Medieval Literature Terms

Question 1

a reference in one piece of literature to a person or event from another piece of literature

Answer 1

allusion

Question 2

a song that tells a story

Answer 2

ballad

Question 3

two consecutive rhyming lines in poetry

Answer 3

couplet

Question 4

a repeated section of a poem (we call it a chorus)

Answer 4

refrain

Question 5

the pattern of end-of-the-line rhymes in a poem

Answer 5

rhyme scheme

Question 6

a poetic verse (such as a paragraph is to an essay)

Answer 6

stanza

Question 7

an extra implied meaning which has come about through usage

Answer 7

connotation

Question 8

the dictionary definition

Answer 8

denotation

Question 9

a conversation between two or more people

Answer 9

dialogue

Question 10

a story that illustrates a moral point

Answer 10

exemplum

Question 11

a short tale to teach a moral

Answer 11

fable

Question 12

a short, metrical tale, usually, ribald and humorous

Answer 12

fabliau

Question 13

a second story embedded in a main story

Answer 13

frame story

Question 14

elements that form basis of medicine (Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholy, Phlegmatic)

Answer 14

humurous

Question 15

a person who is willingly sfuufers death rather than renounce his/her beliefs

Answer 15

martyr

Question 16

a comparison of two essentially unlike things without using the word “like” or “as”

Answer 16

metaphor

Question 17

a pilgrim who had returned from the Holy Land bearing a palm branch as a token

Answer 17

palmer

Question 18

a puzzle; something that seems as though it cannot be true, but is (e.g. Mary being both a virgin and a mother at the same time)

Answer 18

paradox

Question 19

a character in a play, novel, etc

Answer 19

persona

Question 20

giving human qualities to nonhuman things

Answer 20

personification

Question 21

a long journey made to a sacred place as an act of religious devotion

Answer 21

pilgrimage

Question 22

memorials of the past

Answer 22

relics

Question 23

any serious speech, discourse, or exhortation, especially on a moral issue; a long, tedious speech

Answer 23

sermon

Question 24

a comparison of two essentially unlike things using the words “like” or “as”

Answer 24

simile

Question 25

has a shire in Canterbury Cathedral (archbishop of Canterbury, murdered in 1170 because of a conflict with Henry II of England over rights and privileges of the church, assassinated by followers of the King.)

Answer 25

St. Thomas a Becket