Literary Terms Flashcards
Story or tale w 2+ levels of meaning: a literal level and one or more symbolic levels. Events, setting, and characters are symbols for ideas or qualities
Allegory
Reference to a well known person, place, event, literary work, or work of art
Allusion
Brief story about an interesting, amusing, or strange event, told to make a point
Anecdote
General truth or observation about life
Aphorism
Figure of speech where a speaker directly addresses an absent person or a personified quality, object, or idea
Apostrophe
Speech delivery by an actor in such a way that other characters on stage are presumed not to hear it
Aside
Repetition of vowel sounds in conjunction with dissimilar consonant sounds
Assonance
Poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter
Blank verse
Pause or break in the middle of a line of poetry
Caesura
List of people, places, or things in a literary work
Catalog
Approach to literature that stresses reason, balance, clarity, ideal beauty, and orderly form in imitation of the arts of Ancient Greece and Rome
Classicism
Unusual or surprising comparison btw two very different things
Conceit
Poem w a shape that suggests it’s subject
Concrete poem
The turning point for the protagonist, when the situation or understanding changes dramatically
Crisis
Form of language spoken by people in a particular region or group
Dialect
A writers or speakers word choice, part of their style
Diction
Poem or speech in which an imaginary character speaks to a silent listener
Dramatic monologue
Solemn and formal lyric poem about deaths often one that mourns the passing of some particular person
Elegy
Where the end of the line coincides with a pause or with the end of a thought, recognizable by of their end punctuation
End stopped line
Brief, pointed statement often characterized by use of some rhetorical device or figure of speech
Epigram
An artistic movement of the early 20th century. People expressed the inner experience of the individual
Expressionism
A brief story, usually with animal characters, that teaches a lesson or moral
Fable
Writing or speech not meant to be taken literally. Writers use it to express ideas in vivid and imaginative ways
Figurative language
the body of stories, legends, myths, ballads, riddles, sayings, and other works that has arisen out of the oral traditions of peoples around the globe
folklore
poetry that lacks a regular rhythmical pattern, or meter
free verse
refers to the use of primitive, medieval, wild, or mysterious elements in literature
gothic
occured during the 1920s, time of african american artistic creativity centered in Harlem, NYC
Harlem Rennaissance
a poem or part of a poem that describes and idealizes country life
idyll
a literary movement that flourished btw 1912-1927, the poets rejected 19th century poetic forms and language; instead they wrote short poems that used ordinary language and free verse
Imagism
the combination or juxtaposition of imcompatible or opposite elements
incongruity
a reversal or change in the regular word order of a sentence
inversion
a traditional story; deals with a particular person and reflects people’s cultural values
legend
the use in a literary work of characters and details unique to a particular geographic area
local color
a reason that explains a character’s thoughts, feelings, actions, or speech
motivation
tells a story in verse; 3 types: ballads, epics, and metrical romances
narrative poem
a literary movement among novelists at the end of the ninteenth century and during the early decades of the twentieth century. they tended to view people as hapless victims of immutable natural laws
naturalism
a long, formal lyric poem with a serious theme that may have a traditional stanza structure
ode
the passing of songs, stories, and poems from generation to generation by word of mouth
oral tradition
public speaking that is formal, persuasive, and emotionally appealing
oratory
a way of writing that uses long, complicated sentences with elaborate figures of speech, parallel structures, uncommon allusions, and unfamiliar word choices
ornate
a type of writing in which uncomplicated sentences and ordinary words are used to make simple, direct statements; rejected by puritans
plain style
a play on words
pun
the presentation in art of the details of actual life. also a literary movement that stressed the actual as opposed to the imagined or the fanciful that started during the nineteenth century
realism
the tendency among certain authors to write about specific geographical areas
regionalism
a literary and artistic movement of the 19th century that arose in reaction against 18th century Neoclassicism and placed a premium on fancy, imagination, emotion, nature, individuality, and exotica.
romanticism
writing that ridicules or criticizes individuals, ideas, institutions, social conventions, or other works of art or literature
satire
a type of african american folk song dating from the period of slavery and reconstruction
spiritual
a narrative technique that presents thoughts as if they were coming directly from a character’s mind
stream of consciousness
a figure of spech in which a part of something is used to stand for the whole thing
synecdoche
the ordinary language of people in a particular region
vernacular
