Literary Terms

Question 1

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

Answer 1

Allegory

Question 2

Reference to a well known person, place, event, literary work, or work of art

Answer 2

Allusion

Question 3

Brief story about an interesting, amusing, or strange event, told to make a point

Answer 3

Anecdote

Question 4

General truth or observation about life

Answer 4

Aphorism

Question 5

Figure of speech where a speaker directly addresses an absent person or a personified quality, object, or idea

Answer 5

Apostrophe

Question 6

Speech delivery by an actor in such a way that other characters on stage are presumed not to hear it

Answer 6

Aside

Question 7

Repetition of vowel sounds in conjunction with dissimilar consonant sounds

Answer 7

Assonance

Question 8

Poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter

Answer 8

Blank verse

Question 9

Pause or break in the middle of a line of poetry

Answer 9

Caesura

Question 10

List of people, places, or things in a literary work

Answer 10

Catalog

Question 11

Approach to literature that stresses reason, balance, clarity, ideal beauty, and orderly form in imitation of the arts of Ancient Greece and Rome

Answer 11

Classicism

Question 12

Unusual or surprising comparison btw two very different things

Answer 12

Conceit

Question 13

Poem w a shape that suggests it’s subject

Answer 13

Concrete poem

Question 14

The turning point for the protagonist, when the situation or understanding changes dramatically

Answer 14

Crisis

Question 15

Form of language spoken by people in a particular region or group

Answer 15

Dialect

Question 16

A writers or speakers word choice, part of their style

Answer 16

Diction

Question 17

Poem or speech in which an imaginary character speaks to a silent listener

Answer 17

Dramatic monologue

Question 18

Solemn and formal lyric poem about deaths often one that mourns the passing of some particular person

Answer 18

Elegy

Question 19

Where the end of the line coincides with a pause or with the end of a thought, recognizable by of their end punctuation

Answer 19

End stopped line

Question 20

Brief, pointed statement often characterized by use of some rhetorical device or figure of speech

Answer 20

Epigram

Question 21

An artistic movement of the early 20th century. People expressed the inner experience of the individual

Answer 21

Expressionism

Question 22

A brief story, usually with animal characters, that teaches a lesson or moral

Answer 22

Fable

Question 23

Writing or speech not meant to be taken literally. Writers use it to express ideas in vivid and imaginative ways

Answer 23

Figurative language

Question 24

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

Answer 24

folklore

Question 25

poetry that lacks a regular rhythmical pattern, or meter

Answer 25

free verse

Question 26

refers to the use of primitive, medieval, wild, or mysterious elements in literature

Answer 26

gothic

Question 27

occured during the 1920s, time of african american artistic creativity centered in Harlem, NYC

Answer 27

Harlem Rennaissance

Question 28

a poem or part of a poem that describes and idealizes country life

Answer 28

idyll

Question 29

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

Answer 29

Imagism

Question 30

the combination or juxtaposition of imcompatible or opposite elements

Answer 30

incongruity

Question 31

a reversal or change in the regular word order of a sentence

Answer 31

inversion

Question 32

a traditional story; deals with a particular person and reflects people’s cultural values

Answer 32

legend

Question 33

the use in a literary work of characters and details unique to a particular geographic area

Answer 33

local color

Question 34

a reason that explains a character’s thoughts, feelings, actions, or speech

Answer 34

motivation

Question 35

tells a story in verse; 3 types: ballads, epics, and metrical romances

Answer 35

narrative poem

Question 36

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

Answer 36

naturalism

Question 37

a long, formal lyric poem with a serious theme that may have a traditional stanza structure

Answer 37

ode

Question 38

the passing of songs, stories, and poems from generation to generation by word of mouth

Answer 38

oral tradition

Question 39

public speaking that is formal, persuasive, and emotionally appealing

Answer 39

oratory

Question 40

a way of writing that uses long, complicated sentences with elaborate figures of speech, parallel structures, uncommon allusions, and unfamiliar word choices

Answer 40

ornate

Question 41

a type of writing in which uncomplicated sentences and ordinary words are used to make simple, direct statements; rejected by puritans

Answer 41

plain style

Question 42

a play on words

Answer 42

pun

Question 43

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

Answer 43

realism

Question 44

the tendency among certain authors to write about specific geographical areas

Answer 44

regionalism

Question 45

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.

Answer 45

romanticism

Question 46

writing that ridicules or criticizes individuals, ideas, institutions, social conventions, or other works of art or literature

Answer 46

satire

Question 47

a type of african american folk song dating from the period of slavery and reconstruction

Answer 47

spiritual

Question 48

a narrative technique that presents thoughts as if they were coming directly from a character’s mind

Answer 48

stream of consciousness

Question 49

a figure of spech in which a part of something is used to stand for the whole thing

Answer 49

synecdoche

Question 50

the ordinary language of people in a particular region

Answer 50

vernacular