Literary Terms

Question 1

Adage

Answer 1

A proverb or saying made familiar by long use.

Question 2

Affective fallacy

Answer 2

The judging of a work of art in terms of its results and emotional effect.

Question 3

Allegory

Answer 3

Extended metaphor

Question 4

Ambivalence

Answer 4

The existence of mutually conflicting feelings.

Question 5

Amplification.

Answer 5

Literary practice where the writer embellishes the sentence by adding more information.

Question 6

Analogy

Answer 6

Establishing relationships based in similarities between two concepts.

Question 7

Anagram

Answer 7

Jumbling of letters to create new meaning.

Question 8

Anaphora

Answer 8

A device if repetition; the same word or expression is repeated at the beginning of two or more lines.

Question 9

Anastrophe

Answer 9

Wherein the order of the noun and adjective are exchanged.

Question 10

Antiphrasis

Answer 10

Irony

Question 11

Anthropomorphism

Answer 11

Giving human characteristics to nonhuman objects

Question 12

Antimetabole

Answer 12

Repetition of words in successive clauses in reverse grammatical order.

Question 13

Apostrophe

Answer 13

A figure of speech in which someone, some abstract quality, or a nonexistent personage is directly addressed as though present.

Question 14

Cacophony

Answer 14

The use of words and phrases to create harsh sounds.

Question 15

Catechism

Answer 15

An exercise arrange in questions and answers. Especially in use of religious instruction

Question 16

Chiasmus

Answer 16

Second part is balanced against the first, but reversed.

Question 17

Connotation

Answer 17

Emotional implications that words carry.

Question 18

Consonance

Answer 18

Repetition of consonant sounds

Question 19

Denotation

Answer 19

Expressing a meaning or significant part of the story in a clear-cut manner

Question 20

Deus ex machina

Answer 20

God from the machine. Plot device where some greater being solves the problems.

Question 21

Dialectic

Answer 21

Debate

Question 22

Diction

Answer 22

Vocab and syntax

Question 23

Electra complex

Answer 23

A psychoanalytic metaphor for daughter-mother psychosexual conflict

Question 24

Epitaph

Answer 24

Inscription to mark burial place

Question 25

Epithet

Answer 25

Adjective used to point out a characteristic of a person or thing. I.e. Alexander the Great

Question 26

Euphony

Answer 26

Words that create pleasantries. Words or phrases that simply sound nice.

Question 27

Existentialism

Answer 27

Inadequacy of human reason to explain the enigma of the universe.

Question 28

Fatalism

Answer 28

Events must occur in the future regardless of what our present actions or choices may be.

Question 29

Foil

Answer 29

A character who creates a sharp contrast in comparison to another character.

Question 30

Hubris

Answer 30

Overly arrogant

Question 31

Idiom

Answer 31

Cannot be translated literally

Question 32

Indirect satire

Answer 32

Characters who speak and act are themselves the object of satire in which they appear.

Question 33

Intertextuality

Answer 33

The shaping of texts meanings by other texts.

Question 34

Internal rhyme

Answer 34

Rhyme in the middle of a sentence.

Question 35

Invocation

Answer 35

An address to a deity for aid

Question 36

Kennings

Answer 36

Two word poetic renaming of someone or something

Question 37

Logocentrism

Answer 37

Often associated with structuralists and deconstructionists. The idea that a science and philosophy of logos exists within the mind.

Question 38

Malapropism

Answer 38

Misuse of words

Question 39

Metonymy

Answer 39

The substitution of the name of an object closely associated with the word itself

Question 40

Mimesis

Answer 40

Greek for interpretation

Question 41

Motif

Answer 41

Any element of the word that is present throughout

Question 42

Oxymoron

Answer 42

Figure of speech that combines contradiction

Question 43

Paradox

Answer 43

Statement that leads to contradiction

Question 44

Phallogocentrism

Answer 44

Privileging of the male order

Question 45

Pathetic fallacy

Answer 45

Treatment if inanimate objects (usually associated with nature) and applying human thoughts and emotions.

Question 46

Reification

Answer 46

Treatment of abstractions as concrete objects.

Question 47

Reliterilization

Answer 47

Returning a metaphorical expression to its literal meaning.

Question 48

Repartee

Answer 48

Comeback

Question 49

Semantics

Answer 49

The study of linguistic meaning

Question 50

Sibilance

Answer 50

Consonance using the hissing sound

Question 51

Suspension of disbelief

Answer 51

Willingness to withhold questions about truth, accuracy or probability

Question 52

Synesthesia

Answer 52

Stimulation of senses often confused

Question 53

Synecdoche

Answer 53

A trope in which a part signifies the whole. "Weary feet in the walk of life."

Question 54

Syntax

Answer 54

The order of words

Question 55

Tautology

Answer 55

Redundancy

Question 56

Tenor and vehicle

Answer 56

Two elements of a metaphor

Question 57

Trope

Answer 57

Words are used in a different way from their meanings.

Question 58

Verisimilitude

Answer 58

The semblance of truth.