primary poetry and literary terms Flashcards
ALLITERATION
the repetition of identical sounds at the beginning of closely associated words. ex. Peter Piper picked…
ALLUSION
a casual reference to a famous person, event, place, or object which the author hopes/assumes the reader will recognize within the story.
ANALOGY
comparison of two things made to explain something unfamiliar - typically for the purpose of explanation or clarification ex: “Just as a Sword is the Weapon of a Warrior, a Pen is the Weapon of a Writer”
ANTAGONIST
a character or force in conflict with the main character
ANTI-CLIMAX
a sudden shift from relatively serious mood to more comic or trivial.
APOSTROPHE
a statement, question, or request addressed to an inanimate object or
concept or to a nonexistent or absent person; ex. = a poet asking the muses for
inspiration; “Oh, Canada, our home and native land”; or “Death, be not proud.”
ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY
takes a particular position of a topic and defends it
ASIDE
comment made by a stage performer that is intended to be heard by the audience but supposedly not by other characters
ASSONANCE
the repetition of identical vowels in different, closely associated words. For example, “he ran past the pastry shop and into the alleyway”
ATMOSPHERE
mood or feeling of a place or situation, created by a literary work often through description
AUDIENCE
the person or persons for whom a text is written or a play is performed.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
narrative in which an individual tells his or her own story
BALLAD
a story/poem usually told in song
BALLAD STANZA
a quatrain of alternating four and three stress lines, usually rhyming ABCB. For example, “All in a hot and copper sky The bloody Sun, at noon, Right up above the mast did stand, No bigger than the Moon.”
BIAS
a preference or an inclination, especially one that inhibits impartial judgment
BIOGRAPHY
a narrative that tells a person’s life story
BLANK VERSE
poetry verse without rhyme
CATASTROPHE
in drama, particularly tragedy, the concluding action following the climax that contains the resolution of the plot.
CAUSE AND EFFECT
the reason something happened is the ‘cause’; the something that happened is the ‘effect’;
for example, the motorcycle sped through the intersection and hit a car; therefore, cause = speeding motorcycle, effect = hit car
CHARACTER
refers to both a fictional person in a story as well as the moral, temperamental, and behavioural qualities of that fictional person. The qualities of a character are generally revealed through dialogue, action, and description. Characters may be classified as flat or round, stereotyped or realistic, static or dynamic depending on their function within the story.
CHARACTERIZATION
methods a writer uses to develop and reveal the personality of the character. Especially attained by description of the character’s actions, gestures, and general demeanour.
