Literary Terms Flashcards
To understand and memorise the meaning of different literary terms for Paper 1 and Paper 2
Allegory
A literary or visual form in which characters, events or images represent or symbolise ideas. Eg: Animal farm is about community, but reflects the Russian revolution and satirises communism
Alliteration
repetition of an identical constonant sound at the beginning of stressed words
Allusion
A direct or more typically, indirect reference to an event, person, place, another work of literature, etc.
Ambiguity
Where language, action, tone, character, etc. are unclear and may yield two or more interpretations or meanings.
Ambivalence
Simultaneous and contradictory attitudes or feelings towards something or someone.
Anecdote
A brief story or tale told by a character in a piece of literature.
Perspective
A characters view of the situation or events in the story
Aphorism
A concise statement designed to make a point or illustrate a commonly held belief. Eg. “Early to bed and early to rise/Make a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”
Contradiction
A direct opposition between things compared; inconsistency.
Apostrophe
A figure of speech in which a person, thing, or abstract quality is addressed as if present
Oxymoron
A figure of speech that combines two apparently contradictory elements, as in “jumbo shrimp”, or “deafening silence
Syllogism
A form of deduction. An extremely subtle, sophisticated, or deceptive argument.
Satire
A literary style used to make fun of or ridicule an idea or human vice or weakness.
Bildungsroman
A novel or story whose theme is the moral or psychological growth of the main character.
Foil
A person or thing that makes another seem better by contrast.
Epistolary
A piece of literature contained in or carried on by letters.
Epitaph
A piece of writing in praise of a deceased person
Parody
A satirical imitation of a work of art for purpose of ridiculing its style or subject.
Delayed Sentence
A sentence that withholds its main idea until the end. Eg. Just as he bent to tie his shoe, a car hit him.
Sarcasm
A sharp caustic remark. A form of verbal irony in which apparent praise is actually bitterly or harshly critical.
Expletive
A single word or short phrase intended to emphasise surrounding words. Eg. In fact, of course, after all, certainly.
Irony
A situation or statement characterised by significant difference between what is expected or understood and what actually happens or is meant. Frequently humorous.
Eulogy
A speech or writing in praise of a person or thing, especially to honor a deceased person.
Paradox
A statement that seems contradictory, but is actually true.
Epiphany
A sudden or intuitive insight or perception into the reality or essential meaning of something.
Onomatopoeia
A word capturing or approximating the sound of what it describes, such as buzz or hiss.
Diction
An authors choice of words to convey a tone or effect
Utopia
An imaginary place of ideal perfection. Opposite of dystopia.
Deus ex machina
Use of an artificial device or contrived solution to solve a difficult situation, usually introduced suddenly and unexpectedly.
Antagonist
Character or force in a literary work that opposes the main character, or protagonist.
Analogy
Comparison of two things that are alike in some respects. Metaphors and similes are both types of analogy.
Inductive
Conclusion or type of reasoning whereby observation or information about a part of a class is applied to the class as a whole. Contrast with deductive.
Nostalgia
Desire to return in thought or fact to a former time
Chiasmus
Figure of speech by which the order of the terms in the first of parallel clauses is reversed in the second. Eg. Has the church failed mankind, or has mankind failed the church?”
Thesis
Focus statement of an essay; premise statement upon which the point of view or discussion in the essay is based.
Litote
For of understatement in which the negative of the contrary is used to achieve emphasis and intensity. Eg. “She is not a bad cook”
Doppelganger
Ghostly counterpart of a living person or an alter ego
Zeugma
Grammatically correct linkage of one subject with two or more verbs or a verb with two or more direct objects. Used to link two ideas or thoughts. Eg. “She broke his car and his heart”
Ethos
In dramatic literature, the moral element that determines a character’s actions, rather than thought or emotion.
Propaganda
Information or rumor deliberately spread to help or harm a person, group, etc.
Didactic
Intended for teaching or to teach a moral lesson
Formal language
Language that is lofty, dignified, or impersonal
Abstract
Not related to the concrete properties of an object; pertaining to ideas, concepts, or qualities, as opposed to physical attributes.
In medias res
Opening a story in the middle of the action, requiring filling in past details by exposition or flashback.
