Literary Terms Flashcards
Character
- Personnage of a story
- Minor literary genre brought by Theophrastus
Characterization
The representation of persons in narrative and dramatic works
Fables
A brief tale in verse or prose that conveys a moral lesson, usually by giving human speech and manners to animals or inanimate things.
Usually ends with the moral written in an epigram form.
In media res
The latin phrase meaning ‘into the middle of things’
A form of story telling that starts with the peak of action.
Poetic justice
The morally reassuring allocation of happy and unhappy fates to the virtuous and the vicious character respectively, Usually a ‘fitting retribution by which the villain is ruined by some process of his own making.
Plot
The selected version of events as presented to the reader or audience in a certain order and duration
Theme
A salient abstract idea that emerges from a literary work’s treatment of its subject-matter, or a topic recurring in a number of literary works.
Fairytale
Traditional folktale adapted for children
Folktale
A story passed on by word of mouth rather than by writing, thus partly modified before being written down or recorded
Myth
Parable
Carpe diem
Frame narrative/story
Irony
Name three types of literary irony
