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literary terms Flashcards

1
Q

Related to acrostic, a poem in which the first letter of each line or stanza follows sequentially through the alphabet.

A

abecedarian

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2
Q

An extended metaphor in which the characters, places, and objects in a narrative carry figurative meaning. Often the meaning is religious, moral, or historical in nature.

A

Allegory

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3
Q

Someone or something placed in an inappropriate period of time.

A

Anachronism

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4
Q

Often used in political speeches and occasionally in prose and poetry, it is the repetition of a word or words at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses, or lines to create a sonic effect.

A

Anaphora

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5
Q

A form of personification in which human qualities are attributed to anything inhuman, usually a god, animal, object, or concept

A

Anthropomorphism

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6
Q

A pithy, instructive statement or truism, like a maxim or adage

A

Aphorism

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7
Q

An address to a dead or absent person, or personification as if he or she were present.

A

Apostrophe

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8
Q

A basic model from which copies are made; a prototype. emerge in literature from the “collective unconscious” / symbolic patterns that recur within the world of literature.

A

Archetype

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9
Q

the repetition of the vowel sound across words within the lines of the poem creating internal rhymes. Ex. crying time; hop-scotch; great flakes; between trees

A

Assonance

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10
Q

French for “coat-of-arms” or “shield”, catalogues the physical attributes of a subject, usually female, made popular by Petrarch and used extensively by Elizabethan poets. Spenser’s “Epithalamion” “Her goodly eyes like sapphires shining bright, / Her forehead ivory white …” compares parts of the female body to jewels, celestial bodies, natural phenomenon, and other beautiful or rare objects. Contre— inverts the convention, describing “wrong” parts of the female body or negating them completely

A

Blazon

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11
Q

Repetition of any group of verse elements (including rhyme and grammatical structure) in reverse order, such as the rhyme scheme ABBA

A

Chiasmus

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12
Q

how many syllable feet in binary rythms

A

two

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13
Q

what makes up an iambic rhythm

A

an unstressed (*) then stressed (-) syllable

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14
Q

what is a line containing 5 feet called?

A

pentameter

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15
Q

what is a line containing 4 feet called?

A

tetrameter

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16
Q

what characterises trochaic rhythm/ trochee?

A

a stressed syllable followed by and unstressed syllable

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17
Q

what rhythm is based on three-syllable feet?

A

Ternary rhythms ex. ‘Hickory Dickory Dock’ -** / -**/ -

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18
Q

define anapestic rhythm

A

a three-syllable food made up of two unstressed syllables followed by as stressed syllable ( * * - )

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19
Q

define a dactyl

A

a stressed syllable followed by two short syllables

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20
Q

what is term for consonants creating ‘l’ sounds

A

liquid

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21
Q

what is the term for consonants making ‘m’ or ‘n’ sounds

A

nasal

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22
Q

what is the term for consonants making ‘p’ or ‘b’ sounds

A

explosive

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23
Q

what is the term for consonants making ‘f’ or ‘v’ sounds

A

fricative

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24
Q

internal rhyme is the same as ‘l…..’ rhyme

A

leonine rhyme

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25
Q

what is an eye-rhyme?

A

when two words are spelled the same way but rhyme differently ex. ‘love’ may be made to rhyme with ‘move’

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26
Q

what is unrhymed iambic pentameter called?

A

blank verse

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27
Q

what is free verse?

A

an open form of poetry which does not use consistent meter patterns, rhyme, or any musical pattern It tends to follow the rhythm of natural speech.

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28
Q

what is this rhyme scheme: aa bb cc …

A

couplet rhyme

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29
Q

what is this rhyme scheme: abab, cdcd …

A

alternate rhyme

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30
Q

what is this rhyme scheme: abba, cddc

A

enclosing rhymes

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31
Q

what is this rhyme scheme: aba, bcb, cdc

A

terza rima

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32
Q

what are words with more than one meaning called?

A

polysemous words ex. ‘to lie’

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33
Q

term for words with opposite meanings

A

antonyms

34
Q

what are words with identical spelling and/or pronounciation, but whose meanings are different

A

homonyms - create comical quiproquos or double meanings

35
Q

what is a word that is created by rearranging the letters of another word?

A

an anagram

36
Q

what is a word or sentence that can be read forwards or backwards while retaining its meaning?

A

palindrome ‘Madam I’m Adam’

37
Q

what is an obsolete word which creates an atmosphere of the past

A

archaism

38
Q

what is a newly created word?

A

a neologism

39
Q

what is a word that is two words telescoped into one?

