Literary Terms Quiz Flashcards
The elements that create a plot
Conflict
A poem mourning the dead
Elegy
The repetition of vowel sounds
Assonance
The repetition of first consonants in a group of words
Alliteration
A character who represents a certain type of person
Archetype
A story that illustrates a moral often using animals as the character
Fable
Unrhymed lines of poetry usually in iambic pentameter
Blank Verse
The means by which an author establishes character
Characterization
A character who opposes the protagonist in a story or play
Antagonist
A story in which the characters represent abstract qualities or ideas
Allegory
To explain how two things differ
Contrast
A pair of rhyming lines in a poem often set off from the rest of the poem
Couplets
A reference to something or someone often literary
Allusion
A long poem narrating the adventures of a heroic figure
Epic
The point at which the action in a story or play reaches its emotional peak
Climax
A huge expression
Hyperbole
A technique in which an author gives clues about something that will happen later in the story
Foreshadowing
Language that means exactly what it says
Literal language
A comparison that doesn’t use “like” or “as”
Metaphor
The use of description that helps the reader imagine how something looks, sounds, feels, smells, or taste.
Imagery
The pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in the lines of a poem
Meter
Language that does not mean exactly what it says
Figurative language
Language that conveys certain ideas by saying just the opposite
Irony
Ten-syllable lines in which every other syllable is stressed
Iambic Pentameter
The emotional atmosphere of a given piece of writing
Mood
A rhyme that occurs within one line
Internal Rhyme
A long speech by one character in a play or story
Monologue
The POV of writing which the narrator refers to himself as “I”
1st person POV
