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English > Litterary Terms > Flashcards

Litterary Terms Flashcards

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1
Q

The fallacy of wrongly evaluating a literary work by emphasizing only its emotional impact.

A

Affective fallacy

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2
Q

A narrative whose characters, symbols, and situations represent elements outside the text. For example, the character “Christian” in the allegory pilgrims progress represents the Everyman who is a Christian.

A

Allegory

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3
Q

An indirect reference to some literary or historical figure or event. For example the line in TS Eliot’s love song of j Alfred prufrock. “No I am not prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be”

A

Allusion

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4
Q

A literary device in which an author uses words with more than one meaning, deliberately leaves the reader uncertain.

A

Ambiguity

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5
Q

A comparison of two things on the basis of their similarity.

A

Analogy

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6
Q

A competitor or opponent of the main character (protagonist) in a work of literature.

A

Antagonist

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7
Q

A protagonist in a modern literary work who has none of the noble qualities associated with a traditional hero.

A

Antihero

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8
Q

A direct emotional address to an absent character or quality as if it were present.

A

Apostrophe

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9
Q

An image or character representative of some greater, more common element that recurs constantly and variously in literature.

A

Archetype

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10
Q

A term used to describe writing that is strikingly different from the dominant writing that is strikingly different from the dominant writing of the age-in its form, style, content, and attitude.

A

Avant garde

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11
Q

A type of novel concerned with the education, development, and maturing of a young protagonist.

A

Bildungsroman

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12
Q

A person created by an author for use in a work of fiction, poetry, or drama.

A

Character

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13
Q

A phrase so overused that it has lost its original punch (for example,
“beating a dead horse”)

A

Cliche

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14
Q

A point at which the events in a play or story reach their crisis, where the
maximum emotional reaction of the reader is created. This might also be
the turning point in which an important decision is made.

A

Climax

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15
Q

A closing section of some literary works, occurring after the main action
has been resolved.

A

Coda

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16
Q

A term used in speech but not acceptable in formal writing

A

Colloquialism

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17
Q

A debate or conversation among characters—e.g., Tom and Gatsby.

A

Colloquy

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18
Q

A part of a plot in which the conflict among the characters or
forces is engaged.

A

Complication

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19
Q

A metaphor extended to great lengths in a poem or literary work (for
example, “the Flea”).

A

Conceit

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20
Q

A struggle among opposing forces or characters in fiction, poetry, or
drama.

A

Conflict

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21
Q

Implications of words or sentences, beyond their literal, or denotative,
meanings.

A

Connotation

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22
Q

Literal meaning of a word or sentences.

A

Denotation

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23
Q

The final action of a plot, in which the conflict is resolved; the outcome.

A

Denouement

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24
Q

Literally, “God from a machine”-the improbable intervention of an outside
force that arbitrarily resolves a conflict

A

Deus ex machina

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25
Q

Conversation between two people in fiction, drama, or poetry.

A

Dialogue

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26
Q

The use of words; word choice that is accurate and appropriate to the
subject.

A

Diction

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27
Q

A term used to describe the effect of words of a character in a play or
novel that have more significance than they appear to have.

A

Dramatic irony

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28
Q

A sharp, witty saying, such as Oscar Wilde’s “I can resist everything but
temptation.”

A

Epigram

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29
Q

A short inscription at the start of a literary work.

A

Epigraph

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30
Q

A concluding portion of a literary work, occurring after the main action
has been completed.

A

Epilogue

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31
Q

A descriptive word or phrase pointing out a specific quality-as when
Shakespeare is referred to as “the Bard.” This term can be used ironically to
describe terms of contempt

A

Epithet

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32
Q

Literally, “attempt”-any short piece of nonfiction prose that makes specific
points and statements about a limited topic

A

Essay

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33
Q

A word or phrase substituting indirect for direct statement (for example,
“passed away” in place of “died”).

A

Euphemism

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34
Q

A portion of a narrative or dramatic work that establishes the tone, setting,
and basic situation.

A

Exposition

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35
Q

A short tale that presents a specific moral and whose characters are often animals.

A

Fable

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36
Q

A work that takes place in a world that does not exist.

A

Fantasy

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37
Q

Language that deliberately departs from everyday phrasing, with
dramatic and imagistic effects that move the reader into a fresh
mode of perception

A

Figurative language

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38
Q

A person or thing that contrasts with and so emphasizes and enhances the
qualities of another

A

Foil

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39
Q

In a plot, an indication of something yet to happen.

A

Foreshadowing

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40
Q

A distinct kind of writing, such as mystery, gothic, farce, or black comedy.

A

Genre

41
Q

Novels, often historical, in which weird, grotesque activity takes
place; Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein is an example of gothic fiction

A

Gothic fiction

42
Q

The central character of a literary work; he or she often has great
virtues and faults, and his or her trials and successes form the main
action of the plot.

A

Hero/heroine

43
Q

Deliberately overstated, exaggerated figurative language, used either for
comic or great emotional effect

A

Hyperbole

44
Q

A false belief or perception.

A

Illusion

45
Q

A concrete expression of something perceived by the senses, using simile,
metaphor, and figurative language.

A

Image/imagism/imagery

46
Q

An effect associated with statements or situations in which something said
or done is at odds with how things truly are.

A

Irony

47
Q

The fact of two things being seen or placed close together with contrasting
effect; e.g., the juxtaposition of these two images reveals a startling
insight.

A

Juxtaposition

48
Q

Ironical, deliberately understated figurative language, used either for
comic or great emotional effect.

