Literary Terms

Question 1

allegory

Answer 1

Written piece in which ideas or morals are represented by individual characters or things.

Question 2

allusion

Answer 2

A reference within an artistic work to another artistic work.

Question 3

antagonist

Answer 3

In a literary work, the character whose actions oppose those of the hero (protagonist).

Question 4

ballad

Answer 4

A story-poem, often sung aloud.

Question 5

Beat movement

Answer 5

A group of American poets and artists whose expressions of alienation in the 1950s became a calling card of the underground. (Ginsberg, Kerouac)

Question 6

blank verse

Answer 6

Non-rhyming verse consisting of 10-syllable lines.

Question 7

canto

Answer 7

A subdivision of an epic poem.

Question 8

Classicism

Answer 8

Artistic or literary movement that is aesthetically based on the Ancient Greeks or Romans.

Question 9

climax

Answer 9

The point in any story at which the action reaches its zenith.

Question 10

couplet

Answer 10

Two rhyming lines of poetry in succession, most often of a similar or like meter.

Question 11

denouement

Answer 11

The conclusion or resolution following the climax of a story.

Question 12

elegy

Answer 12

A poem of remembrance.

Question 13

Existentialism

Answer 13

French philosophical idea that the individual lives in an indifferent wold and must take responsibility for his or her own choices. (Sartre, Camus)

Question 14

fable

Answer 14

An allegorical story often employing animals as characters. (Aesop)

Question 15

genre

Answer 15

A category of work within art or letters, usually of a distinctive style.

Question 16

haiku

Answer 16

A Japanese poem containing 3 lines and 17 syllables in a structured order (5-7-5).

Question 17

irony

Answer 17

A literary style in which a situation is shown with the intent of representing its opposite.

Question 18

lost generation

Answer 18

A group of expatriate writers and artists in Paris in the 1920s centered around Gertrude Stein. (Hemingway, Fitzgerald)

Question 19

metaphor

Answer 19

The comparison of two things in which one item represents another.

Question 20

Modernism

Answer 20

High intellectual movement whose goal was the examination of pure art. (Pound, Stein, Woolf)

Question 21

motif

Answer 21

A recurring element or theme in an artistic work.

Question 22

ode

Answer 22

A lyric poem of rigidly structured stanzas.

Question 23

parable

Answer 23

A story depicting a message of a moral or religious nature.

Question 24

pathos

Answer 24

Evoking pity in a literary work.

Question 25

Realism

Answer 25

An artistic and literary style in which society and events are depicted as they appear in real life.

Question 26

Restoration

Answer 26

The period of intensely active literary and artistic activity in England 1660-1688 when Charles II returned to the throne. (Dryden)

Question 27

Romantic Movement

Answer 27

Predominately English movement in the 19th century whose basic belief was that passion should supercede logic and whose main opposition was Classicism. (Keats, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron)

Question 28

satire

Answer 28

A literary work in which, through the use of irony, sarcasm and wit, the absurd in humanity is brought to light. (Swift’s A Modest Proposal)

Question 29

sonnet

Answer 29

A verse of 14 lines and written in one of several rhyme schemes. (Shakespeare, Petrarch)

Question 30

stanza

Answer 30

One division within a poem, usually of commonly metered verse.

Question 31

stream of consciousness

Answer 31

A literary device in which a character’s thoughts emerge on the page as they occur. (Joyce, Woolf)

Question 32

Transcendentalism

Answer 32

American movement in which insight and experience took precedence over logic and reason and that held the belief that all things coexist in nature. (Thoreau, Emerson).

Question 33

Victorian Age

Answer 33

Nineteenth-century England, considered the height of the British industrial revolution and the apex of the British Empire. Characterized by rigid social manners and conservatism. (Dickens, Hardy)