Colloquial
Ordinary language; the vernacular. Eg. Depending on where in the US you live, a sandwich is called a sub, a grinder, or a hero
Isocolon
Parallel structure in which the parallel elements are similar not only in grammatical structure, but also in length. Eg. “An envious heart makes a treacherous ear”
Aesthetic
Pertaining to the value of art for its own sake or for form
Juxtaposition
Placing of two items side by side to create a certain effect, reveal an attitude, or accomplish some other purpose
Elegy
Poem or prose lamenting the death of a particular person
Antihero
Protagonist of a literacy work who does not embody the traditional qualities of a hero (eg. honor, bravery, kindness, etc.)
Catharsis
Purification or cleansing of the spirit through the emotions of pity and terror as a witness to a tragedy.
Epigraph
Quote set at the beginning of a literary work or at its divisions to set the tone or suggest a theme.
Motif
Recurrent device, formula, or situation that often serves as a signal for the appearance of a character or event
Parallelism
Recurrent syntactical similarity where several parts of a sentence or several sentences are
expressed alike to show that the ideas in the parts or sentences equal in importance. Eg. “I have always
searched for, but never found the perfect painting for that wall.”
Anaphora
regular repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive phrases or
clauses. Eg. “We shall fight in the trenches. We shall fight on the oceans. We
shall fight in the sky.”
Anadiplosis
Repetition of the last word of one clause at the beginning of the next clause. For example,
“The crime was common, common be the pain.” (Alexander Pope)
Imagery
Sensory details in a work; the use of figurative language to evoke a feeling, call to mind
an idea, or describe an object. Imagery involves any or all of the five senses
Euphemism
Substitution of a milder or less direct expression for one that is harsh or blunt. For example, using “passed away” for “dead.”
Genre
Term used to describe literary forms, such as tragedy, comedy, novel, or essay
Voice
The acknowledged or unacknowledged source of words of the story; the speaker, a “person” telling the story or poem.
Tone
The attitude a literary work takes towards its subject and theme. It reflects the narrator’s attitude.
Theme
The central or dominant idea or concern of a work; the main idea or meaning
Protagonist
The chief character in a work of literature
Denotation
The dictionary definition of a word; the direct and specific meaning
Mood
The feeling or ambience resulting from the tone of a piece as well as the writer/narrator’s
attitude and point of view.
Realism
The literary practice of attempting to describe life and nature without idealization and with attention to detail
Prose
The ordinary of form of written language without metrical structure, as distinguished from poetry or verse
Audience
The person(s) reached by a piece of writing.
Asyndeton
The practice of omitting conjunctions between words, phrases, or clauses. In a list, it gives a more extemporaneous effect and suggests the list may be incomplete. For
example, “He was brave, fearless, afraid of nothing.”
Deductive
The reasoning process by which a conclusion is drawn from set of premises and contains no more facts than these premises
Assonance
The repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds, usually in successive or proximate words.
Alliteration
The repetition of initial consonant sounds or any vowel sounds within a formal grouping,
Consonance
The repetition of two or more consonants with a change in the intervening vowels, such as pitter-patter, splish-splash, and click-clack.
Invective
The use of angry and insulting language in satirical writing
Point of view
The view the reader gets of the action and characters in a story
Persona
The voice or figure of the author who tells and structures the story and who may or may not share of the values of the actual author.
Syntax
The way words are put together to form phrases, clauses, and sentences. It is sentence structure and how it influences the way a reader perceives a piece of writing.
Canon (canonical)
The works of an author that have been accepted as authentic.
Foreshadow
To hint at or present things to come in a story or play
Begging the question
To sidestep or evade the real problem.
Anachronism
Use of historically inaccurate details in a text; for example, depicting a 19th-century
character using a computer.
Personification
Treating an abstraction or nonhuman object as if it were a person by giving it human qualities.
Ambiguity
Use of language in which multiple meanings are possible.
Connotation
What is implied by a word. For example, the words sweet, gay, and awesome have connotations that are quite different from their actual definitions.
Transition words
Words and devices that bring unity and coherence to a piece of writing. Examples: however, in addition, and on the other hand.