A

Litotes

49
Q

A contemporary form of fiction in which an author makes process of
writing fiction part of his or her subject

A

Metafiction

50
Q

An implicit comparison of an object or feeling with another unlike it—e.g.,
“under a blood red sky.”

A

Metaphor

51
Q

The emotional tone or outlook an author brings to a subject.

A

Mood/atmosphere

52
Q

A distinctive feature or prominent idea in an artistic or literary composition.
Example: His latest novel has a nautical motif

A

Motif

53
Q

Ancient stories of unknown origin involving the supernatural: myths have
provided cultures and writers with interpretations of the world’s events

A

Myth

54
Q

A story that consists of an account of a sequence of events.

A

Narrative

55
Q

Literature in which the author attempts to present the world in a realistic
and often harsh and hopeless way

A

Naturalism

56
Q

A long fictional narrative that represents human events, characters, and actions.

A

Novel

57
Q

A short novel or tale.

A

Novella

58
Q

A speaker or implied speaker of a work of fiction who can tell the
story, shift into the minds of one or more characters, be in various
places, and comment on the meaning of what is happening in the
story.

A

Omniscient narrator

59
Q

Narrative or linguistic devices that keep literary works moving and
interesting

A

Pacing

60
Q

A story illustrating a moral, in which every detail parallels the moral
situation.

A

Parable

61
Q

A statement that seems contradictory but actually points out a truth (for
example, Wordsworth’s “The Child is the father of the Man”).

A

Paradox

62
Q

A literary work that deliberately makes fun of another literary work or of a
social situation.

A

Parody

63
Q

The mask through which a writer gives expression to his or her own
feelings or participates in the action of a story, poem, or play

A

Persona

64
Q

A literary strategy giving nonhuman things human characteristics
or attitudes, as in Aesop’s fables or Keat’s poem “To Autum.”

A

Personification

65
Q

The sequence of events in a story, poem, or play; the events build upon
each other toward a convincing conclusion.

A

Plot

66
Q

The angle from which a writer tells a story. Point of view can
either be omniscient, limited, or through the eyes of one or more
characters.

A

Point of view

67
Q

Any form of writing that does not have the rhythmic patterns of metrical
verse or free verse. Good prose is characterized by tightness, specificity,
and a sense of style.

A

Prose

68
Q

The leading character; the protagonist engages the main concern of readers
or audience.

A

Protagonist

69
Q

A statement putting forth a great truth (e.g., the biblical proverb “Go to the
ant, thou sluggard; consider his ways and be wise”).

A

Proverb

70
Q

An approach to writing that emphasizes recording everyday experience

A

Realism

71
Q

The action of repeating words and phrases that have already been said or written for emphasis or literary effect.

A

Repetition

72
Q

The dramatic action occurring after the climax of a play, before the events
themselves are played out

A

Resolution

73
Q

The study and practice of language in action-presenting ideas and opinions
in the most effective way

A

Rhetoric

74
Q

Any work of fiction that takes place in an extravagant world remote from
everyday life.

A

Romance

75
Q

A powerful literary movement beginning in the late eighteenth century; it
shook off classical forms and attitudes, embracing instead the power,
promise, and political dignity of the imaginative individual

A

Romanticism

76
Q

A literary work using wit, irony, anger, and parody to criticize human
foibles and social institutions

A

Satire

77
Q

Fantasy in which scientific facts and advances fuel the plot

A

Science fiction

78
Q

The background of a literary work-the time, the place, the era, the
geography, and the overall culture.

A

Setting

79
Q

A brief fictional narrative.

A

Short story

80
Q

A comparison of two things via the word “like” or “as.”

A

Simile

81
Q

The contrast between what a character wants and what he or she receives,
arising not from the character’s faults but from other circumstances.

A

Situational irony

82
Q

Widely believed and oversimplified attitudes toward a person, an issue, and so on.

A

Stereotype

83
Q

Writing that attempts to imitate and follow a character’s thought
process.

A

Stream of consciousness

84
Q

The property of writing that gives form, expression, and individuality to the
content

A

Style

85
Q

The person, place, idea, situation, or thing with which some piece of literature
most immediately concerns itself

A

Subject

86
Q

Significant communication, especially in dialogue, that gives motivation for the
words being said.

A

Subtext

87
Q

Significant communication, especially in dialogue, that gives motivation for the
words being said.

A

Subtext

88
Q

Art that values and expresses the unconscious imagination by altering what is
commonly seen as reality.

A

Surrealism

89
Q

Those literary qualities that leave a reader breathlessly awaiting further
developments with no clear idea of what those developments will be

A

Suspense

90
Q

Something that represents something else, the way a flag represents a country or a
rose may stand for love-implying not only another physical thing but an
associated meaning

A

Symbol

91
Q

A summary of the main points of a plot.

A

Synopsis

92
Q

The arrangement of words to form sentences.

A

Syntax

93
Q

The main idea of a literary work created by its treatment of its immediate subject.

A

Theme

94
Q

The expression of a writer’s attitudes toward a subject; the mood the author has
chosen for a piece

A

Tone

95
Q

The discrepancy between things as they are stated and as they really are.

A

Verbal irony

96
Q

Originally a word that meant “intelligence,” “wit” now refers to a facility for
quick, deft writing that usually employs humor to make its point.

A

Wit

97
Q

A figure of speech in which an object or person is not mentioned directly but
suggested by an object associated with it, as when a reference to “the
white house” means “the president.”

A

Metonymy

98
Q

Something that represents something else, the way a flag represents a country or a
rose may stand for love-implying not only another physical thing but an
associated meaning

A

Synedoche

English (3 decks)

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