A

portmanteau word ex. Oxbridge

40
Q

what is the repetition of the same word or expression at the end of a line, clause or sentence

A

epiphora

41
Q

what is the term for a word or expression concluding one clause and beginning the next?

A

anadiplosis

42
Q

what is the term for words set in a mirroring, inverted pattern

A

chiasmus ex. ’tis true ’tis pity;; and ’tis pity ’tis true.

43
Q

a form of chiasmus in which words are repeated in inverse grammatical order

A

antimetabole : Down dropped the breeze, the sails dropped down (Coleridge)

44
Q

two nouns are governed by the same verb though they have different meanings and should logically be used in distinct clauses

A

Zeugma : They pursued it with hope and railway shares (Lewis Carroll)

45
Q

the juxtaposition of two contradictory terms

A

oxymoron ex. pale darkness

46
Q

a sharp dialogue between two characters whose answers display both parallelism and opposition

A

stichomythia

47
Q

define a compound sentence

A

made up of several co-ordinated main clauses linked by “and”, “or”, “but” “He went to bed but could not sleep”

48
Q

define a complex sentence

A

made up of one main clause and one or several subordinate or dependent clauses (e.g. “as he is eighteen, he can drive”)

49
Q

name the sentence type linked by juxtaposition or mere coordination instead of subordination

A

parataxis/ paratactic sentences

50
Q

name the sentence type which heavily uses subordination and coordination

A

hypotaxis, hypo tactical sentences

51
Q

what is the omission of one or more words in a sentence?

A

ellipsis

52
Q

what is a direst address to a person or idea?

A

apostrophe

53
Q

what is juvenilia satire?

A

the speaker attacks evil and wrongdoing in a direct and indignant way

54
Q

what is Horatian satire

A

more humorous and gentle

55
Q

what is indirect satire?

A

expresses criticisms by staging characters who speak or behave in an absurd way, though the narrator does not denounce them explicitly

56
Q

what is a situation in which the audience know more than some of the characters

A

dramatic irony

57
Q

what is tragic irony?

A

shows the characters using words without realizing how ominous they are

58
Q

what is bathos / a bathetic text?

A

a text achieves bathos when attempting to reach a sublime or noble tone and leading to a commonplace or ridiculous remark. The effect can be satiric or humorous

59
Q

what is the imitation of a given work or of the style of an author for humorous or satirical purposes

A

parody, parodical

60
Q

what is pastiche?

A

sheer literary imitation of a style, devoid of any caricatural or ridiculous aspect

61
Q

character high / noble style

A

rhetorical and ornamental, suited for ‘noble’ genres (epics / tragedies) and when exaggerated becomes precious or affected

62
Q

characterise low style

A

natural and simple, refers to concrete situations, sometimes in vulgar terms. It suited satires and comedies

63
Q

what is the term for the style which exploits high style to describe common situations?

A

mock-heroic style

64
Q

what is the style which uses the low style to describe noble or classical episodes

A

burlesque style

65
Q

what is caesura

A

an audible pause internal to a line, usually in the middle

66
Q

what is ballad meter

A

iambic lines that alternate between 3 or 4 beats per line

67
Q

what is slant rhyme?

A

when words have a similar but not identical sound ex. worm and swarm

68
Q

what is spondaic meter / spondee

A

two stressed syllables / words like ‘toothache’ ‘bus stop’

69
Q

what is a one foot line called?

A

a monometer

70
Q

what is a two foot line called?

A

dimeter

71
Q

what is a six foot line called?

A

hexameter

72
Q

what is a seven foot line called?

A

heptameter

73
Q

what are heroic couplets?

A

a rhymed iambic pentameter couplet

74
Q

what is an elegy?

A

usually denotes a reflective poem that laments the loss of something/one

75
Q

what is an end-stopped line?

A

a line that ends in a punctuation mark and whose meaning is complete

76
Q

what is an enjambed line?

A

a ‘run-on’ line that carries over into the next to complete its meaning

77
Q

what is a metonymy?

A

the substitution of the name of something for a common association ie - the White House for the president

78
Q

what is an ode?

A

a genre of lyric, serious meditation on an elevated subject

79
Q

what is prosody?

A

the study of versification, where language is made into verse

80
Q

what is scansion?

A

the identification and analysis of poetic rhythm and meter

81
Q

what is synecdoche?

A

a figure of speech in which a part is used to represent the whole e.g. ‘wheels’ for ‘car’

82
Q

compare topos with trope

A

topos = a traditional theme or motif
trope = a figure of speech or metaphor

Literature (3 decks)

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