, themes, or images which are identifiable in a wide range of literature

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 toward 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

Question 15

Ballad stanza

Answer 15

A common stanza form, consisting of quatrain (a stanza of four lines) that alternates four beat and three beat lines. One and three are unrhymed iambic pentameter (four beats), and two and four are rhymed iambic pentameter (three beats)

Question 16

Caesura

Answer 16

A pause in a line of verse, indicated by natural speech patterns, rather than due to specific metrical patterns

Question 17

Blank verse

Answer 17

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

Question 18

Caricature

Answer 18

A depiction in which a character’s characteristics or features are so deliberately exaggerated as to render them absurd

Question 19

Chiasmus

Answer 19

A figure of speech by which the order of terms in the first two parallel clauses s reversed in the second

Question 20

Colloquial

Answer 20

Ordinary language, the vernacular

Question 21

Conceit

Answer 21

A comparison of two unlikely things that is drawn out within a piece of literature, particularly an extended metaphor within a poem

Question 22

Connotation

Answer 22

What is suggested by a word, apart from what it explicitly describes, often referred to as the implied meaning of the word

Question 22

Consonance

Answer 22

The repetition of a sequence of two or more constants, but with a change in the intervening vowels, such as pitter-patter, pish-posh, clinging and clanging

Question 22

Couplet

Answer 22

Two rhyming lines of iambic pentameter that together present a single idea or connection. The last two lines of all of Shakespeare’s sonnets are couplets like “So long as men can breathe or eyes can see/ So long lives this and this gives life to thee” would be a couplet

Question 23

Dactylic

Answer 23

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

Question 24

Denotation

Answer 24

A direct and specific meaning, often referred to as the dictionary meaning of a word

Question 25

Dialect

Answer 25

The language and speech idiosyncrasies of a specific area, region, or group of people. For example Minnesotans say “you betcha”; Southerners say “you all”

Question 26

Diction

Answer 26

The specific word choice an author uses to persuade or convey tone, purpose, or effect

Question 27

Dramatic monologue

Answer 27

A monologue set in a specific situation and spoken to an imaginary audience. Another term would be soliloquy. For example the “To be or not to be” soliloquy from Hamlet

Question 28

Elegy

Answer 28

A poetic lament upon the death of a particular person, usually ending in consolation

Question 29

Enjambent

Answer 29

The continuation of a sentence from one line or couplet of a poem to the next

Question 30

Epic

Answer 30

A poem that celebrates, in a continuous narrative, the achievements of mighty heroes and heroines, often concerned it’s the founding of a nation or developing of a culture; it uses elevated language, and grand, high style.

Question 31

Exposition

Answer 31

The part of the structure that sets the scene, introduces and identifies characters, and establishes the situation at the beginning of a story or play.

Question 32

Extended metaphor

Answer 32

A detailed and complex metaphor that extends over a long section of a work, also known as conceit

Question 33

Fable

Answer 33

A legend or a short moral story often using animals as characters.

Question 34

Falling action

Answer 34

That part of plot structure in which the complications of the rising action are untangled. This is also known as the denouement.

Question 35

Farce

Answer 35

A play or scene in a play or book that is characterized by broad humor, wild antics, and often slapstick and physical humor

Question 36

Flashback

Answer 36

Retrospection, where an earlier event is inserted into the normal chronology of the narrative

Question 37

Foreshadowing

Answer 37

To hint at or to present an indication of the future beforehand

Question 38

Formal diction

Answer 38

Language that is lofty, dignified, and impersonal. Such diction is often used in narrative epic poetry