Literary Terms Quiz

Question 1

The elements that create a plot

Answer 1

Conflict

Question 2

A poem mourning the dead

Answer 2

Elegy

Question 3

The repetition of vowel sounds

Answer 3

Assonance

Question 4

The repetition of first consonants in a group of words

Answer 4

Alliteration

Question 5

A character who represents a certain type of person

Answer 5

Archetype

Question 6

A story that illustrates a moral often using animals as the character

Answer 6

Fable

Question 7

Unrhymed lines of poetry usually in iambic pentameter

Answer 7

Blank Verse

Question 8

The means by which an author establishes character

Answer 8

Characterization

Question 9

A character who opposes the protagonist in a story or play

Answer 9

Antagonist

Question 10

A story in which the characters represent abstract qualities or ideas

Answer 10

Allegory

Question 11

To explain how two things differ

Answer 11

Contrast

Question 12

A pair of rhyming lines in a poem often set off from the rest of the poem

Answer 12

Couplets

Question 13

A reference to something or someone often literary

Answer 13

Allusion

Question 14

A long poem narrating the adventures of a heroic figure

Answer 14

Epic

Question 15

The point at which the action in a story or play reaches its emotional peak

Answer 15

Climax

Question 16

A huge expression

Answer 16

Hyperbole

Question 17

A technique in which an author gives clues about something that will happen later in the story

Answer 17

Foreshadowing

Question 18

Language that means exactly what it says

Answer 18

Literal language

Question 19

A comparison that doesn’t use “like” or “as”

Answer 19

Metaphor

Question 20

The use of description that helps the reader imagine how something looks, sounds, feels, smells, or taste.

Answer 20

Imagery

Question 21

The pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in the lines of a poem

Answer 21

Meter

Question 22

Language that does not mean exactly what it says

Answer 22

Figurative language

Question 22

Language that conveys certain ideas by saying just the opposite

Answer 22

Irony

Question 22

Ten-syllable lines in which every other syllable is stressed

Answer 22

Iambic Pentameter

Question 23

The emotional atmosphere of a given piece of writing

Answer 23

Mood

Question 24

A rhyme that occurs within one line

Answer 24

Internal Rhyme

Question 25

A long speech by one character in a play or story

Answer 25

Monologue

Question 26

The POV of writing which the narrator refers to himself as “I”

Answer 26

1st person POV