Literary Terms Flashcards

1
Q

Alliteration

A

Close repetition of initial consonant sounds of accented syllables (“Let me not to the marriage of true minds”)

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2
Q

Anaphora

A

Repetition of an opening word or phrase in a series of lines or clauses (“So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,/ So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.”)

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3
Q

Antithesis

A

The placing of one sentence or one of its parts against another to form a balanced contrast of ideas (“Give me liberty or give me death”)

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4
Q

Assonance

A

Close repetition of the vowel sound of accented syllables or important words (“Nor shall Death brag thou wand’rest in his shade”)

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5
Q

Asyndeton

A

The elimination of conjunctions where they are expected

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6
Q

Caesura

A

A marked pause within a line (“Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope”)

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7
Q

Chiasmus

A

The crosswise arrangement of contrasted pairs (“Featured like him, like him with friends possessed”)

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8
Q

Connotation

A

What a word suggests beyond its basic definition

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9
Q

Consonance

A

Close repetition of the consonant sounds anywhere but the beginning of accented syllables or important words (“Like to the lark at break of day arising.”)

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10
Q

Couplet

A

Two successive lines linked by rhyme

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11
Q

Denotation

A

The basic dictionary meaning of a word

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12
Q

End Rhyme

A

Rhymes that occur at the ends of the lines

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13
Q

End-stopped

A

A line that ends with a punctuation mark

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14
Q

Enjambment

A

A line that does not end with a punctuation mark but continues into the next line (“Like to the lark at break of day arising/ From sullen earth”)

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15
Q

Hyperbole

A

An exaggeration for emphasis

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16
Q

Imagery

A

Representation through language of sense experience (visual, auditory, tactile, gustatory, olfactory)

17
Q

Internal rhyme

A

A rhyme in which one or both of the rhyme words occur(s) within the line (“So long lives this, and this gives life to thee”)

18
Q

Inversion

A

The natural word order is reversed (“By chance or nature’s changing course, untrimmed”)

19
Q

Verbal irony

A

A figure of speech in which what is meant is opposite of what is said

20
Q

Metaphor

A

A figure of speech in which two unlike things are implicitly compared

21
Q

Metonymy

A

The use of something closely related, usually in time and space, to the thing actually meant (“And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries”)

22
Q

Metrical feet

A

Four kinds to know: iamb (v/), trochee (/v), spondee (//), anapest (vv/)

23
Q

Onomatopoeia

A

The use of words that mimic their meaning in their sound (for example, boom, click, plop)

24
Q

Oxymoron

A

The use of two successive words that contradict each other (“eternal summer”)

25
Q

Paradox

A

An apparently self-contradictory statement (“love is not love”)

26
Q

Parallelism

A

Ideas arranged in similar grammatical structures (Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope”)

27
Q

Personification

A

A figure of speech in which human attributes are given to an animal, object, or concept (“Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines”)

28
Q

Polysyndeton

A

The repetition of conjunctions in a series of coordinate words, phrases, or clauses

29
Q

Rhyme

A

Repetition of the accented vowel sound and all succeeding sounds in important words (e.g. day-May, temperate-date, despising-arising, shaken-taken)

30
Q

Rhyme scheme

A

A fixed pattern of end-rhymes

31
Q

Silmile

A

A figure of speech in which a concrete object stands for a general idea (e.g. rose-love)

32
Q

Synecdoche

A

The use of the part for the whole (“It is the star to every wand’ring bark”)

33
Q

Theme

A

The central idea of a literary work, usually related to human character or condition

34
Q

Tone

A

The speaker’s attitude towards the subject, the audience, or themselves