Literary Terms Flashcards
ALLEGORY
A story which carries a deeper spiritual, moral, or political meaning below the surface. The characters often represent abstract ideas.
ALLITERATION
The recurrence of initial consonant sounds of different words within the same sentence.
ALLUSION
A reference to a well-known literary work, historical person, or event.
AMBIGUITY
When, for a higher purpose, an author intentionally suggests more than one, and sometimes contradictory, interpretations of a situation.
ANTAGONIST
The character in a story who opposes the hero or protagonist. The _____ is not always evil or cruel.
APOSTROPHE
When a speaker addresses something abstract, inanimate, or someone not present or dead as if it/he/she can hear the speaker’s words.
ARCHETYPE
In literature, a typical character, an action, or a situation that seems to represent such universal patterns of human nature.
CACOPHONY
A writer’s use of harsh sounding diction to create auditory imagery and/or for emotive effect.
CARICATURE
A character with features or traits that are exaggerated so that character seems ridiculous.
CARPE DIEM
A widespread literary theme meaning “seize the day” in Latin and found especially in lyric poetry.
CHARACTERIZATION
The method by which the author builds or reveals a character.
COMIC RELIEF
The inclusion of a humorous character, scene, or witty dialogue in an otherwise serious work, often to relieve tension.
CONCEIT
An unusual, elaborate or startling metaphor or analogy; a poetic literary device common among the Metaphysical poets of the 17th century.
CONNOTATION
A literary device: a suggested, implied, emotional, figurative, or evocative meaning for a word that goes beyond its dictionary definition.
COUPLET
Two rhyming lines in verse.
DENOTATION
The literal “dictionary” meaning of a word. Used when an author wishes to be precise in meaning.
DICTION
A writer’s choice of words. In addition to choosing words with denotations and connotations, an author must choose words that are abstract or concrete, formal or informal, or literal or figurative.
EPIPHANY
A character’s transformative moment of realization.
ETHOS
A form of persuasive appeal based on the writer’s character and credibility.
EUPHEMISM
Politically accepted or positive word when used in place of harsh, blunt, or offensive language for a more pleasing effect.
EUPHONY
The use of harmonious, pleasant-sounding words for effect.
EXPOSITION
A term used to refer to the background portion of the plot traditionally provided at the beginning of a story. Also used to refer to any time a narrator explains something. More modern authors typically attempt to keep _____ brief as it slows the pace or interrupts a story. It is the tell portion of the phrase show not tell.
FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE
Creative language that is not literal, where what is being said is different from what is actually meant. Used to create imagery and/or to explain, clarify, or enhance an idea by comparing it to something else.
GENRE
A distinct classification in literature according to what different works have in common in their structure and treatment of a subject.
HUBRIS
First used in Greek tragedies, refers to excessive pride that usually leads to a hero’s downfall.
HYPERBOLE
Exaggeration for effect.
IMAGERY
The use of words to create pictures or appeal to other sensory experience.
IRONY
Tension created by the contrast between what someone says and actually means, between what is expected to happen and what really happens, and between what a character thinks and what is actually true.
METAPHOR
A figure of speech that compares or equates two different things without using like, as or similar terms.
NARRATION
the act or process of telling a story or describing what happens.
ONOMATOPOEIA
The use of words that refer to sound and whose pronunciations mimic those sounds.
OXYMORON
A paradox made up of two seemingly contradictory words.
PARADOX
A statement that appears to be contradictory, but actually is not.
PARALLELISM
The repeated use of similar grammatical structures for emphasis.
PARODY
A literary technique which imitates and ridicules (usually through exaggeration) another author or literary genre.
PATHOS
A quality that evokes or appeals to pity or sadness.
PERSONA
A voice or viewpoint an author adopts in order to narrate a story or poem.
PERSONIFICATION
A type of metaphor in which an animal or an inanimate object is imbued with human qualities.
POINT OF VIEW
The perspective from which a work is told, usually 1st or 3rd person.
PROTAGONIST
The central character in a literary work.
PUN
A play on words that derives its humor from the replacement of one word with another with similar pronunciation or spelling but a different meaning.
RHETORIC
the art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing.
SATIRE
A literary work that uses irony to critique society or an individual.
SETTING
The place, time, and social context in which a literary work takes place.
SIMILE
A comparison of different things by speaking of them as “like” or “as” the same.
SOLILOQUY
In a play, a monologue in which a lone character expresses his or her thoughts so the audience can “hear” what the character is thinking.
SONNET
The sonnet is a fourteen-line lyric poem in iambic pentameter with a formal rhyme scheme.
STANZA
Lines in a poem that the poet has chosen to group together, usually separated from other lines by a space.
STYLE
The way a literary work is written based on the choices a writer makes for effect in diction, syntax, imagery, figurative language, and other literary elements.
SYMBOLISM
When a setting, object, or event in a story has more than literal meaning and therefore represents something more abstract and significant to understanding the work of literature.
SYNTAX
An author’s distinctive form of sentence construction and arrangement.
THEME
A main idea, universal lesson, or message suggested in a literary work.
TONE
The writer’s attitude, feeling, or moral outlook toward the subject and/or readers.
VOICE
An author’s distinctive literary style, basic vision and general attitude toward the world.
