Literary Elements

Question 1

Alliteration

Answer 1

Repeating of initial consonant sound in a sentence, paragraph, or line of poetry. Can be used for a hypnotic effect or to emphasize certain works and phrases.

Question 2

Allusion

Answer 2

Reference in a literary work to some famous person, place, event, artwork, or other literary work. Can be used to enrich work with shared cultural markers.

Question 3

Anachronism

Answer 3

A detail of a literary work that is not appropriate for its time setting.

Question 4

Analogy

Answer 4

When a writer emphasizes the ways two apparently unlike things are actually similar.

Question 5

Antithesis

Answer 5

Figure of speech that balances an idea with a contrasting one or its opposite

Question 6

Assonance

Answer 6

Repetition of vowel sounds in a sentence of line of poetry

Question 7

Character

Answer 7

A person or humanlike animal in a story, poem, or play

Question 8

Climax

Answer 8

Point of greatest dramatic tension

Question 9

Connotation

Answer 9

Use of precise words to give a positive or negative slant to a statement or passage

Question 10

Denotation

Answer 10

Literal meaning of a word, as found in the dictionary

Question 11

Diction

Answer 11

Word choice and style of writer.

Question 12

Dramatic Monologue

Answer 12

Poetic form written in blank verse that presents the thoughts and emotions of a character in a particular situation. Implied listener and setting.

Question 13

Euphemism

Answer 13

Inoffensive phrase used to replace a more direct or unpleasant expression

Question 14

Flashback

Answer 14

Description or episode in a literary work that interrupts the main story to recount something that happened in the past

Question 15

Figure of Speech

Answer 15

Use of words aside from their literal meaning. EX: simile, hyperbole, irony, etc.

Question 16

Foreshadowing

Answer 16

When an author provides clues to what will happen later in the narrative

Question 17

Heroic Couplets

Answer 17

Form of English poetry with pairs of rhyming lines in iambic pentameter (five stresses per lines).

Question 18

Hyperbole

Answer 18

Absurdly exaggerated statement

Question 19

Imagery

Answer 19

Use of descriptive language to enlist the scenes in evoking a scene, situation, or state of mind

Question 20

Irony

Answer 20

Sudden discordance between the expected meaning of words or actions and what they actually mean.

Question 21

Verbal Irony

Answer 21

Saying one thing and meaning something else

Question 22

Situational Irony

Answer 22

A situation is in reality much different than the character or characters think

Question 23

Dramatic Irony

Answer 23

When the audience is aware of something that the characters in a story do not know

Question 24

Malapropism

Answer 24

A word mistaken for another word with a similar sound (comic)

Question 25

Metaphor

Answer 25

Figure of speech in which two unlike things are compared without the use of the words “like” or “as”

Question 26

Meter

Answer 26

A way of measuring the rhythm in formal verse. Dividing a line of verse into feet, or units of 2-3 syllables.

Iambic- 5 unstressed stressed
Troachaic- stressed unstressed
Anapestic- unstressed unstressed stressed
Dactylic- stressed unstressed unstressed

Question 27

Metonomy

Answer 27

A word is substituted for another word with which it is somehow linked or closely associated.

Ex: The pen is mightier than the sword.

Question 28

Onomatopoeia

Answer 28

Words that imitate sounds

Question 29

Oxymoron

Answer 29

Phrase made up of words that seem contradictory when placed together but actually express a special meaning

Question 30

Paradox

Answer 30

Statement whose two parts seems contradictory, yet upon further study convey a deeper truth

Ex: All animals are equal but some are more equal than others

Question 31

Personification

Answer 31

Human characteristics are given to something nonhuman

Question 32

Point of View

Answer 32

How a literary work is narrated

First-person- main character tells the story in his/her own words
Second-person- Author uses you to describe the main character; effect is to include the reader as the main character
Third-person- person outside of story narrates
Omniscent- narrator has knowledge of everyhing

Question 33

Plot

Answer 33

Sequence of events in a narrative such as a short story, novel or play.

Five sections:
Introduction/Exposition, characters and setting introduced

Rising Action, main problem or conflict arises

Climax, dramatic turn of events creates great tension

Falling Action, climax leads to an unwinding of the problem or conflict

Resolution, problem or conflict worked out in the end

Question 34

Rhyme

Answer 34

Matching of end sounds in lines of verse

Question 35

Rhythm

Answer 35

Arrangement of beats or stresses in verse or prose; measured in meter

Question 36

Setting

Answer 36

Time and place in which a narrative unfolds

Question 37

Simile

Answer 37

Comparison of two unlike things using the words “like” or “as”

Question 38

Symbol

Answer 38

Animal, object, place, action, or event that an author uses to represent a larger meaning

Question 39

Synechdoche

Answer 39

Figure of speech in which a part stands for the whole

Ex: referencing old man as grey beard

Question 40

Theme

Answer 40

Central idea about life or the human condition that it presents

Question 41

Tone

Answer 41

Manner in which a writer approaches his or her material and is expressed in style and pervading atmosphere.