Terms Quiz (5/13/16) Flashcards
A strongly exaggerated simile or metaphor.
Conceit
Telling the reader directly what the character is like.
Direct Exposition
A compact statement expressing a truth.
Aphorism
A metaphor which is developed at length and is often the controlling image running throughout a literary work.
Extended Metaphor
An antiphilosophy that maintains that there are no absolutes and this no purpose in the world.
Existentialism
An implied comparison in which one thing is described in terms of another.
Metaphor
The use of words to convey the opposite of their literal meaning, usually with a humorous effect.
Irony
Two rhyming lines which expresses a complete thought.
Couplet
One who tells the story in a work.
Narrator
The one with whom the protagonist comes into conflict within a novel or story; the opposing character. (ex: Moby Dick, from Moby Dick; Roger Chillingworth, from The Scarlet Letter)
Antagonist
Unrhymed iambic pentameter.
Blank Verse
The pattern in a line of poetry consisting of one accented syllable and one or two unaccented syllables.
Foot
The repetition of vowel sounds.
Assonance
A view of life which emphasizes a detached scientific and photographic accuracy which includes everything and selects nothing.
Naturalism
Regional language used by a writer to make his dialogue more realistic.
Dialect
The popular poets of the nineteenth century whose works were read by family and friends around the fireside and were learned and memorized in school.
Fireside and Schoolroom Poets
Presenting a discrepancy between appearance and reality or between expectation and fulfillment.
Irony of Situation
The suggested meaning or association of a word.
Connotation
A type of realistic, regional writing portraying the life of a particular geographical location by using picturesque details of setting which emphasize the quaint customs and dialect of the region.
Local Color
Three writers from New York (Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, and William Cullen Bryant) who wrote during the first part of the nineteenth century.
Knickerbockers
A conversation between two or more characters often in the form of a debate and used for developing or explaining ideas.
Dialogue
A group of eight lines.
Octave
The clash of actions, ideas, wills, or forces between characters or between a character and some inanimate force.
External Conflict
The imaginary persons who carry out the action of the plot in a story or novel.
Characters
An approximate rhyme in which initial consonant sounds are the same.
Alliteration
Incorrect spelling often used for humorous effect.
Cacography
Poetry having no metrical pattern. It differs from prose only in that it is written in lines.
Free Verse
One who undergoes some change and is different at the end of the story. (ex: Candace Whitcomb from “The Village Singer”)
Dynamic Character
A prose work of moderate length in which the writer tries to develop his own thoughts on some subject.
Essay
The repetition of final consonant sounds.
Consonance
A long narrative poem in elevated style which presents characters and action of heroic proportions.
Epic
A reference to mythology, history, or literature.
Allusion
Words addressed to an inanimate object as if it were alive or to an absent person as if he were there.
Apostrophe
An analogy used by the metaphysical poets of the seventeenth century, usually comparing one’s spiritual qualities to a common physical object.
Metaphysical Conceit
A type of extended prose fiction (meaning “new”).
Novel
A brief literary piece written as a tribute to a dead person, or an inscription on tombstone or monument in memory in memory of a deceased person.
Epitaph
A poem that tells a story.
Narrative Poem
A short narrative song written in stanzas.
Ballad
Saying the opposite of what is meant.
Verbal Irony
The point of highest intensity in a story or a poem.
Climax
A struggle between opposing forces.
Conflict
Literary devises using comparisons (simile, metaphor, and personifications) or language on more than one level (symbolism, irony, paradox, and allusions).
Figurative Language (figures of speech)
A struggle within the mind, will, or emotions of a character.
Internal Conflict
A narrative or description in which the characters, places, and other items are symbols. (ex: Pilgrim’s Progress)
Allegory
A portrait of a specific person. Presents those characteristics that set a character apart as an individual personality and show what he is like.
Character Sketch
One who remains essentially the same throughout the story. (ex: Captain Ahab from Moby Dick)
Static Character
The use of words which appeal to out senses.
Imagery
The occurrence of rhythm at regular intervals.
Meter
Allowing the reader to draw his own conclusions from what the character himself does or thinks, or from what other characters think about him.
Indirect Revelation
The literal meaning of a word.
Denotation
A brief anecdote told in simple, direct style in prose or verse, describing a single incident and designed to reach a moral, usually by using animals as characters.
Fable
Contrasting what a character says and what a reader or audience knows to by true.
Dramatic Irony
The narrative technique of going backward to time.